Noam (Norman) A. Stillman
The Long Twilight
Summary
The flourishing first centuries of the Islamic Empire was also a period of efflorescence for the Jews of that world. That begins to change in the late 11th century and dramatically decreasing during the 12th-15th centuries. The secular and humanistic tendencies of medieval Islamic Hellenism started to wane and the Islamic religious element began to wax ever stronger and more intolerant. Non-Arab soldier castes ruled the successor states to the caliphate and imposed what could be called an ‘oriental brand of feudalism’ leading to Jews and Christians becoming increasingly marginalized, both socially and economically.
Noam (Norman) A. Stillman
Noam (Norman) A. Stillman is Schusterman/Josey Professor Emeritus at the University of Oklahoma and an internationally recognized authority on the history and culture of the Islamic world and on Sephardi and Oriental Jewry. His books include The Jews of Arab Lands: A History and Source Book and The Jews of Arab Lands in Modern Times, among others. He is executive editor of the award-winning Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World. He is chair of the Academic Council of the Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa (ASMEA) and sits on numerous boards of academic organizations, think tanks, and journals. He came to Israel permanently in 2016 and teaches each spring semester at the Hebrew University.
No, it probably was simply being there and also the fact that the overwhelming majority of the population were Muslim. There was also a great deal of anti-Mongol sentiment among the Sunni majority. It was probably done as much for political reasons as any. One of the things about the Mongols, they were pagans, but many of the Mongol leaders had Christian wives and they had a rather practical view when it came to religion.
No, that’s not the case. Most of those who converted were members of the upper economic class who felt pressured to do so. Sometimes people to escape poverty did so as well. But no, the vast majority of Jews in the Islamic world did not convert to Islam, perhaps because they were, even at the worst of times, still better off in many ways than were Jews in parts of Christian Europe.
They were always a minority. But Islam had its own anti-Jewish prejudices which were tempered by the positive side. In good times, the negative side could be avoided. This, and even Muslims could see that Jews had far more in common with them, say, than did Christians. The anti-Jewish sentiments of modern times are in part the Christian prejudices such as the blood libel which never existed in the Islamic world until they were brought by Catholic missionaries.