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Nothing is known about the life and work of Abū ʾl-Rabīʿ ben Barukh, mentioned by Moses Ibn Ezra in the Kitāb al-Muḥāḍara wa ʾl-Mudhākara as a poet from Lucena (Cordova). A contemporary of the scholars and men of letters connected to this city by birth or training from the middle of the eleventh century, he must have been one of the group of authors who made this enclave a prestigious center of Jewish cultural and religious life. His name is mentioned along with two other poets, Isaac ibn Lev and Abraham ibn Ḥayyāt, both from Granada and without known writings.Abū ʾl-Rabīʿ ben Barukh belonged…

The little-known author Ohev ben Me’ir ha-Nasi ibn Muhājir is mentioned in only one source known today, the Sefer ha-Qabbala of Abraham Ibn Da'ud, who mentions him as one of the most outstanding personalities of the era of splendor for the Jews of al-Andalus that began in the time of Samuel ibn Naghrella. Ohev is named alongside the great poets Solomon ibn Gabirol, Judah ibn Ghiyyāth, and Moses ibn Ezra, to whose generation he probably belonged. The important place given him in Ibn Da’ud’s work contrasts sharply w…

There is very little information about Samuel Ibn Mori’el, a Jewish dignitary who lived in al-Andalus, probably in Cordova, between the eleventh and twelfth centuries. He was acquainted with Judah ha-Levi, who dedicated at least three poems to him. These compositions, to which we owe the scant information we have about Ibn Mori’el, reveal that there was a notable age difference between the two, Ha-Levi being the elder. A significant allusion is made to this in the long prelude to one of the poems Ha-Levi wrote in his honor ( Dîwân, I, pp. 129–131). In this introduction, the poet make…

The poet, philosopher, and distinguished talmudist Joseph (Abū ʿAmr)  Ibn Ṣaddīq was born around 1075, probably in Cordova. According to the Sefer ha-Qabbala by Abraham Ibn Daʾud, he was a dayyan in the rabbinical court there from 1138 until 1149, the year of his death. According to the same source, his father, Jacob, was also a learned scholar.Moses Ibn Ezra includes Ibn Ṣaddīq in his ars poetica, Kitāb al-Muḥāḍara wa ʾl-Mudhākara (p. 79), as one of the most outstanding members of his generation and expressly praises his affable nature, poetic gifts, and wisdom.…

The poet Abraham (Abū Isḥāq) Ibn al-Rabῑb, a contemporary and friend of Judah ha-Levi, lived in the eleventh and twelfth centuries in al-Andalus, although, according to some scholars, it may not have been his birthplace. Only one incomplete poem remains of his opus (Schirmann 1966, p. 218): the first ten verses of an elegy written in honor of members of the Ibn Muhājir clan, an important family in Seville to which he was related by his marriage to the daughter of Isaac ibn Muhājir, leader of the Jewish community there. This union served as the motive for the three poems that Judah ha-Levi d…

Judah Ibn Ghiyyāth, the son of Isaac Ibn Ghiyyāth, the famed maestro of Lucena, lived at the beginning of the twelfth century (ca. 1110). Connected to Granada, where he lived for a long time, he was a notable member of the Jewish elite of al-Andalus, as seen in the works addressed to him. There is no evidence confirming the suggestion that he was the father of the poet Solomon Ibn Ghiyyāth.Judah Ibn Ghiyyāth wrote at least a dozen poems edited mainly by Schirmann (1936, pp. 186-194; 1946, p. 228). These include liturgical pieces, such as seliḥot (penitential poems) and a beautiful and original ah…

Ha-Kohen ben al-Mudarram was an Andalusian Hebrew poet and grammarian. According to Moses ibn Ezra in his work on the art of poetry, Kitāb al-Muḥāḍara wa ʾl-Mudhākara (p. 58), Ben al-Mudarram was a scholar related to the first generation of Hebrew authors of the tenth century. He was specifically included in a second group that sprang up within the first group and that followed and overtook the prose writers, poets, and other writers who came before them. He is mentioned after Isaac ibn Qapron, disciple of Menaḥem ibn Sa…

