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The 1,000-year-old lost Arab poetry that lives on in Hebrew

Ramm, Benjamin
http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20170616-the-1000-year-old-lost-arab-poetry-that-lives-on-in-hebrew

Publisher:  BBC
Date Written:  29/06/2017
Year Published:  2017  
Resource Type:  Article

A thousand years ago, the Iberian peninsula was a cultural oasis-- until a million of its Arabic manuscripts were destroyed. Benjamin Ramm explains how its poetry lives on.

Abstract: 
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Excerpt:

At a time of intercommunal tension, it is tempting to idealise this Muslim-Jewish period of mutual flourishing. There are critics who argue against the notion of La Convivencia -- some have called it a 'myth', promulgated in subsequent centuries by Jews living under Christian persecution. Documentation about communal relations during this period is scant, although it is certain that the succession of the Umayyad dynasty by the Almoravids and then the Almohads resulted in greater persecution. The extent of 'coexistence' continues to be a subject of passionate disputation.

The most revered medieval Jewish poet, Yehuda HaLevi, lived under Almoravid rule before seeking refuge in Toledo, by then recaptured by the Christian king Alfonso VI. When Alfonso died, anti-Jewish riots forced HaLevi to Cordoba, where the community was also under threat, and where HaLevi developed proto-Zionist ideals ("My heart is in the East – / and I am at the end of the West"). Despite lamenting that Hebrew was "bound by Arabia’s chains", his most famous prose work was written in Arabic, his theology incorporated Sufi and Shia devotional concepts, and much of his late poetry maintained Andalusian metrics.

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