when Avraham ha-Kohen, who already possessed two Hebrew titles, was given a third, hod hazeqenim (glory of the elders), he was told that the name had been given “many years before to the [now deceased] elder Abū ‘Alī Ben Faḍlān at Baghdad” and “from then until now no one has been named this.” The author, whom Mann suggests was Daniel Ben ‘Azariah, specified his hope that the title would “elevate [Avraham’s] honor, magnify his name, and extend his authority.”73
State-oriented titles abound among addressees in the thirteenth-century dīwān of El‘azar Ben Ya‘aqov ha-Bavli. Here we encounter shams al-dawla (sun of the state), sharf al-dawla (nobility of the state), ‘izz al-dawla (might of the state), najm al-dawla (star of the state), and amīn al-dawla (confidant of the state).74 In some cases, titles are hinted at within Hebrew panegyrics for these figures, as when amīn al-dawla Ben Manṣūr Ben al-Mashā’irī is called pe’er misrah ve-ne’eman ha-melukhah (wonder of dominion and confidant of sovereignty). Occasionally, Arabic laqabs are simply inserted into Hebrew poems.75 The letters of Shemuel Ben ‘Eli also provide a wealth of information on titles and epithets, especially as they were bestowed upon lower ranks by the author. Terms such as amīn al-dawla, amīn al-mulk, thiqqat al-mulk, al-thiqqa, al-amīn, all of which signify that the figure is a trusted proxy of “sovereignty” or the “state,” are widely attested.76 It is particularly interesting that Ben ‘Eli continued to use the style of titulature characteristic of Shi‘ite dynasties after, as Kramers suggests, such titles had been denounced by Sunni critics as emphasizing worldly over religious aspects of Islam.77
In Ben ‘Eli’s collection, the same individuals are sometimes described within a single letter both in Hebrew and in Judeo-Arabic, which allows for a useful comparison of political discourse in the two languages. In some cases, the Hebrew titles are much more elaborate and richer in literary references pertaining to Jewish dimensions of legitimacy. Two brothers described in Judeo-Arabic rather generically as “the two exalted elders” (al-shaikhaini al-jalīlaini) are described in Hebrew as “two precious elders, the praised brothers, the pure, the natives who are like bdellium and raised beds of spices [Sg 5:13], honest men [Gn 42:11], the priests, sons of the steadfast.”78 The Hebrew, in addition to being more ornate, draws on their lineage, both to their immediate progenitors and to their descent from a long line of priests.
On the other hand, the Hebrew and Judeo-Arabic sometimes mirror each other such that the Hebrew renders phrases whose origin is clearly Arabic. A certain Mevorakh is introduced in Judeo-Arabic as the “lofty minister, proxy of the nation, trusted one of sovereignty, beauty of the ministers”; in Hebrew, he is described as “our minister and noble one, the minister, the leader, the respected, our lord and master Mevorakh, minister of the nation, trusted one of sovereignty, splendor of the ministers, crown of the Levites, treasure of the yeshivah.” Again, the Hebrew adds specifically Jewish dimensions and introduces a first-person plural voice (“our lord and master”). But most of the Hebrew formulations are translations of Arabic epithets (amīn al-mulk = ne’eman ha-malkhut; jamāl al-ru’asā = hod ha-sarim).79 Thus, much innovation occurred within the Hebrew language to accommodate the feel of Arabic praise writing and to capture a new mode of political discourse.
An extraordinary amount of literary care went into the selection of terms of address, whether in Hebrew or in Judeo-Arabic. A fascinating example is ENA NS 18.30, a twelfth-century Geniza fragment that preserves three drafts of a single letter composed by Ḥalfon Ben Natanel for Maṣliaḥ Ben Shelomoh ha-Kohen, head of the Jerusalem academy, which at the time was in Fustat. The letter was written to initiate contact between the scholar-merchant, who already enjoyed significant fame, and the gaon, whom Ben Natanel hoped would maintain contact and promote his reputation. The existence of multiple drafts in Judeo-Arabic for the same purpose clearly attests to the deliberateness that Ben Natanel invested in getting the tone just right. Comparing the versions is revealing:
1. My lord, my master, the most high, my support, my refuge, the most revered, my help, my stay, the most excellent, crown of the Exile, lamp of the religious community, perfection of exaltedness, fit for the domains of religion and the material world, his virtue and beneficence are widespread.
2. My lord, the most high, my master, the unique, the most excellent, the most beautiful crown, and the most perfect splendor, banner of banners, the source of perfection, the beauty of thought, ornament of the age.
3. My lord, my master, august as is proper for him, the sublime, foremost in priority, his exalted and sublime Presence.
From the first version to the third, the terms of praise actually become fewer in number. On the other hand, the author moved away from one-word descriptions (the most high, my support, my refuge), which are fairly generic, to more complex constructions, though these are not absent even in the first example. Already in the first example, the author has drawn upon terms of praise common within Islamic political discourse and Arabic panegyric, most importantly “fit for the domains of Religion and the World” (al-dīn wa’l-dunyā), a theme that had a long life span in Jewish discourse. In the second and third examples, the author has dropped terms referring to the Jewish community specifically (the Exile, the religious community) and offered a more universal depiction. Most importantly, the text moves toward vocabulary that is much more rare, abstract, and particular to royalty (“banner,” “Presence”).
Official letters were sometimes enacted dramatically through the oral presentation of their contents. A long letter sent on behalf of the congregations of Alexandria by Yeshu‘a Kohen Ben Yosef to Ephraim Ben Shemariah, head of the Jerusalem congregation in Fustat, requests contributions for the freeing of captives; even in such an urgent matter, the author did not fail to include six lines of complicated rhymed prose in the introduction (praise in honor of the community) and thirty in the body of the letter. In thanking Ben Shemariah for a previous letter, the author writes, “the whole community (of Alexandria) enjoyed your letter …, the greatness of your wisdom and the beauty of your rhymes.” Ben Yosef also requests that his letter be read to the community in Fustat.80 Shemuel Ben ‘Eli specifies that a letter should be read “in public and sweetly” (meteq lashon) and a joint letter from Sherirah and Hai Gaon to the Palestinian academy commands that the letter be read in public, “which was done there for our forefathers many times.”81 A letter of Maimonides to Yosef Ibn ‘Aqnīn describes a highly ritualized public reading of a letter from an exilarch such that the community members rose while the reader stood with the elders of the community to his right and left.82 The fact that epistles were frequently performed orally helps close the functional gap between epistles and oral panegyrics. And because epistles contained so much praise, their wide distribution demonstrates how public images of legitimacy could be disseminated and consumed.
Poetic Epistles, Epistolary Poems
As noted, many letters were written with a great deal of literary flair and made use of the same poetic techniques characteristic of “literature” proper. Similarly, many poems can be shown to have held an epistolary function. To be sure, letters and poems were distinguished in the medieval period and were theorized, respectively, in works on epistolography and poetics. At the same time, however, the Geniza preserves two book lists in which a dīwān al-mukātabāt (collection of correspondence) appears adjacent to a dīwān alshi‘r (collection of poetry), which points to differentiation but also to the proximity of the two forms.83 Further, no neat dichotomy can be maintained between texts that were “poems” and those that were “epistles.” At the very least, both utilized praise as a dominant mode of address, which points to their common rhetorical goals. The shared function of praise is corroborated by similar organizational strategies in works of epistolography and poetics, in that both tend to be structured around hierarchy. We have already seen that al-Ḥumaydī and al-Qalqashandī organize blessings of address according to rank; similarly, the panegyric section of Kitāb al-‘umda, a major work
