29 Facts About Saadia Gaon

Saadia Gaon is the first important rabbinic figure to write extensively in Judeo-Arabic.

Saadia Gaon was very active in opposition to Karaite Judaism in defense of Rabbinic Judaism.

Saadia Gaon was born in Dilaz in the Faiyum in Middle Egypt in 892.

Saadia Gaon immigrated to ancient Israel in 915 at the age of 23, where he studied in Tiberias under the scholar Abu Kathir Yahya al-Katib, a Jewish mutakallim or theologian mentioned by ibn Hazm.

In 926, Saadia Gaon settled permanently in Lower Mesopotamia, known to Jews as "Babylonia", where he became a member of Sura Academy.

At the age of 20, Saadia Gaon began composing his first great work, the Hebrew dictionary called the Agron.

In 921, Saadia triumphed over Gaon Aaron ben Meir over the latter's introduction of a new triennial cycle of Torah reading that changed the dates of Passover and Rosh Hashanah.

At length, Saadia was reconciled with the Exilarch and returned to serve in his former position, although Joseph ben Jacob remained serving in his capacity as Gaon.

In 922, six years before Saadia was appointed Gaon of Babylonia, a controversy arose concerning the Hebrew calendar, that threatened the entire Jewish community.

Saadia Gaon was in Aleppo, on his way from the East, when he learned of Ben Meir's regulation of the Jewish calendar.

Saadia Gaon addressed a warning to him, and in Mesopotamia, he placed his knowledge and pen at the disposal of the exilarch David ben Zakkai and the scholars of the academies, adding his letters to those sent by them to the communities of the Jewish diaspora.

Saadia Gaon's dispute with Ben Meir was an important factor in his call to Sura in 928.

David ben Zakkai appointed Joseph ben Jacob Gaon of Sura and Saadia conferred the exilarchate on David's brother Hasan.

However, Saadia Gaon assures his readers elsewhere that when he rendered translations for the twenty-odd unclean fowl mentioned in the Hebrew Bible, his translation was based on an oral tradition received by him.

The question often asked by scholars now is whether Saadia Gaon applied this principle in his other translations.

However, Saadia Gaon understood the same word to mean "rhinoceros" and writes there the Judeo-Arabic word for the creature.

Saadia Gaon interprets the zamer in Deuteronomy 14:5 as giraffe.

Saadia Gaon wrote both in Hebrew and in Arabic a work, now known only from a few fragments, entitled "Sefer ha-Galui", in which he emphasized with great but justifiable pride the services which he had rendered, especially in his opposition to heresy.

The fourteen years which Saadia Gaon spent in Babylonia did not interrupt his literary activity.

Saadia Gaon was reinstated in his office; but he held it for only five more years.

Saadia Gaon then took a bone from the deceased man and placed it into each of the cups.

Saadia Gaon was a pioneer in the fields in which he toiled.

Saadia Gaon was likewise one of the founders of comparative philology, not only through his brief "Book of Seventy Words", already mentioned, but especially through his explanation of the Hebrew vocabulary by the Arabic, particularly in the case of the favorite translation of Biblical words by Arabic terms having the same sound.

Saadia Gaon's works were the inspiration and basis for later Jewish writers, such as Berachyah in his encyclopedic philosophical work Sefer Hahibbur.

Saadia Gaon likewise identifies the definitive trait of "a cock girded about the loins" within Proverbs 30:31 as "the honesty of their behavior and their success", rather than the aesthetic interpretations of so many others, thus identifying a spiritual purpose of a religious vessel within that religious and spiritual instilling schema of purpose and use.

Saadia Gaon did not permit himself in this commentary to be influenced by the theological speculations of the Kalam, which are so important in his main works.

Nonetheless, he clearly considered the work worthy of deep study and echoes of Sefer Yetzirah's cosmogony do appear in "Kitab al-Amanat wal-I'tikadat" when Saadia Gaon discusses his theory of prophecy.

Saadia Gaon translated the Humash and some of the other books of the Hebrew Bible into Judeo-Arabic, adding a Judeo-Arabic commentary.

Saadia Gaon translated Megillat Antiochus into Judeo-Arabic and wrote an introduction.