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Ezekiel's Tomb (al-Kifl)
(707 words)
The traditional tomb of the biblical prophet Ezekiel is situated in the village of al-Kifl (coll. Ir. Ar. al-Chifl) on the Euphrates River, 32 kilometers (20 miles) south of the town of Hilla in central Iraq. The name of the town is from Ezekiel’s epithet of Dhū ʾl-Kifl (the Guarantor) in Islamic lore (Ezekiel, Ar. Ḥizqīl, is not mentioned in the Qurʾān). The first known mention of the tomb is in the Epistle of Sherira Gaon (
Iggeret Rav Sherira Gaʾon) in the tenth century. Benjamin of Tudela visited the shrine around 1170 (Adler ed., pp. 67-68). His account notes that “people come from a distanc…
Mahdiyya, al-
(520 words)
Al-Mahdiyya is a coastal city in present-day Tunisia, 200 kilometers (124 miles) south of Tunis, founded by the first Fatimid caliph, ʿUbayd Allāh al-Mahdī (r. 909–934), to be his capital in place of Qayrawan. The establishment of a capital on the coast represented a singular break with Islamic tradition, which since the time of the conquests in the seventh century was to build new urban administrative centers inland away from the Byzantine Sea (as the Mediterranean was called). Al-Mahdiyya did not replace Qayrawan …
Blood libels
(11 words)
see Anti-Judaism/Antisemitism/Anti-Zionism; Damascus Affair (1840) Norman A. Stillman
Maqāma (- āt) (poetic form)
(17 words)
see Music, al-Ḥarīzī, Judah ben Solomon (c. 1166-1225) Norman A. Stillman
Court Jews
(3,572 words)
As throughout Diaspora history, there were Jews in the Islamic world from the Middle Ages up to and including the modern era who served as officials and retainers at the courts of Muslim rulers. They served in much the same capacities as their coreligionists who served at courts in medieval Western Europe and in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Central Europe as physicians, advisers, bankers, and purveyors of goods and services to the ruler. Like their European counterparts, they often acted as intermediaries (Eur. Heb.
shtadlanim) with the authorities on behalf of their brethren. Jewish legal authorities took into account the special role played by Jewish courtiers and granted some leniency to them when it was necessary for them to observe Gentile protocols rather than Jewish norms with regard to their clothing and beards. The Midrash explains that Joseph “shaved and changed his clothes” when summoned by Pharaoh “in order to pay honor to the kingdom” (Genesis Rabba 89:9). The Talmud permits the cutting of the hair in Gentile fashion and the studying of Greek wi…