There is considerable debate about the nature of antisemitism in Islam, including Muslim attitudes towards Jews, Islamic teachings on Jews and Judaism, and the treatment of Jews in Islamic societies throughout the history of Islam. Islamic literary sources have both described Jewish groups in negative terms and called for acceptance of them.
With the rise of Islam in Arabia in the 7th century CE and its subsequent spread during the early Muslim conquests, Jews, alongside a number of other peoples, became subject to the rule of Islamic polities. Their quality of life under Muslim rule varied considerably in different periods, as did the attitudes of the rulers, government officials, the clergy, and the general population towards Jews, ranging from tolerance to persecution. finding justification in some depictions of the Banu Israil (Islamic name for the Israelites) made in the Quran.
Range of opinions
- Claude Cahen and Shelomo Dov Goitein argue against the claim that antisemitism has a long history in Muslim countries, writing that the discrimination that was practiced against non-Muslims () was of a general nature, so it was not specifically directed against Jews. According to these scholars, antisemitism in medieval Islam was local and sporadic rather than general and endemic.
- Bernard Lewis writes that while Muslims have held stereotypes of Jews throughout most of Islamic history, these stereotypes were different from those stereotypes which accompanied European medieval antisemitism because, unlike Christians who considered Jews objects of fear, Muslims considered Jews objects of only ridicule. He argues that Muslims did not attribute "cosmic evil" to Jews. In Lewis's view, it was only in the late 19th century that movements first appeared among Muslims that can be described as antisemitic in the European forms.
- Frederick M. Schweitzer and Marvin Perry argue that there are mostly negative references to Jews in the Quran and Hadith, and that Islamic regimes treated Jews in degrading ways. They assert that both the Jews and the Christians were relegated to the status of dhimmi. Schweitzer and Perry state that throughout much of history, Christians treated Jews worse than Muslims did, stating that Jews in the lands of Christendom were subjected to worse polemics, persecutions, and massacres than Jews living under Muslim rule.
- According to Walter Laqueur, the varying interpretations of the Quran are important for understanding Muslim attitudes towards Jews. A number of Quranic verses preach tolerance towards the Jews; others make hostile remarks about them (which are similar to hostile remarks against all who do not accept Islam). Muhammad interacted with the Jewish tribes of Arabia: he preached to convert them, fought and killed some, but also befriended other Jews.
- Amal Saad-Ghorayeb, a Lebanese writer and political analyst, devoted a chapter of her book Hizbu'llah: Politics and Religion to an analysis of Hezbollah's anti-Jewish racial antisemitism and anti-Judaism. She argues that although Zionism has influenced Hezbollah's anti-Judaism, "it is not contingent upon it" because Hezbollah's hatred of Jews is more religiously motivated than politically motivated. According to Bernard Lewis, the attention given to Jews is relatively insignificant.
Terms referring to Jews
Bani Israil
The Quran makes 44 specific references to the Banū Isrāʾīl (the Children of Israel). although the term might refer to both Jews and Arab Christians as a single religious lineage. According to Khalid Duran, the negative passages use Yahūd, while the positive references speak mainly of the Banū Isrāʾīl.
Negative references to Jews
The references in the Quran to Jews are interpreted in different ways. According to Frederick M. Schweitzer and Marvin Perry, these references are "mostly negative".
Adoption of Jewish practices
According to Bernard Lewis and some other scholars, the earliest verses of the Quran were largely sympathetic to Jews. Muhammad admired them as fellow monotheists and saw them as natural adherents to his new faith. Early Islam followed similar religious practices to Jews, and may have been modeled to a degree on Judaism:
- Jewish prayer is fixed and mandatory at least three times daily, depending on the day of the week and the time of year, with () as the morning service, () as the afternoon service, and () as the evening service. On Shabbat, which begins with Kabbalat Shabbat and Ma'ariv every Friday night, Jews congregate to pray, engage in Torah study, and rest. Jews have prayed toward the site of the Jerusalem Temple since the compilation of tractate Berkahot in the Talmud, if not before. Jews observe fasts and holy days other than Shabbat throughout the Hebrew year.
