Shmuel ibn Naghrillah[1] (Hebrew: שְׁמוּאֵל הַלֵּוִי בֶּן יוֹסֵף, Šəmuʿēl HalLēvi ben Yosēf; Arabic: أبو إسحاق إسماعيل بن النغريلة ʾAbū ʾIsḥāq ʾIsmāʿīl bin an-Naġrīlah), mainly known as Shmuel Hanagid which means Samuel the Prince (Hebrew: שמואל הנגיד, romanized: Šəmūʿel HanNāgid) and Isma’il ibn Naghrilla[2] (born 993; died 1056), was a medieval Sephardic Jewish Talmudic scholar, grammarian, philologist, soldier, merchant, politician, and an influential poet who lived in Iberia at the time of the Moorish rule.
[3] He held the position of Prime Minister of the Taifa of Granada and served as the battlefield commander of the Granadan army,[4] making him arguably the most politically influential Jew in Islamic Spain.
He studied Jewish law and became a Talmudic scholar who was fluent in Hebrew, Arabic, Latin, and one of the Berber languages.
In 1013, in consequence of the civil war and the conquest of Cordova by the Berber chieftain Sulaiman, Shmuel, like many other Jews, was compelled to emigrate.
He settled in the port of Málaga and became either a spice merchant or grocer, at the same time devoting his leisure to Talmudic and literary studies.
20th-century scholar Jacob Rader Marcus gives an interesting account pulled from a 12th-century book Sefer ha-Qabbalah.
[3] Eventually, Rabbi Samuel was given the job of tax collector, then secretary, and finally assistant vizier of state to the Granadan king Habbus al-Muzaffar.
[6] Other leading Jews, including Joseph ibn Migash, in the generation that succeeded Samuel, lent their support to Bulukkin and were forced to flee for their safety.
[10] It has often been speculated that Samuel was the father or otherwise an ancestor of Qasmuna, the only attested medieval female Jewish poet writing in Arabic, but the foundations for these claims are shaky.
The following morning, the massacre of Granada's Jews began and a mob went on a rampage, killing most of the Jewish population of the city.
He founded the yeshiva that produced such brilliant scholars as Yitzhaq ibn Ghiath and Maimon ben Joseph, the father of Maimonides.