The Convergence of Judaism and Islam. Religious, Scientific, and Cultural Dimensions

128 r Mark S. Wagner

both Muslim and Jewish courts because one or both parties perceived an
advantage in involving a Muslim court in their case.^7
In early December 1933, the rabbi of the Kuhlānī Synagogue in San ̔ā’,
Yūsuf Sālīh, decided, with the support of most of his congregation, to
change the synagogue’s prayer rite. The decision to change the rite re-
flected the congregation’s new orientation toward a movement for the
reform of Judaism in Yemen, called Dor De ̔ah.^8 Adherents of the Dor
De ̔ah movement sought to purge Judaism of kabbalistic concepts em-
bedded in Sephardic (called “Shāmī” in Yemen) prayers and liturgical
practices.^9 Three congregants objected vociferously to the change. In re-
sponse to the disorder that ensued, Imām Yahyā ordered the synagogue
closed.^10 For the next two years a man whose authority was respected by
both factions, Yahyā Abyad, served as chief rabbi, but his death in 1935
rekindled the conflict.
Sālih b. Yahyā Sālih, one of the three congregants who in 1933 had ob-
jected to the change in rite, was also the cousin of the rabbi who initiated
the change. He went to a Muslim court and claimed ownership of the
synagogue. By bringing the issue to a Muslim court, he sought to gainsay
any claims to leadership advanced by R. Yūsuf Sālih (his cousin), the ma-
jority of the congregants, and the Dor De ̔ah movement. If the synagogue
was his private property, he was entitled to determine the ground rules.^11
Imām Yahyā requested the assistance of R. Sālim Saīd al-Jamal (1907–
2001), one of his point men on Jewish affairs and a figure in the Dor De ̔ah
movement.^12 Imām Yahyā asked al-Jamal to translate into Arabic certain
Hebrew documents relating to the legal status of the synagogue. In the
interest of fairness he asked a rabbi from the opposing faction, ‘Amram
Qorah, to translate the same documents. When R. Qorah encountered the
Hebrew term heqdesh (consecrated property), mentioned in connection
with the synagogue, he translated the term as “waq f” (pious endowment).
This was an idiomatic translation. It was a logical claim as the Jewish legal
concept of heqdesh (consecrated property) had evolved among Yemen’s
Jews into a virtual mirror image of the Muslim concept of a waq f.^13
In Islam, waq f property is distinguished from both private property
and public property (such as a road or stream). Its founder’s designation
of the property, motivated by religious intention, causes the waq f prop-
erty to cease (the meaning of waq f) from being bought, sold, inherited,
or taxed. Waq f property usually includes both revenue-generating and