A small subset of Andalusian panegyrics seems to be associated with installation to office or some other public acclamation of power. The most suggestive examples I have identified emanate from the dīwāns of Mosheh Ibn Ezra and Yehudah Halevi.110 One of the poems by Ibn Ezra bears the superscription, “To a friend who was appointed to the position of judge (tawallā al-qaḍā’)” and includes verses that suggest a political ritual:111
All the masters of knowledge testify that your community adorned and elevated itself through you.
[Your community] became your subject today, it inclined to be ruled by your decree.
[Your community] raised up the wonder of dominion [before you] for it is your possession and an inheritance from your fathers.
They said to you, “You are next in succession, come and redeem your inheritance!
Arise and be our judge112 for we have not found a leader113 like you.”
Make a pledge with the sons of Wisdom for they, among all men, share a pact with you …
Take delight in the might of the world but also beware lest it seduce you….
This is advice from a friend whose soul takes pride on the day of your pride’s exaltation.114
The immediacy of an occasion is suggested by such words as “today” and the second-person address to “arise and be our judge.” The references to a “pledge” and “pact” likely allude to standard practices of Islamic installation rites, which center on the loyalty oath (bai‘a) and making a bilateral compact (‘ahd).115 The poem was certainly written for the occasion of the friend’s installation, though we do not know that it was recited as part of the ceremony; as is often the case, we are forced to rely upon the internal evidence of the poem, a method that can be only partly successful because poems that were not performed can contain performative elements.
A second example from Ibn Ezra’s dīwān is a panegyric in strophic form, written, it seems, for the induction of another judge,116
How comely on the mountain are the footsteps of the herald announcing (Is 52:7)
that a shepherd has come to bring comfort to the flock wandering in the forest.
Behold, the sound of the people in its boisterousness (Ex 32:17) is heard calling him in song.
Our rejoicing before you is like the joy of a multitude on their holiday.
May you reign over us! You and your son and your son’s son!
Gates of the House of God, lift up your heads and say, “Come, O blessed one of God!
The one who stands to serve by the name of God, to teach the law of God,
to teach the teachings of God that [they] may know the ways of God.”
For these are a sign upon your right hand and a reminder between your eyes (cf. Ex 13:9).
Although the unprotected settlements117 are no more, you restored their habitations!
Although prophecy and vision had grown rare, you spoke their wonders!
Although deprivation had wasted their souls, your wisdom revived them!
Your table satisfies them, your refreshing stream gives them drink.
From now on you will be minister over one thousand. May you be exalted and rule over Israel!
May your enemy pass away, may he be lost and not be redeemed;
God has unsheathed His sword against him, but you he has chosen like Ittiel [i.e., Solomon].
May a thousand fall at your left, ten thousand at your right! (Ps 91:7)
May your name be exalted and magnified in all the corners of the earth!
May you wipe out transgressive and iniquitous people and burden their yoke!
May you judge them by the laws of the Torah and teach [the laws’] general and specific principles!
May your tongue utter wisdom and God illumine your face!
Again, several elements suggest a ritual occasion: the boisterous singing, the blessing of welcome, and the words “from this day on.” Again, we do not know that this poem was uttered within an initiation ceremony, but it seems likely that there was some sort of ceremony that involved the singing of songs. Unfortunately, we still know very little about the performance of public rituals among Andalusian Jews. It seems that there was at least some continuity with Jewish rituals of installation as known from the Islamic East, and in both locales we find parallels with contemporary Islamic rituals of power. However, the installation of a judge in al-Andalus was a less “imperial” occasion than the appointment of an exilarch in Baghdad. In any case, there is no reason to believe that this poem was commissioned by a paying patron.
As stated, the most likely testimonies for Jewish panegyric performance on a courtly model pertain to the brief period of Ḥasdai Ibn Shaprut. Mosheh Ibn Ezra writes concerning Menaḥem Ben Saruq and Dunash Ben Labrat that Ibn Shaprut “rejoiced at their wondrous poetry and their marvelous and eloquent addresses.”118 In all likelihood, at least some of these poems were the panegyrics for which these poets are known.119 Yet many panegyrics were clearly not performed face-to-face by the poet before his mamdūḥ, such as one that Ben Saruq sent to Ibn Shaprut when the former was imprisoned by the latter.120 Nonetheless, the poem presents elements of “performativity” we might expect from formal courtly performance such as first-person speech and a boast over poetic skill.121 In the final verse of the poem, the poet captures the rhetorical function of the address, which is to assuage the anger of the mamdūḥ and to gain freedom, a purpose masterfully developed through the rhetoric of the appended letter. Was the poem recited by a rāwī subsequent to its reception before the mamdūḥ alone, in a small social gathering, or in a public assembly? Oral performance remains a possibility, but we have no evidence one way or the other. What is certain is the poem’s function as part of an epistolary package.
The most extensive anecdote that we possess concerning the performance of a panegyric paints a picture quite different from that of a poet presenting a poem before a patron with the hope of remuneration. Yehudah Halevi, in a letter to Mosheh Ibn Ezra, recounts how he came from “Seir” (Christian Iberia) to “dwell in the light of the masters of great deeds, the great luminaries, the wise men in the west of Sepharad (al-Andalus),”122 who ultimately befriended him. Recalling their generosity, he wrote: “Time took an oath not to make an end (of me) but in the house of my estrangement it sustained me, delighted me with songs of friendship, and satiated me with the wine of love after I had sworn to wander.” The company was reciting a poem by “the prince of their host,” Mosheh Ibn Ezra (who was not present), a panegyric in honor of Yosef Ibn Ṣadīq in muwashshaḥ form that concluded with an Arabic kharja, titled “Leil maḥshavot lev a‘ira” (A night when I rouse the thoughts of my heart).123 After the others attempted to imitate the poem but failed, Halevi invented a complete version (presumably orally), which he later memorialized in the letter.124 In Halevi’s version, it is now
