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A Prudent Ambiguity in Saadya Gaon's Book of Doctrines and Beliefs
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 June 2011
Extract
Among the outstanding scholarly careers of the Jewish Middle Ages, none seems so dominated by polemic as that of Saadya Gaon (882–942). His intellectual environment was crowded with a bewildering array of rival religious groups and philosophical creeds engaged in vigorous debate. The chaotic variety and aggressiveness of intellectual life in Saadya's Baghdad are frequently illustrated by the account of some remarkable theological debating societies given by a contemporary Muslim visitor:
At the first meeting there were present not only people of various [Islamic] sects, but also unbelievers, Magians, materialists, atheists, Jews and Christians, in short, unbelievers of all kinds. Each group had its own leader, whose task it was to defend its views, and every time one of the leaders entered the room, his followers rose to their feet and remained standing until he took his seat. In the meanwhile, the hall had become overcrowded with people. One of the unbelievers rose and said to the assembly: we are meeting here for a discussion. Its conditions are known to all. You, Muslims, are not allowed to argue from your books and prophetic traditions since we deny both. Everybody, therefore, has to limit himself to rational arguments. The whole assembly applauded these words. So you can imagine … that after these words I decided to withdraw. They proposed to me that I should attend another meeting in a different hall, but I found the same calamity there.
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- Notes and Observations
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- Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1983
References
1 On Saadya's career and polemics, see: Malter, H., Saadia Gaon: His Life and Works (Philadelphia, 1921Google Scholar; reprint ed., New York: Hermon, 1969); Baron, S., “Saadia's Communal Activities,” Saadya Anniversary Volume (= American Academy for Jewish Research. Texts and Studies 2) (New York, 1943) 9–74Google Scholar; Zucker, M., At Targum Rav Saadya Gaon la-Torah (New York: Feldheim, 1959)Google Scholar; Dinur, B. Z., Yisrael ba-Golah (Tel-Aviv: Dviv, 1961) 1/2. 380–469.Google Scholar
2 This source was quoted by Dozy, R., JA 2 (1853) 93Google Scholar. The translation is from A. Altmann's introduction to his selected translation of Saadya's Book of Doctrines and Beliefs (Oxford, 1946) 13Google Scholar. See also Baron, S., A Social and Religious History of the Jews (New York: Columbia University, 1957) 5. 83.Google Scholar
3 See Guttmann, J., Philosophies of Judaism (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1964) 47–73Google Scholar; Altmann (above, n. 2) 11–22. The possibility has even been raised that Saadya attended some of these theological assemblies in Baghdad; see Davidson, H., “Saadia's List of Theories of the Soul,” in Altmann, A., ed., Jewish Medieval and Renaissance Studies (Cambridge: Harvard University, 1967) 93–94Google Scholar. For a judicious survey of literature pertaining to Saadya's theology, see Vajda, G., “Les études de philosophic juive du Moyen Age depuis la synthése de Julius Guttmann,” HUCA 43 (1972) 130–38.Google Scholar
4 As far as I can see there are no explicit polemical references to Islam in Saadya's Book of Doctrines and Beliefs. Steinschneider, M.(Polemische und apologelische Literanir in arabischen Sprache [Leipzig. 1877Google Scholar; reprint ed., Hildescheim: Ohms, 1966] 341) quotes Saadya's introduction which mentions the ridiculous belief of some ignorant people in Arabia that unless a man's camel is slaughtered over his grave, he will have to appear on foot on Judgment Day “und Vieles derart, was man besser verschweigt.” However, the text reads: wa-mithlu hādhā kathīr mi-mā yaḍḥaku minhu (“and many such ludicrous things”); see Kitāb al-Amānāt wa'I-l'tiqadai, Landauer, S., ed. (Leiden: Brill, 1880) 21Google Scholar; The Book of Beliefs and Opinions, S. Rosenblatt, trans. (New Haven: Yale University, 1948) 26Google Scholar; Altmann (above, n. 2) 43 n. 7. Saadya is referring to bedouin superstition, not Islamic theology. A recent survey with bibliography is Perlmann, M., “The Medieval Polemics between Islam and Judaism,” in Goitein, S. D., ed.. Religion in a Religious Age (Cambridge: Association for Jewish Studies, 1974) 103–38Google Scholar. Kitāb al-Amānāt, 90–91; Book of Beliefs and Opinions, 109. (I (I have altered the translation slightly). The new edition of Kafih, J.(Ha-Nibhar be-Emunol ube-De'ot [Jerusalem: Sura, 1970] 95)Google Scholar has 
(prophecy) in place of 
(sonship)—clearly an erroneous reading. For Wolfson's identifications, see his Studies in the History of Philosophy and Religion (Cambridge: Harvard University, 1977) 2. 407–14.Google Scholar
6 Wolfson (Ibid.) suggests that this group represented a recent Christian attempt at accommodation to Muslim unitarianism. But there is only one other reference, itself tenuous, corroborating the existence of such a group; see Wolfson, H., The Philosophy of the Kalam (Cambridge: Harvard University, 1976) 347.Google Scholar
7 See Wolfson, Studies. Cf. Isa 41:8; Geiger, A, Was hat Mohammed aits dem Judenthume aufgenommen (Leipzig: Kaufmann, 1902) 119–20Google Scholar; Gaon, Saadya, Tafsir Sejer Yeshayahu (Derenbourg, H., ed.; Paris: Libraire de la Societé; Asiatique, 1896) 61.Google Scholar
