Subject: JUICE History 8 - Medieval Jewish History
Date:    Thu, 14 May 1998 00:22:11 +0000
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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: 8/12
Lecturer: Prof. Howard Adelman

VIII. Further Jewish Geographical Expansion and Intellectual Development
under Islam

A. Jewish Life in North Africa

During the tenth century, the Abbassid empire was fragmenting politically
and the influence of the Caliphate was declining, although Islam continued
to provide some religious and cultural unity over the vast geographical
area. Important Jewish centers developed in three locations: Egypt, Tunisia
(Ifriqiyah), and Spain.  

The legend that represents this new Jewish dispersion, the story of the Four
Captives, was reported in Abraham ibn Daud's eleventh century Hebrew
chronicle Sefer Hakabbalah (translated and introduced by Gerson Cohen).
According to it, sages went from Babylonia to collect funds for the
academies there. Four of them, Shamariah, Hushiel, Moshe and Hanokh,  were
captured and ransomed at Cairo, Kairuan, Cordova.  At each location in
Egypt, North Africa, and Spain, respectively, a sage established a major
center of Jewish life and scholarship outside of Babylonia. The problem with
this legend is that none of the captives were from Babylonia, according to
letters in the Geniza, Husiel was from an Italian Jewish family, Shemariah
was a native of Egypt, and Moses and Hanokh were from Bari in Italy
(Stillman, p. 211 n).

The center in Kairuan (Tunisia today) began to develop around 800 and in 910
the Shiite Caliphate of the Fatimids was founded and with its capital in the
new city of al-Mahdiyya on the coast.  Because the Fatimids were a minority
trying to rule the majority, they tended to be tolerant of the Jews. The
Shiite Caliphate conquered Cairo in 969 and moved there in 973. Ifriqiya was
invaded in 1050 and 1057 by Bedouins and then the Almohades conquered the
area from 1148-1212, forcing many Jews to convert.

In Kairuan Jewish thought flourished. Isaac Israeli (855-950), mentioned
earlier for his correspondence with Saadia Gaon, was born in Egypt but
served in Kairuan as the court physician to the Sultan and is considered the
father of Jewish Neoplatonic philosophy and also had a major impact on
Jewish mysticism. His Arabic philosophical writings, translated into Latin
and Hebrew, were studied by Jews, Muslims, and Christians during the middle
ages. Nathan Ha-Bavli, whose accounts of the Exilarch in Babylonia we
discussed, provided for the Jews of Kairuan information about the Jews of
Baghdad in order for them to model their community upon it. The first
Exilarch or Nagid of the Jews of Kairuan, Hananel ben Hushiel, d. 1057, was
appointed around 1015 by the Gaon of Pumbedita (Stillman, pp. 183-185).

Rabbi Isaac Alfasi (1013-1103), the Rif, was a prominent rabbi, often
identified as a Gaon and sometimes as the last Gaon. He lived in Fez until
he fled to Spain in 1088.  He wrote many responsa, often in Arabic. He is
most renowned for his digest of the Babylonian Talmud called Sefer
Hahalakhot or Halakhot Rabbati, a digest of the laws still practiced
accompanied by geonic commentary. His work attracted some of the leading
rabbis to write commentaries on it and it was central to all future codes
and commentaries on the Talmud in the Islamic and in the Christian worlds.

