David ben Abraham al-Fasi ( he, דוד בן אברהם אלפאסי) was a medieval
Jewish
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
Fez
Fez most often refers to:
* Fez (hat), a type of felt hat commonly worn in the Ottoman Empire
* Fez, Morocco (or Fes), the second largest city of Morocco
Fez or FEZ may also refer to:
Media
* ''Fez'' (Frank Stella), a 1964 painting by the moder ...
, living in the second half of the 10th century (died before 1026 CE), who eventually settled in the Land of Israel where he is believed to have composed his
magnum opus
A masterpiece, ''magnum opus'' (), or ''chef-d’œuvre'' (; ; ) in modern use is a creation that has been given much critical praise, especially one that is considered the greatest work of a person's career or a work of outstanding creativity, ...
. He belonged to the sect of the Karaites, and displayed skills as a grammarian and commentator.
Al-Fasi was the author of ''Kitāb Jāmiʿ al-Alfāẓ'' ("The Book of Collected Meanings"), one of the earliest known
Judeo-Arabic
Judeo-Arabic dialects (, ; ; ) are ethnolects formerly spoken by Jews throughout the Arabic-speaking world. Under the ISO 639 international standard for language codes, Judeo-Arabic is classified as a macrolanguage under the code jrb, enco ...
Hebrew Bible
The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach" '' dictionary of biblical Hebrew. He classifies the roots according to the number of their letters, as did the grammarians prior to Judah Hayyūj.
Method of elucidation
Scholars have pointed out that David ben Abraham al-Fasi, in all the controversies between the
Rabbanites
Rabbinic Judaism ( he, יהדות רבנית, Yahadut Rabanit), also called Rabbinism, Rabbinicism, or Judaism espoused by the Rabbanites, has been the mainstream form of Judaism since the 6th century CE, after the codification of the Babylonian ...
(''rabbanim'') and the Karaites (''maskilim''), invariably sides with the latter, often criticizing the views of the former. His method is concise, bringing down the definition of words as understood by his contemporaries, without mentioning them by name. The only authority that he mentions by name (twice) is
Saadia Gaon
Saʻadiah ben Yosef Gaon ( ar, سعيد بن يوسف الفيومي ''Saʻīd bin Yūsuf al-Fayyūmi''; he, סַעֲדְיָה בֶּן יוֹסֵף אַלְפַיּוּמִי גָּאוֹן ''Saʿăḏyāh ben Yōsēf al-Fayyūmī Gāʾōn''; ...
, whom he calls ''Al-Fayyumi''. Although in many cases, Al-Fasi's method of elucidation is similar to that of Saadia Gaon, in other areas of elucidation he does not withhold his criticism from Saadia Gaon's method, without naming him explicitly. Early rabbinic sources, such as the
Aramaic Targum
A targum ( arc, תרגום 'interpretation, translation, version') was an originally spoken translation of the Hebrew Bible (also called the ''Tanakh'') that a professional translator ( ''mǝturgǝmān'') would give in the common language of the ...
of
Onkelos
Onkelos ( he, אֻנְקְלוֹס ''ʾunqəlōs''), possibly identical to Aquila of Sinope, was a Roman national who converted to Judaism in Tannaic times ( 35–120 CE). He is considered to be the author of the Targum Onkelos ( 110 C ...
and of
Jonathan ben Uzziel
Jonathan ben Uzziel ( he, יונתן בן עוזיאל) was one of the 80 ''tannaim'' who studied under Hillel the Elder during the time of Roman-ruled Judea. A book of kabbalah known as ''Sefer Migdanim'' has been attributed to him.
Jonathan ben ...
are alluded to by his use of such titles as ''al-Targum'', ''al-Suriani'' and ''al-Mutarjim''.
In
Hebrew
Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
grammar, al-Fasi is known to have distinguished between the “šoršiyyot” (radical letters; lexical roots) and the “šimušiyyot” (theoretical roots; servile letters), but gave to them no
mnemonics
A mnemonic ( ) device, or memory device, is any learning technique that aids information retention or retrieval (remembering) in the human memory for better understanding.
Mnemonics make use of elaborative encoding, retrieval cues, and imager ...
.
Anecdotes on Jewish history
Al-Fasi records that
Jews
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
Jerusalem
Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...
, were permitted to pray at the
gates of the Temple Mount
The Temple Mount, located in Jerusalem, has twelve gates, one of which, Bab as-Sarai, is now closed to the public but was open during Ottoman rule. There are also six other sealed gates. This does not include the Gates of the Old City of Jerusa ...
, which hitherto had been denied Jews living under the Byzantines.''The Hebrew-Arabic Dictionary of the Bible, Known as `Kitāb Jāmiʿ al-Alfāẓ` (Agron) of David ben Abraham al-Fasi'' (ed. Solomon L. Skoss), Yale University Press: New Haven 1936, vol. 1, (Introduction), p. oman numeralxxxix–x
Al-Fasi's dictionary was later abridged by the philologist Levi b. Yefet, a native of Jerusalem, and his abridgment was, in turn, epitomized by 'Alī b. Suleimān, also of Jerusalem.
Partially preserved works
*Translations of the
Pentateuch
The Torah (; hbo, ''Tōrā'', "Instruction", "Teaching" or "Law") is the compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, namely the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. In that sense, Torah means the ...
Lamentations
The Book of Lamentations ( he, אֵיכָה, , from its incipit meaning "how") is a collection of poetic laments for the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BCE. In the Hebrew Bible it appears in the Ketuvim ("Writings") as one of the Five Megillo ...