Epistle to Yemen

The Epistle to Yemen or Yemen Letter (Arabic: الرسالة اليمنية, translated as Hebrew: אגרת תימן, romanized: Iggeret Teiman) was an important communication written by Maimonides and sent to the Yemenite Jews. The epistle was written in 1173/4.^[1] The letter was written in Arabic.^[2]

The need for the epistle arose because of religious persecution and heresy in the 12th century Yemen, marked by a messiah claimant who had arisen there. The man who claimed to be the Jewish messiah began preaching a syncretistic religion that combined Islam and Judaism and claimed that the Bible had foretold his coming as a prophet. Haggai Mazuz believes this unnamed claimant was al-Samawal al-Maghribi, author of the Confutation of the Jews (Arabic: افحام اليهود, romanized: Ifḥām al-Yahūd).^[3]

One of the leaders of the Jewish community in Yemen, Jacob ben Nathanael, the son of the illustrious Natan'el al-Fayyumi, had addressed his concerns in a letter which he had sent to Maimonides, who was in Egypt. Jacob had conjectured that perhaps the influences of the stars were responsible for these occurrences, to which conjectures Maimonides replied that Jacob ought to expunge from his heart the vain concept of being able to determine the influences of the constellations, yet counselled him and the Jewish people of Yemen on how they were to act concerning the messiah claimant to be saved from his harmful effects.^[4]

^ "Letters of Maimonides: Crisis and Leadership," by Abraham Halkin and David Hartman
^ Moses Maimonides' Epistle to Yemen; the Arabic original and the three Hebrew versions, edited from manuscripts with introduction and notes by Abraham S. Halkin and an English translation by Boaz Cohen
^ Mazuz, Haggai (2014). "The Identity of the Apostate in the Epistle to Yemen". AJS Review. 38 (2): 363. ISSN 0364-0094.
^ Yosef Qafih, "Yemenite Jewry's Connections with Major Jewish Centers", in: Ascending the Palm Tree – An Anthology of the Yemenite Jewish Heritage, Rachel Yedid & Danny Bar-Maoz (ed.), E'ele BeTamar: Rehovot 2018, pp. 30–31 OCLC 1041776317

[1] "Letters of Maimonides: Crisis and Leadership," by Abraham Halkin and David Hartman

[2] Moses Maimonides' Epistle to Yemen; the Arabic original and the three Hebrew versions, edited from manuscripts with introduction and notes by Abraham S. Halkin and an English translation by Boaz Cohen

[3] Mazuz, Haggai (2014). "The Identity of the Apostate in the Epistle to Yemen". AJS Review. 38 (2): 363. ISSN 0364-0094.

[4] Yosef Qafih, "Yemenite Jewry's Connections with Major Jewish Centers", in: Ascending the Palm Tree – An Anthology of the Yemenite Jewish Heritage, Rachel Yedid & Danny Bar-Maoz (ed.), E'ele BeTamar: Rehovot 2018, pp. 30–31 OCLC 1041776317

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