- Similarly, Muslims are obligated to perform five times daily according to fixed prayer times. Muslims congregate on ('Day of Congregation') for Friday prayers (though Friday is not considered a holy day like Shabbat). Until 623 CE, the Islamic qibla was Jerusalem. Muslims observe fasts like Ramadan and religious holidays.
Judaism in Quranic theology
According to Bernard Lewis, there is nothing in Islamic theology, with one single exception, that can be considered refutations of Judaism or ferocious anti-Jewish diatribes. Lewis and Chanes suggest that, for a variety of reasons, Muslims were not antisemitic for the most part. The Quran, like Judaism, orders Muslims to profess strict monotheism. It also rejects the stories of Jewish deicide as a blasphemous absurdity, and other similar stories in the Gospels play no part in the Muslim educational system. The Quran does not present itself as a fulfillment of the Hebrew Bible but rather a restoration of its original message (see Tahrif for such claimed alterations and Tawrat for the Islamic understanding of the Torah as an Islamic holy book). In such a line of argument, no clash of interpretations between Judaism and Islam can arise.
In addition, Lewis argues that the Quran lacks the popular Western traditions of 'guilt and betrayal'. Rosenblatt and Pinson suggest that the Quran teaches tolerance toward Judaism as a fellow monotheistic faith.
Lewis adds that negative attributes ascribed to subject religions (in this case Judaism and Christianity) are usually expressed in religious and social terms, but only rarely in ethnic or racial terms. However, this does sometimes occur. The language of abuse is often quite strong. Lewis adduces that three Quranic verses (, , ) ground conventional Muslim epithets for Jews (as apes) and Christians (as pigs). The interpretation of these 'enigmatic' passages in Islamic exegetics is highly complex, dealing as they do with infractions like breaking the Sabbath. According to Goitein, the idea of Jewish Sabbath breakers turning into apes may reflect the influence of Yemeni midrashim. Firestone notes that the Qurayza tribe itself is described in Muslim sources as using the trope of being turned into apes if one breaks the Sabbath to justify not exploiting the Sabbath in order to attack Mohammad, when they were under siege.
According to Stillman, the Quran praises Moses, and depicts the Israelites as the recipients of divine favour. He quotes verse as an example,
<blockquote>And We blessed him with Isaac and Jacob. We guided them all as We previously guided Noah and those among his descendants: David, Solomon, Job, Joseph, Moses, and Aaron. This is how We reward the good-doers. Likewise, ˹We guided˺ Zachariah, John, Jesus, and Elias, who were all of the righteous. ˹We also guided˺ Ishmael, Elisha, Jonah, and Lot, favouring each over other people ˹of their time˺.</blockquote>
Quranic remarks about Jews
Leon Poliakov, Walter Laqueur, argue that passages in the Quran reproach Jews for their refusal to recognize Muhammad as a prophet of God. The Muslim holy text defined the Arab and Muslim attitude towards Jews to this day, especially in the periods when Islamic fundamentalism was on the rise. It says:
However, due to the Quran's timely process of storytelling, some scholars argue that all references to Jews or other groups within the Quran refer only to certain populations at a certain point in history. Also, the Quran praises some Jews in :
"Indeed, the believers, Jews, Sabians and Christians—whoever ˹truly˺ believes in Allah and the Last Day and does good, there will be no fear for them, nor will they grieve."
The Quran gives credence to the Christian claim of Jews scheming against Jesus, " ... but God also schemed, and God is the best of schemers." () In the mainstream Muslim view, the crucifixion of Jesus was an illusion, and thus the Jewish plots against him failed. According to Gerber, in multiple verses (; ; ; ; , , ; ) the Quran accuses Jews of altering the Scripture. although the Quran emphasizes the killing of the Jewish prophets by the Israelites, Reynolds remarks that none of them were killed by the Israelites according to the Biblical account.
