Moses ben Hanokh משה בן חנוך

The account by which this is known is transmitted by Abraham ibn Daud nearly two centuries later. A ship of alms-collectors sailing from Bari was seized by a Cordovan admiral; the captives were sold in different corners of the Mediterranean. Moses ben Hanokh and his son were ransomed by the community of Cordova, who did not know whom they were ransoming. He sat at the back at a lesson of the local judge Rabbi Nathan and explained the passage under discussion so well that Nathan rose and said: I am not the judge here—this man in rags is.

Then comes the point of the telling. Hasdai ibn Shaprut, who stood at the caliph's court, set him at the head of the Cordova academy, and questions formerly sent to Babylonia began to be settled in Spain. His responsa were ranked with those of the Geonim; some survive in Shaarei Tzedek and Geonei Mizrah u-Maarav. His son Hanokh led the community after him.

How much of this happened so is disputed. The Encyclopaedia Judaica doubts the Babylonian origin and holds he was more likely from southern Italy. The dates do not agree: the ransom is placed at 945–948, or the seizure of the ship at about 974, while his own death is dated about 965. A letter of Hushiel from the Cairo Genizah says that he left his homeland of his own will and was not ransomed from captivity—which undercuts the tale of the four captives as a whole. Some scholars read it as a parable of the passing of scholarly primacy from east to west; others allow a historical kernel. That the men in it are historical is not disputed.