Abstract
With special attention to the medieval Jewish thinker Baḥya ibn Paquda's (fl. 5th/11th century) meditations on the nature of sin, repentance, and atonement, as they appear in his Duties of the Heart (Farāʾiḍ al-qulūb)—a text that left an indelible mark on Jewish tradition—the article identifies some of his principal Islamic sources. A close comparative analysis with early Muslim ascetico-mystical and Sufi literature reveals an almost certain reliance on Establishing Repentance (Iḥkām al-tawba, still in manuscript form) by al-Ḥārith al-Muḥāsibī (d. 243/857) and Nourishment of the Heart (Qūt al-qulūb) by Abū Ṭālib al-Makkī (d. 386/996), as well as a plausible reliance on the Treatise (Risāla) by Abū l-Qāsim al-Qushayrī (d. 465/1072). In the process, the article demonstrates how his extensive use of early Muslim writing led to the percolation of hadiths and the nomenclature of the Quran into the Farāʾiḍ. The reason Baḥya was able to make use of Islamic literature in his treatment of repentance and atonement with relative ease was due to the theological, conceptual, and doctrinal affinities shared by medieval articulations of Judaism and Islam, particularly around questions related to the moral and religious frailties of the human being (unconditioned by original sin), as well the mechanisms offered by the two traditions for eliciting divine forgiveness in the wake of sin and wrongdoing.