AN ALMOHAD “FUNDAMENTALIST”? 71
plained to everyone according to his capacity, and ought to be
inculcated in virtue of traditional authority upon children, women,
stupid ones, and those of defective natural disposition, just as they
adopt the notion that God is one.^78Maimonides, just like the Almohads, identifi ed true mono theism with a
noncorporeal perception of God. Although he states unambiguously that
this understanding should be instructed to all, regardless of their intellec-
tual capacity, one could argue that the Guide is a philosophical book,
accessible only to the elite. Maimonides, however, also included this opin-
ion among the thirteen principles, the belief in which are preconditions
for belonging to the Jewish people. Here, too, the Almohad catechism, the
aqida, must have served as an important model for Maimonides.^79
It is interesting to observe the development of Maimonides’ position in
this respect, and to follow its hardening. In his Commentary on the Mish-
nah he mentions the special rank of Moses’ prophecy, and dwells briefl y
on God’s saying [Num. 12:8]: “With him I speak mouth to mouth.” This
verse, says Maimonides, calls for an explanation, but the explanation re-
quires a lengthy discussion of subtle matters, which he promises to offer
elsewhere, in a separate work (which he never wrote). His list of “subtle
matters” includes the angels and the soul, as well as the forms that the
prophets attribute to God and to His angels. In an early version of this
text Maimonides said that the issue to be discussed “includes also the
measurement of [the divine] stature and its meaning” (wa- yandariju fi
dhalikashiur qomawa- manahu). This statement, which does not appear
in Maimonides’ later recension of the same text, is usually understood as
alluding to the book called Shiur Qoma—a mystical, exegetical elabora-
tion on the anthropomorphic descriptions of God. It is further assumed
that the allusion discloses his belief at that stage of his life that this book
was an authentic composition by the Sages, or a later composition of
some value, a belief that he later abandoned.^80
One should fi rst note that Maimonides does not mention the book at
all, but only the imagery referring to the divine mea surement. Neverthe-
less, he probably associated the Hebrew words shiur qoma with the
book, as he knew his readers would. There is, however, nothing in his
(^78) Guide, 1.35 (Dalala, 54– 55; Pines, 81).
(^79) As suggested already by Heinemann, “Maimuni und die arabischen Einheitslehrer,” and
S. Pines, “A Lecture on The Guide of the Perplexed,” Iyyun 47 (1998): 116 [Hebrew].
(^80) See J. Qafih note to the Commentary on the Mishnah, “Introduction,” in Pereq Heleq,
note 42 on 213; and see, for instance, S. Lieberman, Appendix D [Hebrew] to G. Scholem,
Jewish Gnosticism, Merkabah Mysticism and Talmudic Tradition (New York, 1965), 124;
Shelat,Epistles, 578 and note 3; Twersky, Introduction to the Code, 54 and note 84, and
note 39 on 369.