Background
Abraham ibn Daud was born at Cordoba, Spain about 1110.
( An epitaph to the Golden Age of Spanish Jewry Hundreds ...)
An epitaph to the Golden Age of Spanish Jewry Hundreds of years before the Inquisition, the Almohade invasion of Spain wiped out many of the Spanish Jewish communities in Muslim Andalusia ending the Golden Age of Spanish Jewry. Thousands of Jews fled north to Christian Spain, where they had to live among Karaite Jews very different from themselves. Philosopher Abraham ibn Daud responded to this upheaval by writing The Book of Tradition, known as Sefer ha-Qabbalah. This epic on Jewish history from ancient times to the 12th century eulogized Spanish Jewry and reminded readers of a once-thriving culture. No one before had ever attempted to write such a broad history of Jewish civilization. The Book of Tradition is unique and one of the first examples of Jewish historiography. In JPSs edition of this classic work, first published in 1967, renowned scholar Gerson D. Cohen presents his translation of ibn Dauds entire text, as well as commentary and an extensive introduction that masterfully provides context for the reader.
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Astronomer historian philosopher
Abraham ibn Daud was born at Cordoba, Spain about 1110.
Ibn Daud wrote the former work in answer to an attack on rabbinic authority by the Karaites, a heretical Jewish sect that considered only Scripture as authoritative, not the Jewish Oral Law as embodied in the Talmud, the rabbinic compendium of law, lore, and commentary. Thus, he attempted to demonstrate the unbroken chain of rabbinic tradition from Moses, providing much valuable information about contemporary Spanish Jewry, their synagogues, and their religious practices.
Deriving his Aristotelianism from the 11th-century physician and philosopher Avicenna and other Islāmic writers, Ibn Daud intended the Emuna ha-rama as a solution to the problem of free will.
Divided into three sections dealing with physics and metaphysics, religion, and ethics, the Emuna ha-rama was eclipsed by the more precise Aristotelian writings of the 12th-century rabbi Maimonides.
Abraham died in 1180
( An epitaph to the Golden Age of Spanish Jewry Hundreds ...)
