395 messianism Mesopotamian Zionist Committee (Baghdad) he Mesopotamian Zionist Committee (Heb. ha-Aguda ha-Sˢiyyonit le-Aram Naharayim; Ar. al-Jamʚiyya al-Sˢahyūniyya li-Bilād al-Rāidayn) was founded in → Baghdad on March 5, 1921, with the assistance of the Jewish Agency. he head of the committee, Aaron Sasson ben Eliahu Nahum (1877–1962), known as ha-more (Heb. the teacher), is considered to have been the irst Iraqi Jewish exponent of political Zionism. he committee took over the club and library of the Jewish Literary Society (Ar. al-Jamiʚiyya al-Adabiyya al-Isrāʙīliyya) and pressed the Zionist cause in → Iraq. Zionist associations were also set up in → Basra, ʚAmara, Khanaqin, and Irbil, and despite lack of formal recognition by the government were able to operate freely. Following the publication of the Law of Associations in July 1922, the committee submitted a request for oicial permission to engage in its activities, but the minister of interior did not grant the request until 1924, arguing that an Arab government could not permit activities contrary to Arab interests. Due to Zionist pressure on Sir John E. Shuckburgh of the British Colonial Oice, the Iraqi authorities agreed to turn a blind eye to Zionist activities in Baghdad and Basra so long as they were conducted in secret. he committee’s program included courses in Hebrew and other subjects, generally held in the Pardes Yeladim School (established in 1923). In 1935, as the situation in Palestine escalated, all Zionist activity in Iraq was banned. Bibliography Cohen, Hˢ ayyim J. Zionist Activity in Iraq (Jerusalem: Jewish Agency, 1969), pp. 41–45 [Hebrew]. Meir, Yosef. Beyond the Desert: Underground Activities in Iraq, 1941–1951 (Tel Aviv: Ministry of Defense, 1973), pp. 16–22 [Hebrew]. Snir, Reuven. Arabness, Jewishness, Zionism: A Clash of Identities in the Literature of Iraqi Jews (Jerusalem: Ben-Zvi Institute, 2005), pp. 39n, 419, 455n [Hebrew]. Stillman, Norman A. he Jews of Arab Lands in Modern Times (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society), pp. 86–87, 334–336, 340–344. Reuven Snir Messianism 1. Messianic movements in the Medieval period By the advent of Islam in the early seventh century, the messianic idea was already irmly established as a central tenet of Judaism in its broadest (i.e., pan-sectarian) sense—as famously dogmatized and concisely expressed in → Maimonides’s hirteen Principles (or Fundamentals) (thalātha ʚashrata qāʚida) of faith, the twelth of which is “Believing and airming the coming of [the Messiah], and not [thinking] that he is tardy—but rather, ‘should he tarry, you shall wait for him expectantly’ (Habbakuk 2:3) . . . praying for his [coming] in accordance with what is said of him by all the prophets, from Moses to Malachi” (al-īmān wa-ʙl-tasˢdīq bimajīʙihi wa-lā yastabtˢī im yitmahmah hˢakkeh lo . . . wa-ʙl-duʚāʙ lahu ʚalā qadr mā jāʙa fīhi ʚalā yaday kull nabīy min Moshe ilā malʙakhi; Sirāj, Sanhedrin 10:1 [ed. Qaihˢ, p. 216]). More speciically, the main elements of the messianic idea, as developed in the Hebrew Bible and crystallized during the intertestamental and talmudic periods, are elaborated by Maimonides in his famous Iggeret Teman (Epistle to Yemen, i.e., to the Yemenite rabbinate), composed in 1172 to explain, inter alia, why a certain man who was going about “the villages of Yemen” proclaiming himself the messiah must be regarded as a pretender. he true messiah, writes Maimonides (Iggeret 50–56, his prooftexts are here noted parenthetically), will arise out of obscurity, “like a root out of dry ground” (Isaiah 53:2, Zechariah 6:12); he will be revealed irst in the Land of Israel (Malachi 3:1); ater he is revealed, the Diaspora will be immediately regathered to Israel (Isaiah18:2); he will be greater than any of the prophets since Moses— greater, even, than Moses himself—characterized by absolute righteousness, piety, and wisdom (Deuteronomy 18:20; Isaiah 9:5, 11:2–5); and he will exercise supernatural military power, ultimately ensuring the full obedience of all nations and establishing God’s kingdom on earth (Isaiah 11:4, 52:15; Ezekiel 38:7–14). At the same time, however, it is evident from the many written sources that have come down messianism to us that these main elements of Jewish messianism, while representing the biblically based “backbone,” or framework, of the messianic idea in medieval Jewry, were embellished, reined, and reinterpreted in various ways by diferent groups—relecting their ongoing adherence to earlier (pre-medieval) sectarian traditions and/or their exposure to contemporary theological inluences (whether Christian, Muslim, or Jewish) and sociopolitical pressures. For the Jews in Muslim lands, among whom medieval messianism was most active, many of these theological embellishments, or reinements, were induced by exposure to elements of Islamic messianism (itself inluenced by earlier Jewish messianism) and were incited to active expression in the form of movements and messianic claimants by the alternating despair and hope that attended Islamic rule. Theological Refinements and Catalysts of Expression Among the more notable reinements and emphases that appear in the theology of the various messianic claimants and movements among the Jews of medieval Islam are: • Belief in a continuing lineage of prophets (essential in Islamic theology to the validation of Muhˢammad’s prophethood), according to which the messianic claimant or herald was held to be carrying on, adjusting, and/or fulilling the revelatory message of the Jewish prophets, Jesus, and even Muhˢammad. his view was especially prominent among the Persian Jewish messiahs and, though contrary to the traditional Jewish view that Malachi was the seal of the prophets, was no doubt inluenced by the abiding Jewish expectation of Elijah as the inal messianic herald. • Belief in the rajʚa (return) of the messianic igure from his place of divine concealment (to which he had gone without having died), relecting the inluence of the same belief in Shīʚism, especially Imāmī Shīʚism, with respect to the last imām/mahdī. Not surprisingly, this belief is attested primarily in connection with the Persian Jewish messiahs, but the parallel Shīʚite belief was no doubt itself inluenced both by the Christian belief in the return (i.e., second coming) of Christ and by the earlier 396 Jewish tradition concerning the concealment and eventual unveiling (though not return) of the messiah and/or his herald (cf. 1 Enoch 46:1–3; Ruth Rabba 5:6; Encylopaedica of Islam, 2nd ed., s.v. radjʚa). his belief, due in part, perhaps, to the earlier Judeo-Islamic manifestation, may also underlie the belief in the hiding (and eventual return) of one of the few messianic claimants to originate outside of Muslim lands prior to 1500 (namely, in Lyons, France, ca. 1060), concerning whom Maimonides relates that, although “he was killed . . . some [French Jews] claim unto this very day that he is in concealment” (wa-baʚdˢuhum yazʚumu ilā ʙl-yawm annahu ghāba; Iggeret, p. 60). • Belief in the Messiah’s eschatological victory expressed by his slaying of a superhuman leader of the opponents of God and Israel, relecting the various and interrelated traditions of the dajjāl in Islam, the antichrist in Christianity, and Armilus in Judaism (the latter, speciically per his role in the Book of Zerubbabel). he Muslim historiographer alTˢabarī, interestingly, relates the anecdote of a Jew who foretold the killing of the dajjāl at the gates of Lod by ʚUmar ibn al-Khat ˢtˢāb (see Gil, Eresˢ Yisraʙel, vol. 1, sec. 80). • Belief in a miraculous light of the Diaspora, led by the Messiah, to the Land of Israel. his belief—especially prominent in the messianic movements of Sereni/Serenus and the alRūjīs—may have been inluenced by the generally similar belief in a miraculous light of the faithful (though not to Israel) as airmed by the Islamic Rāwandiyya (see Gil, Be-Malkhut Yishmaʚʙel, vol. 1, sec. 157) as well as in Christianity (e.g., 1 hessalonians 4:17, “hen we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air”). • Belief in the possibility of hastening the messiah’s coming through asceticism and piety. his view was especially pronounced and indeed central to the self-conception of the Karaite movement (see → Karaism) known as the Mourners of Zion. • Belief in a priestly messiah, perhaps inluenced by the same sectarian view as attested in the Dead Sea Scrolls (see esp. 11Q13 [11 QMelchizedek]) as well as in Christianity (based largely on Psalms 110:4; cf. Hebrews 7:17–28). 