The Jewry of Cairo
The Jewish community was
very integrated culturally, politically and economically into the larger
society of Egypt. The Jewish residents of the cosmopolitan city fared better under
Islamic rule than anywhere in Christian Europe. Indeed, their integration into
Egyptian society indicates the degree of heterogeneity and diversity in
Egyptian society. The simple fact that Jews enjoyed rights and privileges in
addition to tolerance in Muslim Egypt, as demonstrated by the Geniza papers,
also counters the myth of Muslim intolerance and oppression of dhimmis, or
non-Muslims. In fact, Jews generally lived under much worse conditions in
Christian Europe during the medieval period since there were few legal
protections, combined with a theologically driven anti-Semitism that led to
ghettoization, collective violence as retribution, and general hostility. Jews
in Islamic lands, such as Egypt, however, enjoyed special protections under
Islamic law that allowed freedom to worship, maintain their own community
institutions, greater economic opportunities, and no ghettoization.
Nevertheless, Jews were still a minority group in a Muslim-dominated social
hierarchy, and were never completely free from repression or discriminatory
practices, a product of the Pact of ‘Umar.
Culturally, Jewish Egyptians were far more
integrated into Egyptian society than their counterparts in Europe. Jewish and
Muslim dietary laws, for instance, converged in multiple instances, especially
regarding consumption of pork. Jewish halakha and sharia law also have
parallels, offering evidence of additional similar cultural and religious
practices that eased socializing between Muslims and Jews.[1] In addition,
interreligious marriage between Muslim men and Jewish women faced no
opposition.[2] No evidence of Sunnii
Muslims believing in contamination from contact or socializing with Jews
appears, either, which has further support by the mixed character of
residential areas. In fact, Jews and Muslims could own property together, and
the Jewish community of Cairo was not separated from the rest of the city, but
spread across in different clusters. [3] The Geniza also show
that the Jewish population lived in neighborhoods where at least half of the
houses had Gentile neighbors.[4] Thus, Jews and Muslims
lived side by side, could intermarry, owned property and businesses in
partnerships, practiced similar dietary laws, and interacted with each other
socially in the marketplace, in administrative positions, and in hospitals.
Furthermore, Jews adopted
cultural and social practices of the broader Muslim society, such as the Arabic
language and script, and the position of the qadi within Islamic society became
a model for judges in the Jewish community.[5] Due to the influence of
Islam, Jewish judges were increasingly expected to perform similar roles of
administering and managing funds connected with social services to the
community, such as taking care of orphans, widows, the poor and sick, foreigners
and captives.[6] In addition, despite
occasional attempts to enforce a distinctive dress code for Jews and other
non-Muslims, it was rarely enforced and Jews and Muslims were indistinguishable
by their attire during the Fatimid and early Ayyubid dynasties.[7] Unfortunately, there
were periods where the imposition of dress restrictions on dhimmis, meant to
perpetuate a distinction between Muslims and non-Muslims, was enforced, such as
during the reign of the mad Fatimid caliph, al-Hakim, considered insane and
cruel by all Muslim historians. This particular Fatimid caliph, ruling from
996–1021, required Christians and Jews to wear distinctive belts and badges.[8] This one extreme case of
persecution against Jews and Christians also included requiring Jews to wear an
image of the golden calf worshipped by the Israelites in Exodus and Christians
an image of the cross in public baths.[9] Still, most Muslims
considered these persecutions aberrations, and in the aftermath of these
persecutions, dhimmis forced into conversion were allowed to convert to their
previous faiths.[10]
Despite being quite
integrated into overall Egyptian society, Jews were often pressured into
expressing their religious faith behind closed doors. Funeral processions, for
example were often difficult since public displays of the Jewish faith
contradicted a regulation in the Pact of ‘Umar, which aimed to limit displays
of faiths besides Islam.[11] They also had to be sure
that new synagogues would not surpass surrounding mosques in height lest they
arouse the fanaticism of some of the Muslims, another burden on their freedom
of religious and cultural expression because the synagogue was the center of
the Jewish community.[12] The Jewish community
also did not practice the seclusion of women, so that aspect of cultural
identity among Cairo’s Jewry was absent within their own community, although
they were also patriarchal and male-dominated. Still, like Muslim women, Jewish
women had to worship in a separate compartment in the house of worship.[13]
On the political level, Cairo’s
Jewish community was relatively integrated into the state apparatus. Like other
non-Muslim communities, the Muslim rulers allowed a certain amount of autonomy,
often working through religious leaders within the Jewish communities to collect
taxes and administer the law. This practice was instituted in Egypt through the
position of the Gaon, or head of the yeshiva, which had judicial and
administrative authority over the Jewish community.[14] The Muslim state also reserved the
right to confirm his office, ruling through the Gaon and the Nagid, a Hebrew
title for the ‘head of the Jews.’[15] The Nagid was expected to address complaints by
Jews about government oppression, expected to act against rapacious officials
either by intervention through the central government or by talking things over
with local authorities on the occasion of a visit, essentially representing the
power of the Muslim state through the religious institutions of Jewish life,
the synagogue and yeshiva.[16] The elders and notables
of the Jewish community also participated in the political system by issuing
and receiving letters on behalf of the state, promulgating statutes, and signed
contracts, sometimes alone or in conjunction with the muqaddam, an appointed
executive.[17] The muqaddam also played
an essential role in the political system, appointed with the consent of the
community by the Jewish central leaders and accredited by local representatives
of the government.[18] The aforementioned
judges, whose role in the Jewish community by the middle of the 12th
century began to resemble that of the Muslim qadi, also participated in this
system as intermediaries between the Muslim state and Jewish subjects.[19]
The Jewish
community of Cairo was also given positions in the state beyond that of
representing their religious group. For example, the sofer, or Jewish scribes
and copyists, served the Fatimids as court scribes.[20] Jewish physicians also
served in the Fatimid court, such as Moses b. Elazar, who became an influential
person in the court of caliph al-Mu’izz in the 10th century.[21] Other physicians with
political power include Samuel b. Hananya, who became a leader in the Jewish
community in the middle 12th century.[22] Indeed, the Shiite Fatimids were well-known
for condoning dhimmi participation in state service, partly due to the simple
fact that the dynasty was Shiite in a sea of Sunni Islam and therefore eager to
find loyal administrators.[23] With that consideration,
the rise of Jewish merchant Ibn Killis, an Muslim convert, in the financial
administration of the Fatimids in the late 10th century, or the
Tustari family, no longer surprises.[24] The Jewish vizier, Abu
S’ad, who reached the pinnacle of his power during the regency of the mother of
caliph al-Mustansir, provides another example of Muslims serving in the highest
positions within the Fatimid caliphate.[25] The presence of Jews at
the highest positions in the Muslim world indubitably illustrates the degree of
integration Jews reached under Islam.
