By Mitchell Bard
Arabs sometimes claim that, as "Semites," they
cannot possibly be antiSemitic. This, however, is a
semantic distortion that ignores the reality of Arab
discrimination and hostility toward Jews. Arabs, like any
other people, can indeed be antiSemitic.
The term "antiSemite" was
coined in Germany in 1879 by Wilhelm Marrih to refer to
the antiJewish manifestations of the period and to give
Jewhatred a more scientific sounding name.(1)
"AntiSemitism" has been accepted and
understood to mean hatred of the Jewish people.
While Jewish communities in Arab and
Islamic countries fared better overall than those in
Christian lands in Europe, Jews were no strangers to
persecution and humiliation among the Arabs and Muslim. As
Princeton University historian Bernard Lewis has written:
"The Golden Age of equal rights was a myth, and
belief in it was a result, more than a cause, of Jewish
sympathy for Islam."(2)
Muhammad, the founder of Islam,
traveled to Medina in 622 A.D. to attract followers to his
new faith. When the Jews of Medina refused to convert and
rejected Muhammad, two of the major Jewish tribes were
expelled; in 627, Muhammad's followers killed between 600
and 900 of the men, and divided the surviving Jewish women
and children amongst themselves.(3)
The Muslim attitude toward Jews is
reflected in various verses throughout the Koran, the holy
book of the Islamic faith. "They [the Children of
Israel] were consigned to humiliation and wretchedness.
They brought the wrath of God upon themselves, and this
because they used to deny God's signs and kill His
Prophets unjustly and because they disobeyed and were
transgressors" (Sura 2:61). According to the Koran,
the Jews try to introduce corruption (5:64), have always
been disobedient (5:78), and are enemies of Allah, the
Prophet and the angels (2:9798).
The Dhimmi
Still, as "People of the
Book," Jews (and Christians) are protected under
Islamic law. The traditional concept of the "dhimma"
("writ of protection") was extended by Muslim
conquerors to Christians and Jews in exchange for their
subordination to the Muslims. Peoples subjected to Muslim
rule usually had a choice between death and conversion,
but Jews and Christians, who adhered to the Scriptures,
were allowed as dhimmis (protected persons) to practice
their faith. This "protection" did little,
however, to insure that Jews and Christians were treated
well by the Muslims. On the contrary, an integral aspect
of the dhimma was that, being an infidel, he had to openly
acknowledge the superiority of the true believer--the
Muslim.
In the early years of the Islamic
conquest, the "tribute" (or jizya), paid
as a yearly poll tax, symbolized the subordination of the
dhimmi. Later, the inferior status of Jews and Christians
was reinforced through a series of regulations that
governed the behavior of the dhimmi. Dhimmis, on pain of
death, were forbidden to mock or criticize the Koran,
Islam or Muhammad, to proselytize among Muslims or to
touch a Muslim woman (though a Muslim man could take a nonMuslim
as a wife).
Dhimmis were excluded from public
office and armed service, and were forbidden to bear arms.
They were not allowed to ride horses or camels, to build
synagogues or churches taller than mosques, to construct
houses higher than those of Muslims or to drink wine in
public. They were not allowed to pray or mourn in loud
voices-as that might offend the Muslims. The dhimmi had to
show public deference toward Muslims-always yielding them
the center of the road. The dhimmi was not allowed to give
evidence in court against a Muslim, and his oath was
unacceptable in an Islamic court. To defend himself, the
dhimmi would have to purchase Muslim witnesses at great
expense. This left the dhimmi with little legal recourse
when harmed by a Muslim.(4)
Dhimmis were also forced to wear
distinctive clothing. In the ninth century, for example,
Baghdad's Caliph alMutawakkil designated a yellow badge
for Jews, setting a precedent that would be followed
centuries later in Nazi Germany.(5)
Violence Against Jews
At various times, Jews in Muslim lands
were able to live in relative peace and thrive culturally
and economically. The position of the Jews was never
secure, however, and changes in the political or social
climate would often lead to persecution, violence and
death. Jews were generally viewed with contempt by their
Muslim neighbors; peaceful coexistence between the two
groups involved the subordination and degradation of the
Jews.
When Jews were perceived as having
achieved too comfortable a position in Islamic society,
antiSemitism would surface, often with devastating
results: On December 30, 1066, Joseph HaNagid, the Jewish
vizier of Granada, Spain, was crucified by an Arab mob
that proceeded to raze the Jewish quarter of the city and
slaughter its 5,000 inhabitants. The riot was incited by
Muslim preachers who had angrily objected to what they saw
as inordinate Jewish political power.
