History and Hate: The Dimensions of Anti-Semitism

Anti-Semitism and the Muslim World

Anti-Semitism and the Muslim World JaneS. Gerber The study of anti-Semitism in the Muslim world is more than a definitional and semantic exercise. It is a study in theology and politics and their unique amalgam in time and space. Jews and Muslims have coexisted continuously since the birth of Islam. sometimes symbioticallyand atothertimes antagonistically. Their interaction has been on such a wide historic canvas and in such a variety ofcircumstances that any generalization about the status of the Jews will be schematic at best. Even during its era of greatest unity (ca. 800-12(0) the Islamic empire was not one historical entity but rather a dynamic human reality composed of a melange of different languages, people, cultures, and regimes. Disparities in time, attitude, and general cultural level characterize the Jews under Islam so palpably that comparison even within the Muslim orbit is extremely difficult. By juxtaposing the situation of the Jews in smoothly functioning . pluralistic, sixteenth-century Ottoman society' and the virtual caste system of rigidly stratified nineteenth-century Yemen ,2 or the exuberant Jewish life of Fatimid Egypt and the degradation ofnineteenth-century Cairene Jewry,1 the historian is confounded. Although the same theoretical framework regarding Jews prevailed in the courts and bazaars of fourteenth- and eighteenth-century Morocco, the quality ofJ€Wish life in the two 73 instances difJered markedly.4 Indeed, so varied is the historical experieoce ofJews in Muslim lands that virtually any thesis, be it negative or positive, can be buttressed by historical evidence. Analyses of anti-Semitism in Muslim lands are often flawed by the misleading analogy or comparison with the European Jewish experience. In general, Jewish life in Muslim lands was characterized by persistent discrimination and degradation. In Europe, on the other hand, Jewish life was prey to violent persecutions, not local episodic depredations, and crushing discriminatory legislation. The institutionalized and frequently systematic anti-Jewish discrimination confronted by European. Jewry through the ages stands in marked contrast to the smooth flow oflife ofJews under Islam. Although the Prophet Muhammedspoke oftheJews ofhis day in copious detail, the place ofthe Jew was entirely different in the Muslim Weltanschauung from the Christian one. Moreover, the gap between theory and practice, between anti-Jewish ideology and anti-Jewish behavior, was always wide in the lands ofIslam. Anti-Semitism in the Muslim world must be studied sui oeneris. Comparisons with Europe have led either to an unwarranted idealization of the Islamic past and its treatment of minorities or to an equally unscientific tendency to view all antiJewish manifestations, both Eastern and Western. as part of a universal pattern of tribulations in exile, undifferentiated by regime . law, time, or place. This latter tendency is undoubtedly strengthened by the habit ofJewish chroniclers-in both Europe and the Muslim world--ofdepicting Jewish tribulations stereotypically asoezerot. pem Or, or tzorot hatzorer. ~ As aresult, the reader is left with an impression of Jewish life in the Diaspora as uniformly and eternally plagued by the irrational, unpredictable, and all-encompassing evil ofanti-Semitism. Any systematic and nuanced study ofanti-Semitism in Muslim lands must also take into account the divergent attitudes held by various populations in the Muslim world. Although obvious, this factor should nonetheless be stated, because Western stu74 Jane S. Gerber dents are frequently unfamiliar with the decentralized, fragmented . and unstable nature of Islamic history. Sunni Muslims and Shi'rte Muslims, Malikis and Shafi'ites within the Sunni branch of Islam held varying views ofJews, which prevail until today. Sectariansand fundamentalist revivalistsdid not hesitate to exploit popular negative sentiments regarding the position ofthe Jews as a platfonn upon which they would seize power.6 Even the Shi'ites did not manifest a unifonn attitude toward Jews. Whereas tolerance toward Jews was a basic part ofthe statecraft of the sectarian Fatimids in medieval Egypt, Zeims in Yemen displayed none ofthis tolerance. Varieties ofoutlook towardJews in Muslim lands were also influenced by the diverse positions of the Christian minorities towardJews. lbis isespecially the case in the early modem era when Christian anti-Semitism, rather than Muslim intolerance perse, embittered Jewish existence. Yet commonalities do exist, and the diverse strands or population groupings among Muslims ultimately draw upon a common legacy regarding Jews. This legacy reaches back to the dawn ofIslam in Arabia and the paradigm ofthe Prophet Muhammed. Consideration of the Jewish condition and of the attitudes towardJews in Muslim lands isbestachieved throughadivision of Islamic history into four main...