The Popular Arabic Literature of the Jews
Arabic has been spoken by Jews since pre-Islamic times. They usually wrote
it in Hebrew characters, with diacritic marks to represent the Arabic sounds
which are missing in the Hebrew alphabet. Some works in the language have
become classics, for example the Moreh Nebhukhim (Guide for the Perplexed)
of Moses Maimonides. The medieval works were written in Middle Arabic,
which is quite close to standard Arabic, and has been well documented by the
works of Joshua Blau of the Hebrew University. The modern Judeo-Arabic
literature has been less studied. It is mostly popular in nature and
represents the welter of dialects which the Jews spoke. Since the Jews felt
no compulsion to adhere to Koranic grammatical norms, the written Jewish
texts are a closer reflection of the dialect actually spoken by the writers.
The following is a list of translations of various materials from
Judeo-Arabic. All the translations are by Alan Corré except where
noted. I have also included a passage from the work of Maimonides referred
to above, although this is hardly a "popular" work. The reasons for doing so
I give in the introduction to that text. Most of the books referred to may
be found in the Jewish National
Library in Jerusalem. New items will be added to this list from time to
time. You can check this in the list of new items.
Alan D. Corré
corre@uwm.edu