Some verses of the Quran, notably , preach tolerance towards members of the Jewish faith. According to Kramer, Jews are regarded as members of a legitimate community of believers in God, "people of the Book", and therefore legally entitled to sufferance. Most commentators suggest that the description, "those who earn Thine anger" in refers to the Jews. Israel Shrenzel, former chief analyst in the Arabic section of the research division of the Shin Bet and a current teacher in Tel Aviv University’s department of Arabic and Islamic studies wrote, "Given that there is contradiction between the content and message of the two groups of verses – those hostile to Jews and those tolerant toward them – the question is which group is to be adopted nowadays by the Muslim scholars and masses. The more dominant view adheres to the first group".
Hostilities during Muhammad's lifetime
During Muhammad's life, Jews lived on the Arabian Peninsula, especially in and around Medina. Muhammad is known to have had a Jewish wife, Safiyya bint Huyayy, who subsequently converted to Islam. Safiyya, who was previously the wife of Kenana ibn al-Rabi, was selected by Muhammad as his bride after the Battle of Khaybar.
According to Islamic sources, the Medinian Jews began to develop friendly alliances with Muhammad's enemies in Mecca so they could overthrow him, despite the fact that they had promised, in the Constitution of Medina, to take his side and fight against his enemies. Two Jewish tribes were expelled and the third one was wiped out. The Banu Qaynuqa was expelled for their hostility against the Muslims and for mocking them. The Banu Nadir was expelled after they attempted to assassinate Muhammad. The last one, the Banu Qurayza, was wiped out after the Battle of Trench, in which they allegedly attempted to ally themselves with the invading Quraysh.
Samuel Rosenblatt opines that these incidents were not part of policies directed exclusively against Jews, and Muhammad was more severe with his pagan Arab relatives. The cause of Muhammad's death is disputable, though the Hadith tends to suggest he may have eventually succumbed to being poisoned at Khaybar by one of his surviving Jewish widows.
According to Rosenblatt, Muhammad's disputes with the neighboring Jewish tribes left no marked traces on his immediate successors (known as caliphs). The first caliphs generally based their treatment of Jews upon the Quranic verses that encourage tolerance. Fred Donner argues that Muhammad turned against the Banu Qaynuqa because, as artisans and traders, the latter were in close contact with Meccan merchants. Dutch early twentieth-century Semiticist Arent Jan Weinsinck viewed the episodes cited by Muslim historians used to justify the Jews' expulsion as having no more than anecdotal value. He writes that the Jews had assumed a contentious attitude towards Muhammad, and as a group possessing substantial independent power, they posed a great danger. Wensinck thus concludes that Muhammad, strengthened by the victory at the Battle of Badr, soon resolved to eliminate the Jewish opposition to himself. Norman Stillman also believes that Muhammad decided to move against the Jews of Medina after being strengthened in the wake of the Battle of Badr.
Thus, in 624 CE, Muhammad approached the Banu Qaynuqa, gathered them in the marketplace, and warned them to stop their hostility, lest they suffer the same fate as the Quraysh at Badr. He also told them to accept Islam, saying he was a prophet sent by God, supposedly per the Hebrew Bible. The tribe responded by mocking Muhammad's followers for accepting him as a prophet and also mocked their victory at Badr, saying the Quraysh had no knowledge of war. They then warned him that if he ever fought with them, he would know that they were real men. Subsequently, the tribe was charged with treason and besieged by the Muslims commanded by Muhammad. The Banu Qurayza eventually surrendered, and their men were beheaded. The 'spoils' of battle, including enslaved women and children of the tribe, were divided up among the Muslims who had participated in the siege and among the emigrees from Mecca who had until now depended on the help of the native Muslims. Although the Banu Qurayza never took up arms against Muhammad or the Muslims, they entered into negotiations with the invading army and violated the Constitution of Medina. However, Nuaym ibn Masud sowed discord between the invading forces and the Banu Qurayza, thereby breaking down the negotiations.
