  Appreciating the link — through the conceptual chain of reporting and hearing — between tradition and revelation in Saadya is important for many reasons. First, it is important in and of itself, reminding us that translation can often make us miss the conceptual overtones of the tradition we are trying to recover. Secondly, this link speaks directly to Saadya's own commitment to the rabbinic tradition in Judaism as itself just as important as — and on equal epistemological footing with — the revealed scripture (contrary to the Karaite movement in Judaism which during Saadya's time was especially vociferous in flatly denying any binding authority to rabbinic law, and against whose ideas Saadya composed polemical responses). In other words, coming to appreciate the conceptual link in Arabic between the idea of revelation and that of tradition (as we have shown above) might certainly be useful in helping us better appreciate Saadya's own treatment of the rabbinic tradition (or, oral law) as divinely revealed. Furthermore, coming to appreciate this ‘link-in-hearing’ between revelation and tradition additionally helps to elucidate the direct link in Saadya between these two concepts, and prophecy. For Saadya, prophecy is, in part, a divinely “created word” heard by the prophet. On this picture, it is obvious — simply from the conceptual space of the Arabic terms — that, through this idea of hearing, revelation, tradition and prophecy are all intimately related. Although his notion of prophecy also includes a visual element, the “created glory” (though it is interesting to note that for Saadya, the ultimate prophetic experience of Moses was only auditory and did not include this visual element), it is nonetheless important to stress the immediate connection between notions of divine speaking, and human reception-as-hearing, itself with overtones for both revelation and tradition as the joint repositories of ‘the things that are [reliably] heard’ (and hence, known).