The Golden Age of Spanish Jewry: Hasdai ibn Shaprut and Shmuel HaNagid

In Cordoba, capital of Abd al-Rahman III's caliphate, the physician and linguist Hasdai ibn Shaprut rose to be effectively foreign minister: he received Byzantine and German embassies and negotiated with the kings of the north. He used his power for Jewish ends — redeeming captives, supporting scholars, sending letters across the world in search of an independent Jewish kingdom, and receiving a reply from the king of the Khazars. He also ransomed Rabbi Moshe ben Chanoch, taken captive on his way from Italy, and set him at the head of a new Spanish yeshiva. From then on Spain no longer depended on Babylonia.

Two generations later Shmuel HaNagid (4753–4816) went further. A merchant from Malaga whose letters were so beautiful that he was taken as a court scribe, he became vizier of Granada and, remarkably, led its Muslim army in the field for nearly twenty years. He was a genuine Talmudist, author of the Mevo HaTalmud still printed today, and one of the great Hebrew poets — his verses written in camp, between battle and morning prayer.

Around them grew a whole generation: the grammarians Menachem ben Saruk and Dunash ben Labrat, the poet-philosopher Shlomo ibn Gabirol, later Moshe ibn Ezra.