When the Jews Greeted Ali: Sherira Gaon's Epistle in Light of Arabic and Syriac Historiography

Sherira Gaon's Epistle has been the most important source for the study of Babylonian Jewish history, and yet scholars have often relied too heavily on this work. This article argues that Sherira Gaon's Epistle must first be situated in its contemporary context, which reveals the many historiographical assumptions about the past that Sherira shared with both Arabic and Syriac historiography from the same period. In particular, analysis of Sherira's account of the Arab Conquest shows that it is not a historically accurate report of the past. Instead, Sherira is indebted to widespread assumptions of his time that viewed the Conquest as a watershed moment. Moreover, his celebrated account about an encounter between Ali ibn Abi Talib and the Jews of a certain town conforms to other apocryphal conquest accounts, composed in order to secure the material and cultural capital derived from such reports.