Menahem Ben Saruq - Dispute With Dunash

Dispute With Dunash

The dictionary had scarcely been completed when an opponent to its author arose in Dunash ben Labrat, who had come to Spain from Fez, Morocco, and who wrote a criticism on the work, which he prefaced by a eulogistic dedication to Hasdai. Dunash roused Menahem's enemies, who began to complain to Hasdai of Menahem's alleged wrongs against them. The slanders of his personal enemies likewise seem to have aroused Hasdai's anger against Menahem to such a pitch that the latter, at the command of the powerful statesman, suffered bodily violence, being cast out of his house on the Sabbath day, shamed, and imprisoned. In a touching, and at some points audacious letter to Hasdai (a valuable source from which most of this information has been taken) Menahem, who probably died shortly afterward, complained of the wrong done him and sharply criticized Hasdai. He seems to have made some impression on his patron. Menahem himself had not replied to Dunash, but his pupils defended their teacher, and in response to Dunash's criticism wrote a detailed refutation which was marked by polemical acumen and exact grammatical knowledge. Judah ben David Hayyuj, one of these three young scholars who so effectually defended their master, became the founder of scientific Hebrew grammar; another, Isaac ibn Gikatilla, was subsequently, as one of the most learned men of Lucena, the teacher of Jonah ibn Janah. Thus the most flourishing period of Hebrew philology, whose chief representatives were Hayyuj and ibn Janah, began with Menahem's work and teachings.