Abraham Maimonides

He wanted to introduce reforms in the Cairo synagogue, such as a new seating plan and a revised liturgy; his opponents denounced the plan to the sultan.

Some individuals directly challenged the rabbis' authority by taking their case to a Muslim judge. In Maimonides's time a Jewish man who was a kohen, barred by Jewish law from marrying a divorced woman, contracted the marriage before a Muslim judge. When community leaders wanted to cut the poetic insertions in the liturgy, their adversaries readily brought in the Muslim authorities; and opponents of reforms by Moses's son Abraham Maimonides in the Cairo synagogue (a new seating plan, no cushions, a revised liturgy) denounced the plan to the sultan.1