Early Middle Ages and Crusades
Assassination of vizier Joseph ibn Nagrela, massacre of the community
1066·Grenade
The toll is reproduced exactly as the source states it — never rounded, never added to another. Tolls overlap from one event to the next.
Joseph ibn Naghrela had succeeded his father Samuel as vizier to the Zirid king Bādīs. His favour, his way of life, and the prominence of his associates in the administration had for years fuelled a hostility that the poet Abū Isḥāq of Elvira put into verse, openly calling for his destruction.
Accused of having sought to deliver Granada to the ruler of Almería, he was put to death and his body put on public display; the crowd then turned on the Jewish quarter, which was looted and burned. The community, the most prosperous on the peninsula after that of Cordova, ceased to exist in that form; those who survived made their way to Lucena and Toledo.
The event has long served as a touchstone in the debate over Andalusian *convivencia*: it shows both that a Jew could govern a Muslim kingdom and what it cost when the prince's favour was withdrawn.
- Period :
- Early Middle Ages and Crusades
- Type :
- Massacre
- Region :
- Western Europe
- Country :
- Espagne
Abraham ibn Daud, *Sefer ha-Qabbalah* ; poème d'Abū Isḥāq d'Elvire ; Ibn al-Khaṭīb, *al-Iḥāṭa*.