Islam unleashed a tremendous sense of devotion and destiny among its followers, propelling them out of the Arabian Peninsula and onward across vast swathes of territory.1 As the forces of Islam advanced, Jews were sometimes among those who resisted Muslim conquest. A Jewish Berber Queen named Daha al–Kahina helped to lead a failed revolt in Cyrenaica and Tripolitania (present–day Libya) from 688 to 693, after Muslims conquered those regions from the Byzantines in 642.2 Elsewhere, Jews welcomed the armies of Islam as they swept through Christian–ruled lands. In 641, three years after the conquest of Jerusalem, Muslim forces reached the Mediterranean port city of Caesarea, the capital of the Byzantine province of Palaestina Prima. Caesarea only fell to the Muslims when one of its forty thousand Jews showed the Muslim army how to enter the city through a concealed water channel under its strongly fortified walls.3
Jews often welcomed Muslim conquerors in order to be free of Christian persecution, and in many places Muslim rule provided Jews with the refuge they sought. This was true in southern Spain in the Eighth Century, where a Muslim army drove out oppressive Christian rulers and established a centre of government in the city of Cordova. Some sources state that the Muslims immediately entrusted the defence of Cordova to the city’s Jewish inhabitants.4 In other Christian cities in Spain, including Merida, Ecija, Jaén, Toledo and Cuenca, Jews showed a preference for Muslim rule by helping their Muslim conquerors achieve victory. In return, as a sign of trust from the Muslims, Jews were settled in sparsely populated regions of Malaga, Granada, Almeria and Alicante, and in cities where they would help to counter majority–Catholic populations.5
Muslim conquests in southern Spain–al Andalus (Andalucia)–heralded the beginning of a ‘Golden Age’ for Spanish Jews. Under the rule of Abd al–Rahman (756–788), Jews benefited from the Koranic verse, ‘Let not a people’s enmity towards you incite you to act contrary to justice’–a principle that al–Rahman himself preached at Friday prayers.6 Jews were thus freed from persecution and were able to participate in society and government. Jewish traders brought in flax, pearls, dyes and medicines from Egypt. They took part in the importation of slaves for the Muslim army.7 In the words of historian David Levering Lewis, ‘Andalucian Jews possessed unique assets for their Muslim conquerors,’ contributing ‘more than loyalty, wealth and numbers to the amirate; they showed the Muslims how to run it.’8
The prosperity of Jews in Spain was not mirrored everywhere in the Muslim world. The Jews of Jerusalem–and the city of Jerusalem itself–witnessed a decline in prosperity from 750 onward, when the Muslim Abbasid dynasty defeated the Umayyads and began ruling Jerusalem from Baghdad, 550 miles away. When Jerusalem was later conquered by Egyptian Muslims in 878, the city’s Jews were persecuted by their rulers, who enforced the dhimmi laws with extreme rigour. A contemporary Muslim writer, al–Jahiz, even noted that ‘the hearts of Muslims are hardened toward the Jews but inclined toward the Christians.’9 As David Levering Lewis wrote of Spain, no matter how benign Muslim rule might have been, ‘Muslim tolerance was based more on condescension than on generosity.’ In considering themselves uniquely trusted with God’s final revelation, Muslim conquerors saw their Jewish subjects as a people ‘stunted by failure of theological understanding.’10
In the absence of active persecution, Jews were able to flourish in many places under Muslim rule. Jewish intellectual life in particular benefited from the religious freedom ensured by dhimmi status. In Palestine, at Tiberias on the Sea of Galilee, the early centuries of Muslim rule saw the formulation of the scientific text of the Hebrew Bible, as well as the creation and perfection of Hebrew vocalisation and punctuation. The same benefits appeared in Jewish financial life as well. When the Moroccan city of Fez became the capital of a Muslim kingdom in 808, King Idris II invited a large number of Jews into the city, gave them a Quarter of their own, the al–Funduq al–Yahud–the Jewish Market–and guaranteed to protect them for a substantial payment in gold.11 The Jews paid this jizya tax, received protection and did well as merchants and traders.
