Abū Sulaymān David ben Sa'adya ben ha-Ger (= Ibn Muhājir)

Abū Sulaymān (David?) ibn Muhājir was a member of the illustrious Ibn Muhājir family of Seville, linked to this city at least from the middle of the eleventh century. In the Romance language, his family is called Ibn Shortmeqash or Shartamiqash. Nothing is known about his degree of relationship with the better-known members of the family, like the brothers Abraham Ibn Muhājir, Joseph, and Isaac, outstanding leaders of Andalusian communities and linked to the court of the Abbadid taifa ruler al-Muʿtamid. It has been suggested that he could have been their grandfather and the father of Me’ir ibn Muhājir, but there are no data to corroborate this hypothesis.

Our only information Abū Sulaymān ibn Muhājir comes from Moses ibn Ezra, who mentions him in his treatise on the ars poetica, Kitāb al-Muḥāḍara wa ʾl-Mudhākara (Halkin ed., p. 74) along with Eleazar ben Naḥman ibn Azhar, also from Seville, the center of Jewish culture during this period after the decline of Granada and Cordova. Both are recorded because of the nobility of their families and their intellectual activities: they are cited as poets and as learned in other, unspecified fields. According to this work, Ibn Muhājir belonged to the generation of Isaac ibn Ghiyyāth and was a contemporary of important teachers like Isaac ben Barukh Albalia, Isaac ben Reuben al-Bargeloni, and Isaac al-Fāsi. This suggests that he lived mainly in the eleventh century and, perhaps, in the first years of the twelfth century. Lacking other data, he seems to be one of the first known members of the Ibn Muhājir family.

Based on his Arabic kunya (honorific) Abū Sulaymān (father of Solomon), it is likely that Ibn Muhājir’s Hebrew given name was David. His identification with David Ibn Hajar (ben ha-Ger) has been argued; and more recently the possibility that he was David ben Saʿadya ben ha-Ger (= Ibn Muhājir), a contemporaneous Spanish talmudic commentator and codifier (Ta-Shema 1999). No examples of his work have been preserved.

Aurora Salvatierra Ossorio

Bibliography

Ashtor, Eliyahu. The Jews of Moslem Spain, vol. 3 (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1973–84), p. 172.

Fleischer, Ezra. “A Collection of Andalusian Poems with Homonym Rhymes,” Tarbiz 68, no. 2 (1999): 211–271.

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

Ibn Ezra, Moses. Sefer ha-ʿIyyunim veha-Diyyunim: ʿal ha-Shira ha-ʿIvrit [Kit%C4%81b al-Mu ḥ ā ḍ ara wa ʾl-Mudhākara], ed. Avraham S. Halkin (Jerusalem: Hoṣaʾat Meqiṣe Nirdamim, 1975).

Schirmann, Ḥayyim. “Ha-Meshorerim Bene Doram shel Moshe ibn ʿEzra,” Yediʿot ha-Makhon le-­ Ḥ eqer ha-Shira ha-ʿIvrit 2 (1936): 144.

———. Studies in the History of Hebrew Poetry and Drama , vol. 1 (Jerusalem: Mosad Bialik, 1979) [Hebrew].

Ta-Shema, Yisrael. Ha-Sifrut ha-Parshanit le-Talmud be-Eropa uvi- Ṣ fon Afriqa (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1999).

Cite this page

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