07 Mar Samuel ibn Nagrella

Samuel Ibn Nagrella or Samuel  (Abu Ibrahim) ben Yosef ibn Nagre- lla ha-Naguid, is better known as ha-Naguid.  His name is שמואל הלוי בן יוסף הנגיד Sh’muel ha-Levi ben Yosef han-Nagid in Hebrew.  In Arabic is  أبو إسحاق إسماعيل بن النغريلة Abu Ishaq Isma’il bin Naghrillah).

He is the first person in the biographies that I’m going to share with you this year.  To know him in depth we must also look at the lives of his contemporaries. Every month we’ll look at the lives of one key person in our history.  I want to pay tribute to the cultures that lived in and formed Granada, the Jews, Moors and Christians.

The first thing to know about this exceptional and unique character Samuel  ibn Nagrella, are his origins. He was a Jew, born in Córdoba, although his family supposedly Levites, were originally from Mérida.

In Córdoba he studied with Rabbi Hanok (the local Rabbi) and achieved a comprehensive education in Hebrew and Arabic.  Due to the unrest of the time he moved to Málaga where he opened a shop trading in spices. A little later he learnt the art of Arabic calligraphy.   With his work, he caught the attention of the ministers of Habus, Abu- l-Qasim ibn al-Arif.

Nagrella and Granada

After a visit to his lands in Málaga, Habus took Samuel as his secretary which completely turned his career around. While serving the court in Granada he had the opportunity to become the highest-ranking member of court to the Moorish Kings.

In 1030 King Ziri Badis made Samuel ibn Nagrella his Prime Minister. From that moment onwards, the kingdom of Granada became the most important city for the Jew’s in the peninsula.

In addition, it was an important centre of Hebrew culture and remained so until his death in 1056. Unfortunately, the Granada Jewish neighborhood were destroyed. Today, we only preserve the city name: Granada.