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

188 r Michael Katz

שיר מרובע מפי הראב”ע

כל אוון ורע לצדיק לא אירע

התחל בנושע וסיים ברשע

הסב בתשע ויצא הרשע.

A song of four lines, Ibn-Ezra composed:

To no ill and harm was the righteous exposed;

Begin with a saved, with a sinner conclude,

Go round by nine, and all malice preclude.

Now let’s all hope and wait for total abolishment of malice, so we can
live in a world of goodness and purity, a world in which Ibn-Ezras and
al-Khwarizmis enrich each other in knowledge and insight, live side by
side in harmony, and contribute together to the advancement of science
and humankind.

Notes

1. See Tony Levy, “Hebrew and Latin Versions of an Unknown Mathematical Text by
   Abraham Ibn Ezra,” Aleph 1 (2001): 295–305, and also Shlomo Sela, Abraham Ibn Ezra
   and the Rise of Medieval Hebrew Science (Boston: Brill, 2003), 21.


2. For the influence on Ibn-Ezra of other Muslim scholars, consult, e.g., chapter 5 in
   Irene Lancaster, Deconstructing the Bible: Abraham Ibn Ezra’s Introduction to the Torah
   (London: Routledge Curzon, 2003) as well as several articles in Isadore Twersky and Jay
   M. Harris, eds., Rabbi Abraham Ibn Ezra: Studies in the Writings of a Twelfth-Century
   Jewish Polymath (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993).


3. For example, S. Gandz, The Mishnat ha-Middot (Berlin: J. Springer, 1932).


4. For example, G. B. Sarfati, “Mishnat ha-Midot,” in H. Ben-Shammai, ed., Heqer
   ̔Ever we- ̔Arav (Tel Aviv and Jerusalem: Tel Aviv University and Hebrew University,
   1993), 463–90 (Hebrew).


5. Mikraot Gedolot (Great Bible Readings), often called the Rabbinic Bible, is a collec-
   tion of traditional biblical exegeses highly revered by Orthodox Jews.


6. Another explanation might be that Ibn-Ezra wants to reserve gematria strictly to
   matters of the utmost glory and mystery, such as God’s name, our concern in the present
   essay.


7. Throughout this essay, the translations (and explanations) are mine, but in some
   places I have consulted H. Norman Strickman and Arthur M. Silver, Ibn Ezra’s Commen-
   tary on the Pentateuch (New York: Menorah, 1996). (Similar explanations and presenta-
   tions can be found in several Hebrew sources, e.g., in the Torat Chaim Chumash, pub-
   lished by Mossad Harav Kook.) I tried to translate quite literally, and hence the English