a case of twelfth-centuryplagiarism? abraham ibn ezra’s ‘h

journal of jewish studies, vol. lv, no. 2, autumn 2004

A Case of Twelfth-Century Plagiarism?Abraham Ibn Ezra’s ‘H. ay Ben Meqitz’

and Avicenna’s ‘H. ayy Ibn Yaqz. ân’ *

Aaron HughesUniversity of Calgary

W hat follows examines an important aspect of the intimate relationshipbetween Jews and Muslims in the Middle Ages.1 It presents what, at

least on the surface, amounts to a case of Hebrew-Jewish plagiarism of anearlier Arabo-Islamic text. In particular, it focuses on a Hebrew treatise bythe name of H. ay ben Meqitz2 written by Abraham ibn Ezra (1089–1164) thatfollows closely on the heels of an Arabic text by the same name (H. ayy ibnYaqz. ân) penned by Avicenna (980–1037).3 Although ibn Ezra’s treatise is usu-ally brushed aside in secondary treatments of his work,4 I present it here asa case study, not of his contribution to medieval Neoplatonism, but as animportant chapter in the elucidation of the poetics and cultural ambiguityof Jews living in Muslim Spain (al-Andalus). These Andalusi Jews, accord-ing to Brann, were engaged in a complex ‘rereading and rewriting of theirtradition in Arabic according to the literary and cultural conventions of thatlanguage’.5 It is precisely within this context of rereading and rewriting that

* This study was supported by the generosity of SSHRC (Canada Council), the MauriceAmado Research Fund in Sephardic Studies, and the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture.I would also like to acknowledge the following individuals for reading and commenting on vari-ous incarnations of this study: Hava Tirosh-Samuelson, Suzanne Pinckney Stetkevych, and LisaHughes. I am equally grateful to the anonymous reviewers for JJS, who provided extremely help-ful suggestions. All remaining mistakes are solely my own.

1 There exists a wealth of studies, many polemical, devoted to this topic. For an excellenthistoriographic survey, see Mark Cohen, Under Crescent and Cross: The Jews in the Middle Ages(Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1994), pp. 3–14. For a good discussion that problematisesthis relationship, especially the trope of ‘symbiosis’, see Steven M. Wasserstrom, Between Muslimand Jew: The Problem of Symbiosis Under Early Islam (Princeton University Press, Princeton,1995), pp. 3–14.

2 I have consulted the critical edition found in Iggeret H. ay ben Meqitz, ed. Israel Levin (TelAviv University Press, Tel Aviv, 1983). The line numbers that follow correspond to Levin’s num-bering. A full English translation of H. ay ben Meqitz may be found in Aaron W. Hughes, TheTexture of the Divine: Imagination in Medieval Islamic and Jewish Thought (Indiana UniversityPress, Bloomington, 2004), pp. 189–207.

3 For the Arabic text of this work, I have consulted H. ayy ibn Yaqz. ân li ibn sînâ wa ibn t.ufaylwa al-suhrawardî, ed. Ah. mad Amîn (Dâr al-ma� arîf, Cairo, 1959).

4 Notable exceptions are Hermann Greive, Studien zum jüdischen Neuplatonismus: Die Reli-gionsphilosophie des Abraham Ibn Ezra (Walter de Gruyter, Berlin, 1973); Levin, Iggeret H. ay benMeqitz (as in n. 2); idem, Abraham ibn Ezra: His Life and Poetry (in Hebrew) (Ha-kibbutz ha-meuchad, Tel Aviv, 1969), pp. 181–227; Raphael Loewe, ‘The Influence of Solomon ibn Gabirolon Abraham ibn Ezra’, in Abraham Ibn Ezra y su Tiempo, ed. F. Diaz Esteban Asosiación Es-pañola de Orientalistas, Madrid, 1990), pp. 199–207; and, in the same volume, Zvi Malachi,‘Astronomical and Astrological Data in Four Literary Works (Keter Malchut, Hai ben Mekitz,and Two Maqamas)’, pp. 211–16.

5 Ross Brann, ‘The Arabized Jews’, in The Literature of al-Andalus, ed. María Rosa Menocal,

a case of twelfth-century plagiarism? 307

we need to situate ibn Ezra’s H. ay ben Meqitz. Ibn Ezra’s goal, I hope to show,was not only to create a Jewish and Hebrew version of Avicenna’s work, butalso, in the process, to compete with the Arabic original.

Both H. ay ben Meqitz and H. ayy ibn Yaqz. ân, the former title being a sim-ple Hebrew translation of the latter, belong to a distinct literary genre calledthe initiatory tale.6 The goal of these texts, as I have argued elsewhere,7 isto provide a narrative documenting in allegorical fashion the career and ad-ventures of the human soul and its relationship to the structure of the uni-verse. Although these texts need to be contextualised within medieval Neo-platonism,8 we must not lose sight of the fact that they are also importantpoetic and literary creations. Ibn Ezra’s H. ay ben Meqitz tells the story of anunnamed protagonist’s encounter with an enigmatic individual by the nameof H. ay ben Meqitz. The two are often taken to be allegories of the individ-ual soul and the Active Intellect respectively. Upon meeting, the two journeythroughout the universe, which ibn Ezra divides into three parts: the lowerworld (ha- � olam ha-shafal ), the intermediate worlds (ha- � olam ha- � ems. a � i ),and the upper world (ha- � olam ha- � eliyon).9 As they journey through theseascending cosmological levels, the protagonist learns the requisite science orsciences necessary for progressing on the journey. At the thresholds separat-ing the various worlds, he must undergo a rite of passage (e.g. immersion inwater, encounter with a celestial fire). The tale culminates when the protag-onist reaches the highest level of the universe and is afforded an imaginativegaze into the Divine presence.

Ibn Ezra’s narrative differs, philosophically, from Avicenna’s in a number ofways. Although both are written in a literary style, the most obvious difference

Raymond P. Scheindlin and Michael Sells (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2000), p.443. Within this context, also see Brann, The Compunctious Poet: Cultural Ambiguity and HebrewPoetry in Muslim Spain (Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1991), pp. 23–39. For morespecific examples of this tension between Jews and Muslims and the ways in which each usedthe other to construct identity, see Brann, Power in the Portrayal: Representations of Jews andMuslims in Eleventh- and Twelfth-Century Islamic Spain (Princeton University Press, Princeton,2002).

6 For requisite secondary literature on this genre, see Henry Corbin, Avicenna and the Vision-ary Recital, trans. Willard Trask (Bollingen, Princeton, 1960); Anne-Marie Goichon, Le Récitede Hayy ibn Yaqzân commenté par des texts d’Avicenne (Desclée de Brouwer, Paris, 1959); Her-mann Landolt, ‘Suhrawardî’s “Tales of Initiation” ’, Journal of the American Oriental Society 107(1987), pp. 475–86; Dimitri Gutas, Avicenna and the Aristotelian Tradition: Introduction to Read-ing Avicenna’s Philosophical Works (Brill, Leiden, 1988), esp. pp. 299–307; Peter Heath, Allegoryand Philosophy in Avicenna: With a Translation of the Book of the Prophet Muhammad’s Ascentto Heaven (University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, 1992); Sarah Stroumsa, ‘Avicenna’sPhilosophical Stories: Aristotle’s Poetics Reconsidered’, Arabica 9 (1992), pp. 183–206. For asurvey of this literature, see Hughes, The Texture of the Divine (as in n. 2), esp. pp. 13–47.

7 See Aaron Hughes, ‘The Three Worlds of ibn Ezra’s H. ay ben Meqitz’, Journal of JewishThought and Philosophy 12.2 (2002), pp. 1–24.

8 Other texts that make up this genre include the likes of Avicenna’s Risâla Sâlâmân wa-Absâl, Mantiq al-T. ayr; ibn T. ufayl, H. ayy ibn Yaqz. ân. See the discussion in Alfred L. Ivry, ‘TheUtilization of Allegory in Islamic Philosophy’, in Interpretation and Allegory: Antiquity to theModern Period, ed. Jon Whitman (Brill, Leiden, 2000), pp. 154–80.

9 See Aaron Hughes, ‘Two Approaches to the Love of God in Medieval Jewish Thought: TheConcept of devequt in the Works of ibn Ezra and Judah Halevi’, Studies in Religion 28.2 (1999),esp. pp. 141–44.

308 journal of jewish studies

is that whereas ibn Ezra is interested in the vertical structure of the universe,Avicenna deals primarily with the horizontal structure of the universe.10 IbnEzra is also extremely interested in the role of astrology in the noetic devel-opment of the individual, which is evident by the amount of time he spendsdescribing the anthropomorphic attributes of the planets. Avicenna, on thecontrary, was indifferent towards astrology and devotes very little space todescribing the planets. Another important difference between the two worksis that whereas ibn Ezra’s protagonist actually undertakes the journey throughthe cosmos with H. ay, in Avicenna’s text, H. ayy only describes to the protag-onist the structure of the universe. Despite such important philosophical dif-ferences, ibn Ezra has, on a literary level, essentially adopted and adaptedAvicenna’s narrative to the concerns of his Jewish audience. Although he bor-rowed the basic plot, structure, and characters from Avicenna’s text, he did soin such a manner that the new creation derived its vocabulary, terms of refer-ence and, ultimately, its potency from the Biblical narrative. By doing this, ibnEzra attempted to show to his Jewish audience, on a religious level, that hisown version was better than that of Avicenna’s. For explicit in the ‘judaisa-tion’ of this work is the notion that Jews no longer needed to read the originalArabic version of the narrative.11

It is well known that ibn Ezra was an important conduit in the transmis-sion of Arabic scientific works into Hebrew through his translation activityand, thus he was a central figure in the development of medieval Hebrew sci-ence.12 Interestingly, though, ibn Ezra did not feel compelled to make a simpleHebrew translation of H. ayy ibn Yaqz. ân. He seems to have intentionally madethe changes that he did in order to improve the narrative for his own purposesand for his own readers. The evidence for this is based on (1) the contempo-raneous cultural context concerning plagiarism and literary production, and(2) indications that ibn Ezra’s intention was to compete with Avicenna’s nar-rative. The first point is the easiest to show and most of what follows willbe devoted to this. As for the second point, there exist certain, admittedlyspeculative, indications that ibn Ezra intended his Hebrew version to be abetter version than the Arabic original. First, ibn Ezra composed his H. ayben Meqitz in response to a request from Shmuel ben Ya � aqub ibn Jam� a, awealthy North African halakhist and poet.13 One can also surmise from this

10 For comparisons of ibn Ezra’s and Avicenna’s texts, see Greive, Studien zum jüdischen Neu-platonismus (as in n. 4); Levin, Abraham ibn Ezra (as in n. 4), pp. 180–98; Levin, Iggeret H. ay benMeqitz (as in n. 2), pp. 11–44; Hughes, ‘The Three Worlds of ibn Ezra’s H. ay ben Meqitz’ (as inn. 7), and Hughes, The Texture of the Divine (as in n. 2), which also examines ibn T. ufayl’s H. ayyibn Yaqz. ân.