The Jewish tribe of Khaybar
In 567, Khaybar was invaded and its Jewish inhabitants were driven out by the Ghassanid Arab Christian king Al-Harith ibn Jabalah. He was later released from captivity upon his return to the Levant. A brief account of the campaign is given by Ibn Qutaybah, and potentially also mentioned in the sixth-century Harran inscription. See Irfan Shahid's Byzantium and the Arabs in the Sixth Century for full details.
In the 7th century, Khaybar was inhabited by Jews, who pioneered the cultivation of the oasis and made their living growing date palm trees, as well as through commerce and craftsmanship, accumulating considerable wealth. Some objects found by the Muslims when they entered Khaybar — a siege-engine, 20 bales of Yemenite cloth, and 500 cloaks — point to an intense trade carried out by the Jews. In the past, some scholars attempted to explain the siege engine by suggesting that it was used to settle quarrels among the community's families. Today, most academics believe it was stored in a depôt for future sale, in the same way that the Jews had sold swords, lances, shields, and other weaponry to Arabs. Equally, the cloth and the cloaks may have been intended for sale, as it was unlikely that such a quantity of luxury goods was kept for the exclusive use of the Jews.
The oasis was divided into three regions: al-Natat, al-Shikk, and al-Katiba, probably separated by natural divisions, such as the desert, lava drifts, and swamps. Each of these regions contained several fortresses or redoubts, each with homes, storehouses, and stables. Each fortress was occupied by a separate family and surrounded by cultivated fields and palm groves. To improve their defensive capabilities, the settlers built fortresses on hills or basalt rocks.
Jews continued to live in the oasis for several more years afterwards until they were finally expelled by the caliph Umar. The imposition of tribute upon the conquered Jews of the Khaybar Fortress served as a precedent. Islamic law came to require exaction of tribute known as jizya from dhimmis (i.e., non-Muslims under Muslim rule).
For centuries, the oasis at Khaybar was an important caravan stopping place. The center developed around a series of ancient dams built to hold run-off water from the rain. Around the water catchments, date palms grew. Khaybar became an important date-producing center.
The words "humility" and "humiliation" occur frequently in the Quran and later Muslim literature in relation to Jews. According to Lewis, "This, in Islamic view, is their just punishment for their past rebelliousness, and is manifested in their present impotence between the mighty powers of Christendom and Islam." The standard Quranic reference to Jews is verse : "And remember ye said: "O Moses! we cannot endure one kind of food (always); so beseech thy Lord for us to produce for us of what the earth groweth, -its pot-herbs, and cucumbers, garlic, lentils, and onions." He said: "Will ye exchange the better for the worse? Go ye down to any town, and ye shall find what ye want!" They were covered with humiliation and misery; they drew on themselves the wrath of Allah. This because they went on rejecting the Signs of Allah and slaying His Messengers without just cause. This because they rebelled and went on transgressing."
Two verses later we read: "And ˹remember˺ when We took a covenant from you and raised the mountain above you ˹saying˺, “Hold firmly to that ˹Scripture˺ which We have given you and observe its teachings so perhaps you will become mindful ˹of Allah˺.” Yet you turned away afterwards. Had it not been for Allah's grace and mercy upon you, you would have certainly been of the losers. You are already aware of those of you who broke the Sabbath. We said to them, “Be disgraced apes!” So We made their fate an example to present and future generations, and a lesson to the God-fearing."
