Zechariah Dhahiri
Zechariah (Yaḥya) al-Ḍāhirī (, , b. "circa" 1531 – d. 1608), often spelled Zechariah al-Dhahiri () (16th century Yemen), was the son of Saʻīd (Saʻadia) al-Ḍāhirī, from Kawkaban, in the District of al-Mahwit, Yemen, a place north-west of Sana’a. He is recognized as one of the most gifted Yemenite Jewish poets and rabbinic scholars who left Yemen in search of a better livelihood, travelling to Calicut and Cochin in India, Hormuz in Persia, Basra and Irbīl in Babylonia, Bursa and Istanbul in Anatolia, Rome in Italy, Aleppo and Damascus in Syria, Safed and Tiberias, as well as Jerusalem and Hebron in the Land of Israel (then part of Ottoman Syria), Sidon in Ottoman Lebanon and Egypt, and finally unto Abyssinia where he returned to Yemen by crossing the Erythraean Sea and alighting at a port city near Mocha, Yemen. He wrote extensively about his travels and experiences in these places, which he penned in a Hebrew rhymed prose narrative, and eventually publishing them in a book which he called Sefer Ha-Mūsar ("The Book of Moral Instruction"), in circa 1580.
Zechariah Aghmati
R. Zechariah's major contribution was the "Sefer Ha-Ner", a supercommentary on the "Halachot" of Isaac Alfasi. The work is extremely significant from a historical perspective as it is the first known compilation work on the Talmud. This "Shittah Mekubbetzet" genre grew in the 12th and 13th century and reached a pinnacle of popularity in the 15th century. His sources are almost all Sephardic and include: R. Chananel ben Chushiel, R. Barukh ha-Sefardi, R. Isaac ibn Ghiyyat, Joseph ibn Migash, Maimonides' "Perush ha-Mishnayot," Rashi, and Hai Gaon and the Geonim. The quotes are all in the original, either Hebrew or Arabic, and R. Zechariah’s own comments are also in Arabic. However, most printed editions are translated into Hebrew.