This Noble House
Introduction
In the second half of the twelfth century, almost a hundred years before Marco Polo’s celebrated exploration of the Silk Route, two Jewish travelers made their ways, separately, to the city of Baghdad. Benjamin of Tudela, the first and more famous of the two, arrived in about the year 1168 after setting out from northern Spain and traveling through southern France, Italy, the Balkans, Turkey, Palestine, and Syria. Leaving Baghdad, Benjamin would continue on to the city of Basra and the Persian Gulf, visit Egypt, and eventually make his way back to Spain in 1173. Two or three years later, Petaḥya ben Jacob of Regensburg, unaware of his predecessor’s journey, also visited the Abbasid capital in the midst of a similarly long and arduous circuit that took him east from Prague, through parts of Poland and Russia, south across the Crimea and Armenia, into Iraq, Syria, and Palestine, and finally back to Bohemia and Regensburg.1
The two came from very different backgrounds. Though Benjamin hailed from the Christian Iberian crown of Navarre, he was in many ways a direct heir to the cultural legacy of Muslim-dominated al-Andalus.2 What few details we know of Petaḥya’s origins, on the other hand, suggest that he came from a family steeped in the unique intellectual currents and religious patterns that were then coming to dominate northern European Jewry. His brother Isaac, we know, studied in France with the important twelfth-century Tosafist Jacob ben Meir and was among the first generation of scholars to develop the dialectic method of talmudic analysis in Bohemia.3
Despite these differences, though, the two were struck by many of the same things. Each of the travelers left behind a record of his remarkable wanderings, and in both accounts the city of Baghdad looms large, taking up nearly a tenth of Benjamin’s Sefer ha-massaʿot (Book of Travels) and roughly the same proportion of Petaḥya’s itinerary. Though the city was beginning to show signs of decline by the end of the twelfth century, there was still much there to dazzle the eyes of a weary traveler. Muslim visitors to Baghdad in the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries were impressed, among other things, by the sheer size of the city, by its bustling markets, and by the many schools, mosques, and richly decorated bathhouses that could be found in practically every neighborhood.4 Religious differences notwithstanding, Benjamin and Petaḥya had more or less the same reaction.
Benjamin’s narrative reveals that like other twelfth-century visitors he was captivated by the city, and at the center of his account is a glowing depiction of the Abbasid caliph, whom he likens to the pope since “all of the kings of Islam obey him.” Repeatedly noting the caliph’s distinguished descent from Muḥammad, Benjamin also stresses his moral and ethical virtues. “He will not partake of anything unless he has earned it by the work of his own hand,” Benjamin reports; moreover, “he is truthful and trusty, speaking peace to all men.” Most significantly, Benjamin describes the caliph as a ruler who is respectful toward the Jews of his domain and their religion. “He is kind unto Israel and many belonging to the people of Israel are among his attendants. He knows all languages and is well-versed in the law of Israel. He reads and writes the Holy Language.” In sum, Benjamin writes, “the caliph is a righteous man [ish ḥasid] and all his actions are for good.”5
Benjamin was also moved by Baghdad’s architecture. He describes the caliphal palace, located in the eastern portion of the city, with discernible awe. Comprising “great buildings made of marble with columns of silver and gold,” the massive complex encompassed a lake fed by the Tigris and “a great forest with all manner of trees … and animals.” In the western half of the city Benjamin was taken with one of Baghdad’s celebrated hospitals, perhaps the bīmāristān founded by the Buwayhid prince ʿAḍūd al-Dawla in the late tenth century. According to Benjamin’s reckoning, it boasted a staff of some sixty physicians and supported a sanitarium to care for the insane. With apparent admiration he notes that “every sick man who comes is maintained at the expense of the caliph.”6
Petaḥya of Regensburg, on the other hand, has relatively little to say about the topography of Baghdad, its magnificent edifices, or its Muslim inhabitants. And though he mentions the city’s expansive size and briefly comments on its newly restored walls, “standing a hundred cubits high … made of polished, ornamented copper,” he was most interested in Baghdad’s Jews, whose numbers he estimated at about 1000, a far more likely estimate than Benjamin’s figure of 40,000.7 Jews appear to have inhabited several sections of the city. Sources from the mid- and late tenth century suggest that the hub of Jewish communal life was located in the ʿAtīqa section of Baghdad—an area situated west of the Tigris between Tāq al-ḥarrānī and Bāb al-shaʿīr—but there are indications that Jews could be found in other areas of the city as well.8
Petaḥya notes with keen interest the local Jews’ impressive mastery of the biblical text. “Even those who are ignorant,” he observes, “know all twenty-four books according to their proper vocalization, the rules of grammar, and the traditions concerning pronunciation and spelling.” He also comments admiringly on their concern for the modesty of their women. “None there looks upon any woman,” he writes. “Nor does anyone enter the house of his friend out of concern that he might see his wife improperly.”9 The peaceful relations that existed between the Jews of Baghdad and their Muslim neighbors drew Petaḥya’s attention as well. Using the region’s biblical name as medieval Jews were wont to do for many areas of the Near East, Petaḥya concludes: “There is great peace for the Jews in the land of Babylon, and they do not experience exile [galut] at all.”10
In both travelers’ romanticized visions of the city—and for that matter, of the Islamic East more broadly—the theme of Jewish empowerment looms especially large. Both Petaḥya and Benjamin left pointedly enthusiastic descriptions of the ecumenical Jewish leaders in Baghdad. Petaḥya describes the gaʾon Samuel ben ʿEli, head of the yeshiva in Baghdad, with evident delight. “He is full of wisdom,” Petaḥya writes, “both in the written and the oral law, and in all the wisdom of Egypt. Nothing at all is hidden from him.” Samuel is also depicted as a captivating teacher: throngs of disciples, each one an accomplished scholar in his own right, sit at his feet, eager to imbibe his lectures.11 But to Petaḥya the gaʾon was more than a scholar; he also embodied Jewish political power. “The head of the academy,” he writes, “has about sixty servants, and they flog anyone who does not immediately execute his orders. Therefore, the people fear him…. And he is clothed in gold and colored garments like the king, and his palace also is hung with costly tapestries like the king’s.”12 And the same impression is conveyed in Petaḥya’s description of the extent of the gaʾon’s dominion: “In all the lands of Assyria and Damascus, in the cities of Persia and Media, as well as in the land of Babylon,” he insists, “they have no judge that has not been appointed by Rabbi Samuel, the head of the academy. It is he who gives license in every city to judge and to teach. His authority is acknowledged in all countries, and also in the land of Israel. They all respect him.”13
But Samuel ben ʿEli was not the only Iraqi