Place
Fez פאס
The Moroccan city that produced the Rif and sheltered the young Rambam — and where they wrote under the threat of conversion.
R. Yitzchak Alfasi, the Rif, headed the yeshiva in Fez until he fled to Spain; his Sefer ha-Halachot — the Talmud boiled down to practical law — became a foundation for all later halacha.
A century later the Rambam's family fled here from Córdoba before the Almohads. In Fez he studied and wrote the Iggeret ha-Shmad, the letter on forced conversion: to those who had outwardly said the Muslim formula under threat of death he answered that they remained Jews and should leave at the first opportunity rather than despair.
On the timeline
4773 · 1013 CERabbi Yitzchak Alfasi (the Rif) and the Sefer HaHalachot4898 · 1138 CEThe Birth of Maimonides and the Years of Wandering
Sources
Rishonim
- Sefer ha-Halachot — the Rif's code, composed in these yeshivas
- Iggeret ha-Shmad — the Rambam's letter on forced conversion, written in Fez
Basis: documents and evidence.