The Quran associates Jews with the rejection of God's prophets, including Jesus and Muhammad, thus explaining their resistance to him personally. (Cf. Surah ; , 61, 70, and 82.) It also asserts that Jews and Christians claim to be children of God (Surah ), and that only they will achieve salvation (Surah ). According to the Quran, Jews blasphemously claim that Ezra is the son of God, as Christians claim Jesus is, (Surah ) and that God's hand is fettered (Surah – i.e., that they can freely defy God). Some of those who are Jews, "pervert words from their meanings", (Surah ), and because they have committed wrongdoing, God has "forbidden some good things that were previously permitted them", thus explaining Jewish commandments regarding food, Sabbath restrictions on work, and other rulings as a punishment from God (Surah ). They listen for the sake of mendacity (Surah ), twisting the truth, and practice forbidden usury, and therefore they will receive "a painful doom" (Surah ). the Constitution of Medina. This contract, known as "the Leaf" (ṣaḥīfa), upheld a peaceful coexistence between Muslims, Jews, and Christians, defining them all, under certain conditions, as constituting the ummah, or "community", of that city and granting freedom of religious thought and practice to all. Alongside the roughly 200 emigrants from Mecca (Muhājirūn) who had followed Muhammad, the population of Yathrib/Medina consisted of the Faithful of Medina (Anṣār, "the Helpers"), Arab Pagans, three Jewish tribes, and some Christians.
The foundational constitution sought to establish, for the first time in history, according to Ali Khan, a formal agreement securing interfaith coexistence, with articles requiring mutual support in the defense of the city:
The three local Jewish tribes were the Banu Nadir, the Banu Qurayza, and the Banu Qaynuqa. According to Rodinson, Muhammad had no prejudice against them, and appears to have regarded his own message as substantially the same as that received by Jews at Mount Sinai. Reuven Firestone claims that tribal politics, and Muhammad's deep frustration with Jewish refusals to accept his prophethood, quickly led to a break with all three.
Jews in Hadith
The Hadith—believed to be non-Quranic accounts of Muhammad—use both Banu Israil and Yahud as terms for Jews, the latter term becoming increasingly common and appearing mostly in negative contexts. For example, Jews were "cursed and changed into rats" in (see also ).
According to Norman Stillman:
<blockquote> Jews in Medina are singled out as "men whose malice and enmity was aimed at the Apostle of God". The Yahūd in this literature appear not only as malicious, but also deceitful, cowardly and totally lacking resolve. However, they have none of the demonic qualities attributed to them in mediaeval Christian literature, neither is there anything comparable to the overwhelming preoccupation with Jews and Judaism (except perhaps in the narratives on Muhammad's encounters with Medinan Jewry) in Muslim traditional literature. Except for a few notable exceptions ... the Jews in the Sira and the Maghazi are even heroic villains. Their ignominy stands in marked contrast to Muslim heroism, and in general, conforms to the Quranic image of "wretchedness and baseness stamped upon them".
Different interpretations about the Gharqad tree mentioned in the Hadith exist. One interpretation is that the Gharqad tree is an actual tree. Israelis have been alleged to plant the tree around various locations, e.g., their settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, around the Israel Museum, and the Knesset. Other claims about the tree are that it grows outside Jerusalem's Herod's Gate or that it is actually a bush that grows outside Jaffa Gate which some Muslims believe is where Jesus will return to Earth and slay the Dajjal, following the final battle between the Muslims and unbelievers which some believe will take place directly below the Jaffa Gate and the Sultan's Pool. Another interpretation that exists is that the mention of the Gharqad tree is symbolic and is in reference to all the forces of the world believed to conspire with the Jews against Muslims.
Medieval Islam
Jerome Chanes,
Literature
According to Lewis, the outstanding characteristic of the classical Islamic view of Jews is their unimportance. The religious, philosophical, and literary Islamic writings tended to ignore Jews and focused more on Christianity. Although Jews received little praise and faced blame and accusations like blood libels, there were no fears of conspiracy, domination, or evil, nor charges of poisoning wells, spreading plague, or engaging in blood libels until the Ottomans adopted these concepts from their Greek subjects in the 15th century.
