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Updated: May 28, 2025
One other phase must be mentioned to complete the parallelism of Islamic and Jewish philosophy, and that is the anti-philosophic attitude adopted by Judah Halevi and Hasdai Crescas.
But when the champion of Peripateticism, Abraham Ibn Daud, after explaining that prophecy is of the nature of true dreams, and though in most cases innate, may be cultivated by a pure soul through study and proper associations repeats with Judah Halevi that the time and the place are essential conditions and that Israelites alone are privileged in this respect, he is giving up, it seems to us, all that he previously attempted to explain.
We know not whether he reached Jerusalem or not. Legend picks up the thread where history drops it, and tells of Judah Halevi meeting his death at the gates of the holy city as with tears he was singing his famous ode to Zion. An Arab horseman, the story goes, pierced him through with his spear.
Seeing that the Christian as well as the Mohammedan appealed in their arguments to the truth of the Hebrew Bible, the king concluded that Judaism must be the true religion, which he accordingly adopted. This story gave Halevi the background and framework for his composition.
One must first understand the fundamental principles of physics, psychology, and so on, such as matter and form, the elements, nature, Soul, Intellect, Divine Wisdom. Then we can proceed to the more properly theological matters, like the future world, Providence, and so on. Accordingly Judah Halevi gives us in the sequel a brief account such as he has just outlined.
It is proved that man has a soul, that the soul is not material or corporeal, that it is a substantial entity and not a mere quality or accident of the body. Both Plato and Aristotle are laid under contribution in the various classifications of the soul that are found in Saadia, in Joseph Ibn Zaddik, in Judah Halevi, in Abraham Ibn Daud, in Maimonides.
Himself devoid of the literary power and poetic feeling of Judah Halevi, Crescas had this in common with the mediæval national poet that he resented the domination of Jewish belief and thought by the alien Greek speculation.
The Jewish "Haber," as Judah Halevi calls him, began his discourse by saying, We Jews believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, who took the children of Israel out of Egypt, supported them in the wilderness, gave them the land of Canaan, and so on.
And, instead of singing of cocottes and mermaids, I should have sung, like Jehuda Halévi, of my Herzensdame, Jerusalem. Perhaps who knows? my Hebrew verses would have been incorporated in the festival liturgy, and pious old men would have snuffled them helter-skelter through their noses.
His elegy on Jehudah Halevi is instinct with the pathos of patriotic love for the Holy Land: "That land, where every stone is an altar to the living God, and every rock a seat for a prophet of the supreme Lord". Or, as he exclaims in another poem, "Land of the muses, perfection of beauty, wherein every stone is a book, every rock a graven tablet!"
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