Subject:  JUICE History 6 - Medieval History 
Date:     Tue, 21 Apr 1998 23:43:42 +0000 
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Subject:       JUICE History 6 
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                  World Zionist Organization 
                Jewish University in CyberspacE 
          juice@wzo.org.il         birnbaum@wzo.org.il 
                     http://www.wzo.org.il 
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Course: Medieval Jewish History 
Lecture: 6/12 
Lecturer: Prof. Howard Adelman 

The history of the Jews under the early Muslims, like their history at the 
time of early Christianity, shows that the Jews were a powerful and feared 
people.  They constituted a significant military and spiritual presence on 
the Arabian Peninsula and the early Muslims had to take this into 
consideration in the quest for domination.  In other words anti-Jewish 
policies and activities reflected Jewish strength and not Jewish weakness. 

A. Muhammed and the Jews 
  
Muhammed was born in around the year 570 in the Arabian city of Mecca, a 
major commercial and religious center, home of international markets and 
pilgrimages to the pagan Kaba shrine.  Working in commerce and traveling 
with caravans to Syria, at around the age of forty, in about 610, Muhammed 
had a series of religious experiences and consequently he began to preach 
about One God, the Last Judgment, alms, prayers, and surrender to the will 
of God, statements which were recorded in the Koran. In Mecca he and his 
followers were not well received and after ten years he made arrangements to 
go to Medina, also called Yathrib, two hundred miles to the north. 
According to some accounts, and crucial for our story, he was invited to 
Medina by local Arab tribes to intervene between rival tribes out of the 
fear that local Jewish tribes would take advantage of this internecine Arab 
warfare. Therefore, in July 622, Muhammed went to Medina, a trip now called 
the Hijra.  There, for eight years, he and his followers won many adherents 
to Islam and went on to engage in extensive tribal warfare which included 
battles with the Meccans and the destruction of several Jewish tribes. In 
630 he made a triumphant return to Mecca where the Kaba was purified of 
pagan use and became the central shrine for Islam.  Two years later Muhammed 
died. After a brief period of instability the Muslims launched a campaign of 
world conquest. 

B. Judaism and Islam 

In 1832 at the University of Bonn the Philosophical Faculty held an essay 
contest on the subject, "An inquiry into those sources of the Koran or 
Mohammedan laws which are to be traced back to Judaism."  The winner of the 
contest was Abraham Geiger, a twenty-two year old recently ordained rabbi 
and graduate student in Semitics, who would go on to gain fame for his 
scholarship and for his leadership in the German Reform movement. His prize 
essay, "What Muhammed Borrowed from Judaism," written in Latin, published in 
German, accepted as his doctoral dissertation, and, subsequently translated 
into English (first by Christian missionaries to Muslims in India) is 
considered a classic work of scholarship, although his conclusions were not 
widely accepted. The minuscule philological evidence that Geiger offered 
hardly makes his case that Muhammed was influenced by Judaism. The koranic 
use of terms such as "tevut" for "ark" when speaking about the biblical ark 
of Moses (tevah or tevat) and "jahannam" for hell, a term also found in the 
New Testament, hardly show Jewish influence.  The use of the word "ahbar" 
for teacher similarly does not show the influence of the Hebrew word 
"haver." "Taghut" for "idolatry" in the Koran probably was not influenced by 
the Hebrew term "ta-ut," especially since Geiger himself admitted that this 
Hebrew word was never used in this manner in rabbinic literature. Moreover, 
many of the ideas cited by Geiger-- divine presence, divine unity, bliss in 
the hereafter, the end of the world, and the coming of the Messiah-- were 
the birthright of the religious experience of many peoples, including 
Christians, who were also present in the middle east.  Geiger himself 
conceded this possibility in his preface. 

Subsequent western scholars have continued to discuss other possible sources 
of influence on Muhammed.  Charles C. Torrey, an American Bible scholar and 
author of The Jewish Foundations of Islam, continued Geiger's position in 
favor of Jewish influence.  He tried to argue that Muhammed was influenced 
by Jews in Mecca who then left the place without leaving any historical 
traces, a dubious contention as far as historical methodology goes.  Julius 
Wellhausen, a major nineteenth century biblical critic and Semitics scholar, 
asserted that "The dough of Islam may have been Jewish, but the yeast was 
Christian."  Tor Andrae, a German scholar whose classic work on Mohummed was 
translated as Mohammed the Man and His Faith, argued that Muhammed was 
influenced by Christian monastics whom he met on his travels to Syria. 
Despite these long held assertions, Jesus and Christianity, however, do not 
play a major, an early, nor a direct role in the development of Islamic 
thought as seen in the Koran. S. D. Goitein, a significant scholar of the 
Jews under Islam, argued in his Jews and Arabs (as well as in some Hebrew 
articles) for the influence on Muhammed by some sort of a Jewish sectarian 
group in Medina. Despite Goitein's excellent archival scholarship in other 
matters, which we shall be discussing, shortly,  his views on this subject 
seem highly conjectural. 

