The Impact of Islam

by Emmet Scott

  [3] Marcus Bull, “Origins,” in Jonathan Riley-Smith (ed.) The Oxford History of the Crusades, p. 19.

  [4]Ibid.

  [5] Strangely, however, castle-building began in southern Europe along the shores of the Mediterranean – evidently to protect against piratical Muslim raids – three centuries earlier, in the middle of the seventh century. See Hodges and Whitehouse, op cit., pp. 44-8.

  [6] Trevor-Roper, op cit., p. 119.

  [7] Bernard Lewis, “2007 Irving Kristol Lecture,” delivered to the American Enterprise Institute, Washington, DC. (March 7, 2007).

  [8] See Madden’s “Crusade Propaganda: The Abuse of Christianity’s Holy Wars,” and A Concise History of the Crusades (Rowman and Littlefield, Maryland, 1999).

  [9]Ibid., p. 119.

  [10] Jonathan Riley-Smith, “The State of Mind of Crusaders to the East: 1095-1300,” in Jonathan Riley-Smith (ed.) Oxford History of the Crusades, p. 79.

  [11]Ibid., p. 78.

  [12]Ibid., pp. 80-2.

  [13] Alan Forey, “The Military Orders, 1120-1312,” in Jonathan Riley-Smith (ed.) op cit., p. 205.

  [14] Robert Irwin, “Islam and the Crusades: 1096-1699,” in Jonathan Riley-Smith (ed.) Oxford History of the Crusades, pp. 251.

  [15] Runciman, op cit., p. 83.

  [16] J. P. Migne, Patrologiae Graeco-Latina, Part II of Patrologiae Cursus Completus, (Paris, 1857-66), Letter no. 188, Vol. XXXII, col. 681.

  [17] Runciman, op cit., pp. 83-4.

  [18]Ibid., p. 84.

  [19]Ibid., p. 61.

  [20]Ibid.

  [21] Gibbon, Chapter 57.

  [22] Bruce Lenman (ed.) Chambers Dictionary of World History (London, 2000), p. 585.

  [23] Gibbon, Chapter 57.

  6

  Persecution of the Jews

  It is a fact that the first mass murder of Jews to be carried out in Europe occurred in Spain, in Cordoba in 1011 and in Granada in 1066.[1] But these pogroms were not the work of Christian fanatics: They were carried out by Muslim mobs. Thirty years after the Granada slaughter, at the start of the First Crusade, Christian mobs on the Rhineland carried out similar attacks. These were the first mass-murders of Jews ever carried out by Europeans.

  From these two bare facts we may deduce the following: The peculiarly violent anti-Semitism which characterised medieval Europe seems to have had its origin in Spain; and the rise of this new and virulent anti-Semitism in other areas of Europe is intimately connected with the clash between Islam and Christianity.

  Christianity was of course always anti-Semitic, or, more accurately, anti-Judaistic. Christians blamed Jews for the murder of Christ; and right from the beginning relations between the two religions were fraught. However, Christianity did not invent anti-Semitism; nor were Christians, for a long time, a threat to Jews.

  Anti-Semitism, or hatred of the Jews, in fact predated both the rise of Christianity and Islam. Relations between Gentiles and Jews were volatile as far back as Hellenistic times, and the antagonism between Jews and Gentiles in Egypt, for example, during the second and first centuries BC led to a lively and polemical debate amongst authors such as Apion, Manetho and Josephus. In the early years of the Roman Empire, the attempts of the Jews to free themselves from Imperial rule led to a series of bloody uprisings which were suppressed with great ferocity. The Roman authorities, as a rule, were exasperated by the Jews, but tolerated what they saw as their peculiar customs, and granted them certain unusual privileges, such as an exemption from the requirement of offering sacrifice to the Emperor.

  Fig. 5. Burning of the Jews of Nuremberg, 1493.

  Such violence against the Jews was unknown in Christian Europe before the First Crusade, but had become common earlier in the Muslim world, including Muslim Spain.

