Samuel ibn Naghrela (,
Sh'muel HaLevi ben Yosef HaNagid;
Abu Ishaq Isma'il bin Naghrillah), also known as
Samuel HaNagid (,
Shmuel HaNagid, lit.
Samuel the Prince), (born 993 - died after 1056), was a
Talmudic scholar, grammarian, philologist, poet, warrior, and statesman, who lived in
Iberia at the time of the
Moorish rule.
Born in
Mérida, his main poetic works include "Ben Tehillim" (Son of Psalms), "Ben Qoheleth" (Son of Ecclesiastes), and "Ben Mishlei" (Son of Proverbs), each of which imitates the "father work". His choice of poetic themes reflected his myriad occupations and personal world-view, including poems describing the battlefield using the analogy of a game of chess, poems speaking of the great beauty of nature, of which there are numerous, etc. His power in word choice of poetic portrayal of nature rivals that of the other great Jewish poets, namely ibn Saruk. He founded the Yeshiva that produced such brilliant scholars as R' Yitzhaq ibn Ghiath and R' Maimon ben Yosef (father of Maimonides). The "Introduction to the Talmud" is erroneously attributed to Shmuel.
He fled
Córdoba when the
Berbers took the city in 1013. For a while he ran a spice shop in
Málaga, but eventually he moved to
Granada, where he was first tax collector, then a secretary, and finally an assistant
vizier to the Berber king
Habbus al-Muzaffar.
When Habbus died in 1038, Samuel HaNagid made sure that his son Badis succeeded him. In return, Badis made Hanagid his vizier and top general, two posts which he held for the next seventeen years.
HaNagid's son
Joseph ibn Naghrela inherited those jobs. Some Muslims accused Joseph of using his office to benefit Jewish friends, assassinated him, and launched a
massacre of Granada's Jews the next day (
December 31,
1066).
Kfar HaNagid, a
moshav in modern
Israel was named after him.
Category:Jewish Spanish historyCategory:Spanish JewsCategory:Articles lacking sources (Erik9bot)Category:People from Mérida, SpainCategory:993 birthsCategory:11th-century deathsde:Schmuel ha-Nagides:Semuel ibn Nagrellafr:Samuel ibn Nagrelahe:שמואל הנגידhu:Sámuel Hánnágidoc:Samuel Hanaguidyi:שמואל הנגיד