From: ehren@orden.cl (Thomas Ehren)
Subject: Maimonides' "Epistle to Yemen": Racist?!
Organization: Orden S.A., Santiago, Chile
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL8]
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1993 01:48:26 GMT


Perhaps it will be good to put Maimonides' "Epistle to Yemen" more
into its historical context. In the follwing, some paragraphs from
Heschel's biography of Maimonides:




The wave of persecutions that dashed across the empire of the
Almohades, southern Spain, and all North Africa broke off in Egypt,
only to hurtle along the southwestern corner of the Arabian peninsula,
in Yemen. Humiliated and despised by the Arabs, these Jews led a
wretched existence. The scource of Islam laid heavy upon them, and
they yearned for the Messiah, for miraculous deliverance. The Mo-
hammedans mocked them and claimed self-assuredly that the Torah had
been superseded by the Koran. But the Jews remained loyal to their 
heritage. Among them, there were always a considerable number who
knew the Torah and studied the law all day long, zealously obser-
ving the commandments. "Their hands were held out to every wayfarer,
their doors stood wide open for strangers, every weary man found rest
in their homes," says Maimonides. But they themselves found little
rest. And now an insurrection among the Arabs once again made the
existence of the Jews questionable. Egypt's abolition of, and 
struggle against, the Shiite creed triggered a reaction in Yemen, the
homeland of the Shiites. Around 1172, two leaders of this sect seized
power in Yemen, and the Jews found themselves in difficulties simi-
lar to those of their brethren in the empire of the Almohades. The
Shiites had always been more intolerant of other faiths than the
Sunnites; they considered every non-Mohammedan an unclean being 
whose touch sullied the faithful. Victorious in Yemen, they resolved
to wipe out the Jews if they did not convert to the Shiite form of
Islam.

Many Jews accepted the Mohammedan religion, and voluntary apostasy
was no rarity in this period: the historical successes of Islam had
made a deep impact, particularly on those who had no Jewish education.
The decline of spiritual development, as caused by the persecutions, 
was followed by apostasy. Judah Halevi had tried to use a historical
basis for the faith in the truth of the Jewish religion. But in the
conditions that prevailed during the epoch, this attitude was highly
perilous. It is thus understandable that Maimonides chose a different
route and sought to put the Jewish teachings on a different foundation.


At approximately this time, when Maimonides was boldly and uprightly 
defending the position of the forced converts, warding off the sneak
attacks of fearful conscience and trying to restore the validity of
the pseudo-converts beyond all doubt, a peculiar adversary was star-
ting to display effectiveness. Samuel, the son of Rabbi Juda ibn Abbas
of Fez, a poet and physicion whose scientific aspiration, as we have seen, 
brought about no improvements in Euclidian geometry. But he did de-
nigrate Jewish teachings and shake up the religious condition of the
Jews. In a book entitled "Silencing the Jews", he tells about two
dreams he allegedly had. In the first dream, the prophet Samuel shows
him several Biblical verses that refer to the coming of Mohammed;
and in the second dream, he actually has a conversation with Mohammed
himself. The dreams then prompted him to go to a Moslem friend the next
morning and inform him that he was converting to Islam. The friend,
absolutely delighted, had him solemnly escorted to the mosque, where
the cleric on the pulpit called out his praises, since he was now being
led to the right path by Allah. The follwing night, he began to set down
his book, which was quickly circulated. He then added many chapters
until, so he thought, it was an outstanding book such as had never 
been written in Islam against the Jews.

