Abraham Shalom Yahuda (1877 – 1951) was born in Jerusalem to a respectable family. His father's family, which had arrived in Jerusalem from Baghdad, descended from the famous Yosef ben Shushan, a Jewish minister at the court of Alfonso VIII (1155-1214), king of Castile, while his mother came from a well-known German Jewish family.

 

photograph: The Tolledo synagogue built by Yosef Ben-Shushan's son, one of A.S. Yahuda's forefathers. The Synagogue was later converted into a church by the name of Santa Maria la Blanca.                           

From a very young age Yahuda mastered Jewish studies as well as  Arabic  and other European languages. He specialized in classical Arabic literature and at the age of 17, he already published a book on the subject. He then continued his studies in Germany with important scholars in the field of Arabic and Islamic History.

Between the years 1914-1922 Yahuda served as a professor in Madrid. (In later years, Yahuda wrote memoirs in Hebrew describing his sojourn in Spain.) He then left Spain, and spent the years between 1922 and 1942 travelling all over Europe and the East. During those years, Yahuda acquired many rare manuscripts and traded in them. Yahuda's great erudition in many fields- especially in Islam-explains his ability to acquire superior manuscripts  during his travels.

In 1942 Yahuda received a position in the New School of Social Research in New York. From then on, until his death in 1951, he spent most of his time on his research.