DHAM?R?, MAN?UR SULEIMAN

DHAM?R?, MAN?UR SULEIMAN (Ibn al-Mu ?allim , Heb. Hoter ben Solomon ; first half of the 15^th century), Yemenite scholar and author. Dham?r?'s major work was Sir?j al-?Uq?l ("Light of the Wise"), an early Yemenite midrashic compilation containing certain Midrashim unknown from other sources. He draws mainly on the Mishnah, the Talmud, the Sifra and Sifrei and also three post-talmudic scholars: Saadiah Gaon, Maimonides, and Nethanel b. Isaiah. An interesting innovation is his use of Arabic sources – poems, and philosophical essays – side by side with the Jewish sources. Most of the book is written in Arabic, with only about a third in Hebrew. Each chapter begins and ends with one or two poems. Dham?r?'s method, similar to that of other Yemenite writers, is one of midrashic commentary, but he is noteworthy also for philosophical exposition. His quotations are, however, imprecise and interspersed with interpretations, some of which are very curious. Other known works by Dham?r? are Shar? ?al? al-Mishna, a commentary on Maimonides' exposition of the Mishnah; Shar? al-Qaw??id, a commentary on the 13 principles; and 100 responsa, mostly collected in 1423 (all unpublished).

bibliography:

A. Kohut, Manzûr al-Dhamâri's Hebrew-Arabic Philosophical Commentary on the Pentateuch (n.d.); S. Lieberman, Yemenite Midrashim (1940); Y. Ratzaby, in: ks, 28 (1952/53), 261–78, 394–402, nos. 12, 127, 158, 231.

[Yehuda Ratzaby]