Ḥīwī al-Balkhī or ha-Balkhī, a native of Balkh, in Khurasan in the territory of Persia (now Afghanistan), was a ninth-century freethinker and Bible critic. His name is probably a misspelling of the Persian name Ḥayyawayh, the Arabicized form of Persian Ḥayyōyeh or Ḥayyūyeh, possibly shortened to Ḥayyōy (Ben Shammai 2003).

A contemporary of Mishawayh and Ibn al-Rāwandī, Ḥīwī was opposed and condemned as a heretic (mulḥid) and a blasphemer by both Rabbanites (Saʿadya Gaon) and Karaites, as well as by other biblically oriented sectarians (e.g., Abū ʿImrān al-Tiflīsī). Very little is …