397 Among the medieval Jewish messiahs, this view is uniquely attested ca. 1120 in connection with the Karaite Solomon ha-Kohen of Bāniyās (Dan). • Belief, introduced by Maimonides (in reaction to the earlier “two messiahs” view [i.e., Ben Joseph and Ben David] and the apparent failures of previous messianic claimants), that the Davidic lineage and authenticity of the true messiah would be revealed id ipsum by his fulillment of the main criteria enumerated in the irst paragraph above (Iggeret, pp. 50–54). Among the various (and interrelated) catalysts that induced the latent messianism of medieval Jewry to ind active and fairly frequent expression among the Jews in Muslim lands, the following three appear to have played the greatest role: • Persecutions and severe vicissitudes (perceived as the birth pangs of messiah; e.g., B. T. Sanhedrin 93b). he force of this particular catalyst as an inducement to the intensiication and expression of messianic hopes is self-evident, and thus, not surprisingly, is oten mentioned by medieval authors in connection with speciic movements or the messianic hope in general. In his Letter to Yemen, for example, Maimonides claims that the misguided preoccupation of Jewish scholars with calculating the messiah’s advent “by means of → astrology ” (min jihati sˢināʚati ʙl-nujūm) is primarily due to “the great stress of the exile [placed] upon us” (yulajjiʙunā ilā hādhā kullihi shidda al-jalūt ʚalaynā; Iggeret, p. 47); and then again, as an explanation for the large following attending the Yemenite false messiah of that time, Maimonides cites—in addition to the followers’ “ignorance on the subject of the messiah and the [pretender’s own] high station” ( jahlihim bi-mawddˢūʚ al-mashiähˢ wa-martabatihi ʙl-ʚazˢīma)—“the great stress of their circumstances” (shiddati ʙl-hˢāl ʚalayhim; ibid., p. 50). In the same vein → Ibn Gabirol implores God in one of his → piyyutˢim (a baqqasha for Shabbat Nisˢavim) to deliver His people Israel from “those who rend our dispersed ones like sheep/Who have said, ‘[What is theirs] we will conquer and keep!’ ” (tˢoreim pezurim keseyot/ asher ameru niresha lanu; Davidson, p. 32, ll. 39–40). Indeed, it is certainly no coincidence that the eleventh and twelth centuries, which messianism were characterized by especially severe vicissitudes and successive persecutions of Jewry in Muslim lands (especially in 1106 to 1107, on which see Friedman, pp. 15–23), were also characterized by more active expressions of Jewish messianism than any other single period of Islamic history (see below, s.v. ʚAbbasidFatimid Period). • hes ymbolism of Muslim political-military victories (on the pattern, e.g., of the Maccabean victory). At the same time—and to a certain degree paradoxically vis-à-vis the aforementioned catalyst—the many military victories and conquests of the Muslims served as a reinforcing symbol, or “type,” of what the messiah was expected to do on a worldwide scale—as, for example, in the case of ʚAlī ibn Mahdī (d. 1159), who successfully conquered and assumed control of southern → Yemen (centered in Zabīd), and who is cited by Maimonides as a probable exemplar for the followers of the unnamed Yemenite messiah, for “they supposed that he would rise up just as Ibn Mahdī arose” (zˢannū annahu yaqūma mithla qiyām ibn mahdī; Iggeret, p. 50). Yet even more oten, apparently, Islamic military victories were perceived as the actual precursors or “irst installments” of the inal messianic victory (with the Christian/Crusader realm representing the kingdom of Edom, the last great enemy to be overcome). his perception is attested, irst and foremost, in connection with the conquests of Muhˢammad himself, as relected in the seventh-century layer of the “Mysteries (→ Nistarot) of Shimon b. Yohˢai” (cf. Gil, Eresˢ Yisraʙel, vol. 1, secs. 76–77), and thereater in connection with, inter alios, ʚUmar ibn al-Khat ˢtˢāb, the Muslim conqueror/liberator of Jerusalem (cf. ibid., secs. 79–80), Saladin (cf. the piyyut ˢ fragment cited by Mann, vol. 1, p. 458), and Selīm (I) the Grim (cf. the predictions of Abraham b. Eliezer ha-Levi, apud Silver, pp. 130–133). • Preoccupation with calculating the advent of the Messiah and/or the messianic age. he messianic fervor attending the previous two catalysts also served to fan—and be fed by—a modulating preoccupation with calculating “the End” (ha-qesˢ, per Daniel 12:13—i.e., the end of Israel’s exile and pre-messianic subjugation) among Jewish scholars throughout the messianism medieval period—even among prominent rationalists who were otherwise quite concerned with restraining exegetical overspeculation and the socially detrimental impact (i.e., selling all one’s property, incurring debts, etc.) of overemphasizing messianic imminence. he irst known individual of medieval Islamic Jewry to have engaged in this practice is the Karaite → Benjamin al-Nahāwandī (early 9th cent.), who, according to → Japheth ben Eli at the end of his commentary on Daniel, calculated that “the End” would come 2,300 years (per Daniel 8:14) ater the destruction of Shiloh (in 942 B.C.E.) and 1,290 years (per Daniel 12:11) ater the destruction of the Second Temple (in 68 C.E.)—i.e., in 1358(see Margoliouth ad loc.; Silver, p. 55). he next known igure to calculate the end, this time on the Rabbanite side, was none other than → Saʚadya Gaon, who in his Book of Beliefs and Opinions (8:4 [ed. Qaihˢ, p. 245]) and in his commentary on Daniel (ad 8:13–14 and 11:1 [ed. Qaihˢ, pp. 155 and 190]) calculates that it will come ater a period of 1,335 years (per Daniel 12:12, with which he also reconciles the aforementioned 1,290 and 2,300). hough Saʚadya’s terminus a quo is not explicitly stated, it was almost certainly identiied either with the onset of the Alexandrine (Seleucid) era—i.e., A.M. 3448 (= 312 B.C.E.)— placing the messiah’s advent in 1023/24 C.E. (which calculation is attributed to “the Jews” of his day by the Perso-Arabic historian al-Bīrūnī [l. ca. 1000] in his Āthār, p. 15, ll. 9–11, and further supported by the excerpt from the commentary on Daniel, written in that very year, cited by Mann, vol. 2, p. 102, ad in: ve-nishʙar meʚat ˢ la-geʙula) or with the decree of the return issued by Cyrus in the third year of his reign—i.e., per Seder ʚOlam Rab., A.M. 3392 (= 368 B.C.E.)