  From the very beginning, of course, the Jews, or rather, the Jewish authorities, were deeply antagonistic towards Christianity; a faith they looked upon as little more than a dangerous heresy. There is evidence that they would, as Gibbon puts it “gladly have extinguished the dangerous heresy [Christianity] in the blood of its adherents.” (Decline and Fall, Ch. 16) It is pointless to go through the various animosities that existed at this time between the two groups, yet there is clear evidence that, well into the third century, Jewish religious leaders agitated in favor of persecuting Christians, and harbored much hatred towards them. This needs to be said, for early Christian writers are frequently attacked for their animosity towards the Jews. There currently exists on the internet, for example, a website named Religious Tolerance which, in a page titled “Anti-Judaism: 70 to 1200 CE”, lists a series of anti-Jewish pronouncements by early Christian writers such as Saint John Chrysostom, Saint Hilary of Poitiers, Saint Augustine and Saint Jerome. Now, there is no question that these men, and many others beside, did make statements which nowadays would be regarded as straightforwardly anti-Semitic, in a religious sense. Yet these are theological opinions of individuals, not imperial policy. Furthermore, it should be stressed that John Chrysostom’s attack, which he launched when he was a priest in Antioch (386), was designed to put an end to the practice among Christians of going to synagogues and participating in their services. As Robert Spencer rightly notes, “the fact that Christian attendance in synagogues was widespread in late fourth-century Antioch indicates that neither anti-Semitism nor anti-Judaism were dominant among Christians at the time, many of whom understood that there was a bond between Christianity and Judaism.”[2] We note too that what John Chrysostom and the rest said about the Jews was mild in comparison with the attacks they made against heretics such as Manicheans and Donatists; and Jewish writers of the time were equally vociferous in their condemnation of Christians. Furthermore, whilst Christians had suffered death – often on a large scale – simply for being Christian, Jews had not.

  In view of the fraught history of relationships between Jews and Christians, it is remarkable that, when the Empire became Christian, there was little retaliation against the Jews. It is true that several Emperors, most notably Justinian, did pass anti-Jewish edicts. None of these however were severe, and rarely went beyond restrictions placed on the building of new synagogues and (in the case of Justinian) refusing to allow the Jews to celebrate Passover before the Christian Easter. Hardly draconian. And it needs to be stated that these measures were elicited far more by political than religious considerations. Since the time of the pagan Emperors, the Jews of Palestine and the eastern Mediterranean had consistently sided with the Persians in their perennial wars with the Romans. It happened again during the time of Justinian, and he reciprocated with these legal measures.[3] Again, it should be noted that even Justinian, regarded as the most intolerant of the Christian Emperors, had numerous Jewish friends and advisers.

  Proof that the Jews experienced no real persecution from the early Christians is seen in the great increase in the numbers and the prosperity of the Jewish people in the centuries that preceded the First Crusade. By the eleventh century both France and Germany were home to large and prosperous Jewish communities. Steven Runciman notes that, “Jewish colonies had been established for centuries past along the trade routes of western Europe.”[4] These colonies “kept up connections with their co-religionists in Byzantium and in Arab lands, and were thus enabled to play a large part in international trade, more especially the trade between Moslem and Christian countries.” Runciman notes that the Jews “had never undergone serious persecution in the West. … The kings of France and Germany had always befriended them; and they were shown particular favour by the archbishops of the great cities of the Rhineland.”

  But if there was no prior serious persecution of the Jews, whence, we might ask, did that which characterized the Middle Ages arise?

  Europe’s largest Jewish community was located in Spain. Following the Islam
ic conquest of that land in 711, the Jews came under the domination of a faith that, so we are told, was from its inception virulently anti-Jewish. For Muslims the lead was given by none other than their founder, the Prophet Muhammad. It would be superfluous to enumerate the anti-Jewish pronouncements in the Qur’an and the Hadiths, where the Hebrews are portrayed as the craftiest, most persistent and most implacable enemies of Allah. In the Qur’an (2: 63-66) Allah transforms some Jews who profaned the Sabbath into apes: “Be as apes despicable!” In Qur’an 5: 59-60, He directs Muhammad to remind the “People of the Book” about “those who incurred the curse of Allah and His wrath, those whom some He transformed into apes and swine, those who worshipped evil.” Again, in 7: 166, we hear of the Sabbath-breaking Jews that “when in their insolence they transgressed (all) prohibitions,” Allah said to them, “Be ye apes, despised and rejected.”

