Abū Manṣūr Mevorakh ben Samuel al-Barqūlī, Neʾeman haMalkhut

Members of two generations of the Ibn al-Barqūlī family are mentioned in several letters from the Cairo Geniza (all composed during the first decade of the thirteenth century), as well as in the poetry of Eleazar ben Jacob ha-Bavli and Judah al-Ḥarīzī. From what is said in these sources, it is apparent that the Ibn al-Barqūlī family played a central role in the communal and spiritual life of the Jewish communities in Baghdad and Wāsiṭ (in central Iraq) and also contributed significantly to the patronage of Jewish belles lettres. The Geniza letters were all written by the Baghdad gaon Daniel ben Eleazar (not, as originally thought by Assaf, the gaon Eleazar ben Hillel; see Gil, sec. 267). Four of them are addressed to Mevorakh (Abū Manṣūr) ben Samuel al-Barqūlī (Assaf, pp. 49–50 [no. 8, but not the continuation on pp. 51 ff.], pp. 55–57 [nos. 10 and 11], and pp. 60–65), who is described, inter alia, as “prince of the congregation” (Heb. śar ha-ʿeda), “trustee of the kingdom” (neʾeman ha-malkhut), and “treasure of the academy” (segullat ha-yeshiva). One letter is addressed to Mevorakh’s son Samuel (ibid., pp. 41–43 [no. 1]), who is described with similar grandiloquence as “the sublime leader, the trustee, sun of the leaders” (Jud.-Ar. al-raʾīs al-ajall, al-thiqa, shams al-ruʾasāʾ). Samuel is also mentioned with high praise by al-Ḥarizi in his Taḥkemoni as that work’s primary dedicatee and patron (see Toporovsky, pp. 16–18 [intro.], 366 [no. 46]); he also mentions Samuel’s “two brothers, the distinguished prince [ha-sar ha-nikhbad], Rabbi Joseph, and the pleasant prince [ha-sar ha-neḥmad], Rabbi Ezra” (p. 17). This brother Joseph(Abū Naṣr) is one of the most frequent subjects of panegyrics in Eleazar b. Jacob’s dīwān (cf. van Bekkum, nos. 3, 5, 6, 101–9, 113). Eleazar also dedicates one poem to a certain “Abū ʾl-Ghanāʾim” (so Gil, sec. 273, albeit van Bekkum, p. 196 [no. 165]: Ghanāʾis), who is perhaps to be identified with either Samuel or Ezra.

Michael G. Wechsler

Bibliography

al-Ḥarīzī, Judah. Ta ḥ kemoni, ed. Israel Toporovsky (Tel Aviv: Maḥberot le-Sifrut, 1952).

Assaf, Simcha. “Qoveṣ shel Iggerot R. Shemuʾel ben ʿEli u-Vene Doro,” Tarbi ṣ 1, no. 3 (1930): 15–80.

Gil, Moshe. Be-Malkhūt Yishmaʿʾel bi-Tqūfat ha-Geʾonim, 4 vols. (Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University, 1997); vol. 1 trans. D. Strassler as Jews in Islamic Countries in the Middle Ages (Leiden: Brill, 2004).

van Bekkum, Wout J. (ed.). The Secular Poetry of El‘azar ben Ya‘aqov ha-Bavli (Leiden: Brill, 2007).

Cite this page

Michael G. Wechsler. "Ibn al-Barqūlī Family." Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World. Executive Editor Norman A. Stillman. Brill Online, 2013. Reference. <http://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopedia-of-jews-...>