In Cordova, two centuries after Muslim rule began, Jewish craftsmen and traders continued to prosper under the benign rule of Abd al–Rahman III (912–961). Arab naval power had begun to assert itself in the region, overcoming Byzantine attempts to hold it in check, and Jewish traders were deeply involved in the maritime commerce of the Mediterranean. Silk from Spain, gold from the west coast of Africa, and metals and olive oil from all the Mediterranean hinterlands were traded at major ports, including Venice and Amalfi.12 Jewish merchants also gained from being able to cross the frontier between Muslim and Christian lands, from one Jewish community to another.
Cordova, the capital city of the Umayyad caliphate, became a vibrant centre of Jewish life and culture–a focal point in the world of Jewish Sepharad (Spain) with its traditions, its liturgies and its evolving Judaeo–Spanish language, Ladino. Jewish philosophers, scholars and poets made their way from all over the lands of Islam to live and work in Cordova. The Jewish poet Dunash ben Labrat and the Jewish philosopher Solomon ibn Gabirol were among the many new arrivals who thrived there.13 The Cordovan–born, Twelfth–Century Jewish historian and philosopher Abraham ibn Daud (Avraham ben David ha–Levi) commented in his Sefer ha–Kabbalah (‘Book of Tradition’) that the situation was ‘good for Israel in Spain.’14
When Jewish communities were able to flourish, as they did in Spain, they contributed enormously to the wellbeing of Muslim societies. Rulers often recognised this value in their Jewish subjects by showing respect for Jewish religious leaders; it was faith and the synagogue that formed the centre of Jewish communal life and organisation. In Babylon, under Abbasid rule, honour was shown by the Caliph to the head of the Jewish community, the Exilarch. Equally respected were the heads of the Jewish religious academies, two in Babylonia and one in Palestine, which appointed judges to the Jewish religious courts.
Muslim rulers frequently adopted this benign approach in order to exploit their Jewish subjects’ knowledge and expertise. After the Muslim conquest of Egypt–where Jews had gained respect as metal engravers and goldsmiths–the new rulers allowed existing Jewish mint masters to continue in their roles, minting the new Islamic coinage. Yet their decision was a calculated one, since working with hot metals in the heat of Egypt was unpleasant labour that Muslims avoided. In the words of Daniel M. Friedenberg, a historian of Jewish minters, Caliphs even preferred employingJews for this work because ‘it was easier to punish them for irregularities or confiscate their wealth than it would have been with influential Moslems.’15
Cooperation between Jews and Muslims was not always so cynical; it had substantive roots as well. The protection and religious freedom promised by dhimmi status could foster greater closeness between Jews and Muslims–never more strikingly than in the mingling of their separate cultures. In North Africa, between the Eighth and Tenth Centuries, signs of such closeness appeared under the rule of a Muslim sect called the Ibadis, which was tolerant of all Jews living in its substantial empire.16 Rabbi Judah ibn Quraysh was among those Jewish subjects. A pioneer linguist, he advocated the usefulness of non–Hebrew languages in Jewish life, and penned a treatise that mentioned how other languages, especially Aramaic and Arabic, were essential for an understanding of the Hebrew Bible.17
Cultural influence flowed in both directions. In the early days of Islam, Jewish converts made a significant contribution to the new faith. Several Jews from Yemen, having embraced Islam, were asked by Muslims to share their rich Jewish oral traditions to help interpret obscure passages in the Koran. As a result, a large body of Jewish lore known as Isra’iliyyat became an integral part of the religious literature of Islam.18 The Yemeni Jews were followed by countless other converts over the centuries. In fact, conversion to Islam became a feature of Jewish life under Muslim rule for many generations, whether it was encouraged by Muslim rulers, forced upon dhimmi populations, or undertaken willingly.
It was against this background of cooperation and interaction that individual Jews made great strides in the first four hundred years under Islam. Government officials, doctors, linguists and many others reached surprising heights of power and respect in Muslim societies. Their stories and achievements give an insight into what was possible for Jews in privileged positions in Muslim lands.
