Maimonides and the Merchants. Mark R. Cohen

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      Maimonides and the Merchants

      JEWISH CULTURE AND CONTEXTS

      Published in association with

      the Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies

      of the University of Pennsylvania

      Steven Weitzman, Series Editor

      A complete list of books in the series

      is available from the publisher.

      MAIMONIDES

      AND THE MERCHANTS

      Jewish Law and Society

      in the Medieval Islamic World

      Mark R. Cohen

      UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA PRESS

      PHILADELPHIA

      Copyright © 2017 University of Pennsylvania Press

      All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations used for

      purposes of review or scholarly citation, none of this book

      may be reproduced in any form by any means without written

      permission from the publisher.

      Published by

      University of Pennsylvania Press

      Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-4112

       www.upenn.edu/pennpress

      Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper

      1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

      Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

      Names: Cohen, Mark R., 1943– author.

      Title: Maimonides and the merchants : Jewish law and society in the medieval Islamic world / Mark R. Cohen.

      Other titles: Jewish culture and contexts.

      Description: 1st edition. | Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, [2017] | Series: Jewish culture and contexts

      Identifiers: LCCN 2016055419 | ISBN 9780812249149 (hardcover : alk. paper)

      Subjects: LCSH: Jewish merchants—Islamic Empire—History—To 1500. | Commercial law (Jewish law)—History—To 1500. | Partnership (Jewish law)—History—To 1500. | Maimonides, Moses, 1135-1204. Mishneh Torah. | Islamic Empire—Commerce—History—To 1500. | Islamic Empire—Ethnic relations—History—To 1500.

      Classification: LCC DS135.L4 C65 2017 | DDC 296.3/677—dc23

      LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016055419

       For Linda

      Contents

       Notes and Abbreviations

       Introduction

       Chapter 1. Codification and Legal Change

       Chapter 2. Halakha and the Custom of the Merchants

       Chapter 3. Updating the Halakha

       Chapter 4. Partnership

       Chapter 5. Commercial Agency (Ṣuḥba)

       Chapter 6. Ṣuḥba-Agency in the Code

       Chapter 7. Proxy Legal Agency

       Chapter 8. Sale and Contract

       Chapter 9. Judicial Autonomy

       Conclusion. Legal Change and Originality

       Notes

       Works Cited

       Index

       Acknowledgments

      Notes and Abbreviations

      All references to the Talmud are to the Babylonian Talmud, unless otherwise indicated. Transcriptions of Judaeo-Arabic follow classical Arabic conventions and use the system in the Encyclopaedia of Islam, except that dj and k are replaced by j and q, respectively. Hebrew transcriptions follow a simplified format, omitting the macron for long vowels. I have used the edition of the Mishneh Torah of Shabse Frankel, which is generally considered the most reliable printed edition. For the English translation of passages from the Mishneh Torah, I have consulted and generally relied upon The Code of Maimonides, 14 vols. (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1949), making changes where I deemed them necessary.

AIU	Alliance Israélite Universelle Geniza Collection, Paris
AJS	Association for Jewish Studies
APD	Arabic Papyrology Database
Bodl.	Bodleian Library Genizah Collection, Oxford
CUL	Cambridge University Library Genizah Collection
ENA	Elkan Nathan Adler Geniza Collection, Jewish Theological Seminary, New York
FGP	Friedberg Genizah Project
JNUL	Jewish National and University Library (now NLI National Library of Israel)
Mosseri	Mosseri Genizah Collection, currently undergoing conservation at Cambridge University Library
NS	New Series
PGP	Princeton Geniza Project
TS	Taylor-Schechter Genizah Collection, Cambridge University Library, Cambridge

      Introduction

      Research for this book began unexpectedly, with my study of poverty and charity in the Jewish community of medieval Egypt.¹ That work is based primarily on documentary evidence from the Cairo Geniza about the poor and those who came to their relief—whether through private charity or communal institutions. For the normative stance of Jewish law (halakha), I consulted Maimonides’ Code, the Mishneh Torah—specifically, the section “Laws of Gifts for the Poor” (Hilkhot mattenot ‘aniyyim). Maimonides’ Laws of Gifts for the Poor represented the first attempt to draw together and systematically codify all the rabbinic teachings about charity, assembled from rulings scattered throughout the Bible and the Talmudic and post-Talmudic literature.² To my surprise, I discovered that several enigmatic rulings about charity in the Code over which some medieval commentators