Sefer ha-Qabbalah was a book authored by Abraham ibn Daud

Abraham ibn Daud

Abraham ibn Daud was a Spanish-Jewish astronomer, historian, and philosopher; born at Toledo, Spain about 1110; died, according to common report, a martyr about 1180. He is sometimes known by the abbreviation Rabad I or Ravad I. His mother belonged to a family famed for its learning...

 around 1161. A chronicle of the Jewish people, it contains valuable historical and philosophical information. The book is a response to Karaitic attacks against the historical legitimacy of rabbinic judaism, and contains, among other items, the controversial tale of the kidnapping by pirates of four great rabbinic scholars from Babylonian academies, whose subsequent ransoming by Jewish communities around the Mediterranean accounts for the transmission of scholarly legitimacy to the Rabbis of Jewish centers in North Africa and Spain.

It shouldbe noted that at the time the term "Kabbalah

Kabbalah

Kabbalah/Kabala is a discipline and school of thought concerned with the esoteric aspect of Rabbinic Judaism. It was systematized in 11th-13th century Hachmei Provence and Spain, and again after the Expulsion from Spain, in 16th century Ottoman Palestine...

" did not yet assume the mythical and esoteric connotations by which is is now known.