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Copyright

Nadia Vidro;

Published On

2025-03-07

Page Range

pp. 523–546

Language

  • English

Print Length

24 pages

Yūsuf ibn Nūḥ and Yūsuf ibn Baḫtawayh

One Grammarian or Two?

  • Nadia Vidro (author)
Chapter of: Interconnected Traditions: Semitic Languages, Literatures, Cultures—A Festschrift for Geoffrey Khan: Volume 2: The Medieval World, Judaeo-Arabic, and Neo-Aramaic(pp. 523–546)
The article addresses the debated identity of Yūsuf ibn Nūḥ and Yūsuf ibn Baḫtawayh, two prominent medieval Karaite grammarians. By analysing intra-Karaite polemics and Karaite Bible commentaries, the study concludes that these two figures were distinct individuals. Differences in grammatical interpretations and literary output further support their separation. The earlier Ibn Baḫtawayh was known for his grammar work and was referred to in Karaite sources as a Babylonian and a teacher of the Diaspora. Ibn Nūḥ, on the other hand, was active in Jerusalem in the late tenth century, founded a house of study, and authored grammatical Bible commentaries and a treatise on the calendar. He is reported to have been critical of Ibn Baḫtawayh. The findings challenge earlier scholarly conflations of their identities and offer a refined understanding of the Karaite grammatical tradition.

Contributors

Nadia Vidro

(author)
Senior Research Fellow and Editorial Fellow at University College London

Nadia Vidro (PhD, University of Cambridge) is a Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Hebrew and Jewish Studies, UCL, and an Editorial Fellow in the Invisible East programme, Oxford. Dr Vidro’s primary research interests are Hebrew manuscripts and Jewish intellectual history. Her research at UCL focuses on the history of the Jewish calendar. An additional research interest is the history of grammar, including the Karaite tradition of Biblical Hebrew grammar and the transmission of grammatical knowledge between the Jewish and the Muslim cultures. Her monographs include Verbal Morphology in the Karaite Treatise on Hebrew Grammar Kitab al-ʿUqūd fi Taṣārīf al-Luġa al-ʿIbrāniyya (Brill, 2011), A Medieval Karaite Pedagogical Grammar of Hebrew: A Critical Edition and English Translation of Kitab al-ʿUqūd fi Taṣārīf al-Luġa al-ʿIbrāniyya (Brill, 2013), and Saadya Gaon’s Works on the Jewish Calendar: A Study with Five Critical Editions (Brill, forthcoming).