Poliakov writes that various examples of medieval Muslim literature portray Judaism as an exemplary pinnacle of faith, and Israel as being destined by this virtue. He quotes stories from The Book of One Thousand and One Nights that portray Jews as pious, virtuous, and devoted to God, and seems to borrow plots from the Midrash. However, Poliakov writes that treatment of Jews in Muslim literature varies, and the tales are meant for pure entertainment, with no didactic aim.
After Samuel ibn Naghrillah, a Jew, attacked the Quran by alleging various contradictions in it, Ibn Hazm, a Moor, criticized him furiously. Ibn Hazm wrote that Ibn Naghrillah was "filled with hatred" and "conceited in his vile soul".
According to Schweitzer and Perry, some literature during the 10th and 11th centuries "made Jews out to be untrustworthy, treacherous oppressors, and exploiters of Muslims". This propaganda sometimes even resulted in outbreaks of violence against Jews. An 11th-century Moorish poem describes Jews as "a criminal people" and blames them for causing social decay, betraying Muslims, and poisoning food and water. As dhimma, Jews were to be tolerated, and were entitled to the protection and resources of the ummah, or Muslim community. In return, they had to pay a tax known as the jizya as required by the Quran. Lewis and Poliakov argue that Jewish communities enjoyed toleration and limited rights as long as they accepted Muslim superiority. These rights were legally established and enforced. The restrictions on dhimmi included: payment of higher taxes; at some locations, being forced to wear clothing or some other insignia distinguishing them from Muslims; sometimes barred from holding public office, bearing arms or riding a horse; disqualified as witnesses in litigation involving Muslims; at some locations and times, dhimmi were prevented from repairing existing or erecting new places of worship. Proselytizing on behalf of any faith but Islam was barred.
Dhimmi were subjected to a number of restrictions, the application and severity of which varied with time and place. Restrictions included residency in segregated quarters, obligation to wear distinctive clothing such as the Yellow badge, public subservience to Muslims, prohibitions against proselytizing and against marrying Muslim women, and limited access to the legal system (the testimony of a dhimmi did not count if contradicted by that of a Muslim). Dhimmi had to pay a special poll tax (the jizya), which exempted them from military service, and also from payment of the zakat alms tax required of Muslims. In return, dhimmi were granted limited rights, including a degree of tolerance, community autonomy in personal matters, and protection from being killed outright. Jewish communities, like Christian ones, were typically constituted as semi-autonomous entities, governed by their own laws and leadership, and responsible to the Muslim rulers.
By medieval standards, conditions for Jews under Islam were often more formalized and better than those of Jews in Christian lands. However, treatment of Jews in medieval Christian and Islamic countries greatly varied on ruler and nation. This was in part due to the sharing of minority status with Christians in these lands. There is evidence for this claim in that the status of Jews in lands with no Christian minority was usually worse than their status in lands with one. For example, there were incidents of massacres and ethnic cleansing of Jews in North Africa, especially in Morocco, Libya, and Algeria where eventually Jews were forced to live in ghettos. Decrees ordering the destruction of synagogues were enacted in the Middle Ages in Egypt, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen. At certain times in Yemen, Morocco, and Baghdad, Jews were forced to convert to Islam or face the death penalty.
Later additions to the code included prohibitions on adopting Arab names, studying the Quran, and selling alcoholic beverages. The situation where Jews both enjoyed cultural and economic prosperity at times, but were widely persecuted at other times, was summarised by G. E. Von Grunebaum:
<blockquote>It would not be difficult to put together the names of a very sizable 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.
</blockquote>
Schweitzer and Perry give as examples of early Muslim antisemitism: 9th-century "persecution and outbreaks of violence"; 10th- and 11th-century antisemitic propaganda that "made Jews out to be untrustworthy, treacherous oppressors, and exploiters of Muslims". This propaganda "inspired outbreaks of violence and caused many casualties in Egypt". An 11th-century Moorish poem describes Jews as "a criminal people" and alleges that "society is nearing collapse on account of Jewish wealth and domination, their exploitation and betrayal of Muslims; that Jews worship the devil, physicians poison their patients, and Jews poison food and water as required by Judaism, and so on." Forced conversions occurred mainly in the Maghreb, especially under the Almohads, a militant dynasty with messianic claims, as well as in Persia, where Shia Muslims were generally less tolerant than their Sunni counterparts. Notable examples of the cases where the choice of residence was taken away from them include confining Jews to walled quarters (mellah) in Morocco beginning from the 15th century and especially since the early 19th century.
