Abraham ibn Ezra

Abraham ben Meir Ibn Ezra ( ʾAḇrāhām ben Mēʾīr ʾībən ʾĒzrāʾ, often abbreviated as ; إبراهيم المجيد ابن عزرا Ibrāhim al-Mājid ibn Ezra; also known as Abenezra or simply Ibn Ezra, 1089 / 1092 – 27 January 1164 / 23 January 1167) was one of the most distinguished Jewish biblical commentators and philosophers of the Middle Ages. He was born in Tudela, Taifa of Zaragoza and present-day Navarre. Abraham Ibn Ezra was born in Tudela, one of the oldest and most important Jewish communities in the present-day Spanish region of Navarre. At the time, the town was under the Muslim rule of the emirs of Zaragoza. However, when he later moved to Córdoba, he claimed it to be his place of birth. Ultimately, most scholars agree that his place of birth was Tudela. Little is known of Ibn Ezra's family from outside sources; however, he wrote of a marriage to a wife that produced five children. While it is believed four died early, the last-born, Isaac, became an influential poet and later convert to Islam in 1140. The conversion of his son was deeply troubling for Ibn Ezra, leading him to pen many poems reacting to the event for years afterward. Ibn Ezra was a close friend of Judah Halevi, who was some 14 years older. When Ibn Ezra moved to Córdoba as a young man, Halevi followed him. This trend continued when the two began their lives as wanderers in 1137. Halevi died in 1141, but Ibn Ezra continued travelling for three decades, reaching as far as Baghdad. During his travels, he began to compose secular poetry describing the lands through which he was travelling as well as beginning to pen the deeply rational Torah commentaries he would be best remembered for. In Spain, Ibn Ezra had already gained the reputation of a distinguished poet and thinker. However, apart from his poems, the vast majority of his work was composed after 1140. Written in Hebrew, as opposed to earlier thinkers' use of Judeo-Arabic, these works covering Hebrew grammar, Biblical exegesis, and scientific theory were tinged with the work of Arab scholars he had studied in Spain.