Hayyim Habshush

Rabbi Hayyim Habshush (Hebrew: חיים בן יחיא חבשוש, romanized: Ḥayyim ibn Yaḥya Habshũsh, alternate spelling, Hibshush, ca. 1833–1899) was a coppersmith by trade,^[1] and a noted nineteenth-century historiographer of Yemenite Jewry.^[2] He also served as a guide for the Jewish-French Orientalist and traveler Joseph Halévy. After his journey with Halévy in 1870, he was employed by Eduard Glaser and other later travellers to copy inscriptions and to collect old books.^[3]

In 1893, some twenty three years after Halévy's jaunt across Ottoman Yemen in search of Sabaic inscriptions, Habshush began to write an account of their journey, first in Hebrew, and then, at the request of Eduard Glaser, in his native Judeo-Yemeni Arabic.^[4] His initial account was scattered in three countries (Israel, Austria and Yemen), copies of which were later pieced together by Habshush's editor, Shelomo Dov Goitein.^[5]

Habshush's most important contribution to science is that he helped scholars Joseph Halévy and Eduard Glaser decipher the Sabaean inscriptions which they had come to copy in Yemen, having made transliterations of the texts in the Hebrew alphabet for easier comprehension.^[6]

While Halevy was detained by illness in Sana'a, Habshush went alone to Gheiman, a few miles south-east of Sana'a, where, despite difficulties arising from the suspicion of the people, he copied many inscriptions and excavated part of the pre-Islamic city-wall.^[7] Later, Habshush would write about his friend and companion, Joseph Halévy: "My home I have forsaken, and unto a land rife with [harsh] decrees have I gone with you. My delightful children, my pleasant brothers and my good friends have I left behind, but for the love that I have for attaining your wisdom, I am bound withal; and to be somewhat of a scout, while assuming upon myself a little of the wisdom of my lord, I have put my life into mine own hands, by traversing a land that is not cultivated, a land of wild men, just as your eyes have seen, all the hardships that we found along the way, until my return unto my own house."