The Andalusi Literary and Intellectual Tradition: The Role of Arabic in Judah ibn Tibbon's Ethical Will by Sarah J. Pearce (review)

Published in the Indiana Series in Sephardi and Mizrahi Studies, The Andalusi Literary and Intellectual Tradition: The Role of Arabic in Judah ibn Tibbon's Ethical Will is a meticulously researched, highly engaging, and provocative monograph on a letter (or ethical will) written by the medieval Jewish scholar Judah ibn Tibbon to his son Samuel, the translator of Maimonides's Guide of the Perplexed, a canonical work of Jewish thought. As Pearce suggests, Judah ibn Tibbon was a scholar and a polymath who fled from Almohad al-Andalus and settled in Lunel, Provence. It was after moving to this city that ibn Tibbon began work on the ethical will, which includes, among others, strikingly negative remarks directed towards his son. These remarks address, for example, his ignorance of Arabic and Hebrew languages, which were obviously crucial for literary and cultural exchange in the al-Andalus of the time. Pearce's work demonstrates how the ethical will is certainly a communication from father to son, but it also elucidates many more details about the context in which the document was produced.

Featuring six main chapters that illuminate a range of themes pertinent to the ethical will, Pearce's work provides an incisive foray into Judah ibn Tibbon's work in light of his life and times. Each of the six chapters of this monograph constitutes a different thematic venture into the ethical will, accompanied by close analyses of pertinent sections of the text. Before the first chapter commences, readers encounter two sections: "Acknowledgments" and "A Note on Translations and Transliterations", as well as a substantive introduction entitled "'The Preface of Every Book is Its First Part': An Overview of Materials and Methodologies". It should be noted that the titles of the introduction and six chapters stem verbatim from texts by Judah ibn Tibbon, his son, or others. The introduction provides insights on the author and his son, situates the ethical will in the context in which it was written, and positions the book itself in terms of its methodological and foundational underpinnings. In terms of the former, Pearce points out that it is "grounded in an unwillingness to impose modern epistemological categories on medieval texts that transgress them" (11). Following this discussion, the author nonetheless situates it as "a work of cultural and literary history" (11), and, in terms of theoretical bases, she points to an intellectual preference for New Historicism and poststructuralism, namely the work of Itamar Even-Zohar (12).

One of the most striking aspects of Pearce's work is its ability to coalesce very particular textual citations from the ethical will with broader themes, thus making a medieval text accessible and attractive to a wide array of readers. For example, the first chapter, "'Pen, I Recount Your Favor!': Reading, Writing, and Translating in the Memory of al-Andalus", forges connections between Judah ibn Tibbon's ethical will and his relationship with (and attitudes towards) Judeo-Arabic and al-Andalus. In this vein, Pearce situates the ethical will in terms of preceding textual memorializations of al-Andalus. The second chapter, "'Examine Your Hebrew Books Monthly and Arabic Books Bimonthly': Autobiography and Bibliography in the Islamic West", considers the ethical will as evidence of the varieties of cultural knowledge that thrived in different libraries of the al-Andalus of the time. Furthermore, this chapter explores how the ethical will can be read as a library catalogue, which also raises questions of genre. The third chapter, "'On Every Sabbath, Read… the Bible in Arabic': Reading the Hebrew Bible as Arabic Literature", examines how Judah ibn Tibbon situated the Hebrew Bible within a specifically Andalusi tradition, relying on the work not simply as a theological text, but also as "a cultural touchstone and as a literary text" (101). On a related note, the fourth chapter, "'The Words of the...