—placing the messiah’s advent in 967/68 C.E. (which calculation is attributed to the Rabbanites by Japheth ben Eli, loc. cit.). his latter date, in fact, is also attributed by Japheth (ibid.) to “some of the Karaites” (qawm mina ʙl-qarrāʙīn) by virtue of their calculating 2,300 years from the exodus (in A.M. 2428), as well as by virtue of a still diferent calculation, to → Salmon ben Jeroham. Other attested datings of “the End”/messiah’s advent among the Jews of medieval Islam include: 1041/42, per an apocalyptic fragment from the Geniza (T-S Ar.6.14) which mentions “Messiah b. Joseph” 398 and “the Mahdī, who is Messiah b. David,” and indicates that “in the [Seleucid] year (1)353 severe conlicts [itan—i.e. the battles of Gog and Magog] will beset the world” (see Friedman, p. 202); 1074/75, per an unattributed (apparently Rabbanite) commentary (tafsīr) on Daniel entitled “he Book of the Kingdoms and the Wars hat Will Take Place in the [Seleucid] Year 1386” (Kitāb al-Mamālik wa-ʙlMalāhˢim yakūnu fī alf šp”w sana; per Mann, vol. 1, pp. 645, ll. 28–29; p. 663, n. 14); 1129/30 (i.e., A.M. 4890), which is given by → Judah ben Samuel ha-Levi in one of his poems as the year in which the fourth and last kingdom (of Daniel 2 and 7) will fall (see Silver, p. 68); an unspeciied date before 1172, when Maimonides wrote his Letter to Yemen in which he refers to an unnamed Jew in Andalusia (perhaps Ibn Gabirol [see Silver, p. 64], Judah haLevi, or even → Abraham bar Hˢ iyya) who, by means of astrology, “calculated that the messiah would appear in a certain year” (waqqata anna ʙl-mashiähˢ yazˢhara fī ʙl-sana al-fulāniyya; Iggeret, p. 47, ll. 2–3); 1184/85 (i.e., A.M. 4945), revealed in a dream to a certain “Mawhūb al-muʚallim(?)” as the date of Israel’s redemption (in apparent anticipation of Saladin’s victory at Hˢ itˢtˢīn; see Mann, vol. 1, p. 458); 1209/10, according to a “peculiar tradition” (riwāya gharība) handed down within the family of Maimonides—and related by him in his Epistle to Yemen” (wherein he disparages the practice in others!)—that “Prophecy [i.e., the messianic herald and/or the messiah as the inal prophet] will return to Israel in the year 4976 from Creation” (tarjiʚu ʙl-nubūwa li-yiśraʙel fī sana arbaʚa alāf wa-tisʚ miʙa wa-sabʚīn sana li-yesˢira; Iggeret, pp. 48–49; on the alternative possibility that Maimonides intended the date 1215/16, corresponding to the Seleucid year 1527, see Friedman, pp. 187–199); 1218, according to a calculation of → Hananel ben Hˢ ushiel, apud Bahˢya b. Asher in the latter’s commentary on the Pentateuch (see Silver, pp. 65–66); 1522– 1525 (i.e., A.M. 5282–5285) as the beginning of the messianic era, with the messiah himself to appear in 1530–1531 (i.e., A.M. 5290–5291), according to the calculations of Abraham ben Eliezer ha-Levi (irst quarter of 16th cent.; cf. Ben-Zvi, p. 155); 1540–1640 (i.e., A.M. 5300– 5400), according to David → ibn Abī Zimra (late 15th–16th cent.) in his mystical work 399 Magen David (see Silver, pp. 141–142); and 1850, according to the calculations of Simon ben Sˢemahˢ → Duran (d. 1444) in his commentary on Daniel (see Silver, pp. 107–108). he active expressions of messianism to which these catalysts gave rise may be divided into three distinct major categories (excluding the complicated and debated category of martyrdom and the degree to which it both fuels and relects messianic expectation)—to wit: (1) messianic movements without a messianic leader (i.e., without a prophetic herald or messiah), (2) prophetic-messianic heralds (with or without an attested following), and (3) selfproclaimed messiahs (with or without an attested following). In the following survey, to relect the present focus on the Jewry of the medieval Islamic world, these messianic expressions are organized according to the successive caliphates under which the majority of them originated or occurred. he terminus ad quem for the survey is 1517, the year in which Selīm I (“the Grim”) efectively ended the hereditary and combined rule of the ʚAbbasidMamluk caliphate and so established Ottoman dominion over the Muslim world (interestingly, this was also the year in which the Protestant Reformation began). From this point onward, during what may be considered the premodern, or transitional, period—at any rate until the onset of the → Haskala movement in the → Ottoman Empire in the mid-nineteenth century—the Jewish messianic movements and claimants that appear in the Islamic world (i.e., David Reubeni and Solomon Molcho, Isaac Luria, Hˢ ayyim → Vital, → Shabbetay Sˢevi and Nathan of Gaza [Ghazzati], and, in Yemen, Salīm (Shalom) → Shabazi and Sulaymān Jamāl (al-Aqtaˢ ʚ) exhibit more prominent kabbalistic tendencies and—except in Yemen—more inluence by (and upon) Western/European Jewish (and even Christian) elements (on this see further, among the sources cited in the bibliography, Aescoly, pp. 271–439 passim; Ben-Zvi, pp. 235–240; Klorman, pp. 28–53; Qaihˢ [i.e., Hˢ abshush], pp. 252–259; and Silver, pp. 110–186 passim). messianism thing is known is uniquely related in an anonymous Syriac (perhaps Nestorian) chronicle written in the seventh century. According to this chronicle, during Mar-Emmeh’s bishopric over Nineveh (ca. 643–647), “a certain Jewish man from Bēt Aramayē [i.e., Assyria/Babylonia] went out from the town of Pellūgathā [i.e., (al-)Fallūja = Pumbeditha] . . . and he said that the messiah had come (we-ʙmar de-ʙthā meshīhˢā)” (Guidi, pp. 28–29). Whether he meant this with reference to another or himself is unclear, but his ensuing activity would suggest the latter—for which he seems to have taken the early Muslim conquests as his exemplar: “and he gathered to himself . . . about 400 men and set ablaze three churches and killed the local ruler. Immediately thereater a military force from ʚAqūlā [Kufa] confronted them and killed them, their wives, and their children, whereas their leader they cruciied in his own village” (ibid., p. 29). The Umayyad Period (until 750) he irst major expression of Jewish messianism known from the Umayyad period (assuming the later dating of Abū ʚĪsā, on which see below) concerns a movement centered around a self-proclaimed messiah who was himself, apparently, not Jewish at all (either by birth or conversion). his movement is mentioned in several Christian sources as well as in a responsum by → Amram ben Sheshna Gaon or → Natˢronay bar Hilay Gaon (not, as some have suggested, → Natˢronay bar Nehemiah, which would be too early; cf. Gil, Be-Malkhut Yishmaʚʙel, vol. 1, sec. 152). he most substantial account is found in an anonymous Monophysite chronicle (i.e., the pseudo-Dionysius Chronicle), according to which, around the Seleucid year 1046 (i.e., 734/35), “there appeared a certain deceiver in the West (ba-ʙrʚā da-mʚarbā) who led astray many Jews and caused them to perish” (Chabot, p. 28, l. 14). More speciically, writes the chronicler, he was “from the village of Palhˢat(?) in the vicinity of Mārdīn [in Upper Mesopotamia/modern Turkey],” having let which he went irst to “Bēt Shamrayē” (i.e., Samaria [so Payne-Smith, heThe First Period (until 661) saurus, col. 4223, s.v.], though otherwise idenhe irst major expression of Jewish messi- tiied here as Shemer [Chabot], Samarra, or anism during the Muslim period of which any- Samra [Gil, loc. cit.]), then to “Bēt Aramayē” messianism (i.e., Babylonia), where he “devoted himself to sorcery and all the foul arts of the devil,” ater which he returned to Bēt Shamrayē and presented himself to the Jews as the prophet Moses himself, who has “today come to deliver Israel and to lead you through the desert and bring you once again into possession of the Land of Promise . . . and that all the dispersed ones of Israel may be regathered, as it is written, ‘He gathers the dispersed ones of Israel’ (Isaiah 56:8).” Many Jews apparently took his message to heart, but ater he had led them about in circles in the wilderness and caused many to perish—and, moreover, had been found to be stealing from them—he was delivered up to the caliph Hishām (ibn ʚAbd al-Malik; r. 724–743) and eventually put to death (Chabot, p. 29). hough anonymous in this account, the name of the false messiah was apparently Severus— variously rendered/corrupted in the other sources as Seʙwir(ā), Sāwīrā, Sharīʚ/Sherinī, Serenus, and Zonoria, with the event itself pushed back slightly to between 714 and 726. Next attested is the movement headed by → Abū ʚĪsā al-Isˢfahānī, as he is commonly designated in the several sources (both Jewish and Muslim) that mention him, in which he is also variously referred to as Ishˢāq b. Yaʚqūb (Isaac ben Jacob), Obadiah (ʚĀbid Allāh/ʚAbdullāh), and even, according to → Ibn Hˢ azm (p. 99), Muhˢammad ibn ʚĪsā. As indicated by his nisba (attributive name), Abū ʚĪsā originated or lived for some time in Isfahan, Persia, which had a thriving Jewish population and was the center of his movement. he time of his activity is alternatively placed during the caliphate of ʚAbd al-Malik b. Marwān (r. 685–705; so al-Qirqisānī, vol. 1, p. 12 [§I.2.12]) or the successive caliphates of Marwān ibn Muhˢammad al-Hˢ imār and Abū Jaʚfar al-Mansˢūr (744–775; so al-Shahrastānī, p. 24). Although Maimonides writes in his Letter to Yemen that Abū ʚĪsā (whom he does not cite by name) “claimed that he was the messiah” (Iggeret, pp. 54, 56)—which may well be a simpliication intended to strengthen his point in the letter—the earlier sources agree in describing him as a selfproclaimed prophetic herald of the messiah (al-Qirqisānī, loc. cit.; al-Shahrastānī, loc. cit.; Ibn Hˢ azm, loc. cit.). Noteworthy aspects of Abū ʚĪsā’s teaching and movement include his air- 400 mation of the authenticity of the prophetic mission of Jesus (i.e., ʚĪsā) to the Jews as well as that of Muhˢammad to the Arabs (for which latter reason Ibn Tˢāhir claims that Muslims must accept Abū ʚĪsā’s followers as fellow Muslims!)— hence the reason for his (apparent) sobriquet Muhˢammad ibn ʚĪsā; his alteration (and perhaps abrogation) of existing Mosaic laws and his instituting of new ones; and, on the well-established pattern of previous messianic movements, his culminating role as the leader of a Jewish military force (Maimonides numbers it at “ten thousand”; Iggeret, p. 54), when he was killed in a battle with the caliph’s army. The Early ʚAbbasid Period (until 945) During the early ‘Abbasid period (assuming the later dating of Abū ʚĪsā) there appeared a movement centered around the igure of → Yūdghān of Hamadhān, also known as Judah. According to the two main sources about him—the afore-cited works of al-Qirqisānī and al-Shahrastānī—he was a disciple of Abū ʚĪsā and was known to his followers (many, if not most, of whom he must have inherited from his teacher) as “he Shepherd” (Aram. raʚyā; Arab. al-rāʚī, which latter, notably, is also mentioned alongside Abū ʚĪsā by al-Bīrūnī, Āthār, p. 15, l. 11). his title, if based on Zechariah 11:15–17, may relect the belief of his followers that he was the messiah—though he himself, like his teacher, claimed only to be a prophetic herald (al-Qirqisānī, vol. 1, p. 13 [§I.2.13]). According to Pinsker (vol. 1, p. 25) Yūdghān was one and the same with “Judah the Persian” mentioned by Abraham → ibn Ezra and Moses Bashyatchi. he prophetic mantle of Abū ʚĪsā was in turn picked up by one of Yūdghān’s own disciples named Mushkā(n), known only from alShahrastānī (p. 26). Mushkā, he writes, “kept to the teaching of Yūdghān,” but with more of the iery temper of the latter’s teacher, apparently, because “he considered it obligatory to actively oppose and declare war on his adversaries [the Muslims?], and so he went out to do battle with nineteen men and was killed in the district of → Qum [between Isfahan and → Tehran].” It was also during this period that the Karaite movement of the Mourners of Zion 401 (avele sˢiyyon, per Isaiah 61:3) was established in Jerusalem under the leadership of → Daniel al-Qūmisī toward the beginning of the last quarter of the ninth century (see esp. Salmon b. Jeroham on Psalm 69:1 [Heb. trans. in Pinsker, vol. 1, p. 22]; Gil, Eresˢ Yisraʙel, vol. 1, sec. 921). his movement, which was in fact a community made up of Karaite émigrés from throughout the Diaspora (especially Persia), represented the theological spearhead and culminating praxis of the already elevated messianism of → Karaism in general. he fundamental motivation for either joining or supporting the Mourners in Jerusalem was the fervent belief that they were fulilling the inal, necessary requirement of the coming of the messiah—and hence “hastening” his advent. hus writes al-Qūmisī in a passionate appeal to his co-religionists to bolster the ranks of the Mourners: “Before the ingathering of the Diaspora, [the Lord] has commanded that [the righteous among His people (epitomized by the Karaite Mourners)] lee back to Jerusalem” (be-tˢerem qibbusˢ galut yesˢavve la-nus u-la-voʙ el yerush[alayim]; Jewish Quarterly Review 12, no. 3 [1922]: 285, l. 15). The ʚAbbasid-Fatimid Period (until 1171) he most numerous and diverse expressions of medieval Jewish messianism are attested during the ‘Abbasid-Fatimid period, which, not surprisingly, was also characterized by especially severe vicissitudes and persecutions of Jewry in Islamic lands, including the annihilation of Jerusalem Jewry by the Crusaders (“the anti-messianic kingdom of Edom”) in 1099. Before this tragic event, however, the messianic movement/community of the Karaite Mourners of Zion continued to thrive in Jerusalem under the leadership and academic tutelage of such igures as Salmon b. Jeroham, Japheth ben Eli,Joseph (Abū Yaʚqūb) → ibn Nūhˢ, ʚAlī (Abū ʙl-Surrī) ibn Zū/ītāˢ , Hˢ asan ibn Masīhˢ (“Ben Mashiahˢ”), and → Sahl ben Masˢliahˢ. Relecting the Mourners’ outlook toward the end of the tenth century, Sahl ben Masˢliahˢ writes in one of his letters: “Behold, the days of the Gentiles’ Judgment have drawn near, as has the time of Israel’s Deliverance, for God will indeed hasten messianism that time upon us and redeem us from the Two Women [i.e., the → yeshivot of Pumbeditha and Sura] and establish the Messiah son of David as king over us, as it is written, ‘Behold, your king is coming to you’ (Zechariah 9:9)” (Pinsker, vol. 2, p. 43, ll. 1–3). It is worth noting that, even ater the disappearance of the Mourners’ community in Jerusalem by 1099, the presence of an identically named group—i.e., “the Mourners of Zion and the Mourners of Jerusalem”—is attested by → Benjamin of Tudela (Itinerary, p. 47 [Heb. text]) ca. 1170 in the Arabian Peninsula, in the areas of Khaybar and Taymāʙ (not clearly in Yemen, as suggested by Aescoly, pp. 172–173, and Klorman, p. 22). It is uncertain, however, to what extent these later Mourners (who may have been partially or even wholly Rabbanite; cf. Friedman, pp. 120–121) represented an actual movement or community, and to what degree their asceticism (neither eating meat nor drinking wine, wearing black clothing, dwelling in caves) was motivated by messianism. All that Benjamin speciies with respect to the raison d’être of this “group” is that “they seek mercy from the Holy One, blessed be He, on behalf of the Diaspora of Israel—that He might have compassion on them for the sake of His great Name as well as on all the Jews who inhabit Taymāʙ and Tīlmas (= Sanʚa?)” (loc. cit.). One of the more notable and widespread messianic episodes of the medieval period— in this case a movement that stretched over several decades—was inaugurated toward the end of the eleventh century in the mountains of northern Iraq and centered around a man named Solomon ibn al- → Rūjī and his son Menahem. his episode is recorded in several diferent sources, the earliest and most important of them being the accounts by Obadiah the Proselyte, Benjamin of Tudela, and → Samawʙal (Ibn ʚAbbās) al-Maghribī, who was apparently an adherent of the movement (the failure of which was no doubt a factor in his conversion to Islam; cf. Gil, Be-Malkhut Yishmaʚʙel, vol. 1, sec. 271). According to Obadiah (ed. Golb, pp. 100–101), Solomon proclaimed himself the messiah while in the Kurdish region of Hakkārī “in the days of the ruler whose name was al-Afdˢal” (i.e., Abū ʙl-Qāsim Shānanshāh, the Fatimid vizier from 1094 to 1121). With the messianism cooperation of his son and a prophetic herald named Ephraim b. R. Azariah, “known as Ben Fadˢlūn,” the news of this messianic revelation was sent by letters “to all the Jews both near and far . . . all of whom were saying that the time had come when God would gather His people Israel from all the lands unto Jerusalem, the Holy City, and that Solomon b. Rūjī was the King Messiah.” When the months and years passed, however, and this hope went unilled, “the heart of [his followers] was completely shattered within them and the Jews were abashed before all the Gentiles . . . who would mock the Jews and say, ‘Behold, the Jews wish to ly, but they have not wings to ly to their land!’ ” hat this sad ending to Solomon’s career occurred toward the end of the eleventh century has been discussed by Gil (ibid., sec. 247), in connection with which it is worth noting that an allusion to the expectation of Solomon and his followers of “lying” to the Land of Israel is found in the histories of the Muslim writers ʚAlī ibn al-Athīr and ʚAbd al-Rahˢmān ibn al-Jawzī (both 12th–13th cent.), who date the episode to A.H. 487 (= 1094). Following Solomon’s demise, of which nothing is known, the messianic mantle was picked by his son Menahem, who achieved far more lasting success than his father, maintaining his messianic claim (including, again, the promise of a national “light” to Israel) until ca. 1050 in ʚUmariyya (near → Mosul), when he was killed, either in his sleep by his father-in-law (so Benjamin of Tudela) or by the Muslim commander of ʚUmariyya fortress during an attempted takeover by Menahem and his followers (so Samawʙal al-Maghribī). his Menahem, moreover, is one and the same with the otherwise (in)famous messianic claimant David Alroy— the corruption of his name from Munāhˢim (Menahem) ibn Abī Daʙūd Sulaymān al-Rūjī to David al-Roʙī/Alroy having been convincingly established by Gil (ibid., sec. 248) and Golb (see → Alroy, David). Around the same time as Solomon al-Rūjī’s messianic endeavor—i.e., toward the end of the eleventh century—a short-lived messianic movement appears to have arisen in the city of Baʚqūba, to the northeast of Baghdad. he only testimony to this movement is given by Obadiah the Proselyte, who refers to its leader as “a 402 certain man from among the Jews known as Ben Shaddad, who was wise in his own eyes and emboldened himself to establish a vision (le-haʚamid hˢazon),” i.e., to proclaim a vision of messianic redemption, the same phrase Obadiah used in connection with Solomon al-Rūjī; see Golb, pp. 101 (verso, l. 15) and 100 (recto, ll. 2–3). All that we know beyond this before the manuscript breaks of is that Ben Shaddad and his followers were seized and imprisoned by “the king of ʚAdīna.” In his Epistle to Yemen,Maimonides describes a messianic episode as told to him by his father, according to which, ca. 1102 C.E. (i.e., sixtyive or seventy years prior to his writing the letter in 1172), certain “distinguished scholars” (ʚulamāʙ akhyār) of → Cordova, believing on the basis of astrology that the messiah would appear among them that year, “set their eyes on an individual of outstanding character known as Ibn Arye ” (i.e., Son of a Lion—quite likely a messianic sobriquet per Genesis 49:9). Yet despite the fact that Ibn Arye performed miracles and won the allegiance of the Jewish laity, the “leaders and true scholars” of the Jewish community rejected his claims and had both him and his followers logged, ined, and banned (Iggeret, p. 59). Moving on to the eastern realm of the Islamic world, there is testimony to a messianic event that took place in Baghdad in 1120 in a Geniza letter in the Oxford collection (Ms Bodleian Heb.f.56, fols. 13v–19r [Neubauer no. 2821.1 g], most recently edited by Gil, BeMalkhut Yishmaʚʙel, vol. 2, pp. 228–234 [no. 87]). According to this letter, ater several years of severe persecution of Baghdadi Jewry instigated by the “wicked man” (adam raʚ) Ibn Abī Shujāʚ (the vizier of the ʚAbbāsid caliph al-Mustazˢhir Biʙllāh), it came about on hursday, 25 Elul 1431 Sel. (August 21, 1120) that “a young woman known as the daughter of Yūsuf b. al-Hˢ akīm [son of the physician] . . . announced that she had seen our master Elijah in a dream . . . and he had said to her, ‘Go to these people and declare to them on my behalf that God, the Exalted, has brought at hand the Deliverance [of Israel] [qad qarraba al-yeshuʚa]’ ” (Gil, op. cit., pp. 229–230). hough the people’s response to this visionary message is lost to a lacuna, in the end the persecution was relaxed 403 and the situation of Baghdadi Jewry (temporarily) improved. In this instance the promised deliverance—notwithstanding its announcement by the expected messianic herald—may have been intended more as a “Purim-style” than a messianic deliverance About a year ater the daughter of Yūsuf ibn al-Hˢ akīm revealed her message from Elijah, there is testimony to a messianic claimant (without clear evidence of a following) in northern Israel in the “scroll” of Obadiah the Proselyte. In the Adler fragment of the scroll (per the edition of Golb, pp. 102–103) Obadiah relates that in the month of Elul, 1121 (i.e., “nineteen years from the day that I entered into the covenant of the God of Israel”; ibid. [verso, ll. 1–2]), during his sojourn in “Dan” (i.e., Bāniyās), he encountered “an Israelite kohen [priest] from among the Karaites (mi-baʚale ha-miqraʙ) whose name was Solomon . . . who announced to Obadiah the Proselyte and to the Jews who were in Dan that in two and a half months more God would gather His people Israel from all the countries to Jerusalem . . . ‘For I am the man whom Israel is seeking’ ” (ibid. [recto, ll. 13–18]). What became of Solomon and how his messianic claims (which recall the priestly messiah of the Dead Sea Scrolls, discussed above) were received is unknown; for his own part, Obadiah appears to view this claimant with somewhat detached surprise, “for I have never heard that Israel is seeking their Deliverance at the hand of a kohen or a Levite, but only at the hand of Elijah the prophet and the King Messiah from the seed of David” (ibid. [verso, ll. 2–5]). Moving south, Maimonides relates an episode in his Letter to Yemen (written in 1172) that occurred in → Fez around 1127 (“about 45 years ago”; Iggeret, p. 55, but ibid., p. 57: “about 50 years ago or less”). As described by Maimonides, “a man of outstanding faith, a scholar among the scholars of Israel known as Mar Moses al-Darʚī [not to be confused with the Karaite poet and physician Moses ben Abraham → Darʚī] . . . traveled to the land of Andalusia to read under R. Joseph ha-Levi ben Mighash [i.e., b. Meʚir → Ibn Migash, Joseph ha-Levi ben Me’ir ? Cf. Qaihˢ ad loc., n. 99] . . . whereater he traveled to the capital of the → Maghreb—that is, Fez—and proclaimed, messianism ‘he Messiah is at hand! God has made this known to me in a dream!’ . . . he said to [the people], ‘Messiah will come this year on Passover Eve!’ and he exhorted the people to sell their possessions and contract [large] debts from the Muslims” (Iggeret, pp. 57–58). When al-Darʚī’s heraldic prophecy was not realized, the Jews of Fez were quite naturally let in dire straits, and al-Darʚī was forced to lee to the Land of Israel, where he died. In a fragmentary Geniza letter held in the JTS Adler Collection (ENA 4101.11a–b) which was only recently edited and brought to proper scholarly attention by Friedman (pp. 147–158), mention is made of what should now be (cautiously) considered the irst known messianic movement to arise among the Jews of Yemen (viz., “the multitude of the [Jewish] people in the villages of Yemen [hamon ʚam ba-ʚayarot teman]”; ibid., p. 157, ll. 5–6). Notwithstanding the anonymity of the writer and his addressee in the extant fragment, and the absence of any explicit date, Friedman has reasonably deduced from scribal and textual considerations that the letter was written by a Yemenite leader to → Masˢliahˢ ben Solomon ha-Kohen, gaon of the Geʙon Yaʚaqov yeshiva in Palestine, concerning the failed movement of a messianic claimant or prophetic herald who arose sometime during the gaon’s tenure (1127–1139): “the ruler of his land arrested and imprisoned him . . . in the month that he had said the Redemption would occur . . . and he was put to death by the sword” (ibid., p. 157, ll. 8–14). Friedman also suggests, as a more tentative alternative, that the letter may have been addressed to either → Sar Shalom ben Moses ha-Levi in Fustat (i.e., Zutaˢ , or Yahˢya Abū Zikrī, though the identity of this igure is disputed) or Samuel ben Eli ha-Levi in Baghdad, both of whom were juridical rivals of Maimonides, and that the content of the letter concerns the same “Yemenite messiah” of 1172 whom Maimonides describes in his Epistle to Yemen (see below). A messianic igure is also mentioned in a fragmentary copy of a letter (comprising two noncontiguous leaves) written by a certain ʚIwādˢ ben Saʚīd which was apparently part of a larger missive (hˢibbur) concerning the appearance (and legitimacy?) of this messianic claimant. From the text of this letter—the manuscript messianism 404 years ago”; Aescoly, pp. 203–204 [no. 18]). here is some ambiguity regarding the actual role that the central igure, who remains unnamed, was claiming to ill: in the Epistle to Yemen Maimonides writes that “he claimed that he was the messiah” (iddaʚā annahu masiahˢ), whereas in the later letter we are told that “he announced that he was a messenger (amar she-huʙ shaliahˢ) making smooth a path [per Isaiah 40:3] before the King Messiah.” It may well be that the latter role of prophetic harbinger was indeed the man’s true (initial) claim, whereas his followers ampliied/interpreted his message to mean that he himself was the messiah. Such inconsonance between the claims of the leader of a movement and how his claims are interpreted by his followers (compounded on occasion by the leader’s silent endorsement of their interpretations) are not unattested elsewhere—and in this instance, in fact, may be found to attend the Muslim movement in Yemen that Maimonides himself perceptively identiies as a likely exemplar for the Jewish one—to wit, the “ Mahdist” movement of ʚAlī ibn Mahdī and his son ʚAbd al-Nabī ibn Mahdī, which ruled southern Yemen from Zabīd from 1159 to 1176 and was characterized by elements of Muslim messianism (centered around the mahdī) that ind some close parallels in Maimonides’s description of the Jewish movement (see further Klorman, pp. 19–27). In the end this Yemenite harbinger/messiah was executed by the Muslim authorities, but The ʚAbbasid-Ayyubid Period Maimonides writes in his letter to Marseilles (until 1258) that “even now there are some there [in Yemen] It was at the onset of this period, in 1172, who lack sense and say, ‘Presently he will come that the irst well-known messianic claimant back to life and take his stand! (ʚatta yihˢye (no longer clearly the irst claimant, as dis- ve-yaʚamod)’ ” (Aescoly, p. 204). cussed above) arose in Yemen, (further) establishing a trend that would continue until its The ʚAbbasid-Mamluk Period culminating expression in the mystical move(until 1517) ment of the “braying” messiah Yūsuf ʚAbdullāh here is information from two diferent at the end of the nineteenth century (see → Messianism in Yemen). Knowledge of this sources (one Muslim and one Jewish) of a milimovement is derived exclusively from Maimo- taristic messianic movement among the Jews nides (if not also from the two sources dis- of Yemen that ran its course toward the end of cussed above), from his Letter to Yemen of 1172 the iteenth century, during the time of ʚĀmir (Iggeret, p. 50) and from his letter to the rab- ibn ʚAbd al-Wahāb’s sultanate in Sanʚa (1488– binic authorities of Marseilles written in 1194 1517). he earlier of the two sources is the (in which he introduces this Yemenite claimant Chronicle (Taʙrīkh) of the sixteenth-century as having arisen “approximately twenty-two Hˢ adˢramī historian Bā Faqīh al-Shihˢrī, in which of which was unfortunately lost or misplaced ater its initial publication by I. Goldziher (1906; recently edited and discussed by Friedman, pp. 179–186)—it has reasonably been deduced, in the absence of any further information regarding the missive’s provenance, that this messianic claimant arose during the midtwelth century in Yemen (so Goldziher, Friedman, and, apud the latter, E. Fleischer). Among the noteworthy elements of the letter is ʚIwādˢ’s designation of this unnamed claimant as “the Messiah of Righteousness” (mashiahˢ ha-sˢedeq) as well as his statement that ater repeated rejection of the claimant’s legitimacy, the community (“we”) was eventually compelled to accept him in the face of the daily miracles that he performed (wa-la-qad kadhdhabnā marra wa-ithnayn wa-thalātha ilā ʚazˢuma ʚalaynā ʙl-hˢāl wa-āmannā bi-hādhihī ʙl-ahˢwāl wa-bi-mā yatajaddadu lanā mina ʙl-nazˢar kull yawm mina ʙl-noraʙot wa-ʙl-nilaʙot; per Friedman, p. 185, ll. 2–6). Goldziher suggested (loc. cit., p. 43) that this claimant may in fact have been one and the same as the “Yemenite messiah” of 1172 described by Maimonides (see the next paragraph), and more recently Friedman raised the possibility (p. 180) that the missive of which this copy of ʚIwādˢ’s letter was a part may in fact have been the query sent by Jacob b. → Nethanel Fayyūmī to Maimonides that prompted the latter to reply with his famous Letter to Yemen. 405 messianism the episode is entered under the year A.M. 905 (i.e., 1499/1500). In (not surprisingly) vituperative language, al-Shihˢrī refers to the leader of this movement as “the covenant-breaking Jew who was in Bayhˢān . . . who rebelled against the Shaykh ʚĀmir and exceeded the covenant [i.e., the dhimmī covenant] by speaking against [or ‘challenging’] Islam” (al-yahūdī al-nāqidˢ al-ʚahd alladhī bi-bayhˢān . . . wa-kāna mukhālifan ʚalā ʙl-shaykh ʚāmir nāfa li-l-īmān yatʚˢ anu fī ʙl-islām; text apud Serjeant, p. 294). As an unabashed expression of his opposition, this Jewish rebel, we are told, “would go about on horseback” (yarkabu ʙl-khayl)—an act forbidden to dhimmīs under Islamic law—and proceeded to amass a large military force which was ultimately subdued and punished by the sultan’s army (ibid., and Goitein, p. 137, n. 9). It is in the later source, he History of the Jews in Yemen (Qorot Yisraʙel be-Teman, ed. Qaihˢ, p. 249) by Hˢ ayyim ben Yahˢyā → Hˢ abshush (d. 1899), that the leader of this movement, who “went out from [Sanʚa] to the city of Bayhˢān,” is explicitly described as a “false messiah” (mashiahˢ ha-sheqer), accompanied by noteworthy references to the “severe and terrible battles” (milhˢamot hˢazaqot venoraʙot) that his army fought, as well as the punitive execution in A.M. 5255 (= 1495, a slight discrepancy with the date in al-Shihˢrī) of the Jews living in → Hˢ adˢramawt ater the movement was put down (haregu li-yhudim hanimsˢaʙim sham be-yom hˢaron af ha-moshelim ʚalehem bi-shnat hrn”h). Michael G. Wechsler 2. Yemen In Judaism, as in Islam and many other cultures, there is a belief in a redeemer who will appear at the End of Days and establish a new era of justice, prosperity, and welfare. Messianic urges played an important role in the life of the Jews of → Yemen. heir messianism shared common ideas and symbols with messianic trends elsewhere in the Jewish world, but Yemen was unique because of the persistence of messianism, its volatility, and its assimilation of Muslim messianic trends. Jews were the most signiicant non-Muslim minority in Yemen. Most of them lived near villages of the Zaydīs, who belonged to a moderate branch of the → Shiʚa. As a result of their social interactions with Muslims, the Yemeni Jews adopted certain Muslim eschatological traditions and symbols, such as the term mahdī (Ar. guided one, redeemer) for the messiah, the place of Mecca in the