Similarly, in 1465, Arab mobs in Fez
slaughtered thousands of Jews, leaving only 11 alive,
after a Jewish deputy vizier treated a Muslim woman in
"an offensive manner." The killings touched off
a wave of similar massacres throughout Morocco.(6)
Other mass murders of Jews in Arab
lands occurred in Morocco in the 8th century, where whole
communities were wiped out by Muslim ruler Idris I; North
Africa in the 12th century, where the Almohads either
forcibly converted or decimated several communities; Libya
in 1785, where Ali Burzi Pasha murdered hundreds of Jews;
Algiers, where Jews were massacred in 1805, 1815 and 1830
and Marrakesh, Morocco, where more than 300 hundred Jews
were murdered between 1864 and 1880.(7)
Decrees ordering the destruction of
synagogues were enacted in Egypt and Syria (1014, 12934,
13012), Iraq (854859, 1344) and Yemen (1676). Despite
the Koran's prohibition, Jews were forced to convert to
Islam or face death in Yemen (1165 and 1678), Morocco
(1275, 1465 and 179092) and Baghdad (1333 and 1344).(8)
As distinguished Orientalist G.E. von
Grunebaum has written:
It would not be difficult to put
together the names of a very sizeable number of Jewish
subjects or citizens of the Islamic area who have
attained to high rank, to power, to great financial
influence, to significant and recognized intellectual
attainment; and the same could be done for Christians.
But it would again not be difficult to compile a lengthy
list of persecutions, arbitrary confiscations, attempted
forced conversions, or pogroms.(9)
The situation of Jews in Arab lands
reached a low point in the 19th century. Jews in most of
North Africa (including Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and
Morocco) were forced to live in ghettos. In Morocco, which
contained the largest Jewish community in the Islamic
Diaspora, Jews were made to walk barefoot or wear shoes of
straw when outside the ghetto. Even Muslim children
participated in the degradation of Jews, by throwing
stones at them or harassing them in other ways. The
frequency of antiJewish violence increased, and many
Jews were executed on charges of apostasy. Ritual murder
accusations against the Jews became commonplace in the
Ottoman Empire.(10)
By the twentieth century, the status of
the dhimmi in Muslim lands had not significantly improved.
H.E.W. Young, British Vice Consul in Mosul, wrote in 1909:
The attitude of the Muslims toward
the Christians and the Jews is that of a master towards
slaves, whom he treats with a certain lordly tolerance
so long as they keep their place. Any sign of pretension
to equality is promptly repressed.(11)
The danger for Jews became even greater
as a showdown approached in the UN over partition in 1947.
The Syrian delegate, Faris elKhouri, warned:
"Unless the Palestine problem is settled, we shall
have difficulty in protecting and safeguarding the Jews in
the Arab world."(12)
More than a thousand Jews were killed
in antiJewish rioting during the 1940's in Iraq, Libya,
Egypt, Syria and Yemen.(13)
This helped trigger the mass exodus of Jews from Arab
countries.
Notes
1. Vamberto Morais, A Short
History of Anti-Semitism, (NY: W.W Norton and Co.,
1976), p. 11; Bernard Lewis, Semites & Anti-Semites,
(NY: WW Norton & Co., 1986), p. 81.
2. Bernard Lewis, "The
Pro-Islamic Jews," Judaism, (Fall 1968), p.
401.
3. Bat Ye'or, The Dhimmi,
(NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1985), pp.
43-44.
4. Bat Yeor, pp. 30, 56-57; Louis
Gardet, La Cite Musulmane: Vie sociale et politique,
(Paris: Etudes musulmanes, 1954), p. 348.
5. Bat Yeor, pp. 185-86, 191, 194.
6. Norman Stillman, The Jews of
Arab Lands, (PA: The Jewish Publication Society of
America, 1979), pp. 59, 284.
7. Maurice Roumani, The Case of
the Jews from Arab Countries: A Neglected Issue, (Tel
Aviv: World Organization of Jews from Arab Countries,
1977), pp. 26-27.
8. Bat Ye'or, p. 61
9. G.E. Von Grunebaum, "Eastern
Jewry Under Islam," Viator, (1971), p. 369.
10. Bernard Lewis, The Jews of
Islam, (NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984) p. 158.
11. Middle Eastern Studies,
(1971), p. 232.
12. New York Times,
(February 19, 1947).
13. Roumani, pp. 30-31.
The above article was originally published in The
Jewish Student Online Research Center
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