Abstract
Abraham ibn Daud (d. 1180) was one of the leading Jewish scholars of Spain. The Spanish lands witnessed wars among Almoravids, Almohads, and Christian kingdoms during his lifetime. Ibn Daud defended Judaism against the criticism leveled against Judaism by Muslims and Christians. Apart from this, Ibn Daud also responded to the criticism of the Karaite Jews against the Rabbinic Jews. Ibn Daud wrote two main works in defense of Judaism, one on faith and the other on the authenticity of the Rabbinic tradition. One of them is al-ʿAḳīdetu'r-Rāfiʿa, which he wrote in Arabic, and the other is Sefer ha-Qabbalah, which he wrote in Hebrew. Sefer ha-Qabbalah, written against the criticisms of the Karaites, tries to prove that Rabbinic Judaism came uninterruptedly from Moses. Ibn Daud, known as the first Aristotelian Jewish thinker, tries to show the superiority of Jewish belief in the light of Aristotelian philosophy in his main work entitled al-ʿAḳīdetu'r-Rāfiʿa. In this work, the author replies to the Muslim claims of abrogation and falsification. This article examines Ibn Daud’s answers about abrogation and falsification. While doing this, it tries to determine the possible sources of Ibn Daud and the works from which he benefited. This article also attempts to answer which Muslim author Ibn Daud read the claims about abrogation and falsification.