Egypt and Iraq
The caliphs of the Fatimid dynasty in Egypt were known to be Judeophiles, according to Leon Poliakov. They regularly paid to support Jewish institutions (such as the rabbinical academy in Jerusalem). A significant number of their ministers and counselors were Jews. The Abbasids, too, were similarly respectful and tolerant towards the Jews under their rule. Benjamin of Tudela, a famous 12th-century Jewish explorer, described the Caliph al-Abbasi as a "great king and kind unto Israel". Benjamin also further goes on to describe about al-Abassi that "many belonging to the people of Israel are his attendants, he knows all languages and is well-versed in the Law of Israel. He reads and writes the holy language [Hebrew]." He further mentions Muslims and Jews being involved in common devotions, such as visiting the grave of Ezekiel, whom both religions regard as a prophet.
Iberian Peninsula
With the Muslim conquest of the Iberian Peninsula, Spanish Judaism flourished for several centuries. Thus, what some refer to as the "golden age" for Jews began. During this period, Muslims in Spain tolerated other religions, including Judaism, and created a heterodox society.
Muslim relations with Jews in Spain were not always peaceful, however. The eleventh century saw Muslim pogroms against Jews in Spain; those occurred in Córdoba in 1011 and in Granada in 1066. In the 1066 Granada massacre, a Muslim mob crucified the Jewish vizier Joseph ibn Naghrela and massacred about 4,000 Jews. The Muslim grievance involved was that some Jews had become wealthy, and others had advanced to positions of power.
During his wanderings, Maimonides also wrote The Yemen Epistle, a famous letter to the Jews of Yemen, who were then experiencing severe persecution at the hands of their Muslim rulers. In it, Maimonides describes his assessment of the treatment of the Jews at the hands of Muslims:<blockquote> ... on account of our sins God has cast us into the midst of this people, the nation of Ishmael [that is, Muslims], who persecute us severely, and who devise ways to harm us and to debase us.... No nation has ever done more harm to Israel. None has matched it in debasing and humiliating us. None has been able to reduce us as they have.... We have borne their imposed degradation, their lies, their absurdities, which are beyond human power to bear.... We have done as our sages of blessed memory have instructed us, bearing the lies and absurdities of Ishmael.... In spite of all this, we are not spared from the ferocity of their wickedness and their outbursts at any time. On the contrary, the more we suffer and choose to conciliate them, the more they choose to act belligerently toward us.</blockquote>
Mark Cohen quotes Haim Hillel Ben-Sasson, a specialist in medieval European Jewish history, who cautioned that Maimonides' condemnation of Islam should be understood "in the context of the harsh persecutions of the 12th century and that furthermore one may say that he was insufficiently aware of the status of the Jews in Christian lands, or did not pay attention to this, when he wrote the letter". Cohen continues by quoting Ben-Sasson, who argues that Jews generally had a better legal and security situation in Muslim countries than Jews had in Christendom.
Ottoman Empire
While some Muslim states declined, the Ottoman Empire rose as the "greatest Muslim state in history". As long as the empire flourished, the Jews did as well, according to Schweitzer and Perry. In contrast with their treatment of Christians, the Ottomans were more tolerant of Jews and promoted their economic development. The Jews flourished as great merchants, financiers, government officials, traders and artisans. The Ottomans also allowed some Jewish immigration to what was then referred to as Syria, which allowed for Zionists to establish permanent settlements in the 1880s.