One such Jew was Yaqub ibn Killis, who in about 950 became a government supplier to Abu al–Misk Kafur, the Muslim ruler of Egypt.19 Ibn Killis served as Kafur’s collector of government taxes from agricultural districts, and quickly became an expert in agriculture. One Arab writer noted how ibn Killis was always ready with reliable information ‘on the state or extent of crops in the districts, or on the internal or external affairs of the villages.’ Kafur later promoted ibn Killis to be his economic and political adviser. In this new role, ibn Killis rose to a status so senior that other advisers could not incur the slightest expenditure without his personal orders. Even the court chamberlains ‘stood up to do him honour.’20
Like other successful Jews, ibn Killis still faced restrictions and perils along with his prosperity. In an effort to become Vizier–the most senior administrative post in Egypt, and one from which Jews were excluded–he declared himself a Muslim, learned the Koran and entered a mosque for the first time. But the enmity of the existing Vizier, Ibn al–Furat, was decisive, and the post was not given to him. When Kafur died in 968, Ibn al–Furat had ibn Killis arrested and imposed a heavy fine on him. The once–powerful Jew was forced to borrow money from his brother. After buying his own freedom, ibn Killis fled from Egypt to the Maghreb.21
In Tunisia, ibn Killis achieved the success that had been taken from him in Egypt, by joining the fourth Fatimid Caliph, Ma’add alMu’izz, then ruler of northern Africa. Because al–Mu’izz put no restrictions on how high a dhimmi could rise in the service of the Caliph, ibn Killis returned to Judaism and for five years helped al–Mu’izz prepare for his conquest of Egypt. He seems even to have encouraged the move; in the words of Stanley Lane–Poole, a British historian of Egypt, ‘his representations confirmed the Fatmid Caliph’s resolve.’22 Then, in 973, after the conquest, ibn Killis took charge of Egypt’s finances, helping to lay the economic and political foundations of the sound and efficient Fatimid administration. The German orientalist C.H. Becker has ascribed to ibn Killis’s administrative and economic skills the great prosperity of the Nile Valley in this period.23
Al–Mu’izz’s son, the fifth Fatimid Caliph, Abu Mansur Nizar al–Aziz, made ibn Killis his Vizier in 976–rewarding an ambition that ibn Killis had been denied nine years earlier. In this high position, ibn Killis reorganised the Fatimid administrative structure and was consulted on foreign policy and strategy. He also supervised the workings of the administration in all lands conquered by the Fatimids: northern Africa and Egypt, then Palestine (hitherto under the rule of a Bedouin tribe) in 982, Damascus a year later, and finally the Muslim holy cities of Mecca and Medina.
One of ibn Killis’s most remarkable achievements came in 988, when he established the al–Azhar University in Cairo, which became the most important centre of learning in the Islamic world.24 He also founded a public library in Cairo that contained an estimated 200,000 volumes. Except for a short period in which he was out of power, ibn Killis remained at the helm of Egypt’s political life until his death in 991. When ibn Killis was on his deathbed the Caliph, deeply distressed, went to see his Jewish counsellor. The Caliph lamented: ‘O Yaqub. How I wish that you were for sale so that I might buy you with my kingdom, or that you could be ransomed, that I might ransom you.’25 He later attended ibn Killis’s funeral and laid his former adviser into the grave with his own hands–an extraordinary honour for a Muslim ruler to show to a Jew.
The success of Yaqub ibn Killis was echoed in the achievements of many other Jews in this period. During the reign of Caliph al–Aziz (975–996), Jewish talent was rewarded after the conquest of Damascus in 983, when a Jew was appointed governor in Syria. Such openness in the Caliph’s government prompted Muslims to complain they were being pushed out of important posts; as a result, al–‘Aziz ordered his Christian and Jewish officials to appoint more Muslims to their offices.
A century after ibn Killis, another Jewish government official, Abu al–Munajja Solomon ben Shaya, followed a similar path. As an administrator of several districts in Egypt, Solomon ben Shaya achieved fame with an irrigation canal he constructed between 1113 and 1118, bringing water into a parched agricultural landscape. So respected was he that local people gave him the Arabic title Sani al–Dawla (‘The Noble of the State’). But, like others before him, Solomon ben Shaya was confronted with hostility and resentment. Defamatory tales about him were brought to a jealous Vizier, who exiled him to Alexandria where he was imprisoned without trial. Solomon ben Shaya managed to escape, however, and was reinstated soon afterward. He is described in documents that survive in the Cairo Genizah as a benefactor of the Jews.26
Prominent Jews also thrived in Muslim Spain, under the protective and benign rule of Caliph Abd al–Rahman III. One leading Jewish scholar, Moses ben Hanoch, found safety and prosperity there after a dramatic and dangerous incident at sea. In 972, while touring the Mediterranean with two fellow scholars from the Babylonian academy of Sura, Moses ben Hanoch was captured by Arab pirates–a not uncommon occurrence in the Tenth Century, when pirates based in Algeria roamed throughout the region.27 The three scholars were ransomed to Jewish communities in different countries; Moses ben Hanoch, with his young son Enoch, was sent to Cordova.
