Abū ’l Ḥasan Ismai'il Ibrahim ben Me'ir ibn Qamni’el, haRoffe al-Maraqesh

Aghamat and Marakesh 1106-1142 CE

Aghamat, the old capital of the Mourabitoun stood proud at the foot of the High Atlas Mountains, a day's walk South East of Marrakech. Jews lived in Aghamat since an ancient time, according to oral accounts since the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the First Temple (586 BCE). Priests (Cohanim) sought refuge there.

Before Sultan Yūsuf ibn Tāshufīn (r. 1061–1106) made Marrakech a holy city and before Jews were permitted to live there, Marrakech was a marketplace. But Sultan Yūsuf ibn Tāshufīn wanted to make it a capital city, an alternative to Fez. So he called upon the learned and skilled Jews to settle in Marrakech. Many Jews from Andalusia responded to Ibn Tashfin's call. Rabbi Meir ibn Qamni'el a medical practitioner became Sultan Yūsuf ibn Tāshufīn's personal doctor (See for example Hirschberg, 1965; Zafrani, 1983; and Chouraki, 1985, for related historical evidence).

HIstorians have confused the story of the death of Almoravid Emir Yūsuf ibn Tāshufīn with that of his son Emir ʿAlī ibn Yūsuf ibn Tāshufīn al-Marrakesh.

To be clear - the improper dosage of medicine to Emir ʿAlī ibn Yūsuf ibn Tāshufīn al-Marrakesh was delivered by Abū ʾl-Ḥasan Meʾir Ibn Qamni’el.

In his Treatise on Asthma (102–105), Moses Maimonides mentions that Abū Ayyūb Sulayman Abūab ibn al-Muʿallim from Seville, known as the Israelite (al-Yahūdī), was one of the four physicians at the court of the Almoravid emir ʿAlī ibn Yūsuf b. Tāshufīn in Marrakesh, along with another Sevillian Jewish physician named Abū ʾl-Ḥasan Meʾir Ibn Qamni’el, the Saragossan Abū ʿAlī ʿAlāʾ ibn Zuhr, and one Sufyān. He relates a story in which these four physicians administer the wrong dosage of theriac to the emir.

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