Samuel ibn Naghrella (Abū Ibrāhim Ismāʿīl ibn Yūsuf ibn Naghrīla), best known in Jewish history as Samuel ha-Nagid, was born in Cordova in 993, the second son of a wealthy family from Merida. The quintessential representative of the Andalusi Sephardi courtier class, he was an outstanding Hebrew poet, an accomplished talmudic scholar, a patron of the arts, and a powerful vizier. He took great pride in …