History of the Jews under Muslim rule

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Jewish communities have existed across the

.

Jews found refuge in Muslim lands.[1]

Today, Jews residing in

Jewish Agency estimated that around 27,000 Jews live in Arab and Muslim countries.[2][3][4]

Middle Ages

Muslim conquests

There were, for a long but uncertain period, a significant number of Jews in

Kohanim.[5]

The

In year 20 of the Muslim era, or the year 641 CE, Muhammad's successor the Caliph Umar decreed that Jews and Christians should be removed from all but the southern and eastern fringes of Arabia—a decree based on the uttering of the Prophet: "Let there not be two religions in Arabia". The two populations in question were the Jews of the Khaybar oasis in the north and the Christians of Najran.[5][9] Only the Red Sea port of Jeddah was permitted as a "religious quarantine area" and continued to have a small complement of Jewish merchants.

During the Caliphates

A Jew and a Muslim playing chess in 13th century al-Andalus.

During the Middle Ages, Jewish people under Muslim rule experienced tolerance and integration.[10]: 55  Some historians refer to this time period as the "Golden Age" for the Jews, as more opportunities became available to them.[10] In the context of day-to-day life, Abdel Fattah Ashour, a professor of medieval history at Cairo University, states that Jewish people found solace under Islamic rule during the Middle Ages.[10]: 56  The Muslim rule at times didn't fully enforce the Pact of Umar and the traditional Dhimmi status of Jews; i.e., the Jews sometimes, as in eleventh-century Granada, were not second-class citizens. Author Merlin Swartz referred to this time period as a new era for the Jews, stating that the attitude of tolerance led to Jewish integration into Arab-Islamic society.[10]: 56 

Social integration allowed Jews to make great advances in new fields, including mathematics, astronomy, philosophy, chemistry and philology,

Leon Poliakov writes that in the early ages of Islam, Jews enjoyed great privileges, and their communities prospered. No laws or social barriers restricted their commercial activities, and exclusive trade and craft guilds like those in Europe did not exist. Jews who moved to Muslim lands found themselves free to engage in any profession, resulting in less stigma than in Europe where such restrictions were still in force.[10]
: 58  This, coupled with more intense Christian persecution, encouraged many Jews to migrate to areas newly conquered by Muslims and establish communities there.

Although Jewish life improved under Islamic rule, an interfaith utopia did not exist.

Islamic Spain.[15] Faced with the choice of either death or conversion, some Jews, such as the family of Maimonides, fled south and east to more tolerant Muslim lands, while others went northward to settle in the growing Christian kingdoms.[16] In 1465, a mob enraged by stories about the behavior of a Jewish vizier killed many of the Jews and the Sultan himself.[17] The community was temporarily converted but soon reverted to Judaism.[17]

Historian Mark R. Cohen proposes a comparative approach to understanding Jewish life under Islamic rule, noting that Jews in Islamic lands often experienced less physical violence than Jews under Western Christendom.[10]: 58  He posits that Muslims considered Jews less theologically threatening than Christians did, suggesting that the Christians wanted to establish a separate religious identity from Judaism, from which their faith split and diverged.[10]: 58  According to him, instances of persecution were occasional, more the exception than the rule,[10]: 59  and claims of systemic persecution at the hands of Muslim rulers are myths created to bolster political propaganda.[10]: 56 [dubious ] The situation where Jews in the Muslim world both enjoyed cultural and economic prosperity at times, but were widely persecuted there at other times, was summarised by G. E. Von Grunebaum:

It would not be difficult to put together the names of a very sizable number of Jewish subjects or citizens of the Islamic area who have attained to high rank, to power, to great financial influence, to significant and recognized intellectual attainment; and the same could be done for Christians. But it would again not be difficult to compile a lengthy list of persecutions, arbitrary confiscations, attempted forced conversions, or pogroms.[18]

Recently, historian Mohammed Ibraheem Ahmed has posited a political-contingent view of Muslim-Jewish relations. He extends Cohen's point of there being neither an incessant utopia, nor total conflict between Muslims and Jews. He argues that Muslim-Jewish relations are hooked on the political situation of the time, and that is why it often changes between periods of conflict and coexistence.[19]

In the 7th century, the new Muslim rulers institute the

Mediterranean region, contributing to the spread of Babylonian Jewish customs throughout the Jewish world.[20]

Seljuk Empire (1077-1307) and early Ottoman rule

Early Modern Period

Ottoman Empire

Photochrom of Jews in Jerusalem, in the 1890s.