  From the same sources we hear that Muhammad’s first violent action against the Jews involved the Qaynuqa tribe, who dwelt at Medina, under the protection of the city. Muhammad “seized the occasion of an accidental tumult,” and ordered the Qaynuqa (or Kainoka) to embrace his religion or fight. In the words of Gibbon, “The unequal conflict was terminated in fifteen days; and it was with extreme reluctance that Mahomet yielded to the importunity of his allies and consented to spare the lives of the captives.” (Decline and Fall, Chapter 50) In later attacks on the Jews, the Hebrew captives were not so fortunate.

  The most notorious of all Muhammad’s attacks against the Jews was directed at the Banu Quraiza tribe. This community, which dwelt near Medina, was attacked without warning by the Prophet and his men, and, after its defeat, all the males over the age of puberty were beheaded. Some Islamic authorities claim that Muhammad personally participated in the executions. The doomed men and boys, whose numbers are estimated at anything between 500 and 900, were ordered to dig the trench which was to be their communal grave. All of the women and children were enslaved, with Muhammad personally taking for himself one of the most beautiful of the prisoners. He also confiscated the property of the murdered Jews. These deeds are mentioned in the Qur’an as acts carried out by Allah himself and fully sanctioned by divine approval. Thus in Qur’an 33:26-27, we read:

  And he brought those of the People of the Book [Jewish people of Banu Qurayza] who supported them from their fortresses and cast terror into their hearts, some of them you slew (beheaded) and some you took prisoners (captive). And he made you heirs of their lands, their houses, and their goods, and of a land which ye had not frequented (before). And Allah has power over all things.

  The killing of the Jewish prisoners is sanctioned in Qur’an 8:67:

  It is not fitting for an Apostle that he should have prisoners of war until He thoroughly subdued the land…

  The Massacre of Banu Quraiza was followed soon after by the attack on the Khaybar tribe. On this occasion, the Prophet ordered the torture of a Jewish chieftain to extract information about where he had hidden his treasures. When the treasure was uncovered, the chieftain was beheaded. This chieftain was the husband of the most beautiful Jewish woman of Khaybar, the 17-year-old Safiyah. Safiyah’s family members had been annihilated by Muhammad at the Banu Qurayza massacre. Now having beheaded her husband, the Prophet took Safiyah as his slave. The story is told thus by Sahih al-Bukhari, whose compilation of the acts and deeds attributed to Muhammad was written in the ninth century, and forms one of the two pillars of Islamic jurisprudence. (Volume 5, Book 59, Number 512):

  The Prophet offered the Fajr Prayer near Khaybar when it was still dark and then said, “Allahu-Akbar! Khaybar is destroyed, for whenever we approach a (hostile) nation (to fight), then evil will be the morning for those who have been warned.” Then the inhabitants of Khaybar came out running on the roads. The Prophet had their warriors killed, their offspring and woman taken as captives. Safiya was amongst the captives, She first came in the share of Dahya Alkali but later on she belonged to the Prophet. The Prophet made her manumission as her ‘Mahr’. Muhammad was sixty (60) when he married Safiyyahh, a young girl of seventeen. She became his eighth wife.

  The distribution of the booty is described thus in al-Bukhari Hadiths No.143, page-700:

  Sulaiman Ibne Harb…Aannas Ibne Malek (ra) narrated, “in the war of Khayber after the inhabitants of Banu Nadir were surrendered, Allah’s apostle killed all the able/adult men, and he (prophet) took all women and children as captives (Ghani mateer maal).. Among the captives Safiyya Bint Huyy Akhtab was taken by Allah’s Apostle as booty whom He married after freeing her and her freedom was her Mahr.”

  It is said that at first Dihyah al-Kalbi, one of Muhammad’s followers, asked for Safiyah. But when Muhammad saw her exquisite beauty, he chose her for himself and gave her two cousins to Dihyah.

