140 r Mark S. Wagner
no connection with reality. For example, two Zaydī law manuals, the Bahr al-zakhkhār
(Ahmad b. Yahyā b. al-Murtadā, Kitāb al-Bahr al-zakhkhār al-jāmi ̔ li-madhāhib ̔ulamā’
al-amsār [San ̔ā’: Dār al-hikmah al-yamāniyah, 1988] = Bahr al-zakhkhār) and the
Sharh al-azhār [ ̔Abdallāh b. Miftāh, al-Muntaza’ al-mukhtār min al-ghayth al-midrār
al-ma ̔rūf bi-sharh al-azhār [Sa ̔dah: al-Jumhuriyyah al-yamaniyyah, Wizārat al- ̔adl,
2003] = Sharh al-azhār), discuss the possibility that a non-Muslim man might marry
a woman during the mandatory waiting period after divorce ( ̔iddah) or that he might
marry his daughter to a relative to whom she was forbidden. Bahr al-zakhkhār 4:147;
Sharh al-azhār 5:138, 262–63, 10:526–27.
Jewish law also mandated a waiting period after a divorce and forbade marriages
between relatives. Therefore, it is difficult to discern any practical import to the sce-
narios described in these Muslim legal works. Gideon Libson, Jewish and Islamic Law: A
Comparative Study of Custom during the Geonic Period, Islamic Legal Studies Program
(Cambridge: Harvard Law School, 2003), 371.
- R. B. Serjeant and Ronald Lewcock, San ̔ā’: An Arabian Islamic City (London:
World of Islam Festival Trust, 1983), 96. - Shalom Gamliel, Bate hakneset be-San ̔ā’ birat teman (Jerusalem: Makhon Shalom
le-shivte yeshurun, 1996–97), 1:39–40. - Yehiel Nahshon, Hanhagat ha-qehilah ha-yehudit be-teman (Me ̔ot 17–18) (Tel
Aviv: Ha-Agudah le-tipuah hevrah ve-tarbut, 2002), 156–58. It seems that in the town of
Hujariyyah, the rabbinic authorities succeeded in their demand that appeals by Jews to
Muslim courts be made with their prior consent. Violators of this rule were fined (ibid.,
137n254). See also Isaac Hollander, “Halakha, Sharī ̔a, and Custom: A Legal Saga from
Highland Yemen, 1990–1940,” in Islamic Law: Theory and Practice, ed. Robert Gleave and
Eugenia Kermeli (London and New York: I. B. Tauris / St. Martin’s Press, 1997), 157–84,
see 157. - Yehudah Ratzhaby, “ ̔Inyane yehudim be-teman be- ̔arkha’ot shel goyim,” in Hiqre
̔ever ve- ̔arav mugashim le-yehoshu ̔ah blau ̔al yede haverav be-melot lo shiv ̔im, ed.
Haggai Ben-Shammai (Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University, 1993), 515–35, see 515–17; Nahshon,
Hanhagat ha-qehilah, 138. - Yosef Tobi, “Yerushat nashim be-hevrah ha-yehudit ve-ha-muslimit,” in Bat Te-
man: ̔Olamah shel ha-ishah ha-yehudiyah, ed. Shalom Serri (Tel Aviv: E ̔eleh be-tamar,
n.d.), 35–50; Nahshon, Hanhagat ha-qehilah, 144, 149–50. - Sometimes one or both Jewish parties turned to Muslim courts to “adjust” the
divorce settlement. In other cases, the Muslim court drew up a document finalizing
the spouses’ financial obligations to one another, and the Bet Din provided a Jewish
document of divorce (a get). Sometimes the Jewish court adjusted the settlement that
had been reached by the Muslim court. Nahshon, Hanhagat ha-qehilah, 141–44; Isaac
Hollander, “Ibra in Highland Yemen: Two Jewish Divorce Settlements,” Islamic Law and
Society 2, no. 1 (1995): 1–23. - The chief exponent of the Dor De ̔ah movement was R. Yahyā al-Qāfih (1849–1932),
who attempted to modernize the educational system of Jews in Yemen by introducing
secular subjects into the curriculum. He also mounted a withering critique on kabbalis-
tic texts and traditions.