Contrast to antisemitism in Christian Europe
Lewis states that in contrast to Christian antisemitism, the attitude of Muslims towards non-Muslims is not one of hate, fear, or envy, but rather contempt. This contempt is expressed in various ways, such as an abundance of polemic literature which attacks the Christians and occasionally, it also attacks the Jews. "The negative attributes ascribed to the subject religions and their followers are usually expressed in religious and social terms, very rarely are they expressed in ethnic or racial terms, though this sometimes does occur." The language of abuse is often quite strong. The conventional epithets are apes for Jews, and pigs for Christians. Lewis continues with several examples of regulations which symbolize the inferiority that non-Muslims who lived under Muslim rule had to live with, such as different formulae of greetings when addressing Jews and Christians than when addressing Muslims (both in conversations or correspondences), and forbidding Jews and Christians from choosing names that Muslims chose for their children during Ottoman rule.
Schweitzer and Perry argue that there are two general views of the status of Jews under Islam, the traditional "golden age" and the revisionist "persecution and pogrom" interpretations. The former was first promulgated by Jewish historians in the 19th century as a rebuke of the Christian treatment of Jews, and it was taken up by Arab Muslims after 1948 as "an Arab-Islamist weapon in what is primarily an ideological and political struggle against Israel". The revisionists argue that this idealized view ignores "a catalog of lesser-known hatred and massacres". and that this "Arab polemical exploitation" was met with the "counter-myth" of the "neo-lachrymose conception of Jewish-Arab history", which also "cannot be maintained in the light of historical reality".
Antisemitism in the Islamic Middle East since 1600 CE
Antisemitism has increased in the Muslim world during modern times. While Bernard Lewis and Uri Avnery date the increase in antisemitism to the establishment of Israel,
Scholars point to European influences, including those of the Nazis (see below), and the establishment of Israel as the root causes of antisemitism.
19th century
According to Mark Cohen, Arab antisemitism in the modern world arose relatively recently, in the 19th century, against the backdrop of conflicting Jewish and Arab nationalisms, and it was primarily imported into the Arab world by nationalistically minded Christian Arabs (and only subsequently was it "Islamised").
thumb|"Execution of a Moroccan Jewess ([[Sol Hachuel)", painting by Alfred Dehodencq]]
The Damascus affair occurred in 1840, when an Italian monk and his servant disappeared in Damascus. Immediately following it, a charge of ritual murder was brought against a large number of Jews in the city. All of them were found guilty. The consuls of Britain, France, and Austria protested against the persecution by the Ottoman authorities, and Christians, Muslims, and Jews all played a great role in this affair.
A massacre of Jews also occurred in Baghdad in 1828. There was another massacre in Barfurush in 1867.
Benny Morris writes that one symbol of Jewish degradation was the phenomenon of stone-throwing at Jews by Muslim children. Morris quotes a 19th-century traveler: "I have seen a little fellow of six years old, with a troop of fat toddlers of only three and four, teaching [them] to throw stones at a Jew, and one little urchin would, with the greatest coolness, waddle up to the man and literally spit upon his Jewish gaberdine. To all this, the Jew is obliged to submit; it would be more than his life was worth to offer to strike a Mahommedan."
<blockquote>The Jews will fight you and you will be led to dominate them until the rock cries out: "O Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me, kill him!"</blockquote>Rashid Rida condemned the Jews for their arrogance towards the Prophets and arraigned them for abandoning religious values for materialism, all of which made them recipients of Divine Wrath, which led to their downfall. He asserted that Allah decreed Muslims to construct Masjid al-Aqsa in the ruins of the Temple in Jerusalem and favoured Muslims to rule the Holy Lands by implementing shari'a (Islamic law) and upholding Tawhid. Rashid Rida's anti-Zionism was part of his wider campaign as a towering figure in the Pan-Islamist movement and would immensely impact subsequent Islamist, Jihadist and anti-colonial activists. He also severely rebuked Christian Zionists, writing: