248 r Merav Rosenfeld-Hadad
Islamic civilization as well as periods of decline. It covers all times and
places in which Jews created and performed this genre under the wings
of the Arabo-Islamic civilization, which had given birth to this genre and
nourished its poetic and musical features through the entire second mil-
lennium. The first two periods are the formative and classical periods of
medieval Islam and Judeo-Arabic culture. The third period was the last
of the great periods of Islamic culture, when the large and creative Jewish
communities were scattered throughout the Ottoman Empire. And the
fourth and last period represents the final phase of Judeo-Arabic life in
Arab lands.
The Arabo-Islamic Culture as Reflected in the Mishaf
It would be almost impossible to portray in the framework of a single
study the influence of Arabo-Islamic culture and religion on the entire
collection of the PLSs in the Mishaf, in all its complexity and variety. The
aim of this study is more limited. Instead, four prominent poets will rep-
resent each of the four periods described above. Dunash Ben Labrat (915–
70) represents the first period in ̔Abbasid Baghdad. Shlomoh Ibn Gabirol
(1020–57) represents the second period in Muslim Spain and Israel Ben
Mosheh Najarah (1555–1625) represents the third period, in the Ottoman
Empire, mainly in the Middle East, including North Africa. Hakham Yo-
sef Hayyim Ben Eliyah al-Hakham (1835–1909) represents the last period,
mostly in Baghdad, then still under the rule of the Ottoman Empire.
The work of each of these poets is significant in both the history of He-
brew religious poetry, and in reflecting the influence of the Arabo-Islamic
culture on this poetry. The following sections give a general account of
the various aspects of this influence on the work of each of the four poets,
illustrated by one each of their poems, all of which are analyzed here in
this inclusive manner for the first time.
̔Abbasid Baghdad and Dunash Ben Labrat
In 762, during the reign of the caliph al-Mansur (754–75), Baghdad grew
from a small suburb near the capital of the Sassanid Empire, Ctesiphon,
into the capital of the caliphs of the ̔Abbasid dynasty. The small com-
munity of Jews, who had lived there from the third century, gradually
expanded and became the largest Jewish urban community in the area