person · P0088
Shemariah ben Elchanan רב שמריה בן אלחנן
Head of the yeshiva of Fustat (Old Cairo) at the turn of the 11th century — Egypt's figure in the Four Captives account, and the addressee of Chushiel's famous genizah letter. Genizah documents show him as an established authority consulted from distant lands and in correspondence with the Babylonian academies; whether he ever was a captive at all is exactly the kind of question the atlas records rather than resolves.
I. Who
- Hebrew
- רב שמריה בן אלחנן
- Also known as
- Shemariah ben Elhanan
- Era
- geonim
II. When
- Traditional
- c. 4710–4771 AM
- Academic
- d. c. 1011 CE
- Lifespan (traditional)
- ≈61 years
- Precision
- approximate
III. Where
- Places
- Fustat
V. How do we know
| Claim | Evidence | Confidence | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ibn Daud's account counts him among the four scholars captured by Ibn Rumahis while sailing from Bari, ransomed at Alexandria, after which he founded a flourishing school at Fustat.
Carried at the same low grade as the rest of the Four Captives narrative (recorded canonically on Moshe ben Chanoch); the genizah evidence below shows a scholar embedded in ordinary correspondence networks.
|
tradition | ★★☆☆☆ | |
| Cairo Genizah documents attest him directly: Chushiel of Kairouan's autograph letter (published by Schechter, JQR 1899) is addressed to him, another letter from an unknown rabbi likewise, and a responsum fragment apparently addressed to him supports his standing link with the Babylonian academies — David Kaufmann placed his formation at Pumbedita. | external | ★★★★☆ | |
| His reception is not cleanly attested: the view that he was trained in Bavel (Kaufmann: Pumbedita) rests on inference from a responsum fragment, so it is recorded as reconstruction and no upstream edge — personal or textual — is drawn. | reconstruction | ★★☆☆☆ |