After his arrival in Cordova, Moses ben Hanoch was elected by the localJewish community as its rabbi.28 He then founded a Talmudic academy, which marked the beginning of Talmudic learning in Spain. His work at the academy made local Jews independent of the religious authority of distant Babylonia, and–because of the hostility between the caliphates of Cordova and Baghdad–helped to protect the continuity of Jewish life in southern Spain.
The Jewish community of Cordova was at that time headed by a physician and diplomat named Hasdai Ibn Shaprut, who himself achieved favour and creative prominence. A personal physician to the Caliph, he was held in high regard by Jews and Muslims alike. The Caliph rewarded his service with the management of the kingdom’s Department of Customs, which gave Ibn Shaprut authority over the taxation of ships coming from all Mediterranean ports. The Caliph also gave him the authority to settle disputes within the Jewish community, and to defend the Jewish community from its Muslim adversaries.
On one occasion Ibn Shaprut rescued a Jewish man who had been set upon by robbers ordered to attack him by a Muslim tax collector. On other occasions he persuaded the Caliph to give official appointments to members of the Jewish community. He also wrote a letter to the Byzantine Emperor Constantine VII and his Empress, urging them to grant more freedom to the Jews in their Christian domains.29 It was not without reason that Jews gave Ibn Shaprut the title nasi (prince).30
In 958, Ibn Shaprut mediated between the warring Christian kings of Leon and Navarre. As the caliphate’s chief diplomatic adviser, fluent in the colloquial Latin of Christian diplomacy, he managed to bring the two kings to Cordova to sign a treaty in front of the Caliph. These linguistic skills had been seen seven years earlier, after Constantine VII sent the Caliph a copy of Dioscorides’ De Materia Medica, an illuminated Byzantine manuscript written more than four hundred years earlier.31 Working with a Byzantine monk from Constantinople, and with several Arab physicians, Ibn Shaprut supervised the translation of this pioneering work of botanical and medical science from the original Greek into Arabic. By translating this and other Greek and Latin medical books for the Caliph, he ensured that previously unknown medical remedies were made available in the correct idiomatic usage of Arabic Spain. Henceforth, Cordova and Palermo (which was then also under Muslim rule) became the leading medical centres of the early medieval world.32
The benign rule of Muslim Spain–and the fortunes of many Jews–fell into turmoil in the early Eleventh Century, when the caliphate that had ruled Spain from Granada collapsed. In place of the caliphate, a number of warring principalities emerged, each under different Arab and Berber rulers. Yet from 1030 to 1056, one of these principalities, the Berber kingdom of Granada, had as its vizier a Jew, Samuel ibn Nagrela.33 For twenty–six years, Samuel ibn Nagrela not only administered this Muslim realm, he led its army into battle against the rival Muslim kingdom of Seville. That aJew could head a Muslim army gave great pride to the Jews, who never doubted ibn Nagrela’s Jewish devotion; indeed, he gave money to establish Talmudic academies, endowed poor Jewish students with scholarships and carried out philanthropy among Jews throughout the Muslim world, including the supply of olive oil to synagogues in distant Jerusalem.34
The ‘Golden Age’ of the Jewish communities in Muslim Spain was ultimately shattered in 1066, when Samuel ibn Nagrela, was assassinated along with his son, Joseph. Their murder had been prompted by the revelation that Joseph wanted to set up a Sephardi–Jewish principality in Almeria. Soon afterwards there was a savage attack by local Muslims on the Jewish population of Granada, in which an estimated five thousand Jews were murdered. This number was equal to, and possibly more than, the number of Jews killed by Christian soldiers in the Rhineland thirty years later, at the start of the First Crusade.
The historian Andrew Bostom has suggested that the massacre of the Jews of Granada was in part incited by the bitter ode of Abu Ishaq, a noted Muslim jurist and poet35:
Bring them down to their places and
Return them to the most abject station.
