BAHYA IBN PAQUDA

(second half of the eleventh century–first half of the twelfth century)

About BAHYA IBN PAQUDA we know very little, apart from the fact that he lived in Muslim Spain and was probably a religious judge at Saragossa or Cordoba. He also composed piyyutim, including two long poems of petition and admonition that gained a considerable following. The short poem below comprises a verse abstract of Bahya’s major prose work, the Muslim-influenced ethical treatise Hovot HaLevavot (Duties of the Heart), which he composed as a corrective to his predecessors, whom he felt had stressed religious observance—the duties of the body—at the expense of inwardness and the life of devotion. Bahya wrote his book in Arabic and placed this Hebrew poetic summary at its end; in 1161 Yehuda Ibn Tibbon rendered Bahya’s prose into Hebrew. The translation enjoyed immense popularity, and Duties of the Heart is still widely read today.

DUTIES OF THE HEART