Safed and Tiberias are two of the four holy cities of Judaism, with Jerusalem and Hebron. Both lie in Galilee, and both owe their holiness to the scholars who lived and taught there: Tiberias in the centuries after the Second Temple, Safed in the sixteenth century.
Tiberias, city of the sages
Founded by Herod Antipas on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee around 20 CE, Tiberias became the centre of Jewish learning in the land of Israel after the wars with Rome. The Sanhedrin met there, and the scholars of its academies completed the Jerusalem Talmud around the year 400.1
Later, between the eighth and tenth centuries, the scholars known as the Masoretes worked in Tiberias, under Muslim rule, fixing the vowels, accents and notes that preserve the reading of the Hebrew Bible. The Aleppo Codex, written in the tenth century and corrected by Aaron ben Asher, is the most famous product of their school. Maimonides, who died in Egypt in 1204, is buried in Tiberias.
Safed and Tiberias after 1492
Safed, high in the hills of upper Galilee, grew under the Mamluks and the Ottomans into a city of scholars. After the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492, many of the exiles settled there, and in the sixteenth century Safed became the centre of Jewish mysticism. Isaac Luria taught there until his death in 1572, and Joseph Karo wrote there the code of Jewish law that is still the standard reference.2 The Ottoman sultans who ruled Safed and Tiberias welcomed these refugees, and the Jewish revival of both cities took place under Muslim rule.
The rabbis and the Torah
The Qur’an speaks of the Torah and of the scholars who kept it:
إِنَّآ أَنزَلْنَا ٱلتَّوْرَىٰةَ فِيهَا هُدًى وَنُورٌ ۚ يَحْكُمُ بِهَا ٱلنَّبِيُّونَ ٱلَّذِينَ أَسْلَمُوا۟ لِلَّذِينَ هَادُوا۟ وَٱلرَّبَّـٰنِيُّونَ وَٱلْأَحْبَارُ بِمَا ٱسْتُحْفِظُوا۟ مِن كِتَـٰبِ ٱللَّهِ وَكَانُوا۟ عَلَيْهِ شُهَدَآءَ ۚ فَلَا تَخْشَوُا۟ ٱلنَّاسَ وَٱخْشَوْنِ وَلَا تَشْتَرُوا۟ بِـَٔايَـٰتِى ثَمَنًا قَلِيلًا ۚ وَمَن لَّمْ يَحْكُم بِمَآ أَنزَلَ ٱللَّهُ فَأُو۟لَـٰٓئِكَ هُمُ ٱلْكَـٰفِرُونَ ٤٤
Indeed, We sent down the Torah, in which was guidance and light. The prophets who submitted [to Allāh] judged by it for the Jews, as did the rabbis and scholars by that with which they were entrusted of the Scripture of Allāh, and they were witnesses thereto. So do not fear the people but fear Me, and do not exchange My verses for a small price [i.e., worldly gain]. And whoever does not judge by what Allāh has revealed – then it is those who are the disbelievers.
Qur’an 5:443
The verse honours exactly the work for which Safed and Tiberias are remembered. It names the rabbis and the scholars, al-rabbāniyyūn wa-l-aḥbār (ٱلرَّبَّانِيُّونَ وَٱلْأَحْبَار, the rabbis and the learned), who were entrusted with the scripture of God and were witnesses to it. The sages of Tiberias who fixed the text of the Hebrew Bible, and the jurists of Safed who taught its law, stand in that line, and they did their work in cities that Muslim rulers protected.
Further reading: Jews and Muslims in history, The Cairo Genizah, The Tanakh.
Notes
- Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Tiberias”. ↩
- Joseph Karo, Shulḥan ʿArukh (Venice, 1565); Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Safed”. ↩
- Qur’an 5:44, trans. Saheeh International; Arabic text from Quran.com. ↩