Solomon ibn al-Rūjī and his son Menahem led one of the more enduring and widespread messianic movements of the medieval period, from the end of the eleventh century through the first half of the twelfth, centered in the Kurdish province of Hakkāri (Çölamerik) in what is today southeastern Turkey. They were merged over the course of later literary tradition into a single legendary figure known as David Alroy.

The earliest source describing the messianic pretensions of the al-Rūjīs is the memoir of Obadiah the Proselyte, who apparently learned about them while sojourning in Baghdad appr…