Shalom Shabazi

Shalom Shabazi (1619–1720) was a Yemenite Jewish rabbi, poet, and kabbalist renowned as the greatest literary figure in the history of Yemenite Jewry and the national poet of Yemen's Jewish community.

Born in al-Ṣaʻīd near Taʿizz in southern Yemen to a rabbinical family tracing descent from biblical Judah, Shabazi received a traditional education in Bible, Talmud, and Kabbalah while also learning textile weaving to support his family after his father's early death.

Shalom Shabazi was born in 1619 in the village of Najd al-Walid near Taʿizz in southern Yemen, within a tight-knit Yemenite Jewish community. He belonged to the Mashtā family, a lineage renowned among Yemenite Jews for its scholarly and poetic contributions, with genealogical traditions tracing descent to Zerah, the biblical son of Judah.

His father, Yosef ben Avigad, served as a community leader and himself composed poetry, fostering an environment steeped in Jewish textual study and religious observance from Shabazi's youth. This familial emphasis on learning positioned Shabazi early within Yemenite Jewish intellectual traditions, though specific details of his upbringing remain sparse in historical records.