The main problem, however, is that to suggest that Muhammed was influenced 
by Judaism, even if in a small way, doesn't really explain anything about 
Judaism or Islam at this time, except the fact that these vague, inchoate 
hints of Judaism may have constituted the extent of knowledge about Judaism 
in sixth century Arabia, including on the part of the local Jews. 

There is not a shred of convincing evidence that Muhammed had any direct 
access to any substantive exposure to any sixth century Jewish texts or 
teachers.  Even Geiger himself stated that Muhammed had no such direct 
access and relied on garbled oral reports from contemporary Jews who were 
not well informed about their own religion. 

It is also important to bear in mind that just as any common origins between 
Christianity and Judaism made subsequent rivalries more pronounced, so too 
for traditional Muslims all these discussions about sources of influence 
would be irrelevant and irreverent because to them Muhammed was an original 
prophet of God, inspired and not influenced. And even if influence could be 
demonstrated, as Tor Andrae wrote in his introduction, "Relatives understand 
each other least of all." 

Some examples of koranic teachings about Jews should make these points.  In 
listing the prophets of the Bible, in an order that does not follow the 
text, the Koran includes Jesus after the Patriarchs: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, 
Jesus, Job, Jonah, Aaron, Solomon, David. Elsewhere the Koran lists:  David, 
Solomon, Job, Joseph, Moses, Aaron, Zecharias, John, Jesus, Elijah, Ishmael, 
Elisha, Jonah, and Lot (IV: 161 and VI 84ff). 

A statement that accused the Jews of killing the prophets: ". . . they 
disbelieved in Allah's revelations and slew the prophets wrongfully" (2:61) 
shows strong New Testament influence. 
  
In one statement there are found puns between the Hebrew of the Bible and 
Arabic: "Some of the Jews pervert words from the meanings, and say, 'We hear 
and we disobey,' and 'Hear without hearing," . . ." (4:44;46) but there is 
no post-biblical rabbinic influence found here. 

In one place in the Koran the are associated with the belief that Ezra was 
the son of God: "The Jews say, "Ezra is the son of Allah,"  and the 
Christians say, "The Messiah is the son of Allah. . . Allah attack them? How 
perverse they are?" (9:30) The source for this notion remains a mystery. 

Hostility toward the Jews seems to reflect Jewish hostility to Muhammed. 
"The Jews say, "Allah's hands are fettered."  Their hands are fettered, and 
they are cursed for what they said. . . "  (9:31) 

C.  Muhammed's Attacks on Jewish Tribes 

Despite limited evidence of rabbinic Judaism in the area, the Islamic texts 
identified some Jews who converted to Islam in Medina as rabbis and scholars 
who saw in Muhammed the figure they had been expecting, presumably the 
Messiah. These converts brought with them the other members of their 
families, especially the women, and turned against the Jews, including some 
who had once opposed Islam. (Norman Stillman, The Jew of Arab Lands p. 113, 
121, 120) 

In Medina, other Jews, designated in the Muslim texts as rabbis, displayed 
open hostility to Muhammed, according to these texts, for reasons of 
jealousy, envy, and malice.  Some rabbis questioned Muhammed and harassing 
him, especially with difficult questions. One Jew in particular was 
mentioned for rendering Muhammed impotent (Stillman 119-120). Although Jews 
were said to have resented God's favor being shown to an Arab, some Jews 
made alliances with the leading Arab tribes of the Aws and the Khazraj. 

In the Constitution of Medina, which purports to be an agreement between 
some Jewish and Islamic tribes, Muhammed explicitly stated that "Any Jew who 
follows us shall have aid and comfort."  It is not clear if he required the 
Jew's conversion or only his loyalty, especially since later on he said that 
"the Jews of the Banu Awf are a community with the Believers. The Jews have 
their religion, and the Muslims have theirs."  This statement seems more 
like a recognition of political alliances between Jews and Muslims rather 
than a call for their conversion.  The Constitution of Medina mentioned the 
Jews of the Najjar, Harith, Thalaba, and several other Jewish tribes but not 
the three major Jewish tribes of Medina, the Nadir, Qurayza, and Qaynuqa, 
some of whose members were reported as having harassed Muhammed. 

Muhammed then marched against three Jewish tribes, the Nadir, Qurayza, and 
Qaynuqa, the same three tribes not mentioned in the Constitution of Medina, 
perhaps because of their alliances with the major Arab tribes not aligned 
with Muhammed. 