eschatological era, and the mission of Muslim apocalyptic igures. Similarly, Muslim society assimilated some Jewish messianic trends. he adherence of Muslims to Jewish messiahs was stirred up by messianic ferment among the Jews, but even more resulted from messianic aspirations in their own society. he irst known messianic eruption took place in 1172 and was made famous by → Maimonides’ Iggeret Teman (Epistle to Yemen). At the time Yemen was governed by a dynasty whose rulers aspired to actively enhance the messianic era. he anonymous Jewish messiah began his career as a messianic forerunner, wandering through Yemen to announce the approach of the messianic era and call for repentance. Many Jews accepted his message, spread reports of his wonders, and later came to believe that he himself was the messiah. Some of the twelth-century messiah’s followers were Muslims, a phenomenon, recurring in later messianic movements, that relected the close social contacts between local Jews and Muslims in Yemen. he Yemeni authorities executed the messianic claimant, but a movement continued for at least two decades ater his death, with some believers awaiting his resurrection and the completion of his mission. Another messianic episode, about which very little is known, took place around 1500 in Bayhan in southeastern Yemen. he messianic pretender acted like a king and recruited an armed retinue. he local sultan attacked the messiah and his followers, killing many of them and crushing the movement. he Sabbatian movement, which aroused messianic fervor throughout the Jewish world in 1665–66, was the only messianic movement in Yemen that originated elsewhere. Yemeni Jews knew nothing about → Shabbetay Sˢevi until 1666. he news of his messianic claims aroused tremendous excitement, and there was little rabbinic opposition. Unaware of his conversion to Islam, some Yemeni Jews sold their property in preparation for redemption and messianism the ingathering of the exiles, which was expected in 1667. A Jewish leader in → Sanʚa, the capital, demanded that the governor abdicate and hand power over to the Jews. he Yemeni authorities regarded the Sabbatian messianic fervor as a rebellion and severely punished the Jewish community. he exile of many Jews from Sanʚa and the highland regions of central Yemen to the southwestern town of → Mawzaʚ in 1679 was a consequence of the Sabbatian debacle. he nineteenth century witnessed the appearance of three Yemeni Jewish messianic igures— the last messianic movements in the Jewish world arising around a speciic claimant. he Jewish igures were preceded by two Muslim messianic pretenders, Faqīh Saʚīd (1840) and Sharīf Ismāʚīl (1846), who heightened messianic expectations among the Jews. Shukr Kuhˢayl, the irst of the Jewish igures, began his career in 1861 in Sanʚa by declaring himself a messianic herald. He wandered the countryside, urging people to prepare for the messianic era by means of prayer and repentance. He even preached to Muslims, citing evidence for his message from the Qurʙān. Ater two years he made his base on Mount Tiyal and transformed himself into a full-ledged messianic pretender. News of his miraculous deeds spread all over Yemen, and the Jewish masses eagerly locked to him. he rabbis of Sanʚa never forthrightly repudiated Kuhˢayl, and a few were sympathetic to him. Jews from Yemen who had settled in → Alexandria spread the news of Kuhˢayl’s messianic claim in Egypt, building up a nucleus of enthusiastic supporters. Many Muslims also recognized Kuhˢayl as an apocalyptic igure, but this alarmed the ʚulamāʙ (religious scholars), and in 1865 they had him killed. As in previous cases, Kuhˢayl’s movement continued ater his death, and his most zealous believers anticipated his imminent return to complete his mission. In 1868, barely two years ater Shukr Kuhˢayl’s death, a new messianic igure surfaced, known as Shukr Kuhˢayl II. Born Judah Bar Shalom, he claimed to be Shukr Kuhˢayl resurrected. Kuhˢayl’s miraculous “reappearance” reawakened messianic hopes among both Jews and Muslims. For a long while even people who did not believe in him had no doubt that he was 406 Kuhˢayl redivivus. he second Kuhˢayl, however, was much more aggressive and successful than his predecessor. He established a propaganda organization and sent messengers bearing epistles throughout Yemen as well as to the Jewish communities in → Aden, Alexandria, → Bombay, → Calcutta, Jerusalem, and Safed. Kuhˢayl II called on Jews to actively bring on the messianic era by repenting and by paying a sort of tax that he called maʚaser (tithe). he organization that collected the maʚaser (from Muslim adherents as well as from Jews) was an essential instrument in spreading the belief in Kuhˢayl as messiah, and he attracted numerous followers in Egypt, India, Palestine, and even Russia, as well as in Yemen. he maʚaser money was used to maintain Kuhˢayl’s court, for charity to poor Jews and Muslims, and to pay tribal shaykhs to permit him to operate in their territory. he inaction of the rabbis of Sanʚa helped the movement to grow. Its irst serious setback occurred in late 1869, when Jacob → Saphir (Sappir) in Jerusalem, who had visited Yemen in 1859, sent his own Iggeret le-Teman (Epistle to Yemen) to the rabbis of Sanʚa refuting Kuhˢayl II’s messianic claims. he epistle was copied and widely circulated. Kuhˢayl’s position further deteriorated ater the Ottoman conquest of central Yemen in 1872 undermined the political backing that had allowed him to function. he Ottomans arrested him in 1875 and sent him to Istanbul. Kuhˢayl was later released and spent his last days in Sanʚa, where he died in poverty in 1877 or 1878. he last major messianic pretender in Jewish Yemen was Joseph ʚAbdallāh, who appeared in Sanʚa in 1888 claiming that he was the messiah’s messenger, sent to announce the End of Days and call for repentance to prepare the way for the messiah. His call for prayer and repentance was answered by many Jews in Sanʚa and other areas of Ottoman-dominated central Yemen, and also by some Muslims. he Ottomans expelled him from the capital in 1893, and he settled in Shibam, where his inluence faded away. he dynamic nature of Yemeni messianism is apparent in the waves of emigration from Yemen to Palestine and Israel that began in 1881 and culminated in 1950 with → Operation On the Wings of Eagles. Yemeni Jews saw emi- 407 messianism holm et à Christiania (Leiden: Brill, 1891), Section gration to the Holy Land both as preparing the sémitique (b), pp. 1–36. way for the messiah and as a sign of the dawnIbn Hˢ azm, Abū Muhˢammad ʚAlī b. Ahˢmad. Kitāb ing of the messianic age. Bat-Zion Eraqi Klorman Bibliography 1. Messianic movements in the Medieval period Adler, Marcus Nathan (ed.). he Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela (London: Frowde, 1907; repr., Jerusalem, n.d.). Aescoly, Aaron Zeev. Jewish Messianic Movements, vol. 1: From the Bar-Kokhba Revolt until the Expulsion of the Jews from Spain, ed. Yehuda Even-Shemuel, with an introduction by Moshe Idel (Jerusalem: Mosad Bialik, 1987) [Hebrew]. Ben-Zvi, Yisˢhˢaq. Eresˢ Yisraʙel ve-Yishuva bi-Yme haShilt ˢon ha-Otomani (Jerusalem: Ben-Zvi Institute, 1976). al-Bīrūnī, Abū ʙl-Rayhˢān Muhˢammad ibn Ahˢmad. Kitāb al-Āthār al-Bāqiya ʚan al-Qurūn al-Khāliya [Chronologie orientalischer Völker von Albêrûnî], ed. C. Eduard Sachau (Leipzig: Brockhaus, 1878). Chabot, Jean Baptiste (ed.). Chronique de Denys de Tell-Mahˢré, quatrième partie (Paris: Librairie Émile Bouillon, 1895). Davidson, Israel (ed.), and Israel Zangwill (trans.). Selected Religious Poems of Solomon Ibn Gabirol (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1923). Friedman, Mordechai Akiva. Maimonides, the Yemenite Messiah, and Apostasy (Jerusalem: Ben-Zvi Institute, 2002) [Hebrew]. Gil, Moshe. Be-Malkhut