Almost nothing is known about Samuel ben Hananiah, who lived in al-Andalus in the eleventh century, possibly in the second half. The only information about him is from Moses ibn Ezra, who states in Kitāb al-Muḥāḍara wa 'l-Mudhākara (p. 72 ) that he was a contemporary of Isaac Ibn Ghiyyāth, the renowned religious scholar and poet from Lucena, which may indicate that Samuel ben Hananiah was connected to this important center of Jewish life and culture, although there is no confirming evidence. Ibn Ezra describes him as virtuous, devout,…

Abū Sulaymān (David?) ibn Muhājir was a member of the illustrious Ibn Muhājir family of Seville, linked to this city at least from the middle of the eleventh century. In the Romance language, his family is called Ibn Shortmeqash or Shartamiqash. Nothing is known about his degree of relationship with the better-known members of the family, like the brothers Abraham Ibn Muhājir, Joseph, and Isaac, outstanding leaders of Andalusian communities and linked to the court of the Abbadid taifa ruler al-Muʿtamid. It has been suggested that he could have been their grandfather and the father of Me’ir…

Ezra (Abū ’l-Ḥasan) ibn Eleazar was an Andalusian poet of the late eleventh to twelfth century mentioned as an older contemporary by Moses ibn Ezra in his ars poetica, Kitāb al-Muhāḍara wa ’l-Mudhākara (Halkin ed., p. 76). The text offers no details about Ibn Eleazar’s life or activity beyond the fact that he was a poet. It was once suggested that he was the recipient of a poem by Moses ibn Ezra dedicated to one “Ibn Eleazar” ( Shire ha-Ḥol, no. 63), but this notion has been discarded. New manuscripts as well as the content of the poem, a brief composition praising a book …

Isaac (Abū Saʿῑd ) ibn Ezra, the son of the poet and exegete Abraham Ibn Ezra, was born in Cordova at the beginning of the twelfth century, but not before 1109. He lived for a time in Seville, where he apparently began his friendship with the merchant and friend of scholars and literati, Ḥalfon ben Nathanel, and later in Almeria. It was once thought that he might have married a daughter of Judah ha-Levi while in al-Andalus, but this now seems very unlikely (Scheindlin 2008, p. 268). Thanks to documents from the Cairo Geniza, it is known that in 11…

Solomon Ibn Ghiyyāth (fl. 12th century) was one of the authors and friends with whom Judah ha-Levi exchanged poetry. The fruit of this poetic exchange was an extensive monorhythmic composition ( Dîwân I, p. 137) in response to a poem, not preserved, by Ibn Ghiyyāth. As was common between poets at that time, ha-Levi sent his verses accompanied by a letter in rhymed prose ( Dîwân II, p. 329). The poem, a formally quite elaborate qaṣῑda (ode), consists of a long prelude (Ar. nasīb) using traditional motifs from Arabic poetry (pangs of love and sleeplessness, the remnants or trace…

Joseph (Abū ʿUmar) ibn Matqa was a poet in twelfth-century al-Andalus. Nothing is known about his life, and we are aware of him only thanks to his poetic correspondence with Judah ha-Levi. The latter’s dīwān preserves a short poem addressed to him by Joseph ibn Matqa and included by Brody in the notes to his edition of Ha-Levi’s secular poetry ( Dîwân, I, p. 182). According to the heading, the poem was written by Abū ʿUmar ibn Matqa; it consists of two pessimistic verses.The poem with which Judah ha-Levi responded to his friend has not been identified with any certainty. The h…

Abun ben Sherara is known only from Moses Ibn Ezra’s Kitāb al-Muḥāḍara wa ʾl-Mudhākara (fol. 36). According to the information it provides, he was a poet who was active in the second half of the eleventh century, a native or resident of Lucena who later settled in Seville. Why he left Lucena, a flourishing center of Jewish culture that brought together the most renowned poets and teachers of the time, is unknown. It has been suggested that, like other Jewish contemporaries, he moved to Seville because this large urban center offered greater poss…

