Abraham ibn Daud

Abraham ibn Daud , also (Ibrahim) Ibn Dawud or Ibn Dāwūd (* around 1110 in Córdoba ; † 1180 in Toledo ; Hebrew אברהם אבן דאוד; Arabic إبراهيم بن داود, DMG Ibrāhīm b. Dāwūd ), also known by the acronym Rabad (I.), Hebrew ראב"ד, and "Europeanized" as Avendauth (also Avendehut etc.), was a Spanish Sephardic chronicler, Jewish philosopher and astronomer as well as a martyr and the first Jewish Aristotelian before Maimonides .

life and work

Abraham ibn Daud or Avraham ibn Dawd ha-Levi (or Abraham ben David ha-Levi ) was a Sephardic astronomer, mathematician and philosopher. He was born in Córdoba, Spain, around 1110 and was the grandson of Isaac ben Baruch Albalia, growing up with his maternal uncle, Baruch ben Isaac Albalia, in Granada. Baruch ben Isaac Albalia taught his nephew Halacha , philosophy and astronomy. Both the New Testament and the Koran were familiar to him. Together with Dominicus Gundissalinus , the leading representative of the translation school of Toledo , he translated Arabic works from science and philosophy into Latin. In the years 1160/61 he wrote Sefer ha-Kabbala (Book of Tradition) together with the books Divre malke Jisra'el be-Bajjitscheni (Chronicle of Israelite Kings) and Sikhron divre Romi (Chronicle of Rome). During the Almohad conquest of Spain, he fled to Christian Castile and settled in Toledo, where he lived as a martyr until his death in 1180.

The Chronicle Sefer ha-Kabbalah summarizes the history of Israel and documents the uninterrupted and successive series of bearers of the Jewish tradition up to the time of the author (1146). He proved that the chain of Jewish tradition had not been broken. In the book Sikhron divre Romi he comes to the opinion that Constantine forged the New Testament. In the book Al-aqida al-Rafi'a he tries to achieve a perfect harmonization between belief and knowledge, which is a Jewish-philosophical work that was characterized by the influence of Aristotle , which he over Avicenna , from the he is almost completely dependent and which he has also partially translated and received.

In his chronicle Sefer ha-Kabbala he criticizes the Karaites and defends rabbinic Judaism . The Khazars did not follow the Karaites either, but rabbinic Judaism. Ibn Daud also describes the correspondence between the King of the Khazars, King Joseph, and Hasdai ibn Shaprut and reports that scholars from the Khazar Empire came to Toledo in the 11th century.

Editions and translations

GD Cohen (ed.): Sefer Ha-Qabbala: The Book of Tradition by Abraham Ibn Daud. Philadelphia 1967.

literature

Resianne Fontaine: Abraham ben David Halevi Ibn Daud . In: Encyclopaedia Judaica . 2nd Edition. Volume 9, Detroit / New York a. a. 2007, ISBN 978-0-02-865937-4 , pp. 663-665 (English).
Hermann Greive : Abraham ibn Daud . In: Theologische Realenzyklopädie (TRE). Volume 1, de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 1977, ISBN 3-11-006944-X , pp. 388-389.
Gundolf Keil : Ibn Dāwūd, Ibrahim (Abraham ibn Daud / A. Ben David ha-Levi / Rabad I.) In: Werner E. Gerabek , Bernhard D. Haage, Gundolf Keil, Wolfgang Wegner (eds.): Enzyklopädie Medizingeschichte. De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2005, ISBN 3-11-015714-4 , p. 290.

Web links

Resianne Fontaine: Abraham Ibn Daud. In: Edward N. Zalta (Ed.): Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy .
Jakob Guttmann : ABRAHAM IBN DAUD HALEVI…. In: Isidore Singer (Ed.): Jewish Encyclopedia . Volume 1, Funk and Wagnalls, New York 1901-1906, pp. 101-103 .

Individual evidence

↑ This to differentiate between Abraham ben Isaak from Narbonne ("Rabad II") and Abraham ben David from Posquières ("Rabad III"), cf. z. B. Fontaine 2007; Guttmann 1901, 101.
↑ Dt. "The sublime faith". The book is written in Arabic, but only preserved in Hebrew in a translation by Schlomo ben Lavi de la Caballeria under the title ha-emuna ha-rama . This translation was translated into German by S. Weil: Das Buch Emunah Ramah or: The sublime faith. Frankfurt a. M. 1852. There is also a Hebrew translation ibn Dauds by Shmuel ibn Motot. TAM Fontaine has provided an English translation: In Defense of Judaism: Abraham Ibn Daud . Sources and Structure of ha-Emunah ha-Ramah (Studia Semitica Neerlandica 26) [PhD with H. Daiber and T. van Velthoven, Amsterdam March 4, 1986], Van Gorcum & Comp. 1990, ISBN 90-232-2404-3 .

personal data
SURNAME	Abraham ibn Daud
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Jewish philosopher, author and legal scholar
DATE OF BIRTH	1110
PLACE OF BIRTH	Cordoba (Spain)
DATE OF DEATH	1180
Place of death	Toledo

[1] This to differentiate between Abraham ben Isaak from Narbonne ("Rabad II") and Abraham ben David from Posquières ("Rabad III"), cf. z. B. Fontaine 2007; Guttmann 1901, 101.

[2] Dt. "The sublime faith". The book is written in Arabic, but only preserved in Hebrew in a translation by Schlomo ben Lavi de la Caballeria under the title ha-emuna ha-rama . This translation was translated into German by S. Weil: Das Buch Emunah Ramah or: The sublime faith. Frankfurt a. M. 1852. There is also a Hebrew translation ibn Dauds by Shmuel ibn Motot. TAM Fontaine has provided an English translation: In Defense of Judaism: Abraham Ibn Daud . Sources and Structure of ha-Emunah ha-Ramah (Studia Semitica Neerlandica 26) [PhD with H. Daiber and T. van Velthoven, Amsterdam March 4, 1986], Van Gorcum & Comp. 1990, ISBN 90-232-2404-3 .