לתולדות 'משפחה' אחת של שירי אזור

The system of mu'araḍa (i.e. the adoption of a new text to a prosodic pattern drawn from a given poetic model) was widespread in Arabic and Hebrew, both in secular and liturgical poetry. In the present article the author traces the 'family tree' of five Hebrew muwashaḥat, all based on the same prosodic scheme. Three of the poems (written by Yosef ibn-Zadik, Yosef Yerushalmi and an anonymous poet) are secular, and two (written by Abraham ibn-Ezra and Rabbi Meir) are liturgical. In this context a related Arabic poem is also discussed. Taking into account certain considerations, the article suggests two alternative 'family trees': one stemming from ibn-Zaddik's poem, the other from Rabbi Meir's.