Background
Little is known of his life. He was born in one of the larger Spanish communities and at some time settled in Toledo.
Little is known of his life. He was born in one of the larger Spanish communities and at some time settled in Toledo.
While his mother tongue was Arabic, he was deeply versed in all fields of Jewish learning, as well as in Moslem and Christian culture. In his later years, he wrote four books: "Sefer Kabbalah" (“The Book of Tradition”), one of the outstanding Jewish historical works of the Middle Ages; a philosophical work, "Emunah Ramah" (“Exalted Faith”); a work on astronomy; and a polemic against the Karaites, of which the latter two were lost. It is thought that he met his death as a martyr.
(Emunah Ramah starts with an exposition of physics and met...)
His historical book seeks to trace the uninterrupted development of rabbinic Judaism from the time of Moses to te author’s own time, that is, the “train of tradition." He endeavors to show that one generation of scholars immediately succeeded another without examining whether the new generation fully accepted the teachings of their predecessors.
By showing the continuity of rabbinic tradition he wanted to rebut the Karaite contention that rabbinic tradition was a late fabrication. He also wished to show that the rabbis of Spain, especially Andalusia, represented the incarnation of the ideal type of rabbi and had been singled out to herald the new redemption. The book is an important source of Jewish history.