They used to roam around us in tatters
Covered with contempt, humiliation and scorn.
They used to rummage amongst the dung heaps for a bit of filthy rag
To serve as a shroud for a man to be buried in….
Do not consider that killing them is treachery.
Nay, it would be treachery to leave them scoffing.
Many aspects of Jewish life under Muslim rule during this period are revealed in documents that survive in the Cairo Genizah. Records of Jewish philanthropy show the long–standing interdependence of the Jewish world. Several hundred documents relate to donations given to poor Jews in Cairo, many of whom had migrated from as far away as Hebron, Acre, Aleppo and even as far distant as Malatya in Asia Minor. The archive also provides glimpses of Jewish business, political and cultural life. Lists of Jewish professions include bankers, rabbis, scribes, teachers, dyers, flax workers, olive oil dealers, cooks, gravediggers and servants.36 Records document the creation of the post of Ra’is al–Yahud (Chief of the Jews) in 1065, a position that served as a conduit between the Jewish and Muslim authorities of Egypt. A Hebrew poem survives from Cairo, written in 1077 in honour of the Caliph al–Mustansir and the Viceroy Badr al–Jamali; the financial accounts survive of a large house in Cairo owned and lived in by both Jews and Muslims in 1234.
The letters sent between Jewish communities throughout the lands of Islam give witness to the vast size and reach of the Diaspora. These letters passed through cities like Kairouan in Tunisia–a crossroads that linked Babylonia, Palestine and Egypt with Italy, Sicily, Spain and Africa south of the Sahara. They were carried by travellers like the Radhanites, Jewish traders who used Kairouan as one of their western centres as they journeyed across Europe and Central Asia both overland and by sea.37 Among the goods carried by the Radhanites were furs, beaver skins, swords, slave girls and eunuchs, as well as spices, incense and perfumes brought from China that were much prized in Babylonia and throughout the Mediterranean.38
A letter in the Cairo Genizah written by a Jewish merchant stated that he would send his goods ‘fi ‘id al–goyim’–on the festival of the Gentiles–probably a reference to a caravan taking Muslim pilgrims on the hajj. Another letter in the Genizah was written by a Babylonian rabbi who stopped in Kairouan on his way to Spain. Many other letters contained religious questions that were addressed to well–known rabbis. One letter, sent in 1015, asked if religious instructions transmitted by letter–rather than orally–could be valid.39 In the early Eleventh Century, these questions were often sent eastward many hundreds of miles to Rabbi Hai ben Sherira, the Gaon (head) of the religious academy of Pumbeditha in present–day Iraq.40
Rabbi Hai ben Sherira’s correspondence reveals the situation of the Jewish minority among the Muslim majority. In one letter, he acknowledged that Jewish children could be taught Arabic writing and arithmetic, but insisted that the language of prayer remain either Hebrew or Aramaic. He also forbade synagogue cantors to sing in Arabic, even at social gatherings. In another letter, he warned that the law preventing a Jew being robbed by a Muslim did not exist in every Muslim town, and that not every Muslim obeyed the law where it did exist. Where there was no such law prohibiting robbery, Rabbi Hai wrote that all Muslims ‘must be regarded as extortionists and thieves.’41
Despite the wealth of information that has survived from the Diaspora in the Eleventh Century, little is known about the Jews of Jerusalem at that time. What is certain is that the majority of the city’s Jews suffered throughout this period, as Jerusalem witnessed natural disasters including plague and, in 1033, an earthquake. Documents in the Cairo Genizah also show that the burden of the jizya tax fell heavily on the poor Jews of the city. A Jewish visitor from North Africa, arriving among the Jews of Jerusalem in the mid–Eleventh Century, wrote of how ‘meat is scarce and their cotton garments are worn out.’42 Professor Goitein has observed how only one hundred Jews in the city possessed a regular income in 1047, because in that year the community paid a collective jizya tax of one hundred dinars, when the minimum jizya payment for each non–Muslim was one dinar. Those Jews who did not pay–and they were the majority–were ‘Mourners of Zion,’ recipients of charity who were exempt from payment of the poll tax.43
Most of the Jewish community in Jerusalem survived on money sent from the Diaspora, or brought to the city during the annualJewish pilgrim festivals.44 Solomon ben Judah, who arrived in Jerusalem from Fez, and who served as cantor in the early Eleventh Century, wrote several pleas for financial support to the Jewish communities in Egypt, Damascus, Aleppo and Tyre. He mentioned in a private letter that he had accepted a minimal salary as cantor, stating, ‘the Jerusalemites did not give me anything worth a perutah, because they do not have anything.’45 From cantor, Solomon ben Judah rose to become the head of Jerusalem’s Jewish religious academy. Many of his Hebrew and Arabic letters survive to this day. One of his poems expressed a yearning for the redemption of Jerusalem.46
A thousand years had passed since Jerusalem was last under Jewish rule. Another nine hundred were to pass before Jews were to rule it again. As was the case everywhere under Muslim rule, Jews in Jerusalem were dependent for their prosperity on the extent of tolerance shown to them by their rulers, and on the goodwill or ill will of their Muslim neighbours. Although the first four centuries of Islam saw the success of individual Jews in every part of the lands of Islam–the umma–these years did not relieve the looming and ever–present threat of discrimination and persecution.
