In the late 10th century, Dunash ben Labrat, a North African rabbi and student of Saadia Gaon, arrived at the Caliphate of Córdoba and revolutionized Hebrew poetry in al-Ándalus. Dunash designed a system of short and long vowels for Hebrew that allowed it to imitate Arabic meter, and adopted the structure of the qasida. Practically all Judeo-Spanish poets adopted Dunash's innovations. Moses ibn Ezra said that the best Hebrew poetry was composed according to the Arabic model, but Yehudah Halevi, a contemporary of ibn Ezra, felt ambivalent toward the metric innovations, condemning them as a cultural surrender.
