Isaac Ibn Khalfūn

Isaac (Abū Ibrāhīm) Ibn Khalfūn (Ibn Ḥalfon) was the son of a North African émigré to al-Andalus (Muslim Spain) and may have lived in Córdoba. He traveled widely and spent time in both Qayrawān, in Tunisia, and Damascus. He became a prominent, if not the leading, poet in Andalusi Jewish society at the time. He is often referred to as the first “professional” poet, as he may have supported himself with his poetic skill, writing panegyrics for wealthy patrons and producing funeral elegies and wedding poems on demand—he even requested payment from his creditors in verse. Ibn Khalfūn made important strides in the then-new adaptation of Hebrew poetry to the system of Arabic quantitative metrics. He seems to have married the daughter of another Andalusi Jewish poet, Isaac Ibn Qapron. Ibn Khalfūn engaged in a lengthy exchange of poetry with Samuel ha-Nagid (993–1056), preserved by Samuel’s son, Yehosef (1035–1066).