It was in Muslim-dominated Spain, during the XNUMXth, XNUMXth and first half of the XNUMXth centuries, that Spanish Jews created an extraordinary culture, reaching very high levels in all aspects of knowledge.

It was a time marked by genius and intellectual versatility that, driven by the sophisticated Arabic culture that flourished in medieval Spain, called Sefarad in medieval Hebrew, produced hundreds of works both in the field of Jewish philosophy and theology and in all branches of science and literature. 

For the Sephardic Jew, during the Golden Age, the concept of “ideal” was that of a man who combined in his spirit, in a harmonious way, an absolute faith in Jewish laws and precepts, a lively interest in Jewish theology and philosophy, and a heightened appreciation for general culture and natural sciences. A statement made by historian and professor Josef H. Yerushalmi, in October 1995, in a lecture given in São Paulo, at the Congregação Beneficente Sefaradi Beit Yaacov, reveals this concept: “Inside the Spanish Jewish aristocracy was the image of the Jew that harmoniously combined elements that other communities, at another time, would consider contradictory or conflicting – scrupulous religious observance combined with cosmopolitan ways and customs; the Torah and Greek wisdom; an intense devotion to Jewish tradition and a genuine openness to the surrounding non-Jewish culture.”

But this era of brilliant cultural and intellectual successes was not entirely “golden”, as is supposed. The heyday of Spanish-Jewish culture coincided exactly with that of a renewed Muslim religious fanaticism that destroyed entire communities, putting an end to the permanence of Jews in Andalusian Spain.

The Muslim invasion

Arab expansion, which began after the death of Muhammad, reached the Iberian Peninsula in the 711th century, while the region was dominated by the Visigoths. In the year 732, Tarik ibn Ziyad, general and governor of the western Maghreb, leading an army of seven thousand men and with the help of Berber converts, defeated the Visigoth Rodrigo, king of Spain. Islamic power quickly spread across the Iberian Peninsula. Continuing north, the Muslim armies reached the city of Tours, in central France, where they were defeated by the Franks in XNUMX. Muslim expansion had reached its maximum point in the west and conquests practically ceased from then on. Spain called Al-Andaluz or Andalusia (the Arabic name for Muslim Spain) became part of the Islamic Empire. 

The Muslim invaders were welcomed by the Spanish Jews who, in many cases, helped them to overpower the Christians. During the XNUMXth century, the Jews were persecuted by the Visigothic kings. Forced to become Christians to be able to live in Spain, many were killed, others expelled or forcibly baptized. Openly, there were no more Jews in Spain at the time of the Islamic invasion, but as soon as the new rulers took power, Jewish life improved markedly and many “secret” Jews – called crypto-Jews or Marranos – returned to openly practicing their religion. Judaism while others settled in Al-Andaluz from other parts of the region and Europe.

The Umayyad dynasty of caliphs, which, based in Córdoba, came to dominate the region for practically three centuries, created a cosmopolitan and secular culture in Andalusia. For Western civilization, the contributions of Islamic Spain were invaluable, because when Muslims entered southern Spain, much of Europe had been devastated by barbarians coming from the north, classical Greco-Roman civilization had disappeared and Europe was experiencing a long period of darkness imposed by the Church. While the rest of the European continent sank into obscurantism and ignorance, the Arabs maintained a highly sophisticated and refined civilization in Muslim Spain for almost five centuries.

Life under the Umayyads

The Umayyad caliphs were liberal rulers and did not exercise any type of oppressive discrimination against the Jews. On the contrary, they were considered a useful and loyal segment of the population, and were treated with dignity and respect. Free to pursue any cultural or economic activity, the Jews of Sepharad entered various sectors of the economy, including commerce, finance and the liberal professions. They developed political skills and stood out in public administration. They became famous doctors, illustrious poets, philosophers, astronomers, renowned cartographers and also diplomats and generals. The relationship that the Jewish community established with the caliphs brought Sephardic Jews a pleasant, productive and satisfying way of living.

It was this context in Sefarad that, in a short time, attracted thousands of Jews from other parts of the Middle East and North Africa, who soon settled in the cities of Córdoba, Granada, Seville, Lucena and Toledo. The Jewish community of Sepharad became the most populous and wealthy outside Babylon. Study and knowledge were encouraged in all areas, Jewish sages and scholars enjoyed privileges and honors similar to those granted to Muslim scholars.

