Nissim b. Yaʿaqov

Description / Bio

Nissīm ben Yaʿaqōv ben Nissīm Ibn Shāhīn was one of the most prominent Jewish scholars of the eleventh century, author of the first systematic work on the Talmud, head of the North African Jewish community and head of the yeshiva at Qayrawān. He was born in Qayrawān in 990 to a family probably with Iranian origins, to judge by the name Shāhīn, and his father Yaʿaqob Ibn Shāhīn (d. 1006) was head of bet midrash in Qayrawān; in 987, Yaʿaqōv Ibn Shāhīn wrote to Sherira Gaon in Baghdad asking him how the Mishnah was composed, resulting in the responsum now known as the epistle (iggeret) of Sherira Gaʾon. Sherira refers to Yaʿaqōv Ibn Shāhīn as "my teacher" and "our mentor." Nissīm studied with his father, with his father's successor as head of the bet midrash, Rav Ḥushiʾel, and with Ḥushiel’s son Ḥananel. When Ḥushiel died, Nissīm succeeded him, even though he was younger than Ḥananʾel. After Qayrawān was destroyed in 1057, Rav Nissīm moved to Sūsa and al-Mahdiyya, where he died in 1062. Nissīm Ibn Shāhīn corresponded with Hayye Gaʾon in Baghdad and with Shemuʾel ha-Nagid in Granada; he also visited al-Andalus, taught in Granada, and married his daughter to Shemuʾel ha-Nagid's son Yehosef ibn Naghrilla. He taught Yiṣḥaq al-Fāsī (aka the RIF), but al-Fāsī never mentioned him as a mentor and often disagreed with him. Ibn Shāhīn's Talmud commentary, written mostly in Hebrew, paraphrased the text and was intended as a substitute for it. Ḥananʾel's commentary eventually did the same but more literally and replaced it. Ibn Shāhīn differed from Sherira on the editing of the Talmud: he held it to be a one-time act rather than a long process. He also authored Kitāb Miftāḥ Maghalīq al-Talmūdh (Ar. Key to the Locks of the Talmud), a reference tool organized by tractate and linking parallel passages. He quotes Sherira, Hayye, Ḥushiel (once), the Sheʾiltot, Halakhot Gedolot, the Talmud Yerushalmi and the Tosefta. The work has survived partly in the original (parts of tractate Shabbat survived the Geniza) and partly in Hebrew translation (Berakhot, Shabbat, and ʿEruvin). This work (tractate Shabbat) uses the phrase "megillat setarim," referring to a private notebook not meant for circulation or copying. Ibn Shāhīn also authored Megillat Setarim (Heb. Scroll of Secrets), 250 answers to questions on halakha, aggada, Bible, Talmud, customs, and beliefs, which circulated until the fourteenth century in Ashkenaz but survived only in small selections; the scope of the work emerged when Simḥa Assaf discovered an index of it in the Geniza. Finally, he was the author of K. al-faraj baʿd al-shidda wa-l-sāʿa baʿd al-ḍīqa (Ar. The Book of Relief after Adversity and Ease after Anguish), written in response to his father-in-law's request following the death of his son (Ibn Shāhīn's brother-in-law). Information from Naḥem Ilan, "Ibn Shāhīn, Nissim ben Jacob," in Encyclopaedia of Jews in the Islamic World