Nathan ben Abraham, known also by the epithet President of the Academy (Hebrew: רבינו נתן אב הישיבה) in the Land of Israel (died ca.

In around 1011, Nathan travelled to Qayrawan, to attend to his family inheritance, and while there he studied under the illustrious Rabbi Hushiel ben Elhanan, one of the greatest Jewish scholars of the time.

[8] Scholars have ascribed this commentary a unique significance, saying that by virtue of its composition in the Land of Israel, its interpretations are believed to embody an unbroken Palestinian-Jewish tradition on the meanings of difficult words.

[9] Nathan's original Judeo-Arabic commentary of the Mishnah served as the basis for a later recension made by a 12th-century anonymous author and copyist,[10][11] believed to be of Yemenite Jewish provenance.

[12][13] It is doubtful that his work would have survived, had it not been for the faithful copyist, whose innovation was to interweave in the existing text the divergent views held by several geonim and the explanations given by them for words and passages in the Mishnah.

"[14] The anonymous copyist is said to have lived between 1105 – 1170 CE, making him a contemporary with Rabbi Isaac Alfasi and Nathan ben Jehiel of Rome, the author of Sefer Arukh.

[16] He then proceeds to bring down a long introduction wherein he spans the history of the written and oral Laws, writing in Judeo-Arabic and commencing with the words, qāl ğāmiʿuh (= "So said the gatherer [of the sayings of the fathers]," etc.

Rabbi Nathan's method of elucidating Hebrew words is mostly similar to that of Maimonides' Mishnah commentary - the two often complementing each other, but differing in several key areas.

Lablab bean (Lablab purpureus) Occasionally, Nathan ben Abraham relates to the practical usages of plants in the Land of Israel and in the region of Syria, writing, for example, that either Judas tree florets (Cercis siliquastrum) (Judeo-Arabic: דאד'י)[287] [variant: St. John's wort (Hypericum spp.

Lūf (formerly Arum palaestinum) is now used in modern colloquial Hebrew to denote the broadleaf wild leek (Allium ampeloprasum).

Modern botanists in Israel now call Clover (Trifolium) by the name tiltan, which word formerly meant "fenugreek" (Trigonella foenum-graecum).

[292] Modern Hebrew now calls cork (Quercus suber) by the name "sha'am," although in Rabbi Nathan's day it had the meaning of "bamboo."

of afūnnin) is now used in Modern Hebrew as a generic word for all kinds of garden peas, when formerly it was used strictly for chickpeas (Cicer arietinum).

The British Museum possesses a partial copy of Nathan ben Abraham's Judeo-Arabic commentary of the Mishnah (with only the Mishnaic Orders of Zera'im, Mo'ed and Neziqin).

[299] Among the manuscripts and incunabula collected by David Solomon Sassoon is a two-page Judeo-Arabic copy of the Introduction taken from Rabbi Nathan's commentary, believed to have been singled-out because of its more profound nature.