Unfortunately, Jews and
other dhimmis were excluded from state service in the 9th century by
the decree of Abbasid caliph al-Mutawakkil, but the decree was only
sporadically enforced during Abbasid rule.[26] The simple fact that
Jews and Christians were found in all urban centers of the Islamic world made
them inevitably tied to the political system in some way, even if only a few
Jews rose to top administrative positions. Still, the Pact of ‘Umar, the
aforementioned bilateral contract between Muslims and dhimmis in which dhimmis
agree to discriminatory regulations, such as the jizya, or poll tax, in
exchange for tolerance and protection, obviously did not exclude Jews from
participating in political circles.[27] The legal system also
treated Jewish subjects with far more juridical objectivity, not imposing
collective punishment on Jews for alleged crimes of individuals, unlike the
Latin West where pogroms and collective punishment were common.[28] However, the jizya tax
was a heavy burden on non-Muslim populations, especially since if they did not
receive a receipt, they could be charged again.[29]
On the economic
front, Jews were also well integrated into Egyptian society. As mentioned
previously, Jews and Muslims owned property together and were business
partners, something impossible in the contemporary West.[30] Jews were also present
in the economy at several different levels and types of employment, not solely
moneylenders. Jews
were broadly distributed across all sectors of economy, with some owning land
and raising crops in arable Egypt while others were also involved in dyeing,
metalware, cheese, sugar manufacture, and various other sectors of the economy.[31] Jews were present at
ports, served as police and engaged in tax-farming.[32] The control of mints was
also Jewish-dominated in most Muslim states.[33] Thus, Jews were wholly
integrated in broad array of economic activities in the Islamic world, and
often traveled abroad to engage in international trade with Muslim partners in
addition to engaging in intra-Jewish trade and economic exchanges across the
Dar al-Islam.
Uniquely, Jewish moneylending was largely
within the Jewish community in the Islamic world, unlike Jewish moneylenders
loaning to strapped rChristians in medieval Europe.[34] The Christian
theological claim against usury and the pursuit of material wealth contradicted
Islam’s pro-trade stance, which encouraged the pursuit of material wealth,
trade, and business, thereby sparing Jews of ridicule and violence for engaging
in usury or business.[35] Medieval Islam did not
portray the Jew or Christian as collaborating with Satan to undermine society,
which Jews were perceived to do in Christian Europe for practicing usury.[36] As a result, shared
judgment of Muslim and Jewish legal experts regarding the necessity for
flexible response to the law of the merchants developed alongside congruence in
economic practice generally.[37] Nevertheless, Jewish
merchants often signed contracts before Muslim and Jewish authorities
concurrently.[38] In addition to engaging
in business transactions on an international level, Jewish merchants of Cairo
were active in all the bazaars, marketplaces, and squares, not exclusively the
Lane of Jews, which only housed a fraction of Cairo’s Jewish residents.[39]
The degree of Jewish
assimilation into Muslim Egypt during the medieval period contradicts standard
depictions of Islam and Arabs as intolerant. Participating in every economic
sector, working as viziers, administrators, and community representatives for
the Jewish minority and the Muslim state, or adopting elements of Islamic
culture demonstrate the high degree of cultural miscegenation in the
pluralistic societies of the Islamic world. This degree of cultural
heterogeneity hardly surprises when on takes into account Egypt’s large Coptic
population in the medieval period, as well as the general cosmopolitan
character of Cairo and the Nile Delta throughout history, since it is the
meeting ground for Asia, Africa, and Europe. The high degree of Jewish
assimilation and tolerance in Fatimid Egypt, for example, stands true for the
Coptic communities and other Christian sects in the region. Naturally, this
relative tolerance and acceptance of dhimmis in the Muslim world was far from a
Golden Age of interfaith solidarity, since they were required to pay taxes and
did at times face persecution or special impositions regarding dress and
displays of religion. The centuries proceeding Fatimid and early Ayyubid rule
in Egypt also show that the inclusion of non-Muslims in positions of authority
and other special privileges could be revoked by intolerant rulers. Regardless
of what dynasty ruled in Cairo, however, the Jewish population enjoyed far more
protection and inclusion within broader society than their counterparts in
Christian Europe enjoyed until the arrival of industrial nation-states.
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