Chapter 3 - Islamic Attitudes and Policies

Summary

Islamic attitudes and policies concerning the Jews in the Middle Ages have been the subject of heated debate in recent decades. Some see a benign, tolerant Islam, protecting its Jewish and other non-Muslim subjects from violence and respecting their religion and religious institutions. Others see conflict, intolerance, persecution, and even antisemitism. The first image harks back to the nineteenth century, a time when Jewish historians tended to paint an exaggerated picture of a “golden age” of Jewish-Muslim harmony, taking al-Andalus, or Muslim Spain, as the model. The idea stemmed from the disappointment Central European Jewish intellectuals felt as Emancipation-era promises of political and cultural equality remained unfulfilled. Historians exploited the tolerance they ascribed to Islam to chastise their Christian neighbors for failing to rise to the standards set by non-Christian society hundreds of years earlier.