Muhammed went into the market place of the Jewish tribe of the Qaynuqa and 
addressed them:  "O Jews, beware lest Allah bring down upon you vengeance 
like that which has descended upon the Quraysh. [A pagan tribe that he had 
created alliances against.] Accept Islam,  you know that I am a prophet who 
has been sent.  You will find that in your scriptures and Allah's covenant 
with you." 

To this the Jews replied:  "O Muhammed, you seem to think that we are your 
people.  Do not delude yourself because you have till now encountered people 
with no knowledge of war and thus have gained the advantage over them.  By 
Allah, if we should go to war with you, you will surely learn that we are men!" 

The testosterone was flowing and it seems that the reason for the conflict 
was out of a desire to have the Jews convert to Islam and because this 
Jewish tribe had joined other tribes in battle against Muhammed, subsequent 
commentators, however, suggested other reasons. One reported Jewish sexual 
harassment of a Muslim woman in the marketplace.  When she refused to remove 
the veil from her face they secretly tied up her clothing so that when she 
began to walk away her private parts were exposed. A brawl then broke out 
between Muslims and Jews and the Jews ended up killing a Muslim (Stillman 122). 

In 625 Muhammed attacked the Nadir tribe. Muhammed approached them and asked 
for their help executing vengeance.  The Muslim source has the Jews then 
conferring and discussing plots to kill Muhammed.  One Jew warned against 
such a plotting against the Muslims because: " . . .there will continue to 
be a remnant of this religion until the Day of Resurrection.  The Jews will 
be exterminated, and his religion will triumph."  Muhammed found out about 
their plot through a divine revelation. The Nadir were given ten days to 
leave the city. Other tribes, except the Jewish Qurayzu, urged them to stay 
and to join the fight against the Muslims. The Muslims besieged them and 
began to cut down their date trees. To save their lives and their property, 
some Jews converted.  Finally they surrendered and left, destroying much of 
their property and taking with them timbers and the lintels of their doors, 
beating on tambourines and playing pipes, and eventually joining other 
Jewish tribes such as the Qurayzu (Stillman 129-136).. 

In 627 Muhammed attacked the Jewish tribe of the Banu Qurayza.  The Arabic 
account describes the fortifications of the Jews, their mockery of the 
Prophet, and the option given to them to convert in order to save their 
lives and property.  A new twist in this story involves the fascinating call 
made by some of the Jewish warriors to kill their wives and children and 
then to fight Muhammed.  Such a strategy, they are given to say, would 
diminish the impediments that they would leave behind and put their fate 
entirely in God's hands:  "If we perish, we perish.  At least we shall not 
have left behind us any offspring to worry about.  If we should triumph, 
then by my life, we can certainly find other wives and children."  Such a 
proposal was overruled:  "Should we kill these poor things!  What good would 
life be after that?"  An alternate plan suggested attacking Muhammed on the 
Sabbath, which Muhammed would not suspect from the Jews, a statement that 
shows Muslim or Jewish ignorance of a tradition of Jews defending themselves 
on the Sabbath that went back to the Maccabees.  Some Jews, loyal to the 
Sabbath, vetoed this plan too.  Eventually the Jews surrendered and were 
systematically slaughtered.  Muhammed ordered trenches dug in the 
marketplace of Medina and then in small groups the Jewish were decapitated. 
The total executed reached somewhere between 600 and 900 men and, according 
to the story, one woman. One Muslim commentator on the story gave the reason 
for her execution;  she had killed a man with a millstone, perhaps a 
reference to a similar biblical story. When the killing was over Muhammed 
chose a Jewish woman for himself, Rayhuna b. Amr b. Khunafa.  The story says 
that because she refused to convert to Islam she stayed with as his chattel 
until she died. 
  

The next year, 628, Muhammed beseiged Khaybar, a Jewish oasis where 
survivors from the Nadir had also settled.  He invited the leaders to Medina 
for talks.  On their way there they were ambushed and massacred, to which 
Muhammed commented:  "War is deception."  After the Jews of Khaybar 
surrendered to Muhammed, one Jewish woman, Zaynab b. al-Harith, presented 
Muhammed with a joint of lamb, his favorite food, which she had poisoned. 
He detected the poison and asked her why she did it. "You know very well 
what you have brought upon my people.  I thought to myself, if this man is 
only a king I shall be rid of him, and if he is a prophet, he will be 
informed."  Muhammed let her go free, but later Islamic tradition depicted 
Muhammed as a martyr in the hands of a Jewish woman (Stillman 148-149). 