  In the massacre of the Jewish Settlement of Bani Mustaliq, Muhammad is said to have captured their women and took twenty-year-old Jewish girl, Juwairiya as his personal slave. [Al-Bukhari 3.46.13.717, p. 431-432]. Sahih Muslim (2.2349, p. 520) says that Muhammad attacked the Banu Mustaliq tribe without any warning while they were heedlessly grazing their cattle. Juwairiya was a daughter of the chief. Sahih Muslim 3.4292, p. 942 and Abu Dawud 2.227, p. 728 and al-Tabari 39, p. 182-183 also say Juwairiya was captured in a raid on the Banu Mustaliq tribe. She had been married to Musafi’ bin Safwan, who was killed in battle.

  We need go no further into the horrific details of these events, as they have already been examined by numerous writers and their veracity denied by no Muslims, scholars or otherwise, since the middle of the eighth century. What needs to be emphasized is the attitude these reported atrocities betray, as well as the fact that they became the model for the behavior of all future followers of the Prophet.

  What caused Muhammad’s seemingly implacable hatred of the Jews? According to Gibbon, it was their refusal to recognize him as their long-awaited Messiah that “converted his friendship into an implacable hatred, with which he pursued that unfortunate people to the last moment of his life; and, in the double character of apostle and conqueror, his persecution was extended into both worlds.” (Decline and Fall, Ch. 50)

  As noted above, it is a widely-held fiction that, aside from the Prophet’s persecution of the Jews of Arabia, Muslims in general and Islam as a rule was historically tolerant to this People of the Book, who were generally granted dhimmi (“protected”) status in the Islamic Umma, or community. But dhimmi status, also accorded to Christians, did not, as Bat Ye’or has demonstrated at great length, imply equal rights with Muslims. On the contrary, dhimmis were subject, even at the best of times, to a whole series of discriminatory and humiliating laws and to relentless exploitation. At the worst of times, they could be slaughtered in the streets without any hope of legal redress. One of the most noxious measures directed against them was the requirement to wear an item or color of clothing by which they could be easily identified: identified for easy exploitation and abuse. The latter law was copied, significantly enough, by the Nazis. Bat Ye’or has shown that this law was enforced in Islam right from the beginning. The violence was not continuous, but the exploitation was, and the pattern of abuse initiated by Muhammad in Arabia in the seventh century was to be repeated throughout history. The first massacres of Jews in Europe, carried out by Muslim mobs in Spain, were preceded by other massacres carried out in North Africa, and clearly formed a continuum with Muhammad’s massacres of that people in Arabia.

  Nonetheless, there was, at times, a semblance of tolerance for both Jews and Christians. It could not have been otherwise. When the Arabs conquered the vast territories of Mesopotamia, Syria, and North Africa during the seventh century, they found themselves a small minority ruling over enormous populations comprising mainly Christians and, to a lesser degree, Jews. As such, they needed to proceed with caution. Like all conquerors, the Arab armies were quick to exploit any internal conflicts; and it was in their interests, above all, to divide the Christians from th
e Jews. This was particularly the case in Spain, where the Jewish population was very large. A united Jewish and Christian front could have proved extremely dangerous, and it was entirely in the interest of the conquerors to sow mistrust and suspicion between these communities. In the words of Bat Ye’or, “The [Arab] invaders knew how to take advantage of the dissensions between local groups in order to impose their own authority, favoring first one and then another, with the intention of weakening and ruining them all through a policy of ‘divide and rule.’”[5]

  Now, Jewish communities, both in Spain and elsewhere, tended to be both educated and prosperous. Jewish doctors, scientists and merchants could be usefully employed by any ruling group. And employed they were by the Arabs. Some, such as Ibn Naghrela, rose to positions of great prominence, whilst the international connections of the Jews and their mastery of languages proved invaluable to the new rulers. The Jews frequently found themselves in the role of intermediaries between Muslims and Christians. And we cannot pass over the role of Jewish merchants in supplying Muslim Spain with all its essentials – including slaves from northern and north-eastern Europe.[6]

  Yet such favors as the Jews enjoyed was transitory and uncertain. There was never any real security, as the massacres of 1011 and 1066 illustrate only too well. On the other hand, it was entirely in the interests of the Muslims that the Christians believed the Jews were favored. And part of that narrative was the notion that the Jews had actually assisted the Muslims in their conquest of the country.