The

forced converts continued to flee Spain. The Maghreb from North Africa similarly found refuge among the Ottomans, as large Arabian cities created their own restrictive Jewish quarters (Mellahs
).

In 1834, in

In 1840, the

Demnat, Morocco; elsewhere in Morocco, Jews were attacked and killed in the streets in broad daylight. In 1897, synagogues were ransacked and Jews were murdered in Tripolitania.[22]

Kurdistan

Jews lived in Kurdistan for thousands of years, before the final and mass migration in 1951–1952 to Israel. The Jews lived under the Ottoman Empire and under the Persian Empire for many years and following World War I, they lived mainly in Iraq, Iran and Turkey, some lived in Syria. Jews lived in many Kurdish urban centers such as Aqra, Dohuk, Arbil, Zakho, Sulaimaniya, Amadia, in Southern Kurdistan, in Saqiz, Bana and Ushno, in Eastern Kurdistan, in Jezira, Nisebin, Mardin and Diyarbakır in Turkey and in Qamishle in North-Western Syria. Jews lived as well in hundreds of villages in the rural and tribal area of Kurdistan, usually one or two families in a village, where they worked as weavers of traditional Kurdish clothing or as tenants of the agha, the landlord or head of the village.

Persia

In 1656, all Jews were expelled from

forced to convert to Islam because of a common belief that their Jewishness was impure. However, as it became known that the converts continued to practice Judaism in secret and because the treasury suffered from the loss of jizya collected from the Jews, in 1661 they were allowed to revert to Judaism, although they were still required to wear a distinctive patch on their clothing.[23]

In 1839, in the eastern Persian city of

Allahdad incident, the Jews of Mashhad, Iran, now known as the Mashhadi Jews, were coerced into converting to Islam.[26]

In the middle of the 19th century, J. J. Benjamin wrote of Persian Jews:

"…they are obliged to live in a separate part of town…; for they are considered as unclean creatures… Under the pretext of their being unclean, they are treated with the greatest severity and should they enter a street, inhabited by Mussulmans, they are pelted by the boys and mobs with stones and dirt… For the same reason, they are prohibited to go out when it rains; for it is said the rain would wash dirt off them, which would sully the feet of the Mussulmans… If a Jew is recognized as such in the streets, he is subjected to the greatest insults. The passers-by spit in his face, and sometimes beat him… unmercifully… If a Jew enters a shop for anything, he is forbidden to inspect the goods… Should his hand incautiously touch the goods, he must take them at any price the seller chooses to ask for them... Sometimes the Persians intrude into the dwellings of the Jews and take possession of whatever please them. Should the owner make the least opposition in defense of his property, he incurs the danger of atoning for it with his life... If... a Jew shows himself in the street during the three days of the Katel (Muharram)…, he is sure to be murdered."[27]

Bukhara and the Caucasus

A number of groups of

Mountain Jews
.

Zaydi Yemen

Under the

Exile of Mawza. They were considered to be impure, and therefore forbidden to touch a Muslim or a Muslim's food. They were obligated to humble themselves before a Muslim, to walk to the left side, and greet him first. They could not build houses higher than a Muslim's or ride a camel or horse, and when riding on a mule or a donkey, they had to sit sideways. Upon entering the Muslim quarter a Jew had to take off his foot-gear and walk barefoot. If attacked with stones or fists by Islamic youth, a Jew was not allowed to defend himself. In such situations he had the option of fleeing or seeking intervention by a merciful Muslim passerby.[28]

Islamic Spain

Islamic Spain featured both moments of strong coexistence between Muslims and Jews under Islamic rule and periods of contention. A clear example drawn upon by Ahmed is the case of

Joseph ibn Naghrela. While the former rose to the status of grand vizier, supporting Talmudic schools in Iberia and even declaring separation from the geonim of the Talmudic academies in Babylonia
, the latter was humiliated, defeated, and killed for the supposed threat that he posed as a Jew. Ahmed writes:

Regarding Samuel’s case, the Jewish community was a thriving minority in Granada, and this enabled a religio-social mobility in which a Jewish rabbi and merchant could become the most politically powerful figure in the land. Once Samuel was in that position, the Jewish community was able to further thrive. The subsequent breakdown in the entire Muslim-Jewish fabric was triggered by the breakdown in a political relationship that formed during a period of coexistence. It is telling to note that the breakdown was prompted purely by a hypothetical political threat, rather than an actual one. It is therefore clear that historic Muslim-Jewish relations are contingent upon an acceptable political situation between Muslims and Jews, and that when this is reached, relations are generally sound. Once this breaks down, however, there is a complete breakdown between Muslims and Jews at large.'[19]

Post-colonial era

Arab League

By the mid-1970s the vast majority of Jews

had left, fled or had been expelled from Arab and Muslim-majority countries, moving primarily to Israel, France and the United States.[29] The reasons for the exodus are varied and disputed.[29] In 1945, there were between 758,000 and 866,000 Jews living in communities throughout the Arab world. Today, there are fewer than 8,000. In some Arab states, such as Libya, which once had a Jewish population of around 3 percent (similar proportion as that of the United States
today), the Jewish community no longer exists; in other Arab countries, only a few hundred Jews remain.

