Yehudah ben Yitshak Ibn Ghayyāth HaLevi

Abu Zakariya "Yehudah" Ibn Ghiyyāth (Ibn Ghayyāth)

Judah Ibn Ghiyyāth, the son of Isaac Ibn Ghiyyāth, the famed maestro of Lucena, lived at the beginning of the twelfth century (ca. 1110). Connected to Granada, where he lived for a long time, he was a notable member of the Jewish elite of al-Andalus, as seen in the works addressed to him. There is no evidence confirming the suggestion that he was the father of the poet Solomon Ibn Ghiyyāth.

Judah Ibn Ghiyyāth wrote at least a dozen poems edited mainly by Schirmann (1936, pp. 186-194; 1946, p. 228). These include liturgical pieces, such as seliḥot (penitential poems) and a beautiful and original ahava (on divine love), as well as compositions for specific celebrations, such as a wedding and a circumcision. There are also two panegyrics in the form of a muwashshaḥ (strophic poem) and a classic qaṣῑda (ode) Mi-ben ʿofayim (Heb. From between the branches) (Brody-Wiener 1922, pp. 189 ff.), a response in the same meter and rhyme scheme to a poem sent by Judah ha-Levi, M ah li le-ravvot pene ereṣ be-dimʿati (Heb. What is it for me to drench the ground with my tears) (Dîwân, I, 151 ff). It is possible that this poetic exchange was the first contact between the two poets, occurring when they still did not know each other personally (Schirmann 1995, pp. 507-8).

Although he was the recipient of at least six poems by Judah ha-Levi (Dîwân I, pp. 43, 53 f., 60 f., 151 f., 174 f.; II, 191), Ibn Ghiyyāth is not mentioned in the dīwān of Moses ibn Ezra. According to some scholars, two wedding poems in the dīwān, in honor of a groom named Judah, were also addressed to him (Dîwân II, p. 58). Two letters from the Cairo Geniza (Gil and Fleischer 2001, nos. 17 and 32) testify to the friendship that united him with Ha-Levi.

Judah al-Ḥarīzī praises Ibn Ghiyyāth's poetry in the Taḥkemoni (chap. 3). Abraham ha-Berdesi refers to him briefly in h a-Ḥerev ha-Mithappekhet (ed. Amsterdam 1865:14).

Aurora Salvatierra Ossorio

Bibliography

Brenner, Anne. Judah Halevi and His Circle of Hebrew Poets in Granada (Leiden: Brill, 2005).

Brody, Ḥayyim, and Meir Wiener. Mivḥar ha-Shirah ha-ʿIvrit (Leipzig: InselVerlag, 1922).

ha-Levi, Judah. Dîwân des Abû l Hasan Jehuda ha Levi. Diwan ve hu' Sefer Kolel Shire Avir ha Meshorerim Yehuda ben Shemu'el ha Levi, ed. Ḥayyim Brody, 4 vols. (Berlin, 1894-30); repr. A. M. Habermann (England, 1971).

Gil, Moshe, and Ezra Fleischer. Yehuda ha-Levi and His Circle: 55 Geniza Documents. (Jerusalem: World Union of Jewish Studies, 2001) [Hebrew].

Nir, Dalia. Yehudah Ibn-Giʾat: Monografiya (Tel Aviv: Universiṭat Tel-Aviv, 1974).

Schirmann, Ḥayyim. "Ha-meshorerim benei doram shel Moshe ibn Ezra," Yediʿot ha-Makhon le-Ḥeqer ha-Shira ha-ʿIvrit 2 (1936): 186 ff.; 6 (1946): 328 ff.

---. The History of Hebrew Poetry in Muslim Spain, ed., suppl., and annot. Ezra Fleischer (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1995), pp. 507-512 [Hebrew].

Cite this page

Aurora Salvatierra Ossorio. "Ibn Ghiyyāth (Ibn Ghayyāth), Judah (Abū Zakariyyā)." Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World. Executive Editor Norman A. Stillman. Brill Online, 2013. Reference. <http://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopedia-of-jews-...>