Moses bar Samuel ha-Kohen ibn Gikatilla was a Jewish grammarian and Bible exegete of the late eleventh century.
His surname, which appears as early as the tenth century in the writings of a pupil of Menahem ben Saruḳ, Isaac ibn Gikatilla was probably derived from the Spanish Chiquitilla (a diminutive of the Latin caecus "blind");[1] its Arabic transcription, ibn Gikatilla, is the form usually adopted.
His native place was Cordova, but he resided later at Saragossa, where he may have enjoyed personal intercourse with the eminent Hebrew grammarian, Abu al-Walid Merwan ibn Janah.
He appears to have lived for some time also in southern France, and there, at the suggestion of Isaac b. Solomon, translated the writings of Ḥayyuj from Arabic into Hebrew.
Judah ibn Balaam, his somewhat younger contemporary, says of him: "He was one of the foremost scholars and grammarians and one of the most noted writers, being distinguished for prose and poetry in both Hebrew and Arabic.
Numerous citations are found, especially in Abraham ibn Ezra, from Gikatilla's commentaries on Isaiah, the Minor Prophets and the Psalms.
In the course of a disputation which he once held with Judah ibn Balaam concerning Joshua 10:12, Gikatilla rationalizes the so-called miracle of the Sun and Moon by maintaining that after sunset the reflection of the Sun lingered so long that daylight remained while Joshua pursued the enemy; and Judah ibn Balaam remarks in his account of the disputation that this opinion was one of Gikatilla's many misleading and pernicious notions.