A nuanced understanding of historical Jewish experiences under Muslim rule, including the refuge and respect Jews found in the Ottoman Empire in sharp contrast with their persecution in Europe, and thriving of Jews in Muslim societies for centuries before the rise of Zionism and tensions over Palestine disrupted the historical harmony could help improve Jewish-Muslim relations and aid the Israel-Palestine conflict resolution
Historian Bernard Lewis (1916–2018) was no friend of Muslims or Islam. Columbia University professor Hamid Dabashi called him a notorious Islamophobe who spent a long life studying Islam to demonise Muslims and mobilise the mighty military of what he called ‘the West’ against them. Dabashi wrote that Lewis has left behind not a single book in which he was not cherry-picking facts and figures to demonise Muslims, dismiss and denigrate their civilisation, and subjugate them normatively, morally, and imaginatively to the colonial domination of those whom he served.
Palestinian-American academic Edward Said took on Lewis for demeaning Arabs. Scholar Charles Tripp argued that Lewis reinforced Said’s argument about how forms of knowledge are produced to serve power. For all his cherry-picking of facts to demonise and denigrate Muslims, Lewis, a Jew, concluded that the situation of Jews under Islamic rule was never as bad as in Christendom at its worst, even if it was never as good as in Christendom at its best.
Lewis noted the Arabs have not been anti-semitic because, for the most part, they are not Christians. Reflecting on the centuries of Jewish life under Islamic rule, Lewis noted there is nothing in Islamic history to parallel the Spanish Jewish expulsion and Inquisition, the Russian pogroms, or the Nazi Holocaust.
Jewish Golden Age in Muslim-ruled Spain
The Jewish expulsion from Spain followed an extraordinary era of tolerance, prosperity, and integration of Abrahamic religions, Islam, Judaism, and Christianity, during what is known as ‘the Golden Age of the Jews‘ between the 10th and 12th centuries in Muslim-ruled Al-Andalus (present-day Andalucia in Spain). Al-Andalus produced scholars and thinkers such as rabbi-philosopher Rabbi Moses ben Maimon, better known as Maimonides.
Maimonides’s Mishneh Torah, one of his greatest accomplishments, was a comprehensive codification of Jewish law in Hebrew organized into 14 volumes, covering topics such as ethical conduct, laws of prayers, and observance of the Sabbath.
The social, intellectual, and cultural achievements of Jews in Al-Andalus, noted University of Miami’s Shai Cohen at an exhibition on ‘The Golden Age of the Jews of Al-Andalus’ in February 2025, marked a unique historical moment of intercultural harmony, intellectual achievement, and coexistence. Cohen added that it serves as an antidote to the often polarised and divided narrative, focused primarily on conflict, although this period was not without its challenges. He argued it nonetheless demonstrated how Jews, Christians, and Muslims thrived together and contributed to shared progress in science, medicine, art, architecture, and philosophy.
Ottoman Empire As Refuge
Tens of thousands of Jews expelled from Spain after the fall of al-Andalus to Christian kingdoms found refuge in Muslim lands, where they gained important court positions under Ottoman Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent (1494-1566) after they were expelled from Christian Spain in 1492. Joseph Hamon, among these Spanish Jews, rose to become the court physician to Ottoman sultans Bayazid II and Selim I. His son, Moses, looked after Suleiman as his court physician and accompanied the sultan on his military expedition against Persia.
Jews were integral to local society when the Ottoman Empire was created in the 14th century. Jews excelled as merchants in Ottoman Baghdad and facilitated trade with Europe in Tunis and Algiers.
The Agreeable Ottomans
Rabbi Isaac Tzarfati, who came to Edirne (Turkey) from Christian Europe and was made Chief Rabbi of the Ottoman dominions in the 14th century, wrote a letter to German, French, and Hungarian Jews, saying how agreeable the Ottoman Empire was. He wrote that he found rest and happiness there, and that Turkey could also become the land of peace for European Jews. Tzarfati wrote that Jews in the Ottoman Empire were not compelled to wear a yellow hat as a badge of shame.
Tzarfati wrote that even great wealth and fortune were a curse for Jews in Germany, as it aroused jealousy among Christians. ‘… Arise, my brethren [Jews], gird up your loins, collect your forces, and come to us [Ottoman Empire]. Here you will be free of your enemies, here you will find rest …’ he wrote.
Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II encouraged Jews to settle in Constantinople (Istanbul) in 1453 and govern themselves in their religious-based community. He offered free property to Jewish newcomers. A substantial tax exemption was given to them, and they were allowed to build synagogues. By 1478, 10,000 Jews in Constantinople comprised 10% of the city’s population.
A Far Cry
It was a far cry from the Jewish miseries in Constantinople under the Christian Byzantine Empire. Jews were treated as undesirables and banished outside the city’s protective walls. Rabbi Benjamin of Tudela (Spain), who travelled through Europe and the Middle East in the 12th century, wrote that over 2,500 Jews struggled in pre-Ottoman Constantinople’s fringes, confined to an inlet of the sea. He called their condition ‘very low’. Benjamin wrote that the Greeks hate, oppress, and beat Jews in the streets.
