Le Manuscrit Sacré brings essential — often unpublished — details to light on several figures of the Encaoua lineage, on the historical context of the persecutions of 1391, and on the popular memory that surrounds the Rab of Tlemcen to this day.
Nebot states that Israël Al-Naqua was burned alive on June 6, 1391, in the synagogue of Écija (near Séville), while he was praying. The author presents him as the first martyr of the terrible massacres of 1391. The direct cause of his martyrdom was reportedly closely linked to his work: he had just written the Menorat ha-Maor (The Candelabrum of Light), a book intended to make the Torah accessible to all — which, in the eyes of his persecutors, constituted a dangerous subversion. Tradition reports that he perished at the stake holding a Sefer Torah in his hand. The Encyclopedia Judaica gives a slightly different version: during the assault on the Jewish community of Tolède, he was reportedly savagely attacked and dragged through the street. Both versions testify to the extreme brutality of the events.
Nebot retraces with precision the extraordinary history of Ephraïm Al-Naqua's principal manuscript, from its composition in the fifteenth century in Tlemcen to its preservation at the Bodleian Library in Oxford. He recounts the remarkable journey of Samuel Sultan, commissioned by Rabbi Haïm Bliah (1832-1919) of Tlemcen, who traveled to Oxford at the end of the nineteenth century. He was permitted to copy the manuscript, but not to bring it back. These copies made possible, in 1902, the publication in Tunis of an annotated edition, expanded with an introduction and a commentary entitled Petah ha Chahar (Opening of the Portico). Through this work, the Rab Ephraïm Al-Naqua appears as a philosopher defending the rationalist theses of Maïmonide against the mystical tradition represented by Nahmanide — the conveyor of the idea that biblical thought and rational thought are not only compatible, but that their combination contributes to enriching the deep meaning of the Torah.
The book details with striking precision the hate-filled preaching of the archdeacon Ferran Martinez of Écija, who from 1388 openly called for the destruction of the synagogues. It retraces the unfolding of the riots of June 1391 in the cities of Andalusia and Castile: in three months, more than 4,000 Jews perished, and several tens of thousands were forced into conversion — conversions that later fueled the pyres of the Inquisition. Nebot shows how these events are part of a continuum of violence that would lead inexorably to the expulsion decree of July 31, 1492. It was in this context of terror that the descendants of Israël Al-Naqua fled Catholic Spain for more hospitable lands.
One of Nebot's most fascinating contributions is his analysis of the legend of the lion, according to which the Rab Ephraïm Al-Naqua reportedly rode a wild beast to enter Tlemcen in triumph. Nebot offers a rational explanation that in no way diminishes the symbolic significance of the account: the lion symbolizes the sultan of Tlemcen, who begged Ephraïm, as a physician trained at the University of Palencia, to save his sick daughter. Ephraïm treated the child with medicines based on snake venom, a classic therapeutic practice at the time. The little girl was saved and the Rab returned in triumph. As a reward, he obtained two decisive favors: permission for the Jews to settle in the center of the city (the quarter known as “El Merja”) and authorization for Jewish families from Spain and the Balearic Islands to come and settle in Tlemcen.