David ben Amram Adani (14th-century CE) was a Yemenite Jewish scholar renowned for his authorship of Midrash HaGadol,[1][2][a] a collection of homiletical expositions drawn from ancient rabbinic sources.
[4] In his capacity as community leader, he had access to rare books of Jewish literature and oral traditions, of which he frequently cites in his Midrash HaGadol.
In 1346, the head of Egypt's Jewish community, Yehoshua Hanagid, carried on a correspondence with Rabbi David Adani, in which the spiritual ruler of Egypt's Jewish community answered a number of questions sent to him (al-mas’āyil = responsa) by the community in Yemen,[5] mostly on matters relating to what seemed to be contradictions between two halakhic rulings in Maimonides' Mishne Torah and his Sefer ha-Mitzvot, although other questions simply relate, not to Maimonides, but to one of the other rabbinic sources, such as the words of the Sifra, in affirmative command no.
Some of the questions deal with practical halakha, such as those issues addressed in Seder Ahavah and Zemanim of Maimonides' Mishne Torah, as well as on the laws affecting women and marriages.
The rhymed poetic openings used by David Adani at the start of each parashah in the Midrash HaGadol are reminiscent of Rabbi Hai ben Nahshon Gaon's midrash Pitheron Torah (Torah Solution), a work thought to have been compiled about 886–896 CE.