Abū ’l Ḥasan Me'ir Ibn Qamni’el, haRoffe al-Maraqesh

Me’ir (Abū ’l Ḥasan) ibn Qamni’el, born in Saragossa, belonged to one of the foremost Jewish families of Seville. What little information there is about his life comes largely from poems dedicated to him by Judah ha-Levi. These make it evident that the two were lifelong close friends. They seem to have first met when Ibn Qamni’el was quite young, as can be deduced from an allusion in Ha-Levi’s panegyric Lo’ He’emin Amun (Dîwân, vol. 1, pp. 127 ff.). The poem begins with a harsh satire of the leading families of Seville Jewry that juxtaposes their ignorance with Ibn Qamni’el’s wisdom and praises his family. In the heading, Ha-Levi gives Ibn Qamni’el the title of wazīr (vizier).

Nothing else is known about Ibn Qamni’el’s life in al-Andalus, but another poem by Ha-Levi indicates that he moved to Morocco and rose in the Almoravid court (Dîwân, vol. 1, pp. 126-127), facts confirmed by Maimonides in his Book on Asthma. Thanks to the latter source, it is known that Ibn Qamni’el was a court physician of Sultan Yūsuf ibn Tāshufīn (r. 1061–1106) in Marrakesh. He is named as one of the four court physicians, among them Solomon Ibn al-Muʿallim of Seville, who was also a friend of Judah ha-Levi, and due to an error in preparing a dosage of theriac brought about the sultan’s death.ʾʾʾ

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 - the son of Abū ʾl-Ḥasan Meʾir Ibn Qamni’el was not yet a court physician.

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.

In addition to the poems mentioned above, Ibn Qamni’el was the recipient of three other poems by Judah ha-Levi. These compositions record his ceremonial appointment to a high post (Dîwân, vol. 1, pp. 176–177), an expression of consolation on his falling ill (ibid., pp. 21–22), and a gesture of reconciliation by the poet for an offense of some kind (ibid., pp. 57-58).

Bibliography

Al-Ḥarizi, Judah. Taḥkemoni, ed. Israel Toporowsky (Tel Aviv: Maḥbarot le-Sifrut and Mosad Harav Kook, 1952).

Ha-Levi, Judah. Dīwān des Abū l Hasan Jehuda ha Levi. Diwan ve-hu Sefer Kolel Shire Avir ha-Meshorerim Yehuda ben Shemuʾel ha Levi, ed. Ḥayyim Brody, 4 vols. (Berlin, 1894–30); repr. A. M. Habermann (England, 1971).

Ibn Ezra, Abraham. Diwān des Abraham ibn Esra, ed. Jacob Egers (Berlin: Ittskovski, 1886).

Ibn Ezra, Moses. Kitāb al-Muḥāḍara wa ʾl-Mudhākara, ed. and trans. into Sp. Montserrat Abumalham, 2 vols. (Madrid: CSIC, 1986).

Ibn Saʿīd al-Maghribī. Rāyāt al-Mubarrizīn wa-Ghāyāt al-Mumayyizīn, ed. Muḥammad Riḍwān al-Dāyah (Damascus: Dār Ṭālas, 1987).

Maimonides, Moses. Maimonides on Asthma: A Parallel Arabic-English Text, ed., trans., and annot. Gerrit Bos (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002).

Schirmann, Ḥayyim. Ha-Shira ha-ʿIvrit bi-Sfarad u-ve-Provans (Jerusalem: Mosad Bialik, 1954–56).

Stern, Samuel M. “Arabic Poems by Spanish-Hebrew Poets,” in Romanica et Occidentalia: Études dédiées à la mémoire de Hiram Peri (Pflaum), ed. Moshe Lazar (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1963), pp. 254–263.

Judah ha-Levi. Dîwân des Abû‑l‑Hasan Jehuda ha‑Levi. Diwan ve‑Hu Sefer Kolel Shire Avir ha‑Meshorerim Yehuda ben Shemuʾel ha‑Levi, 4 vols. ed. Ḥayyim Brody (Berlin. 1894‑30), Repr. A. M. Habermann (England 1971).

Schirmann, Ḥayyim. Studies in the History of Hebrew Poetry and Drama, vol. 1 (Jerusalem: Mosad Bialik, 1979),pp. 267, 268-269 [Hebrew].

Citation Aurora Salvatierra Ossorio. " Ibn Qamni’el, Me’ir (Abū ’l Ḥasan)." Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World. Executive Editor Norman A. Stillman. Brill Online , 2013. Reference. Jim Harlow. 31 January 2013 <http://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopedia-of-jews-...>