In a Hidden Place: Traces of Batinism in the Fragments of the Cairo Genizah

The fragments retrieved from the Genizah of the Ben Ezra Synagogue in Cairo represent a treasure trove of sources on medieval Judaism and the medieval Mediterranean world at large. A survey of the fragments reveals the circulation of ba¯t.inı¯ texts and ideas in the Genizah: book lists preserve mentions of the Epistles of the Brethren of Purity, which are also found in a handful of partial copies in both Arabic and the Judeo-Arabic language. These fragments, together with two alchemical manuscripts that preserve several titles of the works of Ja¯bir b. H. ayya¯n, are discussed in this article as evidence of the circulation of ba¯t.inı¯ ideas among the Jews of medieval Cairo. An edition of a partial Judeo-Arabic version of the natural philosophical epistles of the Brethren of Purity is presented in the appendix.