11 On the role of this trope in medieval Jewish philosophy, see the important study of StevenHarvey, ‘Falaquera’s Alfarabi: An Example of the Judaization of the Islamic Falâsifa’, Trumah12 (2002), pp. 97–112.

12 See Raphael Levy, The Astrological Works of Abraham ibn Ezra: A Literary and LinguisticStudy with Special Reference to the Old French Translation of the Hagin (Johns Hopkins Univer-sity Press, Baltimore, 1927); more recently see Shlomo Sela, Abraham ibn Ezra and the Rise ofMedieval Hebrew Science (Brill, Leiden, 2003), esp. pp. 75–78, 105–106.

13 Dîwân des Abraham Ibn Ezra mit seiner Allegorie H. ai ben Mekiz, ed. Jacob Egers (n.p.,Berlin, 1886), p. 139f. Here I follow the lead of Kaufmann, who surmised that ibn Ezra wasresponding to a poetic challenge by ibn Jam � a. See David Kaufmann, Studies in the Hebrew


that Jewish courtiers did indeed read and were familiar with Avicenna’s pop-ular H. ayy ibn Yaqz. ân narrative. Second, there exists, in ibn Ezra’s Dîwân, anArabic heading appended to H. ay ben Meqitz stating that it was ibn Ezra’sintention to follow ‘in the footsteps of Avicenna’s Risâla H. ayy ibn Yaqz. ân’.14

Although ibn Ezra’s treatise follows closely that of Avicenna’s, it is diffi-cult to reconstruct the relationship between ibn Ezra and Avicenna.15 Forinstance, we know that the former read Avicenna’s H. ayy ibn Yaqz. ân, yet it isdifficult to ascertain what else he read of this important author’s corpus.16 Animportant question that this study seeks to answer is: why would ibn Ezra de-cide to ‘copy’ Avicenna’s work? For ibn Ezra not only takes over Avicenna’stitle, but also uses the same characters and essentially the same plot struc-ture. Since ibn Ezra and his learned co-religionists would have been able toread Arabic,17 why not simply read Avicenna’s original? Why would one needto read a Hebrew version of the work? In order to answer such questionswe need to situate ibn Ezra’s H. ay ben Meqitz in the light of two importantfeatures of medieval Islamicate civilisation.18 The first is the various rules as-

Literature of the Middle Ages (in Hebrew) (Mossad ha-Rav Kook, Jerusalem, 1962); see alsoLevin, Abraham ibn Ezra: His Life and Poetry (as in n. 4), p. 15.

14 Dîwân des Abraham Ibn Ezra mit seiner Allegorie H. ai ben Mekiz, (as in n. 13), p. 139; Levin,Abraham ibn Ezra: His Life and Poetry (as in n. 4), p. 179.

15 This, in part, stems from the fact that ibn Ezra did not compose a philosophical treatiseper se; instead he was content to offer allusive and indirect philosophical statements in his Bibli-cal commentaries. On the danger that this poses for reconstructing medieval Jewish philosophy,see the comments in Y. Tzvi Langermann, ‘Some Astrological Themes in the Thought of Abra-ham Ibn Ezra’, in Rabbi Abraham Ibn Ezra: Studies in the Writings of a Twelfth-Century JewishPolymath, ed. Jay Harris and Isadore Twersky (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1993), pp.30–33; Howard Kreisel, Prophecy: The History of an Idea in Medieval Jewish Philosophy (Kluwer,Dordrecht, 2001), pp. 22–23.

Yet, for relevant secondary literature that looks, albeit briefly, at the influence of Avicenna onibn Ezra, see Aviezer Ravitzky, ‘The Anthropological Doctrine of Miracles in Medieval JewishPhilosophy’ (in Hebrew), Jerusalem Studies in Jewish Thought 2 (1982), pp. 32ff.; Moshe Idel,‘Hitbodedut as Concentration in Jewish Philosophy’ (in Hebrew), Jerusalem Studies in JewishThought 7 (1988), esp. p. 44; Elliot R. Wolfson, ‘God, the Demiurge, and the Intellect’, Revue desEtudes Juives 149 (1990), pp. 190–92; Howard Kreisel, ‘Miracles in Medieval Jewish Philosophy’,Jewish Quarterly Review 75 (1984), pp. 117–18.

16 According to Harvey, ibn Ezra was the first Jewish philosopher to employ Avicenna’s im-portant distinction between Necessary and Contingent existence. See Warren Zev Harvey, ‘TheFirst Commandment and the God of History: ibn Ezra and Maimonides versus Halevi andCrescas’ (in Hebrew), Tarbiz. 57 (1988), p. 208.

17 It is virtually impossible to reconstruct the intended audience of the work. Certainly, ibnEzra wrote the great majority of his work in Hebrew in order to transmit Andalusian Jewishlearning to a, presumably, non-Arabic speaking audience. Yet, the fact that he composed H. ayben Meqitz for ibn Jam � a, and presumably other North African Jews, indicates that the immediateaudience of this text would have known Arabic.

18 In using the term ‘Islamicate’, I follow the lead of the historian of Islam, Marshall Hodg-son. He writes that this term refers ‘not directly to the religion, Islam, itself, but to the socialand cultural complex historically associated with Islam and the Muslims, both among Muslimsthemselves and even when found among non-Muslims.’ See Marshall G. S. Hodgson, The Ven-ture of Islam: Conscience and History in a World Civilization, vol. 1 (University of Chicago Press,Chicago, 1974), p. 59. In this manner, although ibn Ezra was certainly not an ‘Islamic’ thinker,we could refer to him as an ‘Islamicate’ one. Even though he was deeply committed to Judaism,Jewish values, and Jewish sources, he nevertheless expressed himself in terms of the vocabularyand categories of Arabo-Islamic civilisation.


sociated with the Islamicate notion of plagiarism (sariqa). The second is thatof the non-Arabic nationalistic movement known as the Shu � ûbiyya. Both ofthese features take us into the realm of poetics and cultural criticism, pro-viding an important context for the composition of medieval philosophicaltexts. Rather than regard ibn Ezra’s work as a copy or Hebrew translationof Avicenna’s text, we need to understand the various cultural, intellectual,and religious mechanisms that would have permitted ibn Ezra to lay claim tothe work. What, for instance, were the motivating factors behind his desire toappropriate this and make it into a distinctly Jewish creation? And, perhapsmore importantly, how did he go about doing this?

Plagiarism (‘sariqa’) in Medieval Arabo-Judaic Literary Criticism

The aesthetics of the medieval Hebrew courtier poets was, generally speaking,that of their Arab-Muslim counterparts.19 Arab literary criticism was well es-tablished long before the rise of the Hebrew courtier poets in al-Andalus andhad already developed an aesthetics that revolved around the literary, the re-ligious, and the rhetorical.20 As established in the medieval period, this aes-thetics represented a combination of the poetic sensibilities of the pre-IslamicArabs with more theoretical discussions that were influenced by Greek philo-sophical speculation. For Muslims, the one true miracle of their tradition wasthe language and style of the Qur � ân. This stemmed from the fact that thepre-Islamic Arabs had always put a tremendous emphasis on the virtues ofeloquence (balâgha) and clarity of expression (h. usn al-bayân).21 This, in turn,was given a religious or monotheistic valence with the advent of Islam.22 Ac-cording to the Arab critics, whereas the miracles of Moses and Jesus were,respectively, in the fields of magic and medicine (the fields of the highest hu-man achievement in their respective times), Muhammad’s was in the field ofliterature and eloquence.23

As in ancient Greece, poetry in Islamic culture was considered an art ora craft (s. inâ � a). Like all other arts or crafts, there existed a canon by whicha poem’s success was judged. The good poem had to conform closely to therules that governed its production. Unlike the modern period, which putsoverwhelming emphasis on individual creativity, the medieval Arab or He-brew poet was regarded, first and foremost, as an artisan, someone familiar

19 The best example of this influence on medieval Jewish literary criticism may be found inMoses ibn Ezra, Kitâb al-muh. âd. ara wa al-mudhâkara (Sefer ha- � iyyunim ve ha-diyyunim), ed. andtrans. A. S. Halkin (Mekize Niramim, Jerusalem, 1975). Within this context, see the discussionin Joseph Dana, The Poetics of Medieval Hebrew Literature According to Moses ibn Ezra (inHebrew) (Dvir, Jerusalem, 1982), pp. 18–37.

20 L. Kopf, ‘Religious Influences on Medieval Arabic Philology’, Studia Islamica V (1956),esp. pp. 33–38.

21 Suzanne Pinckney Stetkevych, The Mute Immortals Speak: Pre-Islamic Poetry and the Po-etics of Ritual (Cornell University Press, Ithaca, 1993), pp. xi–xii.

22 See the discussion in Suzanne Pinckney Stetkevych, The Poetics of Islamic Legitimacy:Myth, Gender, and Ceremony in the Classical Arabic Ode (Indiana University Press, Bloomington,2002).

23 E.g. Ibn Qutayba, Ta � wîl mushkil al-Qur � ân, 2nd edn, ed. al-Sayyid Ah. mad Saqr (Dâr al-Turâth, Cairo, 1973), p. 12.


with the rules and conventions of his field.24 Poetry, then, was very traditional;the poem’s success was based primarily upon its formal correctness. Withinthis context, poetic composition was divided into form (s. ûra) and content(mâdda).