B.  Jewish Life in Egypt and the Land of Israel

Egypt began to develop around 868, becoming a major center in 969 when the
Shiite Fatimids moved the Caliphate there after conquering most of North
Africa.  From 990-996, the Caliph al-Aziz appointed a Jew, Menasseh ben
Abraham ibn al-Qazzaz, to be his deputy in Syria and a Christian to be his
secretary.  This aroused popular resentment in Fustat (old Cairo) and they
were both removed and their respective communities fined  (Stillman 200). In
1011 under al-Hakim (still today revered by the Druse) there were uprisings
against the Jews that reflected some of the same kind of popular rage seen
against the Jews in the Rhineland during the First Crusade in May of 1096.
One chronicle describes the physical and emotional degradation of the Jews
at the hands of a mob.  The Jewish responses included prayer, fasting, and
mourning.  Some Jews, prepared to risk their lives, appealed to the Caliph
for protection and they were saved, but may have been confined to a special
quarter of the city (Stillman 201-202, 207). During the 1030s and 1040s a
wealthy Jew with powerful connections, Abu Sa'd Ibrahim al-Tustari, a
Karaite with strong ties to all Jews, became powerful in Fustat until he met
a violent end at the hands of a mob. 

The Jews were protected in Jerusalem at this time when they paid bribes to
the local officials and raised money from the Jews of the Diaspora (Stillman
p. 192-3).  They came to the desolate sanctuary and to the Mount of Olives
to pray. There were also massacres of Jews in Palestine by the Bedouins in
1024 (Stillman p. 205-207). In 1065 the position of Rais al-Yahud, the
Nagid, was established in Egypt as the Gaonate of Palestine waned.  During
the early years Saladin, who destroyed the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem and
conquered territory in the middle east, Saladin that Maimonides (1168-1204)
left Spain, and after a short sojourn in the land of Israel, became the
Nagid of Egypt.

Rabbi Moses ben Maimon, represents for many the quintessence of the medieval
Jewish philosopher under Islam.   He was born in Cordova Spain in 1135,
perhaps to a family of davidic lineage.  With the  Almohades' persecutions
in 1148,  Maimonides and his family fled to Fez in North Africa in 1160,
perhaps converting to Islam during this period. They left Fez in 1165 for
Acre, Palestine; and finally a few months later, they settled in Cairo. He
served there as a rabbinic scholar and also as a critic of the Karaites.
After his brother David died at sea, he had to support both their families
and became the physician to either the sultan Salah al-Din or his son
al-Malik al-Afdal.  Maimonides was later appointed Nagid of the Jews of
Egypt and he actively opposed the authority of the Geonim and Exilarchs of
Babylonia. According to legend, Richard the Lion Hearted offered Maimonides
the position of his physician at Ashkelon, but he did not accept it.
Maimonides was married twice and had one child, Abraham, with his second
wife. He died on Tevet 20, 1204.  According to legend, since he left no
instructions for his burial, his coffin was placed on a camel, which,
followed by mourners, went to Tiberias on the shores of the sea of Galilee
in the land of Israel where he was buried, a route that roughly retraces
that taken by Moses several millennia earlier and perhaps for this reason
the plaque on his tomb in Tiberias reads, "From Moses to Moses there was
nobody like  Moses."

