Masliah ben Shlomo haKohen, Raʾis al-Yahūd al-Damasq, Gaon of Palestine

Maṣliaḥ ben Solomon ha-Kohen

Maṣliaḥ ben Solomon ha-Kohen was a scion of a family of priestly geonim that controlled the yeshiva of Palestine over the course of several turbulent generations. His grandfather Elijah ben Solomon ha-Kohen was the head of the yeshiva from 1062 to 1083, a period during which it moved from Jerusalem to Tyre, possibly in connection with the Seljuk conquest of Palestine in the 1070s. Some three decades later, Maṣliaḥ’s father held the post of gaon as well, the yeshiva at that point having relocated to Damascus. By 1127, Maṣliaḥ, living in Fustat, had assumed the title of gaon along with that of raʾis al-yahūd (Ar. head of the Jews; see Nagid). Maṣliaḥ’s move to Egypt, celebrated in a poem preserved in the Cairo Geniza, signified an acknowledgment by the officials of the Palestinian yeshiva of the importance of the new office of head of the Jews of Egypt, a post that replaced the gaonate as the recognized administrative authority over Fatimid Jewry during the second half of the eleventh century. Maṣliaḥ also bore the high-sounding title jalāl al-mulk (Ar. splendor of the kingdom) typical of Muslim officials. During his period in office, the custom of invoking the authority (reshut)of the reigning gaon in legal documents and during the performance of certain public rituals was transferred to Egypt.

Arnold Franklin

Bibliography

Cohen, Mark R. Jewish Self-Government in Medieval Egypt : The Origins of the Office of Head of the Jews, ca. 1065–1126 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1980).

Mann, Jacob, The Jews of Egypt and in Palestine under the Fā ṭ imid Caliphs, repr. ed., 2 vols. in one (New York: Ktav, 1970).

Weiss, Gershon, “Legal Documents Written by the Court Clerk Halfon ben Manasse (Dated 1100–1138): A Study in the Diplomatics of the Cairo Geniza” (Ph.D. diss., University of Pennsylvania, 1970).

Citation Arnold Franklin. " Maṣliaḥ ben Solomon ha-Kohen." Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World. Executive Editor Norman A. Stillman. Brill Online , 2013. Reference. Jim Harlow. 29 January 2013 <http://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopedia-of-jews-...>