Poetic beauty resulted when an appropriate form was super-added onto alimited number of poetic themes (ma � ânî ).25 Crucial here are the ornaments(tropes, figures of speech) that the poet employed in his desire to improvethese themes. Medieval Arab theorists, like Aristotle before them, consideredthe metaphor (isti � âra) to be the best suited poetical ornament,26 because itconceives of one thing in terms of another.27 These tropes are what enabledthe poet to invoke responses in his audience.

Since originality was defined by improving traditional themes, a crucial di-mension of medieval Arabic literary criticism was that of plagiarism (sariqa).This discussion is crucial to our understanding of Abraham ibn Ezra’s H. ayben Meqitz, which is, at least on the surface, a copy of Avicenna’s H. ayy ibnYaqz. ân. After surveying briefly this discourse, it should be apparent that ev-ery poet was always conscious of the potential charge of plagiarism. Indeed,although his Dîwân mentions the similarities between the two narratives, itseems that ibn Ezra was never charged with plagiarism. This need not sur-prise us, however, since the changes that ibn Ezra made to his composition,as I will show later, would have prevented such a charge. The primary wayhe was able to do this was by grounding the narrative within the vocabulary,texts, and categories of Judaism. My goal is not to make a value judgementbased on apologetics (i.e. that ibn Ezra’s tale is literally or actually better thanAvicenna’s), only to show how ibn Ezra, based on the literary criticism andpoetics of his day, tried to create a ‘better’ version for a particular audience.

The concept of plagiarism is connected to the innovative style (bad. î � ) of cer-tain � Abbâsid poets.28 This new poetry, however, must be understood againstthe backdrop of the cultural and intellectual trends of Mu � tazila hegemony.29

This poetry, especially its use of metaphor, was praised by Mu� tazilî-inspired

24 See G. E. von Grunebaum, ‘The Aesthetic Foundation of Arabic Literature’, ComparativeLiterature IV (1952), p. 325.

25 Von Grunebaum, ‘The Aesthetic Foundation’ (as in n. 24), p. 326. Also, see the discussionin Dan Pagis, Secular Poetry and Poetic Theory: Moses ibn Ezra and His Contemporaries (inHebrew) (Bialik Institute, Jerusalem, 1970), pp. 51–52; Brann, The Compunctious Poet (as in n.5), p. 72f.

26 Von Grunebaum, ‘The Aesthetic Foundation’ (as in n. 24), p. 328.27 See, for example, Moses ibn Ezra, Kitâb al-muh. âd. ara (as in n. 19), pp. 225–31. For an ex-

tended discussion of this topic in the thought of Moses ibn Ezra, see Paul Fenton, Philosophieet Exégèse dans le Jardin de la Métaphore de Moïse ibn Ezra, Philosophe et Poète Andalou duXIIe Siècle (Brill, Leiden, 1997), pp. 299–374; Mordechai Z. Cohen, Three Approaches to BiblicalMetaphor: From Abraham Ibn Ezra and Maimonides to David Kimhi (Brill, Leiden, 2003), pp.36–47.

28 See, Suzanne Pinckney Stetkevych, Abû Tammâm and the Poetics of the � Abbâsid Age (Brill,Leiden, 1991), pp. 5–37; idem, ‘Toward a Redefinition of badî � Poetry’, Journal of Arabic Litera-ture 12 (1981), pp. 1–29.

29 Stetkevych, Abû Tammâm (as in n. 28), pp. 8–9. Rather significantly, the outstanding bad. î �poet, Abû Tammâm, counted as his patrons (mamdûh. ûn) al-Ma� mun (d. 833), al-Mu � tasim (d.842), and al-Wâthiq (d. 847)—all three of whom perpetuated the mih. na (‘inquisition’) on behalfof the Mu � tazila.


literary critics who argued that such ornamentation defined the Arabic lan-guage.30 Despite this, many other critics faulted this new style for upsettingthe old equilibrium. As a result, many critics devoted themselves to the issueof plagiarism (sariqa). Because we are very much the product of Romanticaesthetic sensibilities—in which the highest value is put on the original andthe unique—we must be careful not to transfer this sensibility onto the aes-thetic milieu of Arabic and Judeo-Arabic literature.31 For the latter, original-ity is not defined by saying something that no one has ever thought or utteredbefore, but by how well one is able to reproduce a set stock of tropes or images.Repetition, then, is of central importance since, according to Paul Losensky,it shows that the author has a knowledge ‘of the established standards andmodels that define literature as a system of signification and give meaning toeach individual utterance.’ 32 It was by situating oneself within a previous andwell-established semantic or allusive field, then, that the Islamicate poet wasable to be creative.33

Every poet used motifs (ma � ânî)—which were considered the commonproperty of all learned people—that others had already employed. Original-ity occured when a poet did, at the very least, one of two things: he usedeither a motif in a new context or with better ornamentation. In his Kitâb al-s. inâ � atayn, the Arab literary critic al- � Askarî (d. 1005) argued that it is contin-gent upon the poet to use the motifs in such a way that he adds to the beautyof the overall composition.34 If the poet did this successfully, then his claimto the motif was stronger than his predecessors. Similarly, it is important thatthe author ‘conceal his theft’ (ikhfâ � al-sarq) by, inter alia, either transferringto prose a motif taken from poetry or vice versa.35

Another important literary critic who dealt with the concept of plagiarismwas ibn Rashîq (d. between 1060 and 1070), who claimed that it was impossi-ble to avoid plagiarism and that every poet engaged in some form of it.36 Like

30 Of paramount importance here was the way the Qur � ân used metaphors to describe God.See Stetkevych, Abû Tammâm (as in n. 28), p. 18.

31 See, for example, Franz Rosenthal, The Technique and Approach of Muslim Scholarship(Pontificium Institutum Biblicum, Rome, 1947); G. E. von Grunebaum, ‘The Concept of Pla-giarism in Arabic Theory’, Journal of Near Eastern Studies 3 (1944), p. 234. It is important, then,to contrast this discussion with that of the anxiety of influence in post-Romantic thought. For adiscussion of the latter, see Harold Bloom, The Anxiety of Influence: A Theory of Poetry (OxfordUniversity Press, New York and Oxford, 1973).

32 Paul E. Losensky, ‘ “The Allusive Field of Drunkenness”: Three Safavid-Moghul Responsesto a lyric by Bâbâ Fighânî’, in Reorientations / Arabic and Persian Poetry, ed. S. P. Stetkevych(Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 1994), p. 227.

33 Significantly, though, ibn Ezra was an important innovator in Hebrew poetry, introducingnew genres (e.g. dispute poems, satirical poems), developing new strophic techniques and creatingnew styles. See Yosef Tobi, ‘Abraham ibn Ezra’s Poetry as a Link in the Transition of Hebrew Po-etry in Spain from its Islamic to its Christian Period’, in Abraham Ibn Ezra y su Tiempo (as in n.4), esp. pp. 358–61; Masha Itzhaki, ‘Abraham ibn Ezra as a Harbinger of Changes in Secular He-brew Poetry’, in Hebrew Scholarship and the Medieval World, ed. Nicholas de Lange (CambridgeUniversity Press, Cambridge, 2001), pp. 149–55.

34 Abû Hilâl al-H. asan al-� Askarî, Kitâb al-s. inâ � atayn, ed. � Ali Muhammad Bijâwî andMuhammad Abû al-Fad. l Ibrâhîm, 2nd ed. (� sâ al-Bâbî al-Halabi, Cairo, 1971).

35 Al-Askarî, K. al-s. inâ � atayn (as in n. 34), p. 147.36 H. asan ibn Rashîq al-Qayrawânî, Al- � Umda fî mahâsin al-shi � r, ed. Muhyî al-Dîn � Abd al-


his predecessor al-Askarî, ibn Rashîq argued that the motifs were commonproperty, and that the poet who best used them acquired the right to them.37

Unless a poet improved on the ancients, the original treatment ranked higherthan the imitation.38 In like manner, he claimed that the best methods of bor-rowing were those that involved putting verse into prose or vice versa.39

This discourse on plagiarism was also found among the Hebrew poets ofMuslim Spain. This, however, took on a somewhat different hue, as one ofthe main sources of medieval Hebrew poetry was the language of the HebrewBible. Indeed, much of Hebrew secular poetry is the weaving together of Bib-lical phrases—either verbatim, altered or elliptical—into a new context thatevokes a series of familiar, yet often subverted, images.40 This, of course, isnot to imply that the Hebrew secular poets simply plagiarised from the Bible.On the contrary, these poets resignified its language and its verses in such away that they created new meanings.

Despite the overwhelming preoccupation with the fabric of the HebrewBible, there still existed the question of plagiarism. This is because the ba-sic form, structure, and thematic organisation of the Hebrew secular poemwas the Arabic ode (qas. îda).41 This can be seen in, inter alia, the lyric-elegiacbeginning (nasîb) 42 of the qas. îda—including the use of garden and desertmotifs—the theme of the praise of others (madîh. ), and the use of the bad. î �technique.43 As a result of this, it is no surprise that the Hebrew poets fre-quently borrowed verses from other poets, both Arab and Jewish.44 Onceagain, we must remember that the various themes and motifs (ma � ânî ) wereregarded as common property. As in Arabic literary criticism, the charge ofplagiarism could be avoided only by improving on a theme or motif of a pre-decessor.

In his Kitâb al-muh. âd. ara, Moses ibn Ezra’s discussion of plagiarism followsthat of the Arab critics:

If you should employ a motif that existed prior to you, behave prudently in thematter; either add to it or take away from it. An appropriate addition shouldnot corrupt the motif and an appropriate omission should not put it to shame

Hamîd, 5th ed (Dâr al-Jîl, Beirut, 1981), 2:280.37 Ibn Rashîq, Al- � Umda (as in n. 36), 2:266.38 Von Grunebaum, ‘Concept of Plagiarism’ (as in n. 31), p. 238.39 Ibn Rashîq, Al- � Umda (as in n. 36), 2:277.40 E.g. T. Carmi, The Penguin Book of Hebrew Verse (Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1981), p. 27;

Neal Kozodoy, ‘Reading Medieval Hebrew Love Poetry’, AJS Review 2 (1977), pp. 111–13; AdeleBerlin, Biblical Poetry Through Medieval Jewish Eyes (Indiana University Press, Bloomington,1991), pp. 16–29.