The terms of the settlement that the Jews of Khaybar reached with Muhammed 
are significant for the future history of the Jews under Islam.  They agreed 
to pay him as a tribute one half of their date harvest. In 630 the poll tax, 
known as the jizya, was imposed on Jews and Christians.  It consisted of an 
annual payment, legitimized in the Koran, Sura 9:29:  "Fight against those 
to whom the Scriptures were given, who believe not in Allah nor in the Last 
Day, who forbid not what Allah and His apostle have forbidden, and follow 
not the truth, until they pay the tribute out of hand, and are humbled." 
Later a land tax, kharaj, would be added. Thus early on Islamic countries 
recognized the basic right of Jewish residency, in exchange for the payment 
of fees, often symbolic of their religious submission. 

D. Jews during the Islam Conquests 

In 632 Muhammed died and a brief period of instability among the Muslims set 
in.  Within the year, however, Islamic hegemony was reestablished under the 
Caliphate, from the Arabic word "halaf," meaning the successor, i. e. of 
Muhammed.  Under the Caliphs Abu Bakr (632-634), Omar (634-644), and Uthman 
of the Umayyid family of Mecca (644-656),  a period of great conquests began 
in the middle east against the Byzantine and Sassanian empires, including 
Syria and Palestine in 634-640, Persia by 642, Egypt in 642, Babylonia in 
642, and also westward across North Africa and into Spain in 711. The 
Muslims conquered much of the world and unified almost all of the Jews of 
the world who had been living divided between Babylonia and Byzantium.  Many 
of the Jews living on the Arabian peninsular left for Syria, but those in 
Yemen in the south-west of the peninsular, however, stayed.  Among the Jews, 
one immediate religious result of the cataclysmic encounter between world 
empires was a rise in apocalyptic hope, visions of the end of days in which 
historians now think that they can see references to contemporary events. 

The general view among historians is that most Jews, despite early suffering 
under Muhammed, cooperated with the Muslim conquests of Palestine, Syria, 
and Spain, though the view has been raised that the extent of Jewish 
cooperation with the conquering Muslims may have been exaggerated by later 
detractors who wanted to show Jewish lack of loyalty.  Some Jews, however, 
were suspicious, especially after they were betrayed by the Persians with 
whom they had sided in Palestine in 614 and again by the Byzantines when 
they returned. Nevertheless, Norman Roth, a historian of this period, has 
adduced much evidence from many chronicles that the Jews did support the 
conquerors. One chronicle explains how the Jews betrayed Hebron to the 
Muslims in exchange for permission to build a synagogue in front of the 
burial cave of the patriarchs and matriarchs, the cave of the Makhpelah 
(Stillman p. 152). Similarly in Spain, there are texts that indicate that 
the Muslims appointed Jews to garrison Cordova, Granada, and Elvira, 
ironically the first city in Spain and in all of Europe  where, as noted 
earlier, around 300 the Christians passed the first legislation trying to 
limit Jewish influence (Stillman p. 156). 

Historians base a reconstruction of the position of the Jews under Islam on 
a document known as the Pact of Umar.  Umar b. al-Khattab, the second Calif, 
and successor to Muhammed, and leader of the Muslims from 634-44, supposedly 
imposed this on the Christian Patriarch of Jerusalem, although it may be a 
later document from the time of Umar b. Abd al-Aziz in 717, if not even 
later, and only attributed to this early period. It represents a 
capitulation for dhimmi, short for ahl al-dhimma, protected people, also 
called ahl al-kitab, people of the book, Jews, Christians, and, later, 
Zoroastrians.  Many of the provisions reflect ideas of symbolic Jewish 
subjugation found in the Eastern Roman Church at this time.  The main theme 
was that Jews and Christians could live in Muslim countries if they acted in 
a servile and humble manner.  The various provisions established a symbolic 
system where in public spaces dhimmis demonstrated their low standing. They 
could not bear arms, ride on saddles, build homes higher than those of 
Muslims, construct new houses of worship or repair old ones, have public 
religious processions, hold loud prayers, engage in proselytization, or 
prevent anybody from converting to Islam.  They could not  adopt Muslim 
names, clothing, hairstyles, or names, study the Koran, use an Arabic 
signet, sell fermented beverages, or work for the government. They also had 
to offer their seats to Muslims, clip the hair on their foreheads, dress in 
their own traditional style, provide hospitality for troops, offer military 
intelligence, but not to house spies. (Marcus, no. 3) 

Such rules indicate that dhimmis and Muslims were mingling freely together 
and that the role of the Muslim religious authorities, like those of the 
Jews and Christians when they had power, was to accentuate the differences 
and to enforce boundary definitions between the two peoples. The negative 
provisions of these capitulations were not always followed and the favorable 
terms offered the Jews much protection, a practice which continued for many 
centuries, especially under the Turks during the sixteenth century. Such 
writs of protection were a major component of Jewish life under Islam until 
the twentieth century. 

These rules also indicate that while a minority was consolidating its 
control over the majority it needed allies.  The Jews were protected because 
they were needed. 

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