254 r Merav Rosenfeld-Hadad
mysticism). He transplanted neo-Platonism into Hebrew poetry without
any feeling of contradiction between his Jewish religious beliefs and his
philosophical outlook (Guttmann 1964, 89).
This same idea also appears in the early Sufi mystic and ascetic poetry,
called zuhdiyyāt (ascetic poems, s. zuhdiyya, from the verb zahada, to re-
nounce or to turn away from)(Levin 1986, 136). This genre was developed
in the early Islamic period and became the favourite poetic style during
the first years of the new Muslim empire, especially at the beginning of the
̔Abbasid dynasty in the eighth century (Stern 1974, 81). In a varied num-
ber of rhymes and metered lines, ranging from less than ten to over forty,
written in simple language, these poems convey the vigorous attempt of
the worshipper to come closer to God.
Levin (1986, 95) states without any equivocation that Sufi mysticism
had a strong impact on Ibn Gabirol’s life and work. He was the first poet of
Hebrew religious poetry to adopt the zuhdiyyāt genre, including its ideas,
not only in his poetry but also in his other works. He was influenced, in
particular, by the zuhd, the idea of the rejection of material comforts in
order to pursue personal contemplation and meditation, and he eventu-
ally adapted this concept as a way of life. Cole (2001, 30) raises only briefly
the possibility that Ibn Gabirol was the first Jewish Sufi.
Ibn Gabirol was the first Hebrew poet to shape his philosophical and
mystical ideas in a form that was entirely influenced by the imagery and
prosody of Arabic love poetry. He used it as a model for his description of
the love between God and the people of Israel, particularly for expressing
an intimate and direct appeal of the individual believer to God (Scheind-
lin 1991, 37; 1994:109). The religious state of the worshipper was one of
the most important ideas that occupied the Hebrew religious poets of
Muslim Spain (Levin 1986, 92). According to Scheindlin (1991, 139), it was
completely inspired and influenced by Arabo-Islamic ideas prevalent at
that time. Ibn Gabirol’s act, in this respect, is considered a radical develop-
ment, because it demanded an absolute abandonment of the early Hebrew
hymnology in both form and content (Levin 1986, 119).^8
The Muwashshah
Ibn Gabirol was the first Hebrew poet to write poems in the muwashshah
genre (Schirmann 1998, 316). In his time, this genre was disdained by clas-
sical and prominent poets, Jews as well as Muslims, as it was considered to