Shmuel HaNagid
but the hour I'm in,
which stands for a moment
and then like a cloud moves on.
Shmuel HaNagid (993-1056), also known as Shmuel ibn Naghrillah or Isma'il ibn Naghrillah, was a Jewish statesman, military commander, scholar, linguist and poet in medieval al-Andalus. He served as grand vizier of the Taifa of Granada, commander of its army in battle, and leader of the local Jewish community. Rising to unprecedented prominence in both Muslim and Jewish spheres, he became one of the most powerful and influential Jews in medieval Spain. He is considered one of the greatest Jewish poets of all time and one of the greatest composers of Hebrew poetry.
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Quotes
[edit]- To boast of the help you gave a brother in need is to cancel the good of your deed.
- Ben Mishle, 11C, #8, as quoted in A Treasury of Jewish Quotations (1996)
- "Be glad," she said,
"God brought you
to fifty years
in your world"—
but didn't know there's
no division
between, as I see it,
my days that have passed
and Noah's
of which I've heard.
In the world I have nothing
but the hour I'm in,
which stands for a moment
and then like a cloud moves on.- Translation of Peter Cole, Selected Poems of Shmuel HaNagid
Disputed
[edit]- The truth hurts like a thorn at first; but in the end it blossoms like a rose.
- As quoted in Thou Shalt Not Stand Idly By (2025) by Susan Landau. Cited as from Ben Mishle.
Quotes about
[edit]- Must we invoke some sort of cognitive dissonance to explain how the same man could, with no apparent sense of inconsistency, live a life of a prominent rabbinical authority and that of a philandering bon vivant?
- Hillel Halkin, 1993, The First Post-Ancient Jew, Commentary magazine, https://www.commentary.org/articles/hillel-halkin/the-first-post-ancient-jew/
- One of the more controversial aspects of Samuel HaNagid's poetry is the fact that many of them are erotic in nature. More shocking is that many of these erotic themes are replete with homosexual themes. This is both surprising and not. It is surprising since HaNagid's poetry reveals him as a man who strictly interpreted god's laws, and did nothing to actively go against it. As anyone who has read Leviticus knows, homosexual activity is considered a great sin. These themes, however, are unsurprising when looking at the greater canon of medieval poetry, especially that of the Arab lands. Themes of intense sexuality and even homosexuality are not uncommon among Andalusian Muslim poetry.
- Jon Panofsky, "I will roam until I ascend and reach the heights that are known unto eternity!" Revealing the Character of Samuel Ibn Nigrīla through his Poetry, https://www.academia.edu/17937284/_I_will_roam_until_I_ascend_and_reach_the_heights_that_are_known_unto_eternity_Revealing_the_Character_of_Samuel_Ibn_Nigrīla_through_his_Poetry
- Born during this era of Islamic rule, the famous Golden Age of Spanish Jewry (circa 900-1200) produced such luminaries as: statesman and diplomat Hasdai ibn Shaprut, vizier and army commander Shmuel ha-Nagid, poet-philosophers Solomon Ibn Gabirol and Judah Halevi, and at the apex of them all, Moses Ben Maimon, also known among the Spaniards as Maimonides.
- Zion Zohar, Sephardic and Mizrahi Jewry: From the Golden Age of Spain to Modern Times, NYU Press, 2005, p. 9