The largest communities of Jews in Muslim countries exist in the non-Arab countries of Iran (9,500) and Turkey (14,500);[30] both, however, are much smaller than they historically have been. Among Arab countries, the largest Jewish community now exists in Morocco with about 2,000 Jews and in Tunisia with about 1,000.[31]

Imperial Iran and Islamic Republic

Judaism is the second-oldest religion still existing in Iran after

Hamedan
. About one-third of the some 120,000-150,000 Iranian Jews in the mid-20th century fled the country during the 1950s, as a consequence of political instability. Most of the remaining 80,000-100,000 Jews fled during and following the Islamic Revolution of 1979.

Today, the largest groups of Persian Jews are found in Israel (236,000-360,000 in 2014, including second-generation Israelis) and the United States (45,000, especially in the Los Angeles area, home to a large concentration of expatriate Iranians). There are also smaller communities in Western Europe.

See also

References

Notes

  1. ^ Lewis 1984 p. 62
  2. ^ Staff, Toi (8 September 2018). "Ahead of Rosh Hashanah, figures show 14.7 million Jews around the globe". Times of Israel.
  3. ^ "Global Jewish population reaches 14.7 million". The Jerusalem Post. 9 September 2018.
  4. ^ "Jewish Population Rises to 15.2 million Worldwide". Jewish agency. 15 September 2021.
  5. ^ a b Bernard Lewis, The Crisis of Islam (London, 2003), p. XXVII
  6. ^ Ibn Kathir p. 2
  7. Norman A. Stillman
    : Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World. Brill, Leiden 2010 (also online, with costs)
  8. ^ Irvin and Sunquist, History of the World Christian Movement, Vol. 1. Edinburgh, 2001, p. 268
  9. ^ Bernard Lewis, The Crisis of Islam (London, 2003), p. XXVIII
  10. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Cohen, Mark R. "The Neo-Lachrymose Conception of Jewish-Arab History Archived 2020-04-23 at the Wayback Machine." Tikkun 6.3 (1991)
  11. ^ Cowling (2005), p. 265
  12. ^ Poliakov (1974), pg.68-71
  13. Jewish Encyclopedia
    . 1906 ed.
  14. ^ The Jews of Morocco, by Ralph G. Bennett
  15. ^ The Forgotten Refugees Archived 2007-09-28 at the Wayback Machine
  16. ^ Kraemer, Joel L., Moses Maimonides: An Intellectual Portrait in The Cambridge Companion to Maimonides pp. 16-17 (2005)
  17. ^ a b Gerber, Jane (1980). Jewish Society in Fez 1450–1700. Brill. pp. 20–22.
  18. ^ G. E. Von Grunebaum, Eastern Jewry Under Islam, 1971, p. 369.
  19. ^ a b Ahmed, M.I. Muslim-Jewish Harmony: A Politically-Contingent Reality. Religions 2022, 13, 535. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel13060535
  20. ^ Marina Rustow, Baghdad in the West: Migration and the Making of Medieval Jewish Traditions
  21. ^ Louis Finkelstein (1960). The Jews: their history, culture, and religion. Harper. p. 679. Retrieved 17 February 2012.
  22. ^ a b Gilbert, Martin. Dearest Auntie Fori. The Story of the Jewish People. HarperCollins, 2002, pp. 179-182.
  23. ^ Littman (1979), p. 3
  24. ^ Littman (1979), p. 4.
  25. ^ Lewis (1984), p. 168.
  26. ^ "Mashhadi Jews in New-York". 2003.
  27. ^ Lewis (1984), pp. 181–183
  28. ^ Jewish Communities in Exotic Places," by Ken Blady, Jason Aronson Inc., 2000, page 10
  29. ^ a b Yehouda Shenhav The Arab Jews: A Postcolonial Reading of Nationalism, Religion, and Ethnicity
  30. ^ "Jewish Population Rises to 15.2 million Worldwide". Jewish agency. 15 September 2021.
  31. ^ "Jewish Population Rises to 15.2 million Worldwide". Jewish agency. 15 September 2021.

Further reading