Dunash ben Labrāṭ

Description / Bio

Dunash ben Labraṭ (b. ca. 920–25, d. after 985; fl. ca. 950–985) was a Hebrew poet and grammarian, probably from an Amazigh family from Fez in the far Maghrib. Reported to have studied with Saʿadya Gaʾon at the yeshiva of Sura in Baghdad before returning to the Maghrib after 942. In the 950s, he settled in Cordoba under the patronage of Ḥasday ibn Shaprūṭ and adapted Arabic quantitative meter to Hebrew verse, a technique that became standard for Andalusian Hebrew poetry. He also attacked Menaḥem ibn Sarūq's dictionary, the Maḥberet, in a polemic that led to Menaḥem's fall favor with Ḥasday. He composed liturgical poems, most famously, Deror yiqraʾ. A farewell poem attributed to his wife suggests that after his falling-out with Ḥasday, he left al-Andalus. The firmest date in his biography is 958, when he was in Cordoba during the visit of Toda Aznárez (d. ca. 958–59), queen of Pamplona, wife of King Sancho I Garcés and aunt of the Andalusī Umayyad caliph ʿAbd al-Raḥmān III (her mother, Onneca Fortúnez, had been married to the amir ʿAbdallāh and was the caliph's grandmother). The visit concerned her grandson Sancho I of León, "the Fat," who had been deposed in part because his physical condition left him unable to ride or fight. Toda brought him to Cordoba so that Ḥasday ibn Shapruṭ, the caliph's physician, could treat him, and also sought caliphal military help to restore him to the throne of León. The treatment reportedly worked, and with Cordoban troops, Sancho regained León in 959, in exchange for ceding frontier fortresses. Dunash celebrated Ḥasday's diplomatic triumph in a panegyric. The date 942 for his return to the Maghrib is inferred from Saʿadya Gaʾon's death date. His death date after 985 is based on a poem to Yaʿaqov ibn Jaw, who succeeded Ḥasday as nasī in 975. Information from José Martínez Delgado, "Dunash ben Labrāṭ," Encyclopaedia of Jews in the Islamic World, and from Marina Rustow