1 See Map 1, page 356.
2 H.Z. Hirschberg, ‘The Problem of Judaized Berbers,’ Journal of African History, No. 4, 1963, pages 331–9. Daha al–Kahina was the leader of a Berber tribe that had converted to Judaism some five hundred years earlier.
3 Hugh Kennedy, The Great Arab Conquests, page 89.
4 Haim Beinart, ‘Córdoba (Cordova, also Corduba),’ Encyclopaedia Judaica, Volume 5, columns 963–6.
5 These cities were Murcia, Pamplona, Guadalajara, Salamanca and Saragossa. For all of these places, see Map 4, page 359.
6 Koran 5:8. Muhammad Zafrulla Khan (translator), The Quran, page 84.
7 David Levering Lewis, God’s Crucible, pages 204, 207 and 271.
8 David Levering Lewis, God’s Crucible, page 203.
9 Quoted in Bernard Lewis, The Jews of Islam, pages 55–60.
10 David Levering Lewis, God’s Crucible, page 203.
11 David Corcos, ‘Fez,’ Encyclopaedia Judaica, Volume 6, columns 1255–8.
12 Albert Hourani, A History of the Arab Peoples, pages 45–6.
13 Solomon ibn Gabirol’s Arabic name was Abu Ayyub Suleiman ibn Yahya ibn Jabirul.
14 Quoted in David Levering Lewis, God’s Crucible, page 349.
15 Daniel M. Friedenberg, Jewish Minters & Medalists, page 5.
16 The Ibadis asserted their authority in Tripolitania (Libya), Tiaret (central Algeria), Djerba, Jarid, the Mzab Oasis, Jebel Nafush, Tlemcen and Sijilmassa (on the edge of the Sahara, south–east of Fez): see Maps 10, 11 and 12, pages 365 and 366.
17 Joshua Blau, ‘Ibn Quraysh, Judah (second half of the ninth century),’ Encyclopaedia Judaica, Volume 8, columns 1193–4. The rabbi’s treatise was addressed to the Jews of Fez, who had–to his great dismay–decided to abolish the reciting of the Targum (the Bible in Aramaic translation) in their synagogue service.
18 Itzhak Ben–Zvi, The Exiled and the Redeemed, page 26.
19 Kafur had been the black Ethiopian slave and eunuch of Muhammad bin Tughj, founder of the Ikhshidid dynasty in Egypt. Bin Tughj freed him from slavery, made him tutor to his children and gave him command of the Egyptian military expedition to Syria (945). Kafur was effective ruler of Egypt from 946 until his death twenty–two years later.
20 Quoted in Walter J. Fischel, Jews in the Economic and Political Life of Medieval Islam, pages 47–68.
21 His brother, Abu Ibrahim Sahl, was later one of several leading Jews who were executed in 1004 by the sixth Fatimid Caliph, Mansur Abu Ali, surnamed al–Hakim bi–Amr Allah (Ruler by God’s Command). Al–Hakim was one of the founders of the Druze religious sect, half of whom live today in Syria, and some six per cent in Israel, where Druze men serve in the Israeli Army.