41 See Raymond P. Scheindlin, ‘The Hebrew Qasida in Spain’, in Qasida Poetry in Islamic Asiaand Africa, vol. 1, ed. S. Sperl and C. Shackle (Brill, Leiden, 1996), p. 122.

42 For a rich treatment of the nasîb, see Jaroslav Stetkevych, The Zephyrs of Najd: The Poeticsof Nostalgia in the Classical Arabic Nasîb (University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1993), pp. 50–102.

43 For the Hebrew variants and reworkings of these themes, see Scheindlin, ‘The HebrewQasida in Spain’ (as in n. 41), pp. 124–28; Arie Schippers, Arabic Tradition and Hebrew Inno-vation: Arabic Themes in Hebrew Andalusian Poetry, 2nd edn (University of Amsterdam Press,Amsterdam, 1988).

44 Pagis, Secular Poetry and Poetic Theory (as in n. 25), p. 104.


. . . Concerning the argument of the plagiarists, al-Jâhiz, a leader of the mu-takallimûn, said: ‘I do not know of a poet who has invented an appropriateallegory or a remarkable motif or an original saying without another poet com-ing after him and claiming it for himself.’ 45

Despite this, Moses ibn Ezra is also quick to point out the dangers of slav-ishly following the Arab poets. In keeping with his desire for the Hebrew poetsto be morally upright, he admonishes those who want to imitate Arab poetswho write comic (fukâhât) and insulting (muhâtarât) poems.46

Connected to this discussion of originality in literature is that of original-ity in philosophy. Since ibn Ezra’s H. ay deals primarily with philosophicalthemes, it is also necessary to examine this latter aspect. Although both philo-sophic truth and poetic ma � ânî were regarded as common property, the for-mer was not seen as confined to one group (e.g. the Arabs). Al-Kindî, forexample, claims:

it has been clear to us and to the distinguished philosophers before us who arenot our co-linguists, that no man by the diligence of his quest has attained thetruth . . . nor have (the philosophers as a) whole comprehended it. Rather, eachof them either has not attained any truth or has attained something small inrelation to what the truth deserves. When, though, the little which each oneof them who has acquired the truth is collected, something of great worth isassembled from this.47

For the medieval philosophers, truth was not something subjective; rather,it was an objective reality that everyone who had reached a certain level ofintellectual perfection could grasp. Truth, then, was not the private posses-sion of any one particular individual or group: it was attainable by one’s ownefforts with the help of one’s predecessors and teachers.48 Central here is theformal unity of intellects, with matter responsible for individualisation. Oneof the clearest expressions of this view is found in the work of al-Fârâbî:

When the soul becomes separated from matter and incorporeal, it is no longersubject to any of the accidents that are attached to bodies as such . . . As onegroup of them passes away, and their bodies are destroyed, their souls haveachieved salvation and happiness, and they are succeeded by other men who as-sume their positions in the city and perform their actions, the souls of the latterwill also achieve salvation . . . The more the kindred separate souls increase innumber and unite with one another, the greater the pleasure felt by each soul.49

In a worldview that stresses the fellowship of the philosophers, the conceptof plagiarism is necessarily foreign. For each philosopher essentially appre-

45 Moses ibn Ezra, Kitâb al-muh. âd. ara (as in n. 19), p. 174.46 Moses ibn Ezra, Kitâb al-muh. âd. ara (as in n. 19), p. 296.47 Al-Kindî, Al-Kindî’s Metaphysics, trans. Alfred Ivry (State University of New York Press,

Albany, 1974), p. 57.48 Jeffrey Macy, ‘A Study in Medieval Jewish and Arabic Political Philosophy: Maimonides

Shemonah Peraqim and al-Fârâbî’s Fusûl al Madanî (Hebrew University dissertation, 1982), p.vi.

49 Al-Fârâbî, The Political Regime, trans. F. M. Najjar, in Medieval Political Philosophy, ed.R. Lerner and M. Mahdi (Cornell University Press, Ithaca, 1963), p. 38; see the comments inMacy, ‘A Study’ (as in n. 48), p. vii.


hends truths that have already been perceived by other philosophers.50 Eachphilosopher, thus, has a duty to transmit his knowledge to those who willcome after him.

Although philosophical truth is universal, it is always expressed in specificcontexts. This helps explain some of the reasons behind why ibn Ezra wouldcompose H. ay ben Meqitz when there already existed Avicenna’s H. ayy ibnYaqz. ân. Although ibn Ezra’s treatise is also an allegory concerning the careerof the soul, its language is Hebrew and its symbols Jewish. As a result, Jewishcourtiers, udabâ � , no longer needed to read this work in its Arabic version.51

‘Shu � ûbiyya’ and the Construction of Cultural Nationalism

In this section, I shall focus on the Arab concern for language and show howit influenced both non-Arabs and non-Muslims living in Muslim lands. InIslam, the perceived superiority of the rhetorical and aesthetic dimensionof the Qur � ân translated into the proclamation that Islam was the best reli-gion, and the Arabs, since the original language of revelation was Arabic, itsbest practitioners. This, in turn, signalled a counter-movement, known as theShu � ûbiyya, which articulated a position that non-Arabs were in fact supe-rior to Arabs. It is partly against this backdrop, I shall argue, that we mustunderstand ibn Ezra’s H. ay ben Meqitz.

Because of the intimate connection between language, rhetoric, and re-ligion, there soon arose in the eighth century the notion of adab.52 Thisconcept—roughly defined as the polite ideal of cultured living—is crucial tounderstanding medieval Islamicate civilisation. Social graces, literary tastesand ingenuity in manipulating language defined the practitioner of adab,known in Arabic as an adîb (pl. udabâ � ). Associated with the notion of adabis the concomitant idea of Arabiyya (‘Arabism’). Proponents of Arabiyya heldthat the Arabic language and its literary achievements were superior to thoseof all other nations or cultures.53

Historically, the Arabiyya movement is associated with the rapid expan-sion of Islam outside of the Hijâz in the seventh century. The Arabs reliedon non-Arab Muslims (mawâlî; sg. mawlâ) to maintain the already existingbureaucracies in places such as Persia. In the third Islamic century, this led toa counter-reaction among non-Arab Muslims, especially among the educatedclasses of the Persians. This movement, known as the Shu � ûbiyya, proclaimed

50 Macy, ‘A Study’ (as in n. 48), p. vii.51 Again, the evidence I am using to suggest that Jewish courtiers read Avicenna’s H. ayy ibn

Yaqz. ân is that one such courtier, ibn Jam � a, appears to have asked another such courtier, ibnEzra, to compose a Hebrew version of it.

52 S. E. Bonebakker, ‘Adab and the Concept of Belles-Lettres’, in The Cambridge History ofArabic Literature: � Abbasid Belles-Lettres, ed. J. Ashtiany et al. (Cambridge University Press,Cambridge, 1990), p. 19.

53 For Jewish reactions to Arabiyya, see Nehemiah Allony, ‘The Reaction of Moses Ibn Ezrato � Arabiyya’, The Bulletin of the Institute of Jewish Studies 3 (1975), p. 20; idem, ‘The Renaissanceof the Bible in the Middle Ages as a Response to � Arabiyya’ (in Hebrew), The Book of ShalomSivan: A Collection of Studies and Essays, ed. A. Even-Shoshan (Kiryat Sefer, Jerusalem, 1979),pp. 177–87.


the superiority of non-Arabs and non-Arab civilisation over the Arabs andtheir civilisation.54 In its crudest form the argument went something like:‘When our ancestors were part of the glorious and ancient Persian civilisa-tion, your ancestors were nothing more than desert-dwelling camel jockeys.’This movement was initially confined to the eastern Islamic empire; two cen-turies later, however, it made its way onto Spanish soil.55 The conditions thatbrought this development about were, nevertheless, almost identical to thosefound in the East; viz., the proud and disdainful behaviour of the Arabs tothe non-Arabs.

The Shu � ûbiyya left its mark on the Jewish thinkers of Muslim Spain. Ac-cording to Nehemiah Allony, much of the Hebrew literature produced inMuslim Spain—poetry, Biblical interpretation, works of poetics, etc.—mustbe understood in the light of the new Jewish cultural nationalism.56 He claims,for example, that ‘an anti-Arabiyya motif had characterised Spanish Hebrewpoetry from its very beginning.’ 57 Allony wants to see, then, in everythingfrom Shmuel Hanagid’s poetry to Judah Halevi’s Kuzari to Abraham ibnEzra’s Biblical commentaries a means whereby elite Jews could express theirdissatisfaction with the hegemony of Arabo-Islamic civilisation.58

Such a functional approach to this literature fails to do at least two things.First, it ignores the actual content of the literature in question: it filters every-thing through the prism of subverting the hegemony of the majority. Second,it ignores the dynamics of the religious and cultural interaction of Islamic andJewish civilisation in Muslim Spain. Juxtaposed against Allony’s argument, Itend to side with those offered by Raymond Scheindlin and Ross Brann. Theyargue that, although on one level a reaction to Arabiyya, this literature bet-ter reflects the ambiguity of a minority that is trying to define itself by thedominant culture of the majority.59 According to Brann, for example, it is

54 The two most thorough studies of the Shu � ûbiyya are to be found in Ignaz Goldziher, ‘TheShu � ûbiyya’, in Muslim Studies, ed. and trans. S. M. Stern and C. R. Barber (Aldine, Chicago,1966), pp. 137–63; H. A. R. Gibb, ‘The Social Significance of the Shuubiya’, Studies on the Civi-lization of Islam, ed. S. J. Shaw and W. R. Polk (Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1962),pp. 62–73. Goldziher, who stresses the literary dimension of this movement, argued that theShu � ûbiyya were spurred on by political movements in the far Eastern reaches of the MuslimEmpire. Gibb, in contrast, stresses the social dimension of this movement, and, I think moreplausibly, that the Shu � ûbiyya did not pose a political threat to Islam. He argues that this groupwanted to remold the Islamic Empire based on Persian as opposed to Arab ideals. Two morerecent studies of this phenomenon may be found in D. A. Agius, ‘The Shu � ûbiyya Movementand Its literary Manifestation’, Islamic Quarterly XXIV (1980), pp. 76–88; H. T. Norris, ‘TheShu � ûbiyya’, in The Cambridge History of Arabic Literature: � Abbâsid Belles-Lettres (as in n. 52),pp. 31–47.

