The Case of the Kuhlānī Synagogue in San ̔ā’, 1933–1944 r 129non-revenue-generating enterprises. For example, stores, fields, or rental
properties are designated as part of a waq f, along with a mosque or reli-
gious academy whose upkeep is financed by them.
Islamic law forbids making synagogues into pious endowments.^14 R.
Qorah was probably aware of this. Therefore, by translating heqdesh as
waq f he hoped that the Muslim ruler would decide that the synagogue
was privately owned, thereby denying the reformers a platform. His op-
ponent, R. al-Jamal, was in a quandary. He knew that waq f is the best
translation of heqdesh and that Islamic law prohibits designating a syna-
gogue as a pious endowment. He also argued that the private ownership of
synagogues is forbidden in Jewish law and thus he could not, for the time
being, countenance putting forward a competing private property claim.^15
Not to be outmaneuvered by his opponent, R. al-Jamal translated heqdesh
as ibāhah (public property),^16 an innovative translation that triggered an
angry backlash from many of the most prominent Muslim jurists in Ye-
men and from rank-and-file Muslims who heard sermons denouncing his
clever translation—and him—in the mosques of San ̔ā’.^17
The dispute over the Kuhlānī Synagogue quickly spread to eight other
synagogues in the city, each of which faced a conflict between those
claiming “public property” in the name of the reformist faction and those
claiming private ownership in the name of the anti-reformist faction.
From 1933 to 1944 the two factions (within the rabbinic leadership) pur-
sued their claims to authority in Sharī ̔ah courts.
By taking their claims concerning San ̔ā’’s synagogues to Muslim
courts, the two Jewish factions threatened the survival of all of the ap-
proximately twenty synagogues in San ̔ā’ because their Islamic legality
was dubious. The Pact of ̔Umar stipulates that non-Muslims may not
build new houses of worship. Whether or not they may renovate or re-
build existing synagogues was a source of disagreement.^18 At two points
in Yemeni history, 1668 and 1762, Zaydī imāms destroyed the synagogues
of San ̔ā’.^19 Several synagogues were also destroyed or looted during tribal
rampages in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that were uncon-
nected to these decrees.^20 In short, any synagogue in existence in early
twentieth-century San ̔ā’ could not have been built before the eighteenth
century at the earliest.
Some Muslims viewed the upheaval within the Jewish community
caused by the controversy over synagogues as a harm that outweighed