Concepts of Scripture among the Jews of the Medieval Islamic World 83is refl ected in documentary sources such as letters and book lists as well
as in new genres that permeate medieval Judaeo-Arabic and Hebrew lit-
erature. While Karaites were the fi rst to respond to and to ride the wave of
this new literacy, ultimately these developments inspired new conceptions
of the Bible among Rabbanites as well.3 Th e term “Judaeo-Arabic” serves
herein in its wider sense, to designate the unique culture of the Jews of
Islamic lands, and not only in its stricter linguistic sense as a description of
the type of Middle Arabic which the Jews were accustomed to transcribe
into Hebrew letters.
Common Denominators: Th e Role of Scripture and
Its Relationship with Oral Tradition in
Medieval Judaeo-Arabic Culture
Despite their diff erences, the Jewish commentators, Karaite and Rabbinate,
who wrote works on the Bible in the Arabic language share several charac-
teristics which justify grouping them under the designation “the Judaeo-
Arabic school of biblical exegesis.” Th e interpretive endeavor of the rab-
binic Sages had previously been a collective one, expressed in midrashic
anthologies and talmudic tractates whose editors and collators oft en re-
mained anonymous. As of the 9th century, more and more Jews authored
their own exegetical works on the Bible which bore their name as authors.
Th ough this practice was known among Hellenistic Jewish writers, it be-
came largely antithetical to rabbinic tradition at large, which tended to de-
emphasize personal authorship. Th e Judaeo-Arabic exegetes inaugurated a
lasting form of individual programmatic exegesis among the Jews in that
they strove to comment on all of the biblical books equally and from an
individual standpoint. Th ey prefaced their works with introductions which
openly described their approach and methodology in relation to those of
contemporaries and predecessors. Th e individual book-form composition
also accounted for the personal communication of the author and reader.
Th e latter is oft en constructed as the internal addressee of the exegetical
process. Strewn throughout these commentaries are also various state-
ments in which the exegete reminds the reader of his reasoning, albeit in
relation to past traditions and contemporary views. Some of these views
are cited within the context of an oral culture of biblical learning as “what
we heard,” while others are cited in the context of written culture as “what
we read.” Structurally, this novel genre emulated Arabic (Islamic) models of