Meir ibn Aldabi was a 14th-century Jewish writer. He was the son of Isaac Aldabi, grandson of Asher ben Jehiel, and a descendant of the exiles from Jerusalem. His name (erroneously spelled Albadi, Albalidi, Alrabi, and Altabi) is ascertained from his chief work, Shebile Emunah, wherein a poem is found in which every line begins with a letter of his name, and there it reads "Aldabi."
In the preface to his book occurs the expression, "of the exiles of Jerusalem." This, together with Aldabi's statement that he was exiled from his country (Andalusia), caused Graetz to assume that Meir ibn Aldabi was banished to Jerusalem. Graetz failed to take into account Aldabi's words, "He [God] led me into a waste land," which he would not have used in reference to Jerusalem.
Aldabi belonged to the class of popular writers who, possessing extensive theological and scientific knowledge, commented upon the assertions of their predecessors with a clear understanding, expressing here and there their own opinions, and presenting some subjects from the standpoint of the Kabbala. Aldabi was also one of those Talmudists whose conception of religion was wholly spiritual and who revered the Cabala: he can not, however, be called a true cabalist. In 1360 he wrote Shebile Emunah (The Paths of Faith), an exhaustive treatise on philosophical, scientific, and theological subjects. To judge from the many editions that appeared from time to time, it was for centuries a favorite book with the educated.
Shebile Emunah (Shevilei Emunah) is divided into ten chapters, which treat respectively of:
Steinschneider (Hebr. Uebers. pp. 9–27) has shown Aldabi's Shebile Emunah to be a compilation from various older sources, chiefly from Gerson ben Solomon of Arles's encyclopedic work, Sha'ar ha-Shamayim, of the 13th century. From Gerson's work the chapter on the members of the human body (§2, chap. iii) is taken, and in part verbally. So are Aldabi's "Ten Questions on the Soul" (§6), interspersed with passages borrowed literally from Joseph ibn Zaddik and Hillel ben Samuel, only a modified form of the "Ten Discussions on the Soul," which Gerson himself adapted from a book on the soul, probably written by Ibn Gabirol. Against the charges of plagiarism raised in Brüll's Jahrb. ii.166-168, see Steinschneider, Hebr. Bibl. 1876, p. 90.