Between 1158 and 1168, Maimonides wrote an Arabic  commentary to the
Mishnah.   In the course of explicating the Mishnah, Maimonides not only
reviewed the Talmud but also elucidated theological and philosophical
matters, establishing in his commentary several important formulations of
Jewish belief, including his famous list of thirteen articles of faith, a
list that has entered Jewish liturgy as the Yigdal hymn and has become
crucial to all subsequent discussions of dogma among the Jews. Between 1168
and 1178, Maimonides also organized of all the details of Jewish practice
into a unified legal code, the Mishneh Torah, or the Yad Hazakah, the Mighty
Hand (an expression that appears in the last sentence of the Torah, Dt.
34:12; the number of books in it was fourteen, which in Hebrew letters is
yad). Isidore Twersky, leading scholar of the Mishnah Torah, identified five
themes in Maimonides own writings concerning the nature of the work:  1)
Maimonides used a clear mishnaic Hebrew; 2) Maimonides attempted his own
system of classification of Jewish law; 3) Although the format is
codifactory, the contents at times includes commentary, interpretation,
exegesis, explanations, and even references to his sources. 4) Maimonides
codified all laws from rabbinic Judaism whether they could be practiced in
his day or not, including laws based on the Temple, the Holy Land, and the
Messiah.  5) Maimonides fused Jewish law with discussions of Jewish
philosophy, theology, and ethics (see I. Twersky, Maimonides Reader).
Maimonides' code was opposed, especially in Babylonia, because it omitted
the back and forth discussion characteristic of talmudic argumentation and
did not usually cite the talmudic sources. One of Maimonides' most famous
letters was written to the Jews of Yemen in 1172 after a messianic movement
arose among them after a Shiite leader imposed a forced conversion.
Maimonides purpose was to undermine the particular movement without
diminishing their hope in the messianic idea. In another letter to Joseph
ibn Gaday (Marcus, no. 62). It is significant that much of the opposition to
his teaching came from Baghdad.  His wide-ranging authority in Fustat
represented a threat to any claims to the authority of the rabbinic leaders
in Baghdad.  In other epistles he discussed the revival of the dead and what
Jews should do at a time of persecution and forced apostasy. Maimonides'
most famous work, Moreh Nevukhim, "The Guide for the Perplexed," was written
in Arabic between 1185 and 1190 for a faithful and educated student, Joseph
ibn Sham'um, who having studied philosophy was perplexed by the literal
meaning of biblical anthropomorphism.  Maimonides used biblical exegesis to
confront philosophy and to defend religious tradition.  His medical works
are based mainly on Arabic medical literature, which was derived from the
Greeks, including a regime he prepared for the Sultan's son, al-Malik
al-Afdal Nur al-Din, who suffered from constipation.  By the way, Judaica
souvenir catalogues  sell a wall plaque of what is called the "Daily Prayer
of a Physician" attributed to Maimonides, although there is no proof of his
authorship.

Before Maimonides died, in 1204, many of Maimonides' writings were
translated from Arabic into Hebrew in Provence.  There also, starting during
his lifetime controversies raged surrounding his writings.  From 1230-1232
and from 1300-1306 some rabbis attempted to ban the study of philosophy, at
least for those under 25 such as that issued by Rabbi Solomon ibn Adret, the
Rashba in 1305 (Marcus, no. 39). This controversy soon ended in Provence
when the Jews were expelled from France in 1306, but the study of philosophy
continued to be considered threatening and rabbis tried to ban its study by
Jews, or at least those under certain ages.

C. The Jews in Muslim Spain

Called Sefarad, based on an obscure geographical place mentioned in the
biblical book of Ovadia 1:20:  ". . . the exiles of Jerusalem who are in
Sepharad will inherit the cities of the Negev."  The Muslims conquered
Spain in 711, but their drive to conquer the rest of Christian Europe was
stopped by Charles Martel at the Battle of Tours in 732, and they retreated
across the Pyrenees in 759.  Spain, along with Tunisia and Egypt, became a
third center of Islamic and, hence, Jewish life.  During the early years of
Islamic rule in Spain the Jews benefited being subjects of the Muslim
minority that was trying to maintain its rule over a majority of the
population which included Arabs, Yemenites, Berbers from north Africa,
Muwalads--native Spanish Muslims, Mozarabs-- Christians who practiced their
religion under Islam, East European Slavs, Blacks, and Jews.  The Muslims
rulers in Spain needed the Jews as allies against not only the Christian
empires but also the rest of the Muslim world.  Jews served as a bridge
between the Christian and Muslim worlds.  For these reasons Jews were
tolerated in Spain and many came there to live.

>From 758 to 790, Abdurahman I, the Umayyid Emir of Spain, ruled in Cordova,
independent of the Abassid Caliphate in Baghdad, followed by Abdurahman II
from 832 to 852, and then Abdurahman III from 912 to 961, who, in 929,
changed the Emirate of Cordova into a Caliphate.  In doing so, he restored a
powerful central authority, developed good relations with nearby Christian
kingdoms, established Muslim outposts in the north of Spain, and made
Cordova a great intellectual center.  He was succeeded by Al Hakim II from
961-976.  
        
