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Judaica Online Exhibitions
And We have Revealed to You...
Judeo-Arabic Polemics |
Halper
445.
Fragment from the Cairo Genizah.
[Egypt], 15th century
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The author of this leaf, a fragment from the Cairo Genizah,
refutes the astronomical soundness of the Christian calendar
in general, and of the computation of Easter in particular.
He bases his arguments on the authority of the Egyptian
astronomer Shihab al-Din Ibn al-Majdi (1365-1447; see:
Carl Brockelmann, Geschichte der arabischen Litteratur
II, p. 128). This kind of polemic illustrates the background
to the emergence of a rich and varied polemical literature
in Judeo-Arabic, and its development for many centuries.
It was aimed by Jews against other faiths, and within
Judaism between Karaites and Rabbanites. In fact every
Karaite Halakhic or exegetical work contains extensive
polemical sections. |
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