55 James T. Monroe, The Shu � ûbiyya in al-Andalus: The Risâla of Ibn García and Five Refuta-tions (University of California Press, Berkeley, 1970). p. 1.

56 Allony, ‘The Renaissance of the Bible in the Middle Ages as a Response to � Arabiyya’ (asin n. 53), p. 186; also see Allony, ‘Halevi’s Kuzari in the Light of the Shu � ûbiyya’ (in Hebrew),Bitsaron 65 (1973–1974), pp. 106–108.

57 Allony, ‘The Reaction of Moses Ibn Ezra to � Arabiyya’ (as in n. 53), p. 35. Virtually the exactsame point is made in Norman Roth, ‘Jewish Reactions to the � Arabiyya and the Renaissance of‘Hebrew in Spain’, Journal of Semitic Studies XXVIII.1 (1983), pp. 83–84.

58 See the critical comments in Brann, The Compunctious Poet (as in n. 5), p. 16.59 Raymond P. Scheindlin, ‘Rabbi Moshe Ibn Ezra on the Legitimacy of Poetry’, Medievalia


‘far easier to describe texts and identify their ties to Arabic sources as “influ-ences” and “reactions” borne out of the Jews’ minority status than to attempta more nuanced conceptualisation of the Jews’ complex interaction with Ara-bic culture in al-Andalus.’ 60

Within this context, there can be no doubt that the Jews of Islam wereattracted to the themes and issues that they encountered in the humanisticintellectual milieu of medieval Arabic civilisation.61 Much of Jewish thoughtin this period represents the coming to terms with these themes and issues,and subsequently making sense of them in the light of familiar Jewish cate-gories (e.g. Biblical commentaries). This, of course, is not to imply that Jewswhole-heartedly embraced these ideas; however, these ideas did provide thevocabulary by which even those Jews who rejected the dominant intellectualparadigm (e.g. Halevi) 62 nevertheless expressed themselves.

In many ways this is what we encounter in ibn Ezra’s H. ay ben Meqitz,which is essentially the expression of universal philosophical motifs withinthe parameters of the images and models afforded by the particulars of theJewish tradition. Furthermore, because ibn Ezra was such an accomplishedpoet,63 his H. ay is more interested in the literary and aesthetic qualities of thistreatise,64 features that Avicenna does not seem to be as concerned with in hisArabic text of the same name.65 Moreover, as was customary among the Jewsof his age, ibn Ezra tried to show how the universal themes of Neoplatonism(e.g. the career of the soul) were grounded in the Hebrew Bible. Implicit inibn Ezra’s work is the notion that philosophy cannot be separated from lit-erary expression. This, in turn, is related to the notion—so common amongthe Hebrew poet-philosophers of al-Andalus—that sees in literary expressionthe foundation of the religious life.66 Poetic sensibility provided a way of cul-

et Humanistica 7 (1976), pp. 113–14; Brann, The Compunctious Poet (as in n. 5), pp. 6–8.60 Brann, ‘The Arabized Jews’ (as in n. 5), p. 439.61 On the place of humanism in medieval Islam, see, for example, George Makdisi, The Rise

of Humanism in Classical Islam and the Christian West (Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh,1990); Joel Kraemer, Humanism in the Renaissance of Islam: The Cultural Revival During theBuyid Age (Brill, Leiden, 1986).

62 E.g. Shlomo Pines, ‘Shi � ite Terms and Conceptions in Judah Halevi’s Kuzari’, JerusalemStudies in Arabic and Islam 2 (1980), pp. 165–251. More recently, see Diana Lobel, Between Mys-ticism and Philosophy: Sufi Language of Religious Experience in Judah Ha-Levi’s � Kuzari’ (StateUniversity of New York Press, Albany, 2000), esp. pp. 1–20.

63 On the important place of ibn Ezra in Hebrew poetry, see the comments in Israel Levin,‘Hold to the Ladder of Wisdom: The Influence of Neoplatonic Psychology on the Poetry of Abra-ham ibn Ezra’ (in Hebrew), Te � uda 8 (1992), p. 41; Itzhaki, ‘Abraham ibn Ezra as a Harbingerof Changes’ (as in n. 33), pp. 149–55; Gerard Nahon, ‘La elegía de Abraham ibn Ezra sobre lapersecución de los Almohades: Nuevas perspectivas’, in Abraham ibn Erza y su tiempo (as in n.4), pp. 217–24.

64 In this respect, I disagree with Greive, who ignores the literary and aesthetic dimension ofthe text in favour of a strict philosophical reading. See Hermann Greive, Studien zum jüdischenNeuplatonismus (as in n. 4), pp. 32–33.

65 It is significant that Avicenna was one of the few Islamic philosophers who wrote poetry.To characterise him as a poet, however, would be an exaggeration as the quality of his poetry isnot on the same level as the Arabic poets or the Hebrew poets of al-Andalus.

66 See the discussion in Adena Tanenbaum, The Contemplative Soul: Hebrew Poetry and Philo-sophical Theory in Medieval Spain (Brill, Leiden, 2002), esp. pp. 7–34.


tivating a personal relationship with the Divine through the Hebrew languageby means of metaphor and other figures of speech. The result was a mode ofexpression wherein the poet could speak of God’s presence in a strikingly per-sonal fashion while, at the same time, acknowledging His utter omnipotenceand transcendence. It is perhaps no coincidence that the Jews of this period,even if they wrote philosophy in Arabic, almost always composed their poetryin Hebrew.

Between Muslim and Jew: Stylistic Differencesbetween ‘H. ayy’ and ‘H. ay’

Both Avicenna’s and ibn Ezra’s texts are, on the one hand, allegories sym-bolising the human’s soul encounter with the Active Intellect and subsequentreturn to its celestial home. Yet, on the other hand, they also belong to thegenre of travel literature in that both recount the journey of an unnamed pro-tagonist with the enigmatic H. ay ben Meqitz (or H. ayy ibn Yaqz.ân) throughboth the material and intellectual worlds. In so doing, they document howthe protagonist undergoes a purification so that he may continue his travelsthrough the celestial spheres until he gradually apprehends that which existsbeyond such spheres.

It would be incorrect to posit that ibn Ezra simply took over Avicenna’snarrative and imagery. For many of these themes—a journey to the world offire and light, the encounter with different types of angels, and a heavenlyguide who aids a protagonist on a celestial journey—are far from foreign tothe Jewish religious or literary tradition.67 We encounter, for instance, suchthemes and motifs in the Apocalyptic literature, such as the Books of Enoch,and the speculative literature associated with the yordei merkavah.68

Before I examine some of the motifs that ibn Ezra uses to connect his trea-tise to earlier Jewish literature, let me mention briefly some of the stylistic fea-tures of ibn Ezra’s H. ay ben Meqitz.69 The style of this work is neither prosenor poetry, but a rhyming prose known in Arabic as saj � .70 Within this genre,we encounter groups of sentences with unfixed lengths, which are connected

67 See, for example, Gershom G. Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (Schocken, NewYork, 1946), p. 49f.; idem, Jewish Gnosticism, Merkabah Mysticism, and Talmudic Tradition (Jew-ish Theological Seminary Press, New York, 1960), pp. 18ff.

68 Greive makes no mention of such Jewish precursors; rather, he focuses on ‘Gnostic’ parallelsfound in non-Jewish sources, such as the Corpus Hermeticum. See, Greive, Studien zum jüdischenNeuplatonismus (as in n. 4), p. 104–105, 112–13. On the unhelpfulness of the term ‘Gnosticism’in shedding light on Jewish mysticism, see Ira Chernus, Mysticism in Rabbinic Judaism (Walterde Gruyter, Berlin, 1982), pp. 15–16; P. Alexander, ‘Comparing Merkabah Mysticism and Gnos-ticism: An Essay in Method’, Journal of Jewish Studies 35 (1984), pp. 1–18. Although, to be fair,this need not necessarily rule out the phenomenological usefulness of comparing early Jewishmaterial with Gnostic initiatory tales.

69 For much of this I rely on the excellent formal analysis provided by Levin, Iggeret H. ay benMekitz (as in n. 2), pp. 16–18.

70 For the development of this genre in Arabic literature, see Reynold A. Nicholson, A Lit-erary History of the Arabs (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1930), pp. 74–75; R. Paret,‘Qur � ân: I’, in The Cambridge History of Arabic Literature, vol. 1, ed. A. F. L. Beeston et al.(Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1983), pp. 195–98.


by a distinct rhyme that differs from group to group. The sound of the rhyme,in turn, creates an acoustic pattern that contributes to the overall aesthetic ofthe work.71 The various monotones, according to Levin, are broken by alter-nate rhymes, different lengths of the sentences, and the number of differentsections.72

There are certain formal features that mark a number of crucial differencesbetween ibn Ezra’s H. ay ben Meqitz and Avicenna’s H. ayy ibn Yaqz. ân. Themost immediate difference between the two is that Avicenna’s work is writ-ten primarily in prose without the rhyme, tempo and rhythm of ibn Ezra’sH. ay. This, of course, is not to claim that Avicenna was unconcerned withthe relationship between aesthetics and philosophy,73 only that ibn Ezra, asboth an accomplished secular and sacred poet made, for various reasons, aconscious effort to explore the counterpoints between philosophic and poeticexpression.

Within this context, ibn Ezra creates a colourful mosaic of motifs, images,words, fragments, and sentences informed by the Biblical narrative and theHebrew literature associated with the post-Biblical period. Interestingly, Avi-cenna is not nearly as concerned with grounding his H. ayy ibn Yaqz. ân withinthe vocabulary and categories supplied by the sacred scripture of Islam. Forinstance, he neither quotes directly from the Qur’ân nor does he employovertly Quranic images to give context to the characters or situations in hiswork. Interestingly, though, ibn T. ufayl (1110–1185) frequently uses Quranicquotations and imagery in his later, and somewhat more elaborate, H. ayy ibnYaqz. ân.