The period from 929 until either 1066 or 1148 became known in later Jewish
historiography as the Golden Age of Spain, reflecting the values of
nineteenth century Germany rather than those of tenth century Spain.
Characterizations of the Golden Age take into consideration mainly the
literature of the court and not the life of the Jews generally under Islam.
The term does not reflect the reality of daily life, but cannot distract us
from accepting the fact that much of Jewish life during the middle ages was
not as lachrymose as usually depicted.  Thus, while Jewish history cannot be
measured by literary creativity alone, it cannot be dismissed as the
shortest distance between two massacres. 

Influenced by the Muslims' devotion to the Koran, the Hebrew poets of Spain
stopped using the language of the midrash in their poetry and returned to
the pure language of the Bible.  Inspired by the secular poetry of the Arabs
about love, wine, and war, the Hebrew poets began to write secular themes as
well.  Finally, compelled by the quantitative syllabification of the Arabs,
Hebrew poets began to include precise rhythms in their poetry.  The Hebrew
poetry of Spain can be scanned: the sheva (:) represents a short sound, all
the other vowels represent equally long sounds.   Although the Hebrew poetry
of Spain can be understood  without commentaries, it is nevertheless
stylized in its own way.  Since much of it reflects a conscious borrowing of
themes, images, and forms from the Muslim poets, it is important, therefore,
not to fall into the trap of viewing the motifs of these poems as accurate
reflections of the lives of the Jews of Spain.  Rather, they are accurate
reflections of the kinds of images that Jews borrowed from the poetry of the
Arabs.  Thus when the Hebrew poets wrote about carousing all night in
gardens around bonfires and drinking wine we cannot assume that this is what
Jews did, but only that this is what they read. The Jews borrowed these
themes in their poems because they wanted to match what the Arabs did in
Arabic to show the strength and flexibility of Hebrew.  This process reached
its fullest development in the Hebrew poems about sexual intimacy between
young boys and old men written in biblical Hebrew by rabbis in Medieval
Spain (T. Carmi, The Penguin Anthology of Hebrew Poetry, pp. 298, 302, 344,
356, 362).

If there was one singular aspect of this period of Jewish history it was the
close relationship between Jews invested with significant political power
from the Muslim authorities, their close involvement with rabbinic Judaism,
and their active engagement with what could be called a synthesis between
Jewish and general culture.  A few examples follow:

1.  Hasdai ibn Shaprut

To the extent that there was a Golden Age in Cordova, it can be attributed
to Hasdai ibn Shaprut (910-970 or 905-975) the court physician to Abdurahman
III. He gradually became involved in politics, foreign affairs, and
finances. Hasdai ibn Shaprut's diplomatic contributions indicate the power
that Jewish viziers had under the Muslims.  In 953 Hasdai, aided by the
Bishop of Cordova, negotiated between Abdurahman III and the German Emperor
Otto I, who felt that the Spanish Caliph had insulted Christians. In 956
Hasdai intervened among  the Christians of Leon.  King Sancho the Fat,
because of his ill health, had been expelled by Ferdinand Gonzales of
Castilla, the Duke of Leon.  Sancho went to his grandmother, Queen Toto of
Navarre who appealed to her former enemy, Adburahman III, for medical and
military help for Sancho.  Abdurahman III sent Hasdai to Pamplona where he
translated, cured, and eventually brought the Christians to Cordova to
negotiate, where they reached a successful resolve.  As a reward for his
help, King Sancho gave back to Abdurahman III ten cities in Navarre.  The
picture of a Jew resolving diplomatic issues between Christians on behalf of
a Muslim Caliph greatly helped to make this period golden in the eyes of many.

