Beguiling Guidance
Zechariah Alḍāhirī’s Sefer Hamusar, a Hebrew Maqāma from 16th-Century Yemen
Series: Études sur le judaïsme médiéval; 101;
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Product details:
- Publisher BRILL
- Date of Publication 2 October 2025
- ISBN 9789004733794
- Binding Hardback
- No. of pages564 pages
- Size 235x155 mm
- Weight 1081 g
- Language English 692
Categories
Short description:
Beguiling Guidance, the first full-length study of Sefer hamusar, critically examines the social-historical, philosophical, kabbalistic, and literary aspects of the only Hebrew picaresque maqāma to emerge from late medieval Yemen, and provides a comprehensive introduction to the rich culture and literary creativity of pre-modern Yemenite Jewry.
MoreLong description:
The only Hebrew picaresque maqāma from Yemen, Sefer hamusar captivates its readers with trickster tales of wandering and adventure while offering moral guidance and a spiritual ascent via kabbalistic study. In Beguiling Guidance, Adena Tanenbaum explores these tensions, along with the literary, social-historical, philosophical, and kabbalistic aspects of Sefer hamusar, and situates the work in its broader 16th-century framework. Applying a fresh reading, she analyzes Alḍāhirī’s maqāma as a rich repository of intellectual history; treats his travel narratives as composites of fiction and fact; and uncovers the cultural assumptions and self-definitions underlying his representations of Muslims, which she shows to be far more variegated and nuanced than previously acknowledged. Beguiling Guidance should appeal to readers interested in transregional cultural exchange and the diffusion of texts; pre-modern fiction and travel writing; and Muslim-Jewish power relations in the late medieval/early modern Middle East. It also serves as an introduction to the vibrant culture of a Jewish community that traced its presence in South Arabia back to antiquity.
MoreTable of Contents:
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1 Historical Context
2 Medieval Versus Early Modern
3 Authorial Sensibilities
4 Distinguishing Features of Sefer hamusar
5 Literary Continuities and New Departures
6 Kabbalah and Philosophy
7 Receptivity to Printed Books
8 A Unique Case?
9 Earlier Perspectives on Sefer hamusar
10 Postscript: Sefer hamusar as Auto/biography Manqu&&&x00E9;?
11 Chapter Outline
1 Literary Dimensions: Maq&&&x0101;ma, Musar, Narrative and Poetic Techniques
1 Setting the Scene: Author&&&x2019;s Introduction
2 The Maq&&&x0101;ma Genre
3 The Idea of Fiction in Medieval Arabic and Hebrew Literature
4 Sefer hamusar: Structure, Texts, and Paratexts
5 Stylistic and Narrative Techniques
6 The Role of the Formal Poems
2 Travel in Many Guises: Journeys Real and Imagined
1 Reassessing Pre-modern Arabic and Hebrew Travel Narratives
2 Toponyms
3 Reading the Travel Accounts in Sefer hamusar
4 Arabic and Hebrew Antecedents to the Travel Narratives
5 Links between Framing Itineraries and Embedded Tales
6 Symbolic Links: Damascus
7 Thematic and Lexical Links: &&&x1E24;a&&&x1E0D;ramawt
8 Socio-Cultural Relevance: Cochin
9 Stasis and Movement: Writing from Prison
10 Al&&&x1E0D;&&&x0101;hir&&&x012B;&&&x2019;s Conception of Space
11 Periphery and Center
12 Stimuli to Travel in Sefer Hamusar
13 Mobility and the Diffusion of Religious Knowledge and Practices
14 Journeying and Questions of Identity
15 The Significance of Place Names
16 Cultural Orbits of the Travel
17 Crossing Boundaries and Depicting Other Jewish Subcultures
18 Other Eastern Jews
19 Ashkenazim
20 Romaniots?
3 A Distinctive Sense of Self: Transregional Contacts with Jews in the Land of Israel
1 Introduction
2 Encounters with the Emissary from the Holy Land
3 Talmud Study in the Land of Israel
4 Ottoman Sephardi Dominance
5 Pronunciation as a Marker of Difference
6 The Impact of Print Culture
4 Representations of Muslims: Perspectives on the Dominant Faith
1 Techniques of Representation
2 Conclusion: Historical and Imaginary Muslims
5 Didacticism or Literary Legerdemain? Philosophy, Ethics, and the Picaresque
1 Philosophical and Medical Conceptions of the Soul: The &&&x201C;Internal Senses&&&x201D;
2 The Soul&&&x2019;s Moral Qualities
3 A Poetic Coda
4 Reliable Transmission?
5 Pietist Pose
6 Medical Imposture and Abstract Cures
7 Sham Preachers and Moral Ambiguities
6 A Conduit for Kabbalah: Belles-Lettres as a Medium for Mysticism
1 The Kabbalistic Chapters
2 Al&&&x1E0D;&&&x0101;hir&&&x012B; as a Conduit for Kabbalistic Learning and its Reception in Yemen
3 Al&&&x1E0D;&&&x0101;hir&&&x012B;&&&x2019;s Relationship to Lurianic Kabbalah and the Poetry of the Safed Mystics
4 Recurrent Kabbalistic Themes
5 The Interplay between Kabbalistic and Narrative Elements
6 Conclusions
7 The Urge to Be Immortalized: Auto-Epitaphs, Eulogies, and the Afterlife of Sefer hamusar
1 The Conflation of Author and Protagonists
2 The Structural Function of the Epitaphs
3 The Epitaph: Apology or Swan Song?
Bibliography
Indices
Map Use & Analysis
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