According to his somewhat older contemporary Moses ibn Ezra in the Kitāb al-Muḥāḍara wa ʾl-Mudhākara (Halkin ed., p. 74), Eleazar (Abū ʾl-Fatḥ) ben Naḥman ibn Azhar lived during the eleventh century in Seville. Some scholars think that Seville was his birthplace, but others propose Granada. Ibn Azhar is mentioned with Abū Sulayman ibn Muhājir, a member of one of the noblest Jewish families in Seville. Both are described as poets and as authorities in certain branches of learning who belonged to the circle of intellectuals that made Seville a center of Jewish culture after the decl…

Nothing is known of the life and work of Barukh ibn Jaw, whose name is preserved in the heading of a poem of friendship dedicated to him by Abraham ibn Ezra ( Diwân 1886, pp. 85 f.). This circumstance makes it possible to position him chronologically in the latter part of the eleventh century and the first decades of the twelfth. It has been suggested (Schirmann 1997, p. 17), but cannot be corroborated, that he was a descendant of an Ibn Jaw family known to have lived in Cordova since the tenth century. A member of this family, Jacob ibn Jaw, succeeded Ḥasday ibn Shapruṭ as nasi of the Jews of al-Andalus…

Abraham ben Isaac of Granada probably lived in the thirteenth or fourteenth century, but there is no conclusive support for this dating, and nothing is known about his life. His name is cited in the introduction to the long commentary on the Sefer Yeṣira by Moses ben Isaac Botarel, a kabbalist with messianic pretensions who lived in Spain and France at the end of the fourteenth and beginning of the fifteenth century. Botarel mentions a Hebrew work entitled Sefer ha-Berit (Book of the Covenant) and attributes it to an author named Abraham ben Isaac of Granada. The work has …

Lack of information and the existence of several writers of the same name make it difficult to identify Abun of Granada. None of his works has been preserved. He does not seem to be the tenth-century Abun cited by al-Ḥarīzī in the Taḥkemoni (chap. 3) or the Abun ben Sherara, a resident of Granada in the second half of the eleventh century, mentioned in the Kitāb al-Muḥāḍara wa ʾl-Mudhākara (ed. Halkin, p. 66).Based on the poems that Moses Ibn Ezra dedicated to him in his dīwān, Abun of Granada was probably a judge, connected by birth or residence to the city of Granada, and a me…

According to Moses ibn Ezra ( Kitāb al-Muḥāḍara wa ʾl-Mudhākara; Halkin ed., p. 66), Levi ben Isaac ibn Mar Saul was a native of Cordova, where he seems to have lived until 1013. The civil war known as the Fitna that occurred in al-Andalus at that time led him to leave his home and settle in Tortosa, an important nucleus of Jewish culture. He was probably the son of the Lucena poet and philologist Isaac ibn Mar Saul, although no sources confirm this hypothesis. Levi ben Isaac is cited as an author of panegyrics in the Kitāb al-Muḥāḍara wa ʾl-Mudhākara alongside Joseph ibn Qaprel from Cordova, w…

According to Moses Ibn Ezra's Kitāb al-Muḥāḍara wa 'l-Mudhākara (Halkin ed., p. 76), Me'ir Ibn Migash was born in Granada in the eleventh century and later settled in Seville. He is mentioned alongside Judah Ibn Mar Abbun, also from Seville, a poet and friend of Judah ha-Levi, with whom he exchanged some compositions. Thanks to Abraham ibn Da'ud ( Sefer ha-Qabbalah, p. 63), the circumstances of his leaving Granada are known. When Ḥabbūs, the ruler of the Zirid Berber kingdom, died without designating a crown prince, Ibn Migash, along with other Jewish notables like …