Solomon ben Judah ibn Gabirol, a Jewish poet and philosopher who lives in Muslim Spain, produces an enormous body of secular and religious poems (over four hundred of which survive), including his celebrated philosophical poem “Keter Malkhut” (“The Kingly Crown”).
Gabirol combines Neoplatonism with traditional Jewish philosophy in his chief philosophic work, a metaphysical discussion entitled “Mekor Hayyim.” He attempts, in his ethical treatise “The Improvement of the Moral Qualities,” to separate ethics from a purely religious framework.
Little is known of Gabirol's life.
His parents died while he was a child.
At seventeen he became the friend and protégé of Jekuthiel Hassan.
Upon the assassination of the latter as the result of a political conspiracy, Gabirol composed an elegy of more than two hundred verses.
The death of Hai Gaon also called forth a similar poem.
When barely twenty, Gabirol wrote Anaḳ, a versified Hebrew grammar, alphabetical and acrostic, consisting of four hundred verses divided into ten parts.
Of this grammar, ninety-five lines have been preserved by Solomon Parḥon.
In these Gabirol reproaches his townsmen with their neglect of the Hebrew language.
Gabirol is one of the first teachers of Neoplatonism in Europe.
His role has been compared to that of Philo, who had served as the intermediary between Hellenic philosophy and the Oriental world; a thousand years later, Gabirol Occidentalizes Greco-Arabic philosophy and restores it to Europe.
Fons Vitæ ("Fountain of Life"), a philosophical dialogue between master and disciple, derives its name from the fact that it considers matter and form as the basis of existence and the source of life in every created thing.
It is translated from the Arabic into Latin in the year 1150.
There are no extant Arabic texts, but the Latin text has been translated into Hebrew.
(The manuscript in France’s Bibliothèque Mazarine is entitled "De Materia Universali.")
Gabirol's residence in Zaragoza had been embittered by strife.
He thought of leaving Spain, but remained and wandered about.
He had gained another friend and patron in the person of Samuel ibn Naghrela, whose praises he sang.
Later an estrangement arose between them, and Naghrela became for a time the butt of Gabirol's bitterest irony.
All testimonies agree that Gabirol was comparatively young at the time of his death, which followed years of wandering.
The year of his death is probably 1058 or 1059.
