"In the Muslim community, the holy war is a religious duty, because of the universalism of the [Muslim] mission and [the obligation to] convert everybody to Islam either by persuasion or by force... The other religious groups did not have a universal mission, and the holy war was not a religious duty for them, save only for purposes of defense... Islam is under obligation to gain power over other nations."

Although Maimonides is referred to as a paragon of Jewish achievement facilitated by the enlightened rule of Muslim Spain, his own words debunk this utopian view.

Muslim Spain was a country of constant jihad ruled under Maliki jurisdiction, which provided a severe, repressive interpretation of Islamic law. For example, the Maliki jurist Ibn Abi Zayd al-Qayrawani (d. 996), characterized jihad as follows:

"Jihad is a precept of Divine institution. Its performance by certain individuals may dispense others from it. We Malikis maintain that it is preferable not to begin hostilities with the enemy before having invited the latter to embrace the religion of Allah except where the enemy attacks first. They have the alternative of either converting to Islam or paying the poll tax (jizya), short of which war will be declared against them."

And Maliki jurist Ibn Abdun offered these telling legal opinions regarding Jews and Christians in Seville around 1100 C.E.:

"No Jew or Christian may be allowed to wear the dress of an aristocrat, nor of a jurist, nor of a wealthy individual; on the contrary they must be detested and avoided. It is forbidden to accost them with the greeting, 'Peace be upon you'. In effect, 'Satan has gained possession of them, and caused them to forget God's warning. They are the confederates of Satan's party; Satan's confederates will surely be the losers!' (Qur'an 58:19 [modern Dawood translation]). A distinctive sign must be imposed upon them in order that they may be recognized and this will be for them a form of disgrace."

The indigenous Christians and Jews of Spain, conquered by the Arab Muslim jihad wars, thus submit-ted to Islamic domination under a "Pact" -- or Dhimma -- which imposed degrading and discriminatory regulations, consistent with the Qur'anic injunction in 9:29. As Bat Ye'or has pointed out, the main principles of this "dhimmitude" were : (i) the inequality of rights in all domains between Muslims and dhimmis; (ii) the social and economic discrimination against the dhimmis; (iii) the humiliation and vulnerability of the dhimmis. And there were dire consequences for infidel dhimmis in Muslim Spain who rebelled against the repressive Dhimma: slaughter of the rebels, and enslavement of their women and children.

In addition to a small minority of privileged Christian notables, Muslim Spain was populated by tens of thousands of Christian slaves, and humiliated and oppressed Christian dhimmis. The muwallads (neo-converts to Islam) were in nearly perpetual revolt against the Arab immigrants who had claimed large estates for themselves, farmed by Christian serfs or slaves. Expropriations and fiscal extortions ignited the flames of continual rebellion by both muwallads and mozarabs (Christian dhimmis) throughout the Iberian peninsula. Leaders of these rebellions were crucified, and their insurgent followers were put to the sword. These bloody conflicts, which occurred throughout the Hispano-Umayyad emirate until the tenth century, fueled endemic religious hatred. An 828 C.E. letter from Louis the Pious to the Christians of Merida summarized their plight under Abd al-Rahman II, and during the preceding reign: confiscation of their property, unfair increase of their exacted tribute, removal of their freedom (probably meaning slavery), and oppression by excessive taxes.

In Granada, the Jewish viziers Samuel Ibn Naghrela and his son Joseph, who protected a once flourishing Jewish community, were both assassinated between 1056 to 1066, followed by the annihilation of the Jewish population by the local Muslim community. At least three thousand Jews perished in an uprising surrounding the 1066 assassination, alone. The Muslim Berber Almohads in Spain and North Africa (1130-1232) wreaked enormous destruction on both the Jewish and Christian populations. This devastation -- massacre, captivity, and forced conversion -- was described by the Jewish chronicler Abraham Ibn Daud, and the poet Abraham Ibn Ezra. Suspicious of the sincerity of the Jewish converts to Islam, Muslim "inquisitors" (i.e., antedating their Christian Spanish counterparts by three centuries) removed the children from such families, placing them in the care of Muslim educators.

Maimonides, the renowned philosopher and physician, experienced the Almohad persecutions, and had to flee Cordova with his entire family in 1148, temporarily residing in Fez -- disguised as a Muslim -- before finding asylum in Fatimid Egypt. Indeed, although Maimonides is frequently referred to as a paragon of Jewish achievement facilitated by the enlightened rule of Muslim Spain, his own words debunk this utopian view of the Islamic treatment of Jews: "The Arabs have persecuted us severely, and passed baneful and discriminatory legislation against us...Never did a nation molest, degrade, debase, and hate us as much as they..."

The eminent historian of Islam, Bernard Lewis, observed 35 years ago in an article in Judaism (Fall 1978) that nineteenth-century "Pro-Islamic" Jews promoted a

Outpost               - 8 -               October 2003