Biblical and Post-Biblical Jewish Motifs in ‘H. ay’

Biblical expressions, motifs, and fragments are omnipresent throughout ibnEzra’s tale. Indeed, much like the Hebrew poetry of this age, the entire taleis essentially a reworking of the Biblical text, in which words, images andphrases are separated from their original contexts and given new significa-tions. Ibn Ezra, thus, seems to imply that he has simply made explicit thelatent (i.e. the philosophical) foundation of sacred scripture. A good exampleof this may be found in the opening section of the tale. Here the unnamedprotagonist tells us the reason for undertaking his journey:

I have abandoned my house /Walked away from my possessions.

I left my home /My birthplace, my people /The sons of my mother put me in charge /But they did not let me attend to my vineyard.74

71 Levin, Iggeret H. ay ben Mekitz (as in n. 2), p. 17.72 Levin, Iggeret H. ay ben Mekitz (as in n. 2), p. 17.73 See, for example, his Qas. îda al-nafs. The Arabic edition and French translation can be found

in M. Carra de Vaux, ‘La Kaçidah d’Avicenne sur l’âme’, in Journal Asiatique, 9e série, 14.1(1899), pp. 157–73.

74 Levin, Iggeret H. ay ben Meqitz (as in n. 2), sec. 1.


Allegorically this refers to the soul’s initial descent from the world or uni-versal soul (nishmat ha-kol) into this world of form and matter. This passage isan amalgam of several Biblical verses. The line ‘I have abandoned my house /Walked away from my possessions’ comes directly from Jeremiah 12:7. Withinthat context, the prophet refers to the desolation that the righteous encounterat the hands of the wicked, who appear to prosper. Ibn Ezra reweaves this intohis text in such a way that the original connotations would not be lost on hisaudience. For just as Jeremiah found himself alone amongst the wicked, eachindividual soul finds itself alone in the world of generation and corruption.75

Similarly, just as the wicked seem to prosper in Jeremiah’s world, the bodyand its passions appear to thrive in this world of mere appearances.

The second part of this quotation—‘The sons of my mother put me incharge / But they did not let me attend to my vineyard’—comes directly fromSong 1:6. Within this context the beloved refers to her longing for the lover,a longing that remains unfulfilled because she must attend to other tasks. IbnEzra once again employs this verse to refer to the soul: The soul, longing forits celestial home, is confronted with attempting to maintain the body andits various desires. What ibn Ezra has done here, then, is to take two Biblicalverses and place them next to each other in such a manner that, while evok-ing their original contexts, they now speak forcefully to the new setting. Thisis significantly different from what we find in Avicenna’s H. ayy ibn Yaqz. ân.Indeed, ibn Ezra also signals with the aforementioned verses an importantphilosophical difference from Avicenna: Whereas the latter argued that thehuman soul was created with the body,76 the former held that it descendedfrom on high.

Another example of this use of Biblical imagery may be found in ibn Ezra’sdescription of the world of vegetation. This occurs narratively just after theunnamed protagonist has been purified in a spring, and subsequently beginshis journey through the three worlds:

He took me down to an orchard /In it was every fruit tree and meadow.

There, birds of the sky dwell /Singing among the foliage.

Springs gush forth /Plants sprout.

. . .

At its door are fruits /New and freshly picked.

Date palms give forth their fruit /Green figs form on the trees.

The vine is ripe /Mandrakes yield their fragrances.77

75 Cf. Sefer Yesod Mora ve-Sod ha-Torah, in Yalkuth ibn Ezra, ed. Israel Levin (Tel Aviv Uni-versity Press, Tel Aviv, 1985), I.1.

76 See my discussion in ‘Three Worlds’ (as in n. 7), pp. 5–8.77 Levin, Iggeret H. ay ben Meqitz (as in n. 2), sec. 11.


This section, and the ones immediately preceding and following it, engagesthe senses in its rich description of the natural world. Once again, the im-agery is familiar, since it is essentially that of the Bible. The first part of thisquotation (‘In it was every fruit . . . gush forth’) combines the imagery associ-ated with the Psalms and Proverbs, while the second part uses the language ofthe Song. The Psalter uses the verses ‘in it was every fruit tree and meadow’(148:9) and ‘the birds of the sky dwell beside them and sing among the fo-liage’ (104:12) to refer to the beauty of nature. In like manner, the immediatecontext of ‘Its springs would gush forth’ (Prov. 5:16) is the exhortation tostudy. In other words, ibn Ezra uses these connotations to make the pointthat this world, the world of matter and form, is not inherently evil, but thelocus wherein one discovers God’s attributes of action.78

This, in turn, is linked to the verses from the Song that comprise the secondpart of this quotation. Invoking Song 2:13 and 7:14, which express the naturalworld as the place where the lover and the beloved meet, ibn Ezra reinforcesthe beauty and lushness of the natural world. In addition, however, he alsoreinforces an important philosophical point by implying that the world ofnature is where we, as embodied creatures, encounter God. This is in keepingwith the philosophical axiom that we cannot know God’s essence, only hisworks.

One could multiply these types of examples, as the entire work operates inthis suggestive manner, where meaning is not only found in the H. ay text, butalso in the connotations that are only implicitly made. I will examine one moreexample of this in ibn Ezra’s description of Jupiter and its heavenly sphere:

In the sixth kingdom are righteous men /Adhering to purity.

Their paths clear /Their deeds just.

They wash their hands of bribery /Looking upon evil their eyes are shut.

They practice righteousness /Despising profit.

They dwell in tents /They are teachers and judges.

Magistrates and officials /Judges and companions.

Prophets /Princes.

Priests /Academy Heads.79

78 This is in keeping with Yesod Mora I.2, where he writes: ‘Every branch of knowledge giveslife to the one who acquires it. Now there are many sorts of knowledge, each one of which ishelpful. All of the categories of wisdom are rungs in the ladder that leads to true wisdom.’ Greivealso makes this point although he deduces it from different sources, viz., the introduction to ibnEzra’s Commentary to Qohelet. Greive, Studien zum jüdischen Neuplatonismus (as in n. 4), p. 106.

79 Levin, Iggeret H. ay ben Meqitz (as in n. 2), sec. 22.


In this quotation, ibn Ezra describes Jupiter as a kingdom with the starsas its inhabitants.80 The planets, to whom God has delegated the governanceof the sublunar world, exert certain influences on the earth. In speaking ofJupiter and its inhabitants, ibn Ezra uses a phrase from Habakkuk, whoseoriginal context describes God’s justice: ‘looking upon evil, your eyes areshut’ (1:13). Ibn Ezra also makes this explicit when he uses the phrase ‘mag-istrates and officials.’ This phrase, as used in Deuteronomy 16:18,81 refers tothose individuals who are responsible for enforcing the divine legislation in Is-rael. Similarly, in the last sentence of this segment, ibn Ezra employs anothertext, this time from Psalm 45:7, to describes the righteousness of God’s ruleof the universe. In like manner ‘they dwell in tents’ echoes Genesis 25:27.82

That context describes the difference between Jacob and Esau. Esau, associ-ated with the chaos and unruliness of the desert is juxtaposed against Jacob,a ‘city dweller’. The latter is a symbol of peace and calmness—the virtuesof a judge—and is, not coincidentally, the same virtues used to describe theinhabitants of Jupiter.

It should now hopefully be apparent that ibn Ezra has attempted to groundhis H. ay ben Meqitz within the allusive field of the Biblical narrative. In sodoing, he attempts to show how the basic narrative structure of H. ay lies dor-mant in the Bible. Indeed, by composing his narrative in the manner that hedoes, i.e. by recycling and recontextualising Biblical words and phrases, onecould infer, even though ibn Ezra nowhere says as much, that, paradoxically,Avicenna ‘stole’ the narrative from the Jews.83

Mystical Motifs

If central to the production of meaning in H. ay ben Meqitz is the HebrewBible, the themes and images associated with the Apocalyptic and Merkabahtraditions also function as important intertexts. In many ways, ibn Ezra incor-porates the motifs and images that are associated with earlier Jewish mysticalsources by adopting and adapting them in the light of the categories providedby Islamic Neoplatonic thought. This crosspollination between philosophyand mysticism, Jewish tropes and Islamic categories, would have been appeal-ing to a twelfth-century Jewish Andalusi audience.84

Ibn Ezra reweaves these earlier narratives so that they now become part ofhis own philosophical tapestry. For example, he writes of the first encounterwith H. ay:

80 On the role, function and problematics associated with ibn Ezra’s use of astrology, see theimportant essay of Langermann, ‘Some Astrological Themes’ (as in n. 15), pp. 28–85. Also, seeDov Schwartz, Astrology and Magic in Medieval Jewish Thought (in Hebrew) (Bar Ilan UniversityPress, Ramat Gan, 1999), pp. 62–91; Shlomo Sela, Astrology and Biblical Exegesis in Abrahamibn Ezra’s Thought (in Hebrew) (Bar Ilan University Press, Ramat Gan, 1999).

81 Cf. Levin’s comments in Iggeret H. ay ben Meqitz (as in n. 2), p. 78.82 Cf. Levin’s comments in Iggeret H. ay ben Mekitz (as in n. 2), p. 78.83 On this motif, see Norman Roth, ‘The “Theft of Philosophy” by the Greeks from the Jews’,

Classical Folio 32 (1978), pp. 52–67.84 Cf. Elliot R. Wolfson, Through a Speculum that Shines: Vision and Imagination in Medieval

Jewish Mysticism (Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1994), esp. pp. 171–81.


An old man was walking in the field /Praising God, giving thanks.

His appearance was like that of kings /An aura surrounding him, shining like the angels.

