Anti-semitism: Myth and Hate from Antiquity to the Present

266 ANTISEMITISM
caliph who was unceremoniously hanged in Baghdad in 1258. (The Mongols were the
first on the list of external factors blamed for Arab-Islamic weakness and failure: Turks,
Western imperialists, Jews/Israel, Americans, and so on.) The successor states were far
less tolerant of the Jews than the caliphs in what had been an expanding economy and
dynamic society for several centuries. The exception to prolonged decline was the rise
of the Ottoman Empire, the greatest Muslim state in history, in which Jews flourished
so long as the empire flourished, to about 1700; the Ottomans were more tolerant from
the start and Jews enjoyed greater acceptance there until today, as was observed in the
1992 commemoration of the 500-year presence of Jews since their expulsion from
Spain in 1492. The highly centralized Ottoman government promoted economic
growth in the form of mercantilist policies. The economy was an example of state capitalism
tempered by much local and provincial initiative on the part of governors and
private entrepreneurs. In such an environment Jews could and did flourish. Some of
them were great merchants, financiers, and government officials, but most were small
traders and shopkeepers, peddlers, and artisans.
Jewish-Muslim relations are a complex story. While there is an antisemitic infrastructure
extant in Islam, it is clear that Jews were much better off under Islam than in
Christendom. There were polemics, intolerance, persecutions, and massacres, but far
less than in Christendom. References to Jews in the Koran are mostly negative:
“Wretchedness and baseness were stamped upon them, and they were visited with
wrath from Allah. That was because they disbelieved in Allah’s revelations and slew the
prophets wrongfully”; “And for their taking usury which was prohibited for them, and
because of their consuming people’s wealth under false pretense, We have prepared for
the unbelievers among them a painful punishment.” The Koran requires their “abasement
and poverty”; abasement took the form of the poll tax and the humiliating ceremony
in which it was paid; in his “wrath” God has “cursed” the Jews and will turn them
into apes/monkeys and swine and idol worshippers because they are “infidels.” 3 The
Hadith (tradition, law, legend) is even more scathing in attacking the Jews: They are debased,
cursed, anathematized forever by God and so can never repent and be forgiven;
they are cheats and traitors; defiant and stubborn; they killed the prophets; they are
liars who falsify scripture and take bribes; as infidels they are ritually unclean, a foul
odor emanating from them—such is the image of the Jew in classical Islam, degraded
and malevolent. Yet, ordinarily, “the Jews” could not be said to have “killed” Muhammad,
who was neither a Jew nor a god. There is no accusation of deicide (in fact, Sura
4:157 of the Koran, referring to the Jews and Jesus, says “they killed him not”), no appropriation
of the Jewish Bible as an Islamic sacred text, and “virtuous Hebrews” is not
translated into “virtuous Muslims” in contrast to the “stiff-necked, criminal Jews.”
Rather, Jews (and Christians) had the status of dhimmis (people of the covenant or protected
minority). Developed in the later eighth century, the dhimmi code was intended
to degrade and humiliate individuals as well as the religious community. Its laws specified
that dhimmis had to pay heavier taxes; had to wear clothes and insignia distinguishing
them from Muslims; were barred from holding public office, bearing arms, riding a
horse or mule, intermarriage with Muslims; were disqualified as witnesses in litigation
involving Muslims and had to swear a demeaning oath; could not erect new or repair
old synagogues or proselytize. Later additions to the code included prohibitions on
adopting Arab names, studying the Koran, selling alcoholic beverages, and so on. Thus
Muslim antipathy for Jews has been a much more normal form of antagonism of one
people, or one religion, for another than the Christian-Jewish encounter has been. The
dhimmi system bestowed freedom of worship and protection of life and property in re-