Azulai, Masʿud
AZULAI, MASʿUD
AZULAI, MAS ʿUD (17th century), kabbalist and rabbi; also called Mas ʿūd Ma'aravi ("the Westerner") and Mas ʿūd Saggi-Nahor (euphemism for "the blind"). Azulai, who went from Safed to Morocco, was a kabbalist ascetic and in 1601 he became a member of the Beit ha-Va'ad ("The Academy of Scholars") in Safed. About 1612 he was among the six Safed scholars who ordained R. Azriel b. Meir ha-Levi Ashkenazi, one of the Ashkenazi scholars in Salonika. He was still alive in 1621. His disciples included R. Solomon Shlomel Dreznitz, about whom Azulai wrote, in a letter dated 1607, that he had read all Isaac *Luria's writings three times and was as familiar with them as with the letters of the alphabet. No writings of Azulai are known, except ms. Guenzberg 1760, the contents of which are described as "Sermons of R. Mas'oud Saggi Nahor" (66 folios).
bibliography:
S. Assaf, Iggerot mi-Ẓefat (1940), 125–7; M. Benayahu, in: Sefer Yovel … Y. Baer (1960), 268–9.