Muhammad and The Jews — Page 126
EPILOGUE There was never a time from· the birth of Islam to the present when large number of Jews did not live under Moslem rule. There is no phase in Islamic history that does not resonate through Jewish history and no form of Islam that does not have its Jewish counterpart. And though during many periods the differences between Islam and Judaism were stressed to rationalize hostility, these differences also were responsible for catalyzing some of the most creative Jewish achieve- ments of the Middle Ages. Under the Umayyads and the Abbasids, Jews prospered and found their way to virtually every part of the Moslem empire. Thri- ving communities sprang up in North Africa and Spain. The Abbasids, particularly, encouraged Jewish enterprise, with the result that by the tenth century a small but significant class of large-scale merchants and bankers had come to play a prominent role in the finances of the caliph. The policies of the caliphs were pragmatic, following from a reading of their own interests, not from a reading of the Koran. The relationship of Jews to Islam was complex, at times positive, at times negative. During the tenth century, Jews living under the Abbasids in the east were experiencing a major breakdown, while Jews in Andalusia were embarking on a golden age. In the twelfth century, Maimonides fled from a hostile Islam in Andalusia, tarried briefly in hostile Islamic North Africa, only to become welcome in Islamic Egypt, where he became physician to the vizier of Saladin. Islam created climates favourable to Jewish creativity and climates altogether inimical to Jews. The record is clear: the differences setting Islam apart from Judaism did not always generate hostility. ELLIS RIVKIN 126