SOURCE: Lavi, Abraham. “The Rationale of Al-Harīzī in Biblicizing the Maqāmāt of Al-Harīrī.” The Jewish Quarterly Review n.s. 74, no. 3 (January 1984): 280-93.

In the following essay, Lavi examines Judah al-Harīzī's Hebrew translation of the Maqāmāt.

Sometime between the years 1213 and 1216 the Spanish-Jewish scholar Judah al-Harīzī translated al-Harīrī's Maqāmāt into Hebrew. This translation is now known under the title Maḥberōt Ithiel. Unfortunately only twenty-five complete Maḥbarōt—II-XXVI—the last part of I, and the beginning of XXVII are in our possession. The others, and the preface with which al-Harīzī, in keeping with his usual practice, probably introduced the book, are missing. We know that he translated all the fifty Maqāmāt, because he himself says so twice in the introduction to his Taḥkemōnī (Taḥkemōnī, English translation...