The swift spread of seventh-century Islamic conquest united the vast majority of Jews under one empire and language – Arabic – and revolutionized the Jewish bookshelf forever. What became of the jewels of Judeo-Arabic literature?

Both Judaism and the Jewish bookshelf were profoundly shaped by several centuries of prolific composition in Arabic by Jews – Judeo-Arabic literature. Much more than a minor dialect in which certain families read the Haggada every Passover, Judeo-Arabic is in fact one of the most important languages in Jewish history.

Judeo-Arabic was the written language of Jews for more than 1,200 years. The beginning of this era, between approximately the ninth and thirteenth centuries, was a broad and innovative period of Jewish scholarship in Arabic. These innovations were based on the Arabic language, which had become a central conduit of culture and scholarship following the Islamic conquests of the seventh century. Arabic was also the native tongue of the vast majority of the world’s Jews during this time, and Jewish scholarship embarked upon a mutually enriching relationship with the world at large. Arabic was the language of choice for that extensive intellectual dialogue. 

Judeo-Arabic is the Arabic language as used and written by Jews. Like many other Jewish languages – Yiddish and Ladino being the best-known – it’s generally written in Hebrew characters. In one very important respect, however, Judeo-Arabic stands alone among the Jewish languages of our history. Jews adopted Arabic not only for everyday communication but also for intellectual discourse, both religious and secular. Their Arabic was unique, often including words or adapted words in Aramaic or Hebrew, but its users were largely striving to write in a polished literary Arabic that would have been understood by non-Jewish contemporaries as well. In adopting Arabic for their scholarship, they were acculturating to the language of high culture, in which the era’s greatest breakthroughs in science, medicine, philosophy, theology, and more were made.

Through a lengthy and gradual process, Judeo-Arabic scholarship developed and flourished, transforming Jewish scholarship and culture. Judeo-Arabic texts ranged from personal correspondence to highly sophisticated prose, from both Karaite and rabbinic theological works to stories and legal documents. Some Jewish texts in Judeo-Arabic were rendered in Arabic characters, giving rise to halakhic discussions about the permissibility of reading such material on the Sabbath. In light of this diversity, here we will focus on Arabic works written in Hebrew letters (as opposed to spoken Judeo-Arabic, an entirely different field). 

 

Language of Conquest

How did the majority of Jews become native Arabic speakers after roughly a millennium in which Aramaic dominated Jewish culture? Arabic spread not only among Jews but across the entire Near East, alongside the rapid advance of the religion that came to be called Islam. Islam was a creation of the early seventh century CE, when a charismatic preacher named Muhammad began promoting his new monotheistic faith. By mid-century, his believers and their armies were conquering large areas formerly ruled by the Sassanian, Roman, and Byzantine empires.

Perhaps even more impressive, the language of these small, tribal forces from the Arabian Peninsula simultaneously “conquered” regions long unified by the lingua franca of Aramaic. North Africa too underwent this linguistic transition, with Arabic arriving on the heels of the victorious Islamic armies. 

These changes were extremely significant for the roughly 90 percent of world Jewry residing in the Near East and North Africa. Far-flung Jewish communities once divided among various empires were now unified politically. 

The linguistic shifts were even more resounding. Dating from the century or two following the Islamic conquests, a variety of Jewish historical sources enable us to follow the gradual and increasing adoption of Arabic by the Jewish population of the Near East. For instance, a letter to Natronai Gaon – head of the Babylonian Talmudic academy in the mid-ninth century – documents one community’s request for permission to read an Arabic translation of the Torah in synagogue rather than the traditional Aramaic Targum Onkelos. Natronai responded unequivocally:  

Those who do not read the [Aramaic] Targum but say, “We should not read the rabbinic Targum, but rather should translate [the Torah] into our own language, the language that the congregation can understand,” have not fulfilled their obligation. […] If they do not read the Targum out of defiance, they should be excommunicated, and if [they do not read it] because they are not capable of reading the Aramaic translation, they should learn to do so, and read the Targum, and so fulfill their obligation. (Responsa of Rabbi Natronai bar Hilai Gaon, ed. Robert Brody [Ofek Institute, 2011], pp. 152–54 [Hebrew])

Within a generation or two, however, Natronai Gaon’s successor, the renowned Sa‘adya Gaon (882–942), had composed not one but two Judeo-Arabic translations of the Torah, which became standard among Jews as well as certain Arabic-speaking Christian groups (the Copts, for example).

The ninth century also offers numerous examples of early JudeoArabic texts – letters, Bible study aids (such as glossaries), and halakhic handbooks – all attesting to the growing use of Arabic and its importance for Jewish communities throughout the Islamic world. By the tenth century, Judeo-Arabic had become the main language unifying Jews in the Middle East and around the Mediterranean, and the one preferred by any scholar aiming for the broadest possible audience.