Jewish Mysticism in the Lands of the Ishmaelites: A Re-Orientation r 151It is against this larger backdrop that we ought to mention the per-
sistent assertion by a number of scholars of early Shi ̔ism, in particular
Paul Kraus, of a notable similarity between the aforementioned merkabah
cosmogonical text SY and the esoteric letter speculations found in eighth-
century Shi ̔ite ghulat teachings. The entire matter has been thoroughly
and positively recapitulated by Steven Wasserstrom.^7 The most compel-
ling comparison involves the central assertion in the SY that the three
Hebrew letters alef-mem-shin, corresponding to the elements Air, Water,
and Fire, constitute “primal” letters from which all other letters are de-
rived, and the ghulat teaching that the three Arabic letters ̔ayin-mim-
shin, corresponding to ̔Ali, Muhammad, and Salman Pak, constitute a
primal hierarchy of divine hypostases. If we were to accept this compari-
son, then we would be forced to reject the more anterior proposals for
the date of the SY’s composition, which is something most contemporary
scholars are hesitant to do. The assertion that the letter doctrine of the SY
is derived from Kufan ghulat teachings may indeed be a bit of philological
overreaching, as Yehuda Liebes forcefully argues.^8 But if this connection
could be affirmed, it would constitute another powerful bit of evidence for
the Islamic background of early Jewish metaphysics.
Rather than begin the charted history of Jewish mysticism in the Mid-
dle East with seventh-century Hijaz, we should look to the ninth century
ce , and we should look toward Baghdad.^9 Four coinciding sets of data
point to this later date: first, the many copied manuscripts of merkabah
texts of Iraqi and Palestinian provenance, most dating no earlier than the
ninth century; second, the emergence of Hebrew liturgical poetry, mainly
in Palestine, and rarely earlier than the ninth century, that takes up merk-
abah themes and imagery; third, the occasional and recurring reports of
Jewish visitors to Baghdadi Sufi sessions and their miraculous conversion
to Islam;^10 and fourth, the reports of either an Iraqi or Palestinian Jewish
scholar, reputed to have traveled from Iraq to Italy, where he left ancient
magical and mystical traditions in the possession of European Jews. These
reports come in multiple and garbled versions and are scattered across
many centuries, but the essence of the tradition is this: a sage traveled
from Baghdad to Italy, and either by oral or textual means, transmitted
esoteric teachings to an elite circle of European rabbinic figures who went
on to found a mystical stream in the Rhineland area. One version of the
story, recorded in a book written by Shem Tov ibn Shem Tov in fifteenth-
century Spain, recounts the travels of a certain Rabbi Qashisha’ (an