Hasdai helped to transfer Jewish culture and religious authority, including
the setting of the calendar, from Babylonia to Spain (Stillman, p. 210).
Hasdai ibn Shaprut was the patron of Jewish culture in Cordova, supporting
the position of a court Hebrew poet who served as his Hebrew secretary.
Initially this post was held by the grammarian Menahem ibn Suruk who wrote
traditional rabbinic Hebrew religious poetry, often called piyyut, until he
was replaced by Dunash ibn Labrat, a student of Saadia Gaon, a rabbi and a
judge, the poet who introduced Arabic meter and rhyme to Hebrew poetry--most
famous for the sabbath hymn Deror Yikra and the wedding song Davai Hasser
(See T. Carmi, the Penguin Anthology of Hebrew Poetry, pp. 270-280).  

In 960, Hasdai heard from a Persian diplomat about the Khazars, an
independent kingdom near the Black Sea whose ruling house had converted to
Judaism in about 740.  The Khazars chose Judaism perhaps because of its
potential to help their small kingdom located between the vast between
Christian and Islamic empires remain politically neutral. Hasdai sent
special envoys to the Byzantine Emperor with a letter asking for his help
setting up contacts with the Khazars.  The Emperor, however, was fearful of
a union of Jewish and Islamic forces so he refused to help and detained the
emissaries for six months, showing that the Jews were a force to be reckoned
with.  Using other channels, Hasdai got a letter through to the Khazars
(Marcus, no. 46) and a correspondence ensued.

There have been questions raised about the authenticity of these letters,
but 150 years after Hasdai, Judah Halevi (1075-1141), a Jewish poet and
philosopher in Spain, knew about the conversion of the Khazars and used it
as the setting for his philosophical magnum opus, the  Kuzari.  Halevi wrote
an imaginary dialogue between the representatives of the different world
religions and the rulers of Khazaria.  Khazaria continued to be a source of
fascination for many generations of Jews.  In modern times practical
questions arose concerning the Khazar origins of the Jews of Eastern Europe
and their status as Jews both in terms of the Nazi definition of Jews, which
saved some, and in terms of the United Nations consideration of the right of
the Jews of Europe to the land of Israel.
        
The last paragraph of Hasdai's letter shows that while he was pleased with
the richness and kindness he enjoyed as a Jew in Spain, he would rather
leave Spain for Khazaria, where the Jews had their own government and were
subservient to no one, a constellation of factors which also prompted him to
ask about the coming of the messiah.  The Khazars offered him a position,
but soon they had suffered from a series of massive Russian attacks and
Hasdai had died.

2.  Samuel ibn Nagrela

In the late tenth century the Caliphate in Cordova began to fall apart due
to a succession of weak rulers and assassinations. As a result, at the
beginning of the eleventh century Cordova fell to the Berbers and the
kingdom was divided by feuding mercenaries or "party kings" into small
emirates, including Saragossa, Cordova, and Granada.  These  kingdoms
imitated the grandeur of Cordova, including the use of Jewish viziers.  The
story of Samuel Halevi ibn Nagrela of Cordova, one such vizier, as related
in Abraham ibn Daud's eleventh century Sefer Hakabbalah, is significant.
Born in either 982 or 993, he was educated in Cordova not only in Hebrew and
rabbinics but also in Arabic and the Koran.  With the onset of turmoil in
Cordova he fled to Malaga and worked there in a spice shop near the house of
the secretary to the vizier, whose servant asked him to write letters for
the secretary to the vizier. These made a good impression on the vizier who
soon learned the true identity of the author and offered him  a position
with the secretary, who relied upon Samuel's advice when he advised the
king, the Berber Habbus, who prospered.  When the secretary was about to
die, he told the king that it was Samuel who had been the source of his good
advice and that the king should now hire him, which he did. In about 1020
Samuel went to work for King Habbus in Grenada.  There a struggle for
succession broke out between the king's sons Badis and Buluggin. The Berber
princes and most of the Jews supported Buluggin; the people and Samuel
supported Badis, who eventually won. As a result, the other leading Jews had
to flee and  Samuel was appointed Nagid, the prince of the Jews in Spain, in
about 1027.  