22 Stanley Lane–Poole, History of Egypt, page 101, and Walter J. Fischel, Jews in the Economic and Political Life of Medieval Islam, pages 47–68.
23 C.H. Becker, ‘Ibn Killis, Fatimid vizier,’ Encyclopaedia of Islam, Volume Two, pages 398–9.
24 It was here, 1,021 years after al–Azhar was founded, that United States President Barack Obama made his appeal to the Muslim world for dialogue and understanding between Islam and the United States.
25 Walter J. Fischel, Jews in the Economic and Political Life of Medieval Islam, pages 47–68.
26 Eliyahu Ashtor, ‘Abu al–Munajja Solomon ben Shaya,’ Encyclopaedia Judaica, Volume 2, column 180. According to an Arab author, Solomon ben Shaya’s descendants, mostly converts to Islam, served as court physicians to the rulers of Egypt.
27 The two other scholars were Shemariah and Hushief, who were ransomed, respectively, to Egypt and North Africa. To avoid falling into the hands of their captors, Moses ben Hanoch’s wife had asked her husband whether those who were drowned in the sea could look forward to resurrection when the Messiah came. When he answered, in the words of the Psalms, ‘The Lord saith … I will bring them again from the depths of the sea,’ she cast herself into the waters and was drowned.
28 ‘Exilarch,’ ‘1,000 years ago Sepharad Ransoms a Babylonian Rabbi,’ The Scribe, Issue 6, Volume 1, July–August 1972.
29 Joan Comay, The Diaspora Story, page 175.
30 Eliyahu Ashtor, The Jews of Moslem Spain, pages 159–64.
31 For the story of another copy of this codex, see page 78, note 9.
32 David Levering Lewis, God’s Crucible, page 331, and Jane S. Gerber, The Jews of Spain, page 49.
33 He was known to the Jews of Granada as Samuel ha–Nagid, after he was granted by them the title Nagid (‘Governor’), which acknowledged his status as a community leader. It was said that Samuel ha–Nagid’s skill as an Arabic calligraphist originally led to his appointment as the personal secretary to the previous Vizier. David Goldstein (editor), Hebrew Poets from Spain, page 31.
34 Joan Comay, The Diaspora Story, pages 176 and 185.
35 Andrew G. Bostom (editor), The Legacy of Jihad: Islamic Holy War and the Fate of Non–Muslims, page 58.
36 S.D. Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, pages 421, 423, 425, 435 and 512.
37 One of the gates in Kairouan was known as the Bab al–Radhana–the Gate of the Radhanites.
38 For Tenth–Century Jewish trade routes, see Map 3, page 358. The Radhanites travelled the two hundred miles from Kairouan across the Mediterranean to Sicily. They also went north to the Christian Kingdom of the Franks, whose capital was at Aix–la–Chapelle (Aachen), and east to Khazaria, between the Black and Caspian Seas, where one Khazar king converted to Judaism. From the Babylonian port of Ubullah, near present–day Basra, the Radhanites even travelled by ship to India and China, which they otherwise reached overland through Central Asia. Their name is believed to derive from a Persian word meaning ‘knowing the way.’ They were noted for their versatility in languages, being fluent in Arabic, Greek, Persian, French, Spanish and Slavonic.
39 H.Z. (J.W.) Hirschberg, A History of the Jews in North Africa, page 257.
40 The distance overland from Kairouan to Pumbeditha, through Cairo and Damascus, is more than 2,500 miles.
41 H.Z. (J.W.) Hirschberg, A History of the Jews in North Africa, page 239.
42 Eliyahu Ashtor and Haïm Z’ew Hirschberg, ‘Jerusalem, Arab Period,’ Encyclopaedia Judaica, Volume 9, column 1411.
43 Shlomo D, Goitein, ‘Jerusalem in the Arab Period,’ Lee I. Levine (editor), The Jerusalem Cathedra, page 189.
44 Eliyahu Ashtor and Haïm Z’ew Hirschberg, ‘Jerusalem, Arab Period,’ Encyclopaedia Judaica, Volume 9, column 1411.
45 A perutah was the coin of the smallest value in Talmudic times.
46 Eliezer Bashan (Sternberg), ‘Solomon ben Judah (d. 1051),’ Encyclopaedia Judaica, Volume 15, columns 122–4.