Yishmaʚʙel bi-Tqufat haGeʙonim, 4 vols. (Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University, 1997); vol. 1 rev. as Jews in Islamic Countries in the Middle Ages, trans. D. Strassler (Leiden: Brill, 2004). ———. Eresˢ Yisraʙel ba-Tequfa ha-Muslimit haRishona, 3 vols. (Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University, 1983); vol. 1 rev. as A History of Palestine, 634–1099, trans. E. Broido (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992). Goitein, S. D. “Ha-Mashiahˢ mi-Bayhˢān,” in he Yemenites—History; Communal Organization; Spiritual Life: Selected Studies, ed. Menahˢem Ben-Sasson (Jerusalem: Ben-Zvi Institute, 1983), pp. 135–38 [Hebrew]. Golb, Norman. “he Autograph Memoirs of Obadiah the Proselyte,” in Studies in Geniza and Sepharadi Heritage Presented to Shelomo Dov Goitein, ed. Sh. Morag et al. (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1981), pp. 77–107 [Hebrew]. Goldziher, Ignaz. “Un récit sur l’apparition d’un Messie,” Revue des etudes Juives 52 (1906): 43–46. Guidi, Ignazio. “Un nuovo testo siriaco sulla storia degli ultimi Sassanidi,” in Actes du huitième Congrès international des Orientalistes, tenu en 1889 à Stock- al-Fasˢl fī ʙl-Milal wa-ʙl-Nihˢal (Cairo, 1928/29; repr. n.p., n.d.), vol. 1. Klorman, Bat-Zion Eraqi. he Jews of Yemen in the Nineteenth Century: A Portrait of a Messianic Community (Leiden: Brill, 1993). Maimonides, Moses. “Iggeret Teman,” in Iggerot by Moshe ben Maimon (Maimonides), ed. Yosef Qaihˢ (Jerusalem: Mosad Harav Kook, 1994), pp. 9–60 [Hebrew]. ———. Al-sirāj / Mishnaʚim Perush Rabbenu Moshe ben Maimon: Maqor ve-Targum, vol. 5: Neziqin, ed. Yosef Qaihˢ (Jerusalem: Mosad Harav Kook, 1965). Mann, Jacob. Texts and Studies in Jewish History and Literature, 2 vols. (Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College Press, 1931 [vol. 1]; Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1935 [vol. 2]). Margoliouth, David Samuel (ed.). A Commentary on the Book of Daniel by Jephet ibn(!) Ali the Karaite (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1889). Pinsker, Simcha. Liqqutˢe qadmoniyyot [Zur Geschichte des Karaismus und der karäischen Literatur] (Vienna: Della Torre, 1860). Qaihˢ, Yosef. “‘Qorot Yisraʙel be-Teman’ le-Rabbi Hˢ ayyim Hˢ abshush,” Sefunot 2 (1958): 246–286. al-Qirqisānī, Abū Yūsuf Yaʚqūb b. Ishˢāq. Kitāb alAnwār wa-ʙl-Marāqib—Code of Karaite Law, ed. L. Nemoy, 5 vols. (New York: Alexander Kohut Memorial Foundation, 1939–45). Serjeant, R. B. “Materials for South Arabian History: Notes on New MSS from Hˢ adˢramawt” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and Asian Studies 13, no. 2 (1950): 294. al-Shahrastānī, Abū ʙl-Fathˢ Muhˢammad ibn ʚAbd alKarīm. Al-Milal wa-ʙl-Nihˢal, ed. A. F. Muhˢammad, vol. 2 (Cairo: Matˢbaʚat Hˢ ijāzī bi-ʙl-Qāhira, 1948). Silver, Abba Hillel. A History of Messianic Speculation in Israel: From the First through the Seventeenth Centuries (Boston: Beacon Press, 1959; repr. Gloucester, Mass.: Smith, 1978). 2. Yemen Eraqi Klorman, Bat-Zion. “Jewish and Muslim Messianism,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 22, no. 2 (1990): 201–228. ———. he Jews of Yemen in the Nineteenth Century: A Portrait of a Messianic Community (Leiden: Brill, 1993). ———. “he Messiah Shukr Kuhayl II (1868–1875) and His Tithe (maʚaser): Ideology and Practice as a Means to Hasten Redemption,” Jewish Quarterly Review 79, nos. 2–3 (1988): 199–217; reprinted in Marc Saperstein (ed.), Essential Papers on Messianic Movements and Personalities in Jewish History (New York: New York University Press, 1992), pp. 456–472. messianism ———. “Messiahs and Rabbis: he Yemeni Experience,” Revue des Études Juives 151, nos. 1–2 (1992): 77–94. ———.”Muslim Supporters of Jewish Messiahs in Yemen,” Middle Eastern Studies 29, no. 4 (1993): 714–725. ———. he Jews of Yemen: History, Society, Culture, (Raanana: Open University Press, 2004 (Vol. II; 2008 Vol. III) [Hebrew]. Saphir, Jacob. Iggeret le-Teman (Mainz, 1869). ———. Iggeret Teman ha-Shenit (Vilna, 1873). Tobi, Joseph. he Jews of Yemen: Studies in heir History and Culture (Leiden: Brill, 1999). Ya’ari, Abraham. “Shukr Kuhˢayl (Two False Messiahs in Yemen),” in Shevut Teman, ed. Y. Yeshaʚyahu and A. Sˢadoq (Tel Aviv, 1945), pp. 124–148 [Hebrew]. Messika, Hˢ abiba Hˢ abība Messika (Messica) was born into a family of Jewish musicians in Tunisia in 1899. She studied voice and the piano with her aunt Layla Sfez. At the age of twenty she embarked on her performing career as a wedding singer. Later she was attracted to the theater. Her teacher in this area was Muhˢammad Bourgiba, and thanks to him she played leading roles in famous comedies and world-famous dramas. It is sometimes said that she was more talented as an actress than as a singer. In her time she was seen as an ideal woman not only for her talent and beauty but also for her kindly nature. She lived in fabulous luxury, but her generosity was legendary. She was burned to death at the hands of a spurned suitor, Eliyahu Mimouni, on February 20, 1930, and was laid to rest in the Borgel cemetery in Tunis. News of her death caused general shock and her funeral was still spoken of many years ater her death. he singer Bishi Slama composed an elegy for the occasion that was recorded. he interwar years were the golden age of Arabic theater in Tunisia. European theater was pushed aside, and the taste for Egyptian theater companies and actors steadily dropped. During the irst half of this golden age, the 1920s, Hˢ abība was Tunisia’s foremost theatrical celebrity. She began her acting career in 1921 at al-Shahāma, one of the two major theaters in the second decade of the century (1912–1922). Ater a slump in its fortunes the theater began staging productions again in 1921 with an original play entitled al-Samawʙal, which pre- 408 sented the life of the renowned Jewish poet al-Samawʙal ibn ʚAdiyāʙ, who lived in sixthcentury Arabia. Hˢ abība, just twenty-one years old, played Julie in the drama Sˢalāh al-Dīn, which was notable for its obvious nationalistic tendencies, showing the superiority of the Arab Muslim world to Christian Europe. Al-Shahāma also presented classic dramas by European playwrights, such as Victor Hugo’s Lucrèce Borgia and Marie Tudor, Edmond Rostand’s L’ Aiglon, and Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Othello, in which Hˢ abība played Desdemona. During the company’s European tours she performed in French in Paris, Nice, Monte Carlo, Biarritz, Berlin, and other places, scoring an incredible success. In recent years interest in Hˢ abība has revived. At least two compact discs with recordings of her songs are available in record shops in Tunisia and France, and books about her have appeared in French and Arabic. But most notable is a ilm about her made in 1997 by the Tunisian Muslim director Selma Bakkar (Baccar), who shaped her character, in accordance with the fashion of the 1990s, as a nationalist and feminist. It cannot be denied that Hˢ abība carried her feminine personality proudly and with her head held high in a society that set men above women. Bibliography Faivre d’Arcier, Jeanne. Habiba Messika: Le brûlure du péché (Paris: Belfond, 1997). Hˢ amrūnī, Ahˢmad. Hˢ abība Masīka: Hˢ ayāh wa-Fann (Tunis: ʚĀlam al-Kitāb, 2007). Riahi, Jessie. Cantique pour Habiba: La vie tumultueuse de la chanteuse Habiba Messika (Paris: Wern, 1997). Tobi, Yosef. “Habiba Messica: A Star of Arab heatre in Tunisia,” Journal of heatre and Drama 3 (1997): 129–146. ——— and Tsivia Tobi. “Mythicization of a Popular Singer: Oral and Written Traditions about Hbiba Msica (Tunis, 1903–1930),” Jerusalem Studies in Jewish Folklore 19–20 (1998): 187–210 [Hebrew]. Yosef Tobi Mevasser (Calcutta) he Mevasser (Herald) was a weekly newspaper in → Judeo-Arabic published by the → Baghdadi Jewish community in → Calcutta