SAMUEL IBN NAGHRELA
(Samuel ibn Naghrillah)
See {623774} for a poem he wrote in Arabic about the battle itself. He had written books in Arabic about Hebrew grammar and language and was the first person to use the Arabic poetic style with its meter and rhyming and used it for writing Hebrew poetry. This poem was so written.
This quotation is unusual for several reasons. First, it is one of the few surviving descriptions of the Battle of Al Fuente an important battle keeping Muslim Grenada independent. Second, it was an elegant poem written by the winning commander who was a polymath with poetry and military prowess just two of his skills. Third, the commander was a Jew commanding a Muslim Army in Moorish Spain.
Samuel ibn Naghrillah (Hebrew: שמואל הלוי בן יוסף הנגיד, Sh'muel HaLevi ben Yosef HaNagid; Arabic: أبو إسحاق إسماعيل بن النغريلة ʾAbū ʾIsḥāq ʾIsmāʿīl bin an-Naghrīlah), also known as Samuel HaNagid (Hebrew: שמואל הנגיד, Shmuel HaNagid, lit. Samuel the Prince) (born 993; died after 1056), was a medieval Spanish Talmudic scholar, grammarian, philologist, soldier, merchant, politician, and an influential poet who lived in Iberia at the time of the Moorish rule. His poetry was one area through which he was well known. He was perhaps the most politically influential Jew in Muslim Spain.