Samuel was not only a leader of the Jews, but also a rabbi, judge, talmudic
scholar, and Hebrew writer, including on topics of Jewish law, linguistics,
Bible, Talmud, Midrash, an early code of Jewish law, Sefer Hilkheta Gavrata,
and especially Hebrew poetry. He borrowed 57 different metrical forms from
the Arab poets and he wrote many genres of poetry, mostly secular, including
themes of war, wisdom, loneliness, morality (which included the advice for a
man to beat his wife), meditation, family, love (including the passion of
men for young boys, a theme found also in the literary traditions of the
Arab world),  wine, praise, glory, friendship, polemics, mourning,
pessimism, Zion, suffering of the Jews, and his own personal power and glory.

As Nagid, Samuel financially supported and protected the Jews in not only
Spain, but also north Africa,  Egypt, Sicily, Jerusalem, and Babylonia. He
purchased manuscript copies of the Torah, Mishnah, and Talmud for the Jewish
academies of Spain, transferring the center rabbinic scholarship to Spain
and establishing Spanish Jewish hegemony becoming established over the rest
of the Jewish world.

At court, Samuel was opposed because he was a Jew and he dared to criticize
the Koran. In 1038 ibn Abbas of Almeia asked Badis, his ally, to get rid of
Samuel.  When Badis refused, ibn Abbas invaded Granada, lost and was
executed by Badis.  In this conflict, Samuel served Badis in a military
capacity and  wrote Hebrew poetry about his victory, describing how God
fought on his side, how he was the David of his generation, how his
victories were for all the Jews, as how the piles of enemy dead resembled
the Hebrew vowel points under words.  He continued to lead the army of
Granada against many other cities (Marcus, no. 59 and Leon Weinberger,
Jewish Prince in Moslem Spain, esp. no. 8)
        
When Samuel died in 1056, his son Joseph inherited his position but not his
humility. Injudicious and incautious in his arrogance, he appointed many
Jews, particularly relatives, to positions of power.  Insensitive to the
grievances of the Muslims, his wealth offended many, especially his attempt
to build a huge castle, perhaps the Alhambra.  In 1066, after major public
outcries against Joseph and the Jews, he was assassinated, the Jewish
quarter of Granada was razed, and about 1500 Jews were massacred (Stillman
pp. 211-225).   

Whatever there had been of a Golden Age in Islamic Spain was over by now.
In 1085, Toledo fell to the Christians in their reconquest of Spain.  At
this time the Almorivides were invited and began a period of persecution,
many of the most famous writers such as Moses ibn Ezra (1070-1138), Abraham
ibn Ezra (1092-1167),  Judah Alharizi (1170-1235), Judah Halevi, Moses
Maimonides, and many Jews went to the Christian north or to other locations,
including those under Islam, for safety and freedom. In the Christian north
of Spain they were needed and thus protected.  There they enjoyed another
golden age of poetry, rabbinic scholarship, and Jewish philosophy.  As the
Reconquista gained momentum, however, with the fall of Cordova in 1236 and
Seville in 1248, the Jews began to be persecuted by the Christians as
well--a story we will discuss in a future lecture.

