edited by Olivia Remie Constable
from Medieval Iberia: Readings from Christian, Muslim, and Jewish Sources
Account of Abd Allah ibn Buluggin
from The Tibyan
Poem by Abu Ishaq of Elvira
from Qasida
Account of Abraham ibn Daud
from The Book of Tradition
On December 30, 1066 (9 Tevet 4827), a Muslim mob stormed the royal palace in Granada, which was at that time in Muslim-ruled al-Andalus, assassinated Jewish vizier Joseph ibn Naghrela and massacred many of the Jewish population of the city.
Joseph ibn Naghrela, or Joseph ha-Nagid (September 15, 1035 - December 30, 1066), was a vizier to the Berber king Badis al-Muzaffar of Granada, during the Moorish rule of Andalusia, and the leader of the Jewish community there.
Joseph was born in Granada, the eldest son of Rabbi Sh'muel ha-Nagid (Samuel ibn Naghrela).
Some information about his childhood and upbringing is preserved in the collection of his father's Hebrew poetry, which Joseph writes that he began copying at the age of eight and a half. For example, he tells how once (aged nine and a half, in the spring of 1045) he accompanied his father to battlefield, only to suffer from severe homesickness, about which he wrote a short poem.
His primary teacher was his father. On the basis of a letter to Rabbi Nissim Gaon attributed to him, in which Joseph refers to himself as R' Nissim's disciple, some claim that he also studied under R' Nissim at Kairwan. Joseph later married R' Nissim's daughter.
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