The action of the Shiites found support in Ibn Abbas, who now began
to act as missionary among the Jews of Yemen. He, too, practiced the
usual method of proselytizing the Jews; i.e., picking out evidence
from Scriptures in order to beat the Jews with their own weapons.
Thus, violent conversion was now joined by the struggle of persuasion.
The verse in Genesis 17:20 ("And as for Ishmael, I have heard thee:
Behold, I have blessed him, and will make him fruitful, and will mul-
tiply him exceedingly") was applied to the founder of the Islam, since 
the numerological value of the Hebrew word for "exceedingly" was 
equal to that of the name of Mohammed. Evidence of this kind was offered
to prove the authenticity of the Mohammedan mission. Ibn Abbas pro-
claimed to the Yemenite Jews that Mohammed had appeared as a second
prophet in order to replace the Law of Moses and found a new creed
in Mecca.

The insidious strategy of disaster drove the Jews into desperate straits.
Not one of them could strike back at either thrust - the head-on assault
by the Shiites, or the rear attack by the renegade.

Furthermore, one day a man from the people came forth and proclaimed
that the time of salvation was nigh. The good tiding spread rapidly,
the people thronged around the man, and he announced: "The King Messiah
will reveal himself first in Yemen!" And many people gathered about
him, Jews and Arabs. He said he had come as the harbinger of the 
Messiah to pave the way for the Redeemer. He traveled from mountain 
to mountain, calling: "Come and meet the King Messiah!" He worked 
great miracles, he even brought dead people back to life. He introduced
new prayers and practices and he told the people to distribute their
property among the poor, and they did as he bade them.

In his proclamation, the "harbinger of the Messiah" cited the authority
of Saadiah Gaon, who was greatly esteemed in Yemen, and who had computed
the year of salvation. Hope and faith in the Messiah were the other
side of despair. The Jews withstood the present by conjuring up the
end of the world. This irritated the ruling Shiites, who proclaimed
the Imam as the Redeemer; the Messianic delirium became a major po-
litical danger.

Those Yemenite Jews, who were not dominated by fanatic notions felt
an even deeper despair. They saw the "conjunction of the earthly
triplicity," which determined their fate, as an astrological sign 
of their ineluctable doom. Moreover, an astrologer had calculated the 
next conjunction, finding that all seven planets would soon unite
in a constellation and cause an inundation of air and earth.

Merchants from Egypt, arriving in Yemen, told about the erudition of
Maimonides, who lifed in Fostat. Solomon ha-Kohen of Egypt, temporarily
staying in Yemen, lauded his great mentor to the skies. On the other
hand, there was Jacob al Fayyumi, who was probably the son of the author
of the philosophical work "Garden of the Intellects". Having succeeded
the latter as head of the Jewish community in Sana, he was a leading
personality in Yemen. Al Fayyumi was undecided. He did not regard the
"harbinger of the Messiah," who quoted Saadiah, as a deceiver; nor did
he doubt the astrological predictions. He could challenge neither the 
proofs of the mission nor the demands of the Shiites. In his predicament,
he resolved to ask Maimonides for advice and guidance; and he wrote him 
an extensive letter describing the complications.

Maimonides was shaken to the core. The "Confessors of Unity" were raging
in the West, the Shiites were storming in the East; and the Jews,
afflicted on both sides, were virtually between two fires. From the letter,
Maimonides saw that a portion of the people was steadfastly resisting
the danger, while another portion was yielding to grief and skepticism.
Maimonides was crushed under the burden of the sufferings he himself had 
experienced. He prayed with the prophet Amos (7:5): "O Lord God, forgive!...
By whom shall Jacob arise? He is too small." The renegade's attack
challenged the apologist in Maimonides; the Shiite persecution, the 
comforter; the pseudo-Messianic fanaticism and the astrological confusion, 
the enlightener. In his multiple ordeal, he spoke his mind; he stepped 
forward as a courageous defender on all four fronts.

[ Follows an abstract of the epistle.]


(Abraham Joshua Heschel: Maimonides - A biography, New York 1983: Farrar, 
Straus, Giroux; pp. 106ff)




Hope that helps a little


Thomas


--
+------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Thomas Ehren                                                           |
| email: ehren@macha.orden.cl                                            |
+------------------------------------------------------------------------+
Newsgroups: soc.culture.jewish