3.  Judah Halevi

One of the leading Hebrew poets of Spain, often identified as an
anti-rationalist or a traditionalist, Judah Halevi wrote in Arabic the
Kuzari: Kitab al-Hujja waal dalil fi nasr al-din al dhalil, "the Book of
Arguments and Proofs in Defense of a Despised Faith (against philosophy as a
way of life)."   Halevi spent many years writing this book before he left
Spain for the land of Israel in about 1140.  This polemic against
Aristotelianism, Christianity, Islam, and Karaism attempts to prove the
superiority of Judaism as the absolute religion. In it he argued that the
source of truth for Jews is the historical experience of the revelation they
received from God rather than speculation or deductive reasoning about God.
For him religious practice is more important than belief or dogma.  He
asserted that prophecy was not rational or imaginative but an inherited
quality of the Jewish people alone and the distinguishing feature of
Israel's election.  Even a convert, though equal to a born Jew in every way,
cannot attain prophecy. Judah ibn Tibbon translated into the Kuzari into
Hebrew in the middle of the twelfth century in Provence.  According to
documentation available in the Cairo Geniza it is certain the Halevi reached
Egypt, but that he died and was buried there.  According to a legend
reported in Gedalia ibn Yahia's sixteenth century Shalshelet hakabbalah, he
reached Jerusalem where a passing Muslim horseman trampled him to death as
he was reciting one of his odes to Zion, a legend that omits the fact that
at that time the land of Israel was in Crusader hands.

D. Decline and Twilight under Islam

The Thirteenth Century marked a period of decline for the Muslim world and
for the Jews in it.  The Muslim world was under siege:  from the Crusaders
(1096-1291), from the Spanish Reconquista, well on the way by the 1150s, and
the Mongol invasions of Syria and Iraq in 1259. In 1289 a Jew, Sa'd
al-Dawla, was appointed by the Mongols to be Vizier in Baghdad, but he was
opposed by many, including  nobles and a mob, and he was killed in 1291.
They then turned against the Jewish quarter where the Jews defended
themselves until they were overwhelmed (Stillman 262-3).  Among the Muslims,
Hellenistic influences waned, Islamic fundamentalism waxed, and the economy
stagnated.  During the fourteenth century the Jewish communities of Tunisia
and Algeria tried to keep  a low profile, producing few cultural
accomplishments but absorbing large numbers of exiles from Spain after the
persecutions of 1391--which we shall examine shortly. Members of Morocco's
large Jewish community were used by the Marinid rulers as high level
functionaries, as had previous rulers in the east, and then discarded
(Stillman p. 279-80). In 1438 the Jewish quarter known as the mellah was
established in Fez to protect the Jews after the libel was spread that the
Jews had put wine forbidden to Muslims in the oil lamps of a mosque.
Despite some occasional massacres of the Jews,   In 1492 Jewish refugees
came to Morroco, including those from Spain in 1492 and those from Portugal
in 1497. During the sixteenth century many Jews from Europe would find
protection under the Turkish Sultan.

In Muslim countries Jews lived in Jewish quarters, harat al-yahud, mahallat
al-yahud, which were usually voluntary living arrangements.  Jews were not
forced to live in them and others, including Muslims, were not prohibited
from them.  A few exceptions include the abovementioned attempt in 1011 in
Egypt by Al-Hakim to force the Jews of Cairo to live in one quarter of the
city, in some Shiite countries in the East, and in Sunni countries after the
fifteenth century. In some instances these quarters took on the qualities of
early-modern European ghettos--walls, gates, and strict enforcement.  The
institution of the mellah, the crowded and mandatory Jewish quarter, unlike
in Europe, continued well into the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Often wealthy Jews could live elsewhere.  As in Europe, many Muslim cities
and countries, especially after the thirteenth century, expelled the Jews.
Living in a mellah, as was living in a ghetto in Christian Europe,
represented a compromise between total expulsion and living together, which
was becoming more and more difficult.

Conclusion

This lecture ends our sweep through Jewish history and culture under Islam.
Although Jewish poetry and philosophy did flourish at times, and the
historian's interest may be distracted by these exciting cultural phenomena,
they cannot be seen as representative of the life of the bulk of the Jewish
population.  Similarly, there were massacres, expulsion, and confinements.
These too must be seen in the context of specific incidents.  Future
lectures will examine the development of Jewish history in Christian Europe.
There, too, we cannot let rabbinic or spiritual creativity or moments of
popular brutality and depravity stand as representative of hundreds of years
of development.