Some remarks on Judeo-Arabic poetical works: an Arabic poem by Moshe Dar‘i (ca. 1180-ca. 1240)

In this article we discuss the Hebrew and Arabic poetry composed by Moshe Dar'i, a Karaite poet from Fatimid times who lived at the end of the twelfth and the beginning of the thirteenth century. His poetic 'diwan' contains equal amounts of religious and secular poetry. A recent edition of his Hebrew poetry was produced by Leon J. Weinberger, 'Jewish Poet in Muslim Egypt: Moses Dar'i's Hebrew Collection' (Leiden, 2000). Unfortunately Weinberger, in his recent edition of Dar'i's poems, did not take into account the Arabic preface of Dar'i's 'Diwan', nor some poems which were written in Arabic and sometimes mixed with Hebrew, Arabic, and Arab vernacular. We will discuss the poetic themes of the poems in the light of Dar'i's Arabic preface and analyze and translate
one of his poems, which starts with a Hebrew section followed by mixed Hebrew-Arabic lines, whereas the last part of the poem is in Judeo-Arabic.