Seasons had not changed him /Years seemed not to pass him . . . 85

Ibn Ezra’s description of an individual meeting a celestial guide would cer-tainly not have been foreign to a Jewish audience. It is a common motif withinthe early Jewish mystical sources. For instance, in the first-century Apocalypseof Abraham we encounter the following:

the angel he sent to me in the likeness of a man came, and he took me by myright hand and stood me on my feet, And he said to me ‘stand up, Abraham,friend of God who has loved you, let human trembling not enfold you! For lo! Iam sent to you to strengthen you and to bless you in the name of God.86

Significantly, though, in much of the Apocalyptic and Merkavah literature,the named protagonist, upon seeing the celestial guide, falls down in fear andawe.87 The fact that ibn Ezra’s unnamed protagonist does not fall down at thispoint may be owing to the natural component of the philosophical enterpriseas opposed to the selective or supernatural one of mysticism. Whereas ibnEzra’s protagonist is unnamed, those of the Apocalyptic and Merkabah tra-dition are named (e.g. Abraham, Enoch, Rabbi Ishmael). Ibn Ezra’s protag-onist is, thus, a philosophical Everyman. In like manner, although ibn Ezra’sguide, H. ay ben Meqitz, is described in terms that compare him to an angel, heis actually a philosopher. Yet, in invoking the imagery and vocabulary fromthe earlier Jewish mystical tradition,88 ibn Ezra intimates to his audience thatsome form of special knowledge or gnosis is to be imparted to the protagonist.

Another example of the way in which ibn Ezra incorporates the motifs ofthe earlier Jewish mystical tradition can be seen in the spiritual initiation thatthe protagonist undergoes. ibn Ezra writes:

We approached the spring /And stood beside it.

He undressed me, my clothes he cast aside /He led me naked towards it.

He said, ‘Drink the water from its source /The fluids flowing from its well!

In it your fractures will be healed /Your limbs will be dressed.

85 Levin, Iggeret H. ay ben Meqitz (as in n. 2), sec. 2.86 The Apocalypse of Abraham 10:4–6. For this text I have consulted the English translation

by R. Rubinkiewicz and H. G. Hunt in The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, vol. 1: ApocalypticLiterature and Testaments, ed. James H. Charlesworth (Doubleday, New York, 1983), pp. 693–94.

87 E.g. 1 Enoch 14:24–25; 3 Enoch 1:7. For these texts, I have consulted The Old TestamentPseudepigrapha, vol. 1: Apocalyptic Literature and Testaments (as in n. 86).

88 For this notion of revelation in the Merkavah tradition, see Ithamar Gruenwald, Apocalyp-tic and Merkavah Literature (Brill, Leiden, 1980), pp. 15ff.


You will have wings /To fly in the heavens.

I drank from the water of life /The water that gives life to souls.

My pains and my afflictions left me /My loyal yet bad ailments.

They became like a balsam /To heal my fractures and soothe my limbs.

I drank enough /My sickness was cured.

He reached out his hand and grabbed me /He lifted me from the depth of the spring.89

In this passage, the water associated with the spring is what purifies theunnamed protagonist. Before he immerses himself in this water, however, hisearthly clothes are removed. This act invokes an important trope found withinthe earlier Jewish mystical sources. In 2 Enoch, for example, we find:

The Lord said to Michael, ‘Take Enoch, and extract (him) from the earthlyclothing. And anoint him with delightful oil; and put him into the clothes ofglory. And Michael extracted me from my clothes. He anointed me with the de-lightful oil; and the appearance of that oil is greater than the greatest light . . . 90

The earthly clothes symbolise the corporeality of the individual; by dis-carding them, he divests himself of the hindrance of the body. Although thisnotion of purification by immersion in water is a universal symbol, it is a motifthat recurs frequently throughout this genre of Jewish literature. The celestialsojourner often undergoes some form of contact with water (or, alternatively,fire) as a means of continuing his journey upwards. In 1 Enoch, for example,we find:

And they lifted me up into one place where there were (the ones) like the flamingfire. And when they (so) desire, they appear like men. And they took me into aplace of whirlwind in the mountain; the top of its summit was reaching intoheaven. And I saw chambers of light . . . and they lifted me up unto the watersof life, unto the occidental fire which receives every setting of the sun. And Icame to the river of fire which flows like water and empties itself into the greatsea in the direction of the West . . . And I saw the mouths of all the rivers of theearth and the mouth of the seas.91

By tapping into this genre, ibn Ezra is able to mine a set of symbols and im-ages with which to contextualise the philosophical motifs of Avicenna’s H. ayyibn Yaqz. ân. Just as he used the Hebrew Bible to sound a set of expectationsin his audience, he here does something similar with the various sources asso-ciated with early Jewish mysticism. In particular, he signifies for his audiencethat, just as the mystics must undergo purification before ascending to thethrone, so, too, must the philosopher’s soul undergo a form of purification if

89 Levin, Iggeret H. ay ben Meqitz (as in n. 2), sec. 7.90 2 Enoch 22:8–9; cf. 3 Enoch 12:1–5 (as in n. 86).91 1 Enoch 17:1–8; cf. 2 Enoch 56:2; 3 Enoch 42:1 (as in n. 86).


it is to contemplate the Divine.In another part of the tale, ibn Ezra explains the all-consuming fire that

one must pass through in order to cross the boundary separating the world ofform and matter from the world of the cosmic spheres. He writes of this:

After this boundary there is a consuming fire /To the heavens it reaches.

Its coals burn /Its sparks rage.

Its blades are like swords /Its sparks like stars.

Rains do not extinguish it /Rivers are unable to flood it.

Rocks are molted by its fire /Boulders melt from its flame.

I envisioned it /Staring into its likeness.

My hands were weak /My knees trembled.

My eyes smoked over from fear /I fell frightened onto my face.

I was unable to stand /My whole being was stricken with terror.

He came to me /Set me upon my feet.

He said, ‘Do not be afraid and do not lose heart /When you walk through fire, you will not be burned; though a flame, it will notburn you.’

He passed before me and said /‘Come in, O blessed of the Lord.’

He took me swiftly from there /Moving me into the flame.

I saw the fires touch in front of him /The sparks surrounding him burned.

The flashes encircled us /Although surrounded /We were not consumed.92

In terms of both its vocabulary and imagery, this passage also evokes thelanguage of the Jewish mystical tradition as grounded in the Biblical narra-tive. It begins with the language of Deuteronomy 4:24, which describes Godas ‘a consuming fire, an impassioned God’. From here, ibn Ezra evokes thelanguage of Song 8:7 (‘Rains do not extinguish it / Rivers are unable to floodit’), which, in its original context, describes the unsatiable love of the lover forthe beloved. From this initial imagery, ibn Ezra moves to a description of theprotagonist’s encounter with the fire. In encountering the fire, the individual

92 Levin, Iggeret H. ay ben Meqitz (as in n. 2), sec.15.


realises how everything in this world gives way and succumbs to the majesty ofGod. Upon comprehending this, he falls down, prostrate from fear—here de-scribed using the language of a verse whose original context describes Daniel’sencounter with Gabriel (Daniel 8:17). After this initial fear, H. ay approachesthe protagonist; the language that he uses combines the vocabulary of the callnarratives of both Ezekiel and Isaiah: ‘He set me upon my feet. He said, “Donot be afraid and do not lose heart.” ’ The first part echoes the words utteredto Ezekiel (2:2) after his encounter with the divine chariot (merkavah). Thesecond part, in turn, corresponds to Isaiah’s call to go to Ahaz in order toconsole him (6:4), to tell him not to fear for God is with Judah.

This is significant because in much of the Apocalyptic and Merkavah lit-erature, the protagonist, upon seeing an angel, falls down in fear and amaze-ment.93 Ibn Ezra, therefore, had a large repertoire of mythic images to drawupon in the Jewish tradition. Common to all of these ‘ordeals by fire’ is thatthe numinous quality of the sacred creates in the individual an awareness ofhis finitude. By vanquishing this fear, whether by a symbolic immersion or thelike, the individual overcomes the limitations of his body. In the case of theprotagonist in H. ay, the individual, by going through the fire, is able to crossthe boundary that separates the sublunar world from the world that existsabove the sphere of the moon. Although many of these motifs are universal,ibn Ezra firmly grounds them in the specifics of the Jewish tradition. As inprevious passages, ibn Ezra uses the language and imagery of the Jewish tra-dition to add both depth and context to what was originally a non-Jewishnarrative.

These examples, while by no means exhaustive, reveal the way in which ibnEzra created a text that was not simply dependent on Avicenna’s. Rather, theJewish literary tradition provided him with the images, metaphors, and motifsto construct a text that would have been familiar to a Jewish audience. Signif-icantly, though, ibn Ezra used this inherited literary tradition as a way of cre-ating a new set of significations, those of a twelfth-century poet-philosopherliving in al-Andalus. In the section that follows, I shall examine the way inwhich contemporaneous literary theory would have provided ibn Ezra with acontext whereby he could have surpassed Avicenna’s work.

Literary Evidence: A Comparison of ‘H. ay’ and ‘H. ayy’

It is now necessary to situate ibn Ezra’s H. ay ben Meqitz within the context ofthe medieval Islamicate discussion of literary and philosophic originality. Asa philosophical allegory, ibn Ezra’s H. ay translates universal themes into He-brew; yet, as a literary composition, we have to regard his H. ay in competitionwith Avicenna’s H. ayy ibn Yaqz. ân. Since ornamentation and embellishmentdefine originality more than creation ex nihilo, it would seem that ibn Ezrawas trying, on a fundamental level, to lay claim to this work. Here it is im-portant to remember the polemics associated with the related notions of Ara-biyya and Shu � ûbiyya, wherein poetry and literature represented an impor-

93 Cf. notes 77 and 78 above.


tant arena in which non-Arabs (whether Muslim or non-Muslim) struggledwith the challenges of Arab political and cultural dominance. It is against thebackdrop of these two features that Jews began to rediscover the beauty ofthe Hebrew language.

Within this context, recall the discussion found in such Arab critics as al-Asharî and ibn Rashîq, who claimed that, to avoid the charge of plagiarism,an author had to either versify an earlier prose treatment or vice versa. This isprecisely what ibn Ezra does. Although it is difficult to capture this in Englishtranslation, ibn Ezra wrote his H. ay in a rhyming prose, whereas Avicennawrote his in prose. To illustrate this, I shall examine how each treats of thenarrator’s first meeting with the mysterious and majestic H. ayy. First a trans-lation of the Arabic version.

And it happened to me that when I took up residence in my city, I went with mycompanions to one of the nearby parks there, and while we were walking about,a beautiful shaykh appeared to us. He was advanced in years, which had takentheir toll on him, yet he was in full vigour and his stature was not weakened.There was no sign upon him of greyness save for the comeliness of one who iswise.94

Compare this with the opening of the Hebrew version:

An old man was walking in the field /Praising God, giving thanks.

