Yemenite Jewish poetry
There is to be noted in Zechariah al-Ḍāhirī's ("circa" 1531 – d. 1608) poetic style a marked transition from the early Spanish-type of poetry typical of Yemen prior to his time (depicted in the prosaic writings of Daniel berav Fayyūmī and Avraham b. Ḥalfon, both, of Yemenite Jewish provenance) and the later classical Yemenite poetic writings (as depicted in the liturgical poems composed by Yosef ben Israel and Shalom Shabazi). Unlike the latter who compiled works, both, in Hebrew and in Judeo-Arabic, al-Ḍāhirī's corpus of prosaic writings are written almost exclusively in Hebrew. Much of al-Ḍāhirī's poetry was inspired by the great Spanish poets, while other works are said to have been inspired by Immanuel of Rome. Some of al-Ḍāhirī's poems are panegyrics influenced by the Arabic "madiḥ", in praise of great Jewish scholars, such as Rabbeinu Yerucham (1290-1350), a Provençal rabbi who moved to Spain in 1306, following the expulsion of the Jews from France. Other panegyrics were written about Rabbi Obadiah di Bertinoro (c. 1445-1515) and Maimonides.
Zechariah Dhahiri
The book is one of the finest examples of Hebrew literary genius ever written in Yemen, its author making use of a poetic genre known as "maqāma", a prosimetric literary genre of rhymed prose with intervals of poetry in which rhetorical extravagance is conspicuous, to describe his journeys. The vocalization of "Sefer Ha-Mūsar" gives insight unto scholars into Yemenite Hebrew pronunciation. Al-Ḍāhirī, who is clearly very adept in the Hebrew tongue, admits to having modeled his own poetry – two-hundred and seventy-five of which poems are found in his "Sefer Ha-Mūsar" and in his "Sefer Haʻanaḳ" – on the Hebrew work "Taḥkemoni" of Alḥarizi, who, in turn, was influenced by the Arabic "maqāmāt" of al-Ḥarīrī. His vivid descriptions of the town Safed and of Rabbi Joseph Karo’s "yeshiva" are of primary importance to historians, seeing that they are a first-hand account of these places, and the only extant account which describes the "yeshiva" of the great Sephardic Rabbi, Joseph Karo. With his broad Jewish education and his exceptional skills in his use of the Hebrew language, Zechariah al-Ḍāhirī is an important source in the study of Jewish history in the Land of Israel during the Renaissance and of Jewish persecution in Yemen at that time.