Andalusian Judaism entered the so-called Golden Age of Jewish culture in the 929th century, when it became independent of the religious and intellectual protectionism of the Babylonian community. The ties that tied Sephardic Jews to the Gaonic authorities in that region began to loosen when, in XNUMX, Caliph Abd-al-Rahman III broke with the Central Caliphate and declared the Caliphate of Córdoba independent of Baghdad and the Muslim religious authority of the East. . 

Caliph Abd-al-Rahman III was an extraordinary ruler, liberal and tolerant both in his way of thinking and in his actions. During his reign, the Caliphate of Córdoba became an important economic and cultural center. It was the first urban and commercial economy to flourish in Europe, after the disappearance of the Roman Empire. A passionate about philosophy, poetry, theology and secular sciences, Rahman encouraged and patronized knowledge in all forms and in all areas. 

Sparing no effort, he imported books from Baghdad and recruited wise men, poets, philosophers, historians and musicians. He built an infrastructure made up of libraries, hospitals, research institutions and study centers, creating the intellectual tradition and educational system that would make Spain a center of reference for the next four centuries. In the 500th century, Córdoba, with a population of more than 60 inhabitants, close to 70 palaces and 500 libraries (one of which housed XNUMX manuscripts and a team of researchers, translators and bookbinders), had become a world center and it rivaled Cairo, Damascus, and Baghdad in cultural and economic opulence.

For the Jews, it was also the beginning of a golden age. In tenth-century Spain there were thriving communities in no fewer than 44 cities, many with their own yeshivot. It was during this period that the Jew Hasdai Ibn Shaprut (915-970), one of Caliph Abd-al-Rahman's trusted men, laid the foundations for the flourishing of Jewish culture. An excellent doctor and diplomat, Ibn Shaprut became leader of the Jewish community in Córdoba and began to encourage the study of the Torah and the Talmud, reviving Hebrew. A generous patron, Ibn Shaprut invited wise Talmudics, philosophers, poets and Jewish doctors to visit the city. 

The erudition and thirst for knowledge of the Sephardic Jews went far beyond excellence in the fields of Torah and Talmud and the Hebrew language. It included – in a parallel and harmonious way – all other branches of human knowledge. Jewish sages and scholars were also great doctors, poets, philosophers, mathematicians, cartographers and astronomers. Spanish Jews – like Christians – became emissaries of Spain's scientific and cultural activities throughout the rest of Europe. 

But the supremacy of the Caliphate of Córdoba was not solid and unfavorable winds were about to topple it from power, signaling to Sephardic Jews the beginning of the end of the era of tranquility in Muslim Spain. When Muslim Berbers took Córdoba, collapsing the dynasty of the Umayyad caliphs, the Jews found themselves facing one of the first dark moments of the Golden Age. However, for some time, the situation still remained stable.

The dangers in
Al-Andaluz

Jewish life in Muslim Spain was not free from threats. On the one hand, there were the dangers inherent in the dynamics of Islamic politics in force in any territory governed by Muslims. On the other, the pressure imposed on Muslim rulers by Christian armies determined to reconquer the Iberian Peninsula from Moorish rule resulted in the entry into Spain of Islamic tribes from North Africa. 

Throughout the Muslim world, the conflict between the great religious dynasties that succeeded each other in power was exacerbated by doctrinal disputes over the rigor in the application of Islamic law. The richer and more liberal a dynasty, the more vulnerable it became to the fanaticism of fundamentalists. And when a liberal dynasty was replaced by a more fanatical one, Jews (as well as Christians and other minorities) were immediately exposed to the risks inherent in their status as dhimmis. The status of dhimmis was more than an agreement that forced Jews and Christians to pay certain fees and taxes to be allowed to live in Muslim lands without accepting the Koran. The dhimma, in reality, was a pact that suspended, but did not abolish, the “right” of the Muslim conqueror to kill and confiscate the property of the conquered “infidel”. Dhimmis were second-class citizens and a series of laws could be applied to them designed to demote them socially and economically. The rigor in applying the laws depended on each Muslim ruler who could revoke them or apply them with greater or lesser severity, at his pleasure. 

There was, for a long time, among the rulers of Muslim Spain, a certain consensus about the “usefulness” of Spanish Jews and a decision to ignore some of the stricter requirements of Muslim law in the treatment of minorities. But this position was abandoned when religious fanaticism took hold of the new rulers of Islamic Spain. 