His appearance was like that of kings /An aura surrounding him, shining like the angels.

Seasons had not changed him /Years seemed not to pass him /His eyes shone like those of a dove /His brow gleamed as sliced pomegranate.

Neither distortion in his heightNor weakness in His strength /Neither darkness in his eyesNor was his vigour Unabated.

His fragrance was wondrous, like that of Spikeman /His mouth was delicious and all of himWas delightful.

I called out to him: Your physical state prospers /You will never perish.

Whose son are you, what is your name? /What is your occupation? /Is this place your home?95

Both versions describe the meeting between the unnamed protagonist andH. ay or H. ayy, who, although old in years, exudes a healthy and youthful pres-ence. Avicenna’s description begins with the narrator and his friends engagingin some form of religio-mystical praxis (dhikr) followed by a sighting of H. ayy,

94 Avicenna, H. ayy ibn Yaqz. ân (as in n. 3), p. 40.95 Levin, Iggeret H. ay ben Meqitz (as in n. 2), sec. 2.


and a short description of him. Ibn Ezra’s, in contrast, makes no mention ofthis Sufi ritual praxis and, instead, begins with a relatively lengthy and poeticdescription of H. ay’s features. Although Avicenna describes the glowing na-ture of H. ayy, his account does not move beyond the initial description of hisyouthful appearance. Ibn Ezra, in contrast, describes H. ay in a way that hisJewish contemporaries would contend adds to the original motif (ma � ana) ofthis appearance. Here it is worth recalling Moses ibn Ezra’s comments that anappropriate borrowing must consist of an addition that does ‘not corrupt themotif ’. As a result, Abraham ibn Ezra here provides a detailed description ofH. ay’s eyes, his forehead, his smell and his mouth.

Not surprisingly, ibn Ezra uses the language of the Hebrew Bible. H. ay’sdescription combines characteristics used to describe both the beloved fromthe Song and Moses in Deuteronomy. The description from the Song is as-sociated with the longing of the lover for the beloved: just as the lover pinesfor the beloved, the unnamed protagonist yearns for the company of H. ay. Inaddition, ibn Ezra’s language also evokes Deuteronomy 34:7, which describesthe healthy visage of the elderly Moses prior to his death. The implication ofboth of these descriptions is that H. ay is a special individual, someone who isvery close to God, and who has secret wisdom to impart.96

To use another example that shows the manner in which ibn Ezra attemptsto improve upon the Arabic version of H. ayy ibn Yaqz. ân, I shall now look atthe last verses of each text. Avicenna ends his composition as follows:

The shaykh, H. ayy ibn Yaqz.ân, said: Were it not that in conversing with you, Iapproach Him because I incite your awakening, I would perform duties towardHim that would take me from you. But if you desire, you may follow me, peace.97

Ibn Ezra, in contrast, ends his composition in the following manner:

I said to him /May you be forever blessed.

You have brought me thus far /To enter and come out again in peace.

Happy are you /And happy are your friends.

Those who uphold your religion /And pay heed to your wise words.

Praised be the Lord your GodWho made you governor of His World /Who put you in charge of His people.

He who brought me to you.Who made me listen to your words.

He is above all majesty and greatness /Exalted above every blessing and praise.

96 Significantly, Avicenna could easily have drawn upon the Qur � ân’s account of Luqmân inSura 31 or the Companions of the Cave in Sura 18 to describe H. ayy in such a way that wouldhave connected his philosophical tale to the language of the Qur � ân.

97 Avicenna, H. ayy ibn Yaqz. ân (as in n. 3), p. 49.


He alone does great things /His steadfast love is eternal.98

In addition to the significant differences in the content, there are also manydistinct ornamental features in ibn Ezra’s passage that enable him to avoidthe charge of plagiarism. Whereas Avicenna’s account is rather succinct, ibnEzra’s plays with words and teases out many of the descriptions that are onlymentioned in passing in Avicenna’s text. For example, when the protagonistthanks H. ay for allowing him to travel with him and return in peace, we arereminded of the aggadah in which the four rabbis enter Pardes and only oneof them, Rabbi Akiva, returns intact.99 Furthermore, the unnamed protago-nist’s praise to H. ay echoes the praise that the Queen of Sheba offered to KingSolomon regarding his wisdom and judgement in 1 Kings 10:9 (which, signif-icantly, led Solomon to offer her all that she desired). This is followed by thelanguage of Nehemiah 9:5, wherein the newly returned exiles thank God forlistening to Israel. Finally, there is also an echo of Psalm 136:4, one verse ofan entire psalm devoted to exhorting God’s greatness, His wisdom in creatingthe natural order, and His love for Israel.

Ibn Ezra’s H. ay, thus, is not simply a pastiche of Biblical images; rathereach image or phrase forces the Jewish reader to make intra- and intertextualconnections with the rest of the Biblical passage from which it originates. Inthis regard, H. ay ben Meqitz works as much by association as it does by theactual, physical narrative. In so doing, it opens up a horizon before the readerby allowing the reader to return to the Biblical narrative so as to mine itsdeeper meanings.

As one final example, I shall look at the way in which both Avicennaand ibn Ezra deal with their respective descriptions of the mineral and plantworlds. First, Avicenna’s account:

And you will come across a region wherein you will encounter mighty moun-tains, rivers, blowing winds and clouds heavy with rain will meet you. There youwill find gold, silver, and all genera and species of precious and lowly substances.But there is neither growth nor germination there. Crossing from here you willcome to a region loaded with what we mentioned above: all types of vegetationspringing forth and fruit-bearing and other types of non-fruit bearing trees andseeds.100

Now, ibn Ezra’s:

He took me down to an orchard /In it was every fruit tree and meadow.

There, birds of the sky dwell /Singing among the foliage.

Springs gush forth /Plants sprout.

98 Levin, Iggeret H. ay ben Meqitz (as in n. 2), sec. 29.99 H. ag. 14b.

100 Avicenna, H. ayy ibn Yaqz. ân (as in n. 3), p. 46.


Its vineyards are ripe /The ground tilled and cleared of stones.

Roots are watered by a stream /Rivulets of water cause its shoots to flower.

On a carrying frame its gleanings are carried /Upon a shoulder its clusters borne.

Its skies concealed by clouds /Furrows saturated by showers.

Its branches drip a medicinal sap /Its canopy oozes pleasant fragrances.

In its streams the pomegranates are in bloom /Roses radiate in flower beds.

At its door are fruits /New and freshly picked.

Date palms give forth their fruit /Green figs form on the trees.

The vine is ripe /Mandrakes yield their fragrances.

He raised me from the gardens /To jagged mountains.

There was the gold of Ophir /Precious onyx and sapphire.

Bronze and copper /Fitdah and vareqet.

Tin and lead /Topaz and emerald.

Beryl and crystal /sulfur and salt /and every zaphenath and paneah. .101

Whereas Avicenna mentions gold, silver, and ‘all genera and species ofprecious and lowly substances’, ibn Ezra adds to this description by list-ing at least eighteen different types of metals.102 Moreover, in their respec-tive descriptions of the ‘world of vegetation’, Avicenna is content to men-tion ‘all types of vegetation springing forth and fruit-bearing and other typesof non-fruit bearing trees and seeds.’ Ibn Ezra, in contrast, gives us a richdescription—branches ‘drip’, canopies ‘ooze’, roses ‘radiate’, etc.—that onceagain is loaded with Biblical phrases and imagery brought together from var-ious sources and contexts.

According to the criteria of medieval plagiarism, ibn Ezra has attempted tooutdo Avicenna’s tale. Not only has he taken Avicenna’s prose narrative andput it into a rhyming prose, he has also attempted to add to the original motifsfound in Avicenna’s descriptions. Based on such formal criteria, we should notregard his tale as a simple copy of Avicenna’s; rather, it is an original creation

101 Levin Iggeret H. ay ben Meqitz (as in n. 2), secs. 11–12.102 Here I am basing my comments on Levin, Iggeret H. ay ben Meqitz (as in n. 2), pp. 26–27.


that is characterised by a beauty of expression that is common to the poeticalwork of the Hebrew poet-philosophers of al-Andalus.

Conclusions

This study has argued that the proper way to begin to understand ibn Ezra’sH. ay ben Meqitz is to situate it against the backdrop of Islamicate literarycriticism. Within this context, my analysis has revolved around a specific setof questions: Why would a Jewish intellectual of the twelfth century wantto compose a Hebrew text that follows an Arabic original so closely? Whynot just read the Arabic original? In order to answer these questions I exam-ined (1) the immediate cultural, intellectual, and literary milieux of medievalJudeo-Arabic civilisation, and (2) the few indications in ibn Ezra’s own writ-ings that shed light on this issue. I have, thus, tried to provide an importantsocial, cutural, and political context to the composition of medieval Jewishphilosophy.

I argued that ibn Ezra was not only conscious of Avicenna’s H. ayy ibnYaqz. ân, but also aware that in order to create his own version, he would haveto compose it in a certain way. He could not, however, surpass the actual plotof Avicenna’s work; all that he could do was to add to the literary and aes-thetic dimension. As a result, ibn Ezra composed his H. ay in such a mannerthat it would be an independent creation and not simply a copy or Hebrewversion of Avicenna’s text.

Rather than regard H. ay ben Meqitz as a copy of Avicenna’s H. ayy ibnYaqz. ân, we should regard it as a Jewish adaptation of Avicenna’s treatise and,thus, as in direct competition with it. Ibn Ezra, therefore, has attempted to‘reread and rewrite’ certain aspects of Judaism in the light of Arabo-Islamiccategories. By using the diction, images, and associations of the Bible andthe early Jewish mystical sources, ibn Ezra effectively created a narrative withwhich to uphold and promote Jewish cultural nationalism in Muslim Spain.H. ay ben Meqitz, thus, is indicative of a particular moment in Jewish history.It shows how Jews adopted, adapted, and ultimately attempted to competewith the various themes and issues of the larger Arabo-Islamic culture.

a case of twelfth-centuryplagiarism? abraham ibn ezra’s ‘h

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