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

13

Mishaf al-Shbahot—The Holy Book

of Praises of the Babylonian Jews

One Thousand Years of Cultural Harmony

between Judaism and Islam

Merav Rosenfeld-Hadad

After a prolonged stay of nearly 2,600 years in the Diaspora, the Babylo-
nian Jews returned in 1951 to their homeland, the renewed state of Israel.^1
Only three years later, in 1954, they published their first edition of a book
entitled Sefer Shirim Tehilat-Yesharim Hashalem, Pizmonim, Bakashot
Vetishbahot (The Complete Book of Songs, Praise of the Righteous, Songs,
Supplications, and Praises), called also Mishaf al-Shbahot (pl. msāhif, s.
shbah). It was the second comprehensive collection of religious songs cre-
ated by this community.^2 The first was published in Baghdad in 1906.^3
The book comprises poems belonging to all the occasions of the an-
cient para-liturgical practice which functions as a complementary wor-
ship to the main observance of communal occasions, such as the Sabbath
and the three main festivals, Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles, and
life-cycle occasions, such as circumcision and bar mitzvah. These are cel-
ebrated mostly outside the synagogue, by singing each of these poems to
a melody mostly adapted from an existing Arabic song.
This chapter addresses the Mishaf as a book of religious practice with
poems that reflect Jewish life, as an isolated community nourished only by
its own religious and cultural sources. It is also viewed as a collection of
poems that taken together narrate the story of Jewish existence as part of
a larger fabric of social and cultural life, in which a rich and long-lasting