Muslim-Jewish Relations in the Middle Islamic Period: Jews in the Ayyubid and Mamluk Sultanates (1171-1517)

Description

This book contributes to the history of medieval Jewry in general, as a basis for a comparative study of the position of the Jews in Christian Europe in the Late Middle Ages. The eight articles written by leading experts on this topic pay special attention to the following issues: the measure of tolerance of the Mamluk rulers and the Muslim populace toward the Jews; Jews in government positions and as court physicians; conversion and attitudes toward converted Jews; the Sufi (mystical) nature of Jewish leadership and its relation to the Sufi Islamic discourse; professional, intellectual, and legal interactions between Jews and Muslims. In the end, the contributions help us to sharpen our understanding of Jewish life during the Middle Islamic Period in the Near East. Title Page Copyright Table of Contents Stephan Conermann: Introduction Body Dotan Arad: Being a Jew under the Mamluks: Some Coping Strategies 1. Synagogues 2. Clothing 3. Inheritance Paul B. Fenton: Sufis and Jews in Mamluk Egypt The Maġribi Connection The Jewish Pietist Movement Opposition Miriam Frenkel: Eliyahu Ashtor – A Forgotten Pioneer Researcher of Jewish History under the Mamluks 1. Scientific Historian in the Service of a National Mission 2. The “problem” of Eastern Jews 3. Ashtor and the Jerusalem School of History 4. The History of the Mamluks and the Theory of Decline 5. Conclusions Yehoshua Frenkel: Conversion Stories from the Mamlūk Period Introduction Ahl al-Kitāb and Dhimma The Representation of Jews in Mamlūk Sources Religious violence Conversion stories Summary Nathan Hofer: The Ideology of Decline and the Jews of Ