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

242 r Merav Rosenfeld-Hadad

discourse between Judaism and Islam took place in many aspects of life
and scholarship. This is a story of one thousand years of Hebrew religious
poetry, its poets, and its carriers, the Babylonian Jews. In essence, this is
also the story of the para-liturgical song (PLS) of any other Arab-Jewish
community: all members of such communities are familiar with this rep-
ertoire, and its performance practice is as pivotal in their lives as it is for
the Babylonian Jews.

1. The Poems of the Mishaf

The Mishaf contains 371 poems of various genres. Most are written in He-
brew, but there are also poems in the Judeo-Arabic vernacular, Aramaic,
and Turkish, all written in the Hebrew alphabet. For most poems, the
author of the text is not named. These poems contain religious themes,
which express communal or private supplication, petition, and confession
to God, called Baqashah (supplication, pl. Baqashot). They also express
adoration, thanksgiving, intercession, and praise of God, called Shbah.

2. Musical Information Given in the Mishaf

The scant musical information given in this book is scattered over a few
headings of the poems. Only 15 out of the 371 poems have headings with
musical information of any sort. Each such heading includes a recom-
mended melody, which is indicated by the opening words of another
poem. There are no particular qualities shared by these songs that appear
to differentiate them from the other songs in the Mishaf. Furthermore,
this musical information does not assist in tracing the original melody of
a specific song. However, it reveals the rich sources from which the melo-
dies are borrowed. They can be taken from other para-liturgical poems
that appear in the Mishaf, from hymns that belong to the liturgy or other
religious practices, and from secular Arabic songs.

3. The Emergence of the PLS

The poems of the Mishaf show clearly that the history of the text of the
PLS is not necessarily the history of the PLS as a distinct religious genre.
Shiloah (1992, 111) describes the emergence of the piyyut, a religious sung