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| Jews and Sufis shared music traditions |
Introduction
Kabbalah, until just a few decades ago, was generally understood in as
originating within a Eurocentric context. It was believed to have emerged essentially
from centres like Italy, Provence (southern France), Germany and Spain. In
scholarly circles, this was the result particularly of the work by Gershom Scholem,[1] who was
convinced of Gnostic origins to Kabbalah: He writes that it is:
“surprising that the [Kabbalistic][2] doctrine…was deeply related to Gnosticism, but such are the dialectics of history” (Scholem 1941:286).
