My heart’s desire

Moses ben Jacob Ibn Ezra was born to a leading Jewish family in Granada in al-Andalus (Muslim Spain) and received an elite education in rabbinic and Arabic literature, studying at the Lucena academy of Isaac Ibn Ghiyath (1038–1089). Ibn Ezra’s literary production in his youth primarily consisted of poems, both secular and liturgical, and he excelled at bringing together Arabic and Hebrew forms. While in al-Andalus, Ibn Ezra maintained relationships with many of the great poets of his day, particularly Judah ha-Levi (ca. 1075–1141), who saw him as a mentor of sorts. After the Almoravids conquered Granada in 1090, Ibn Ezra moved to northern Spain, which was under Christian rule, where he wrote about his lost homeland, both in poems and in his work on the history and artistry of Hebrew poetry, The Book of Conversation and Discussion (Kitāb al-muḥāḍara wa-’l-mudhākara). One of the few Judeo-Arabic works on poetics, it displays Ibn Ezra’s engagement with Arabic literature, including the Qur’ān and ḥadīth.