Rav Kapach's version of Chavos HaLevavos has the arabic.
I got my copy here:
http://jewishyemenites.com/
JY_bo...ph_Kafech_books
As for the phrase in arabic, it is :
"חמאר חאמל אספארא"
He also brings a note that the phrase appears in Zohar Chadash and the Ramban on Sefer haMitzvos....
The first time I read the Midrash about Avraham smashing his father's idols was in the Koran.
Actually the first time I came across the word "Torah" was in Penguin's English translation of the Koran
I must say that your words, S, enter my heart. And we know that "words that come from the heart enter the heart." So says Ibn Ezra.
Errr, and Al-Suhrawardi, too.
>As for the phrase in arabic, it is :
"חמאר חאמל אספארא"
Thanks; it is, then, exactly the same as the Quran.
>He also brings a note that the phrase appears in Zohar Chadash
I forgot to mention that. It was going to be some kind of snarky comment about, well, then it's Tannaitic.
As for the Ramban, it's also in one of his teshuvos. But the Ramban is later than the Chovos Ha-levavos, and once we're citing him, we may as well cite all of them.
Alex, how about joie de vivre, I mean שמחת החיים?
Even the Rashbiites do not claim the Rashbi wrote the Zohar Chadash, no? I think it is said to be a separate work of the Tzfas mekuballim, appended to the Zohar itself. Otherwise, you are right, usage of the donkey phrase could be added to the list of anachronisims supporting the Deleonites.
Right, which is why it's not a big deal, and probably why I forgot to include it (not essential to the post).
It seems that in Jewish literature it makes it's debut in Chovos Ha-levavos (and in Arabic, to boot).
By the way, I also left out the following in the post: was the expression original to Muhammad (or the Angel Gabriel)? In a discussion of the phrase in a Notes & Queries a couple of people claim that it has a parallel in a classical source some centuries before Muhammad. Of course, that doesn't mean that this was the source for him, but it's interesting.
Shraga Abramson writes in the Zlotnick jubilee volume that it first appears in a poem by Shmuel HaNaggid.
I meant, first appears in Jewish sources.
He and R Bahya were contemporaries, were they not? Does he know for sure that the poem preceded Al Hidayah ila Faraid al-Qulub? Either way, presumably neither were influenced by the other, but obviously the poem has to be considered the first Hebrew, if not Jewish, source.
You're right. I looked at it again and he calls it the first Hebrew source.
A While ago I did have an email discussion with Prof. Noah Feldman about the word Jihad and its meaning.
In Kapach's translation (cited in this post as "related") of the Chovos Halevovos it clearly states in the "arabic" side of the page, the word ז'האד
Similarly in the Kapach edition, the word Shari'ah appears in אמונת ודעות of ר' סעדי' גאון
on the side of the now famous saying.
אין אומותינו אומה אלא בתורותיה
According to Feldman R Bachya took it from the Koran, but as you state here it could have been merrily Arabic saying.
Sharia (alsharia) is the Arabic (Judeo-Arabic) equivalent of 'halacha' used by all the poskim of the Arab world, including the Rambam.
As for my speculation that it could have been an Arabic saying already by the time or R Bachya, while that's true, that would be like a rabbi today calling something "the gospel truth." Yes, it is a normal expression in English, but its source is still what it is.
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