JUDAICA - Wisdom In Torah

ecognize defects, whether inflicted by coin clippers or by the
admixture of undue amounts of alloy. Here, too, internationally
experienced Jewish dealers were often in a favored position.
Deposit banking also assumed a major economic role.
Unlike the ancient temples and medieval churches, neither
mosques nor synagogues ever served as important depositories
of funds. Because of the relative absence of expulsions
and large-scale massacres of Jews in Muslim countries, Jewish
bankers were considered a fairly secure outlet for surplus
funds which, if profitably invested, could yield substantial
profits to both depositors and depositaries. To be sure, in unstable
periods an arbitrary official (for instance, Al-Baridi,
governor of Al-Aḥwaz) could seize the bankers’ possessions,
including deposits held by them for other accounts, without
compensation. But the depositors running afoul a dignitary’s
personal greed or whim found keeping their funds at home
no less risky. In general, however, the frequency and usefulness
of the new methods were so great that the rabbis had to
relax some ancient restrictions and alter the areas of responsibility
on the part of the depositaries in order to facilitate
their operations.
Similarly, the transfer of large amounts from one province
to another in the vast empire and beyond its boundaries
became the more imperative as carrying cash to a distant
locality by land or sea became increasingly hazardous. Gangs
of robbers on land were far exceeded in number and efficiency
by both Mediterranean and Indian Ocean pirates. The
North African coast and the extended coastline of the Arabian
Peninsula served as particularly useful hideouts for corsairs.
If the Talmud had objected to the method of transferring
money through a deed called dioqni (derived from sign),
and some medieval rabbis still opposed the bearer instrument
called suftaja in Arabic (which Jews apparently helped develop
jointly with the Arabs), the economic realities were such that
the geonim had to yield and recognize its employment as a
legitimate mercantile usage, “lest the commercial transactions
of the people be nullified” (Teshuvot ha-Ge’onim, 1887,
ed. by A.E. Harkavy, nos. 199, 423, 467). Ultimately, Samuel b.
Hophni, head of the academy of Sura, felt impelled to write a
special legal monograph on “Letters of Authorization” (Sefer
ha-Harsha’ot). Nor did the *Kairouan scholar Nissim b. Jacob
hesitate to use a suftaja in forwarding a gift for the support of
the Babylonian academies.
Even more important, of course, was the large-scale Jewish
participation in the increasingly vital credit system. Although
all three major religions tried to outlaw usury – the
Muslim riba being even more broadly defined than the Christian
usura or the Jewish ribbit – the economic needs of credit
became overwhelming. Since most loans were now extended
not to impoverished farmers but rather to businessmen or
government officials for use in trade or public administration,
the outlawry of any kind of increment over the amounts lent
lost its moral justification. Jews were in a strategic position to
overcome the legal obstacles, as they were the relatively smallest
group in the population and, even if observing the prohi-
economic history
bition of charging interest to coreligionists, could engage in
profitable *moneylending with the large majority of borrowers
of other denominations. All sorts of legal evasions, moreover,
were conceived by jurists of all groups, although this system
was never quite so refined as it was to become in medieval Europe.
One of the simplest expedients appeared to be a fictitious
sale of income-producing property with the right of repurchase
which gave the lender the opportunity of collecting the
revenue of that property during the interim. The widespread
commenda contract, in which the investor appeared as a partner
in the enterprise, likewise offered him the opportunity of
exacting the pledge that he would participate in the ultimate
sale with a specified profit regardless of possible losses. It was
this form of purported silent partnership with a guaranteed
revenue which was most widely used to secure for the lender
an income agreed upon in advance. Until today, some pious
Jews still enter on a bond of indebtedness the words al ẓad
hetter iska (often in abbreviated form, see *Usury) to indicate
their mental reservation against the transgression of the biblical
commandment.
During periods of quiet, profits derived from banking
could be enormous. As a result there emerged a number of
wealthy Jewish bankers, especially in the metropolitan areas
of Baghdad, Cairo, *Alexandria, Kairouan, *Fez, and *Córdoba.
These banking firms did not limit their activities to
loans but usually engaged in related businesses such as trade
in jewelry and precious metals, investment in real estate, and
the like. They often had at their disposal large funds deposited
with them by high government officials secreting away illicit
income from briberies. Ibn al-Furat, a leading vizier of early
tenth-century Baghdad, admitted having had large deposits
with the two Jewish bankers Aaron b. Amram and Joseph b.
Phinehas. In return, the bankers had to perform services for
these officials which went much beyond ordinary business
risks. For example, ʿAli ibn ʿIsa, Ibn al-Furat’s more virtuous
rival, did not hesitate to force his Jewish banker to advance
him monthly the equivalent of $40,000 in gold for the
wages of the imperial infantry. This loan was to be covered by
the banker’s revenue from tax farming in the province of Al-
Aḥwaz. Another Jewish tax farmer, Ibn ʿAllan al-Yahudi of
Baṣra, who had lent both the sultan and the famous Persian
statesman Nizam al-Mulk the equivalent of $100,000, was assassinated
in 1079. Sometimes the whole Jewish community
was held responsible for a banker’s refusal to lend money to a
dignitary. In one such case, in 996, the mob attacked the entire
Jewish quarter.
Less dramatic, but equally significant, was the expansion
of Jewish activities in the traditional fields of handicrafts
and professions. Needless to say, these occupations offered
vast opportunities to many more Jews than did commerce
and banking. Regrettably no exact occupational statistics can
be offered, but a few extant lists show that the proportion of
craftsmen considerably exceeded that of merchants, even
including the petty shopkeepers and peddlers. Three such
genizah lists show percentages ranging from 38.4 to 52.1 for
ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 6 107