In contrast, Benjamin found 40,000 thriving Jews in Baghdad (Abbasid Empire). Benjamin described the beauty of 28 richly decorated synagogues spread throughout Baghdad, including the Great Synagogue of the Head of the Captivity, with columns of multi-coloured marble overlaid and silver and gold, and Psalms sentences adorning them.
Benjamin of Tudela called Jewish wealth, influence, dignity, and civility toward Jews the defining feature of their life in Islam’s heart. He described the Muslim caliph’s respect for Jewish officials and institutions. Benjamin reported that Muslims of all ranks and Jews paid homage to the Jewish community head Exiliarch.
In Persia (modern-day Iran), Jews were favoured under Shah Abbas I’s rule in the 16th century. Jews fought in Abbas’s army against the Georgians. They were permitted to establish Farahabad (City of Joy) in recognition of their services. Jews followed Abbas when he moved his capital to Isfahan from Kazvan.
Jews flourished in the Muslim world until the rise of Zionism and Britain’s promise of establishing Israel in Palestine sparked Arab-Jewish tensions. Britain encouraged Jewish immigration into Palestine for Israel’s creation, with the expulsions and mass murder of Palestinians, driving a wedge between Muslims and Jews. Zionist lobbies have fuelled Islamophobia and played a key role in obscuring centuries of harmonious Jewish-Muslim ties to justify Israeli dispossession of Palestinians.
People Of The Book
Jews and Christians have lived for centuries under Muslim rule from Morocco to Afghanistan as ‘people of the book’, as the Quran reverentially calls them, with freedom to worship. Jews have been an integral and respected part of Muslim society since Islam’s rise. The Jews opposed the Prophet Muhammad, but he recognised a kinship with them as a ‘people of the book’ and the descendants of Abraham, their common ancestor. The Prophet is quoted to have said: ‘He who harms a member of the protected nation [including Jews and Christians], I shall be his prosecutor on the Day of Judgement’.
Medina Charter, which was adopted after the Prophet founded the first Muslim state, outlined the rights and duties of Medina inhabitants irrespective of faith to end conflicts and maintain peace. The charter is believed to be the first document on religious and political rights. It provided means for conflict resolution, promoted mutual respect and tolerance, commitment to human lives, drawing inspiration from the Quran, which mandates Muslims to respect messengers before the Prophet, including Abraham, Moses, and Jesus, and their followers.
The charter recognised the equality and rights to peaceful coexistence, and gave all tribal, religious, and ethnic groups protection and the liberty to live as per their beliefs. It promised the Jews would be treated as one community with the believers.
Decades after the Medina Charter adoption, the Jews fought as volunteers, guided Muslims, and provided them provisions when the second Caliph Umar ibn al-Khattab, who ruled from 634 to 644, conquered regions under Christian rule. In 638, the caliph allotted 70 Jewish families a place to live in what is now Old Jerusalem’s Jewish Quarter despite the Christian patriarch’s opposition. He allowed Jews to build a college and a synagogue and pray in the vicinity of Haram ash-Sharif (the Temple Mount), one of the holiest Muslim sites.
The Recognition
Umar ibn al-Khattab recognised the Exilarch, the Jewish community leader, in what is now modern-day Iraq. He allowed Bustanai ben Haninai, the then Exilarch, to continue as the Jewish leader with authority over Babylonian Jews. Umayyad Caliph Abd al-Malik, who ruled from April 685 to 705, appointed Jews in positions of authority and as Haram ash-Sharif guardians. Jews were in charge of maintaining Haram ash-Sharif’s cleanliness. Jews also made and kindled glass vessels for their lights.
Sultan Mahmud (998-1030) appointed a Jew, Isaac, to administer the lead mines and melt ore in what is now Afghanistan. Abu al-Munajja Solomon ben Shaya was a Jewish administrator in 12th-century Egypt. He was granted the title Sani al-Dawla (The Noble of the State) for his services, including bringing water to a parched region. Maimonides, known as Musa ibn Maymun in Arabic and Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon in Hebrew, was also a court physician in 12th-century Egypt under the Fatimids.
Jews from Yemen, North Africa, England, northern France, and Provence arrived in Jerusalem when Salahuddin (Saladin) Yusuf Ibn Ayyub liberated Jerusalem from the Crusaders in 1187 and encouraged the Jews to return. Muslims also welcomed some 300 rabbis to the city. Jerusalem is now among the most contentious parts of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Both Israelis and Palestinians claim the city as their capital.
A more nuanced view of the history of centuries of harmonious Jewish-Muslim relations, including in Jerusalem, could help solve the conflict. If past ties could be friendly, there should be no reason they cannot be the same again, provided Israel recognises the Palestinian right to exist.