When, in the XNUMXth century, the Umayyad dynasty broke up, giving rise to the Spanish Reconquista, the main cause that would determine the end of that period became evident: the inability of the successive rulers of Islamic Spain to maintain political unity to face the Christian armies. When they feel threatened by Christian armies, Muslims seek help from the fundamentalist Berber sects of North Africa. Jewish life in Muslim Spain came to an end.

The Almoravid invasion

The dismemberment of the Umayyad dynasty and the absence of a strong power throughout the 905th century allowed, in Andalusia, the establishment of a series of small Islamic states that varied in size, resources and power. The most powerful were those of Toledo, Seville, Badajós and Granada. In some of these, Jews stood out, occupying administrative positions. The most famous case was that of Rabbi Samuel Ibn Nagral Ha-Naguid (1055-XNUMX). Born in Córdoba, he fled the Berbers who took the city and took refuge in Granada, where he became vizier and commander-in-chief of the army. Rabbi Ha-Naguid was the epitome of the Sephardic Jew, a harmonious synthesis of secular and religious achievements. Halacha scholar, community leader, statesman and poet, he considered his political role a “Divine calling” to protect his people and strived for their well-being. In addition to being generous to the poor and needy, he sponsored the studies of a large number of Jewish scholars and intellectuals. 

When Christian kings began to pose a real threat to Islamic dominions and Alfonso VI retook Toledo in 1085, Muslim rulers asked for help from the Almoravids, an Islamic Berber dynasty from North Africa. The Almoravids answered the call and defeated the Christians, but, in return, they took power for themselves. The initial goal of the Almoravids was to establish a political community in which Islamic principles were applied. Violent and unpredictable, they introduced a hitherto unknown intolerance into Muslim Spain. For some time, the situation of the Jews became precarious. The Almoravid rulers excluded them from the state administration. They threatened the rich Jewish community of Lucena with forced conversion, but accepted a huge payment, a large ransom, to accept that the community did not recognize Islam.

But the Jews had a lot to offer the new conquerors in all sectors, particularly in the administrative and diplomatic areas, and over time they managed to regain favorable treatment. Thus, the first half of the XNUMXth century saw the climax of the Golden Age of Sephardic Judaism. Most of its greatest exponents lived precisely between the XNUMXth and XNUMXth centuries. 

Almoadas and the flight of the Jews

The final and abrupt end of Jewish communities in Muslim Spain occurred 50 years later, with the arrival in Spain, in 1146, of new, even more fanatical Muslim troops – the Almohads. Berbers from North Africa, the Almohads banded together to fight the Almoravids. Its aim was to end the corruption and laxity of Islamic rulers in following and applying the laws of the Quran. These new warriors besieged Marrakesh and quickly came to control all of Muslim Spain, ending Almoravid rule. 

Religious fanaticism and unconditional intolerance brought dissatisfaction to the population in general, and great suffering and destruction to the Jewish communities of southern Spain. They closed synagogues and yeshivot. Jews were forced to wear clothes that differentiated them and could no longer negotiate freely. And as in the time of the Visigoths, they were forced to convert – this time to Islam – at the point of the sword. The emigration of a large part of the Jews from Andalusia from the XNUMXth century onwards, caused by the intolerance of their rulers, made the Judeo-Hispanic culture lose its former luster.

The Jewish communities of southern Spain were unable to survive the persecution. Many Jews, including Maimonides, fled to Africa in search of more tolerant Muslim rulers; others went to northern Spain, then under Christian rule. They felt safer under Christian rule, which welcomed them with open arms. The Jews tried to reconstruct in Christian Spain the culture and way of life that they had developed in the preceding centuries in southern Spain, which they succeeded in for some time. But when, in 1492, Granada, the last Muslim stronghold, was reconquered by Christian armies, the Spanish kings decided to put an end to the Jewish presence in Spain. In the same year, they expelled all Jews from their territories. It was the end of Jewish life in Spain, the Spanish Sephardic Jews spread throughout the world taking with them their culture and traditions that persist to this day.n

Bibliography:

• Prof. Yosef H. Yerushalmi lecture given at the Beit Yaacov Synagogue on October 25, 1995 “Sephardic Jews between Christianity and Islam Special Supplement Morashá;
• Samelson, William, The Sefaradi legacy: Jewish-Spanish novels and stories;
• Borger, Hans, “A History of the Jewish People”, from Canaan to Spain.
Sefer Publishing;
• Johnson, Paul “History of the Jews, Imago Publishing;
• Seltzer, Robert, “Jewish People, Jewish Thought,” editor A Koogan.