8 Ventura, M.(La Philosophie de Saadia Gaon [Paris: Vrin, 1934] 185–86) even suggested the possibility that this group might refer to Islam and its view of Jesus. This group, however, gives a figurative interpretation to “the sonship ascribed by them to [their Messiah]” while Islam simply denies that Jesus is the son of God; see Qur'an 9:30 and 4:171. Wolfson (Studies) suggests that Saadya's allusion to Muslims and the Qur'an was meant to indicate that this new Christian group represents an accommodation to the Muslim environment.Google Scholar
9 Saadya discusses naskh in 3:7–10. In Muslim works, naskh generally refers to particular instances of abrogation within the realm of qur'anic revelation. Only rarely is it applied to the abrogation of pre-lslamic revelations. But this latter sense is the one uppermost in the minds of Jewish polemicists; see: Wansbrough, J., Quranic Studies (Oxford: Oxford University, 1977) 201Google Scholar; Steinschneider, Polemische unit apologetische Literatur, 322–25; Halkin, A. H., Iggeret Teman le-Rabbenu Mosheh B. Maimon (New York: American Academy for Jewish Research, 1952) xvGoogle Scholar. For rebuttal of what must be a Muslim argument on the section on naskh, see below, n. 10, see too Kitāb al-Amānāt, 3/8 134; Book of Beliefs and Opinions, 166: “I have encountered people that asked: ‘Who is this person of whom it is said: “And a messenger is sent among the nations: Rise up and let us rise against her [Edom] in battle'” (Obad 1:1)?” (I have altered the translation slightly). The “people” who raised this question were probably Muslim polemicists who took this verse as a prediction of the battle against Byzantium (“Edom”) set in motion by Muhammad (the “messenger”). Cf. Kafiḥ, Ha-Nibhar be-Emunot ube-De'ot, 138 n. 73. See too the discussion of alteration of the qiblah in Kitāb al-Amānāt, 3/9 138; and Book of Beliefs and Opinions, 171, which makes sense only in the context of the polemic with Islam.
10 Kitāb al-Amānāt 3/8 133; Book of Beliefs and Opinions, 164 — 65. (I have altered the translation slightly).
11 See, e.g., Steinschneider, Polemische und apologelische Literaiur, 317–19; Halkin. Iggerel Teman, xvii-xviii.
12 The eighth section of Saadya's work deals extensively with redemption. This passage occurs in the section on resurrection; see: Kitāb al-Amānāt 7/3 215 — 16; Book of Beliefs and Opinions, 270; Dan 11:36–12:1. These verses were commonly referred, by Jewish exegetes in the Arabic world, to Islamic history; see: Halkin, Iggeret Teman, 80 n. 104; Septimus, B., “Petrus Alfonsi on the Cult at Mecca,” Speculum 56 (1981) 528.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
13 On the term “yeshu'ah” see Goitein, S. D., ‘“Meeting in Jerusalem”: Messianic Expectations in the Letters of the Cairo Geniza,” AJS Review 4 (1979) 49–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
14 Wolfson, , Repercussions of the Kalam in Jewish Philosophy (Cambridge: Harvard University, 1979) 13, 87.Google Scholar
15 See too the conclusion to section eight (Kitāb al-Amānāt, 254; Book of Beliefs and Opinions, 322) in which Saadya once again refers to his arguments on redemption, naskh and God's unity as directed against Christianity.?
Steinschneider (Polemische und apologetische Literatur, 244) points out that the tendency of Jews in Arabic lands to write in Arabic, rather than Hebrew, inhibited open anti-Muslim polemic. But fear of denunciation could inhibit polemic even in Hebrew writings; see, e.g., Teshubot ha-Rambam, Blau, J., ed. (Jerusalem, 1960) 2Google Scholar. 726. The paucity of Jewish anti-Muslim polemic was noted by Duran, Simon b. Zema(Qeshet u-Magen [Leghorn, 1740] 25b)Google Scholar, who attributed it to fear of reprisal. (It is interesting that Duran, who fled from Christian Spain to Muslim North Africa in the wake of the anti-Jewish riots of 1391, nevertheless considers Spanish Christians much more willing to tolerate open polemic than Muslims.) Duran was writing in a much less tolerant period than Saadya's but his explanation is relevant to earlier periods as well. The tenth-century Karite Yefet b. Ali complains that the Jew under Islam “is not able to speak when he is vilified and calumniated concerning his religion” (wa-lā yaqduru yatakallamu idhā shutima waṭu'ina ‘alā dīnihi). See his Commentary on the Book of Daniel (, D. S., ed. and trans.; Margoliouth, ; Oxford: Oxford University, 1889) 78Google Scholar (Arabic) p. 37 (English—this sentence is not fully translated). See also the comment of Moses ibn Ezra quoted by Simon, U., Four Approaches to the Book of Pslams (Hebrew; Ramat Gan: Bar Ibn University, 1982) 153–54Google Scholar n. 84. According to Maimonides (Iggeret Teman, 96), it is the need to remain silent in the face of Muslim charges that makes life under Islam difficult to endure; see also: Ibid., n. 142; ibid, p. 106 and n. 159; and the translation by Stillman, N., The Jews of Arab Lands (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1979) 241–42Google Scholar, 246. Maimonides would probably not have agreed with the assessment of Perlmann (Medieval Polemics, 122) that “above all, the low rate of direct Islamic challenge seems to have had its impact in minimizing direct Jewish reaction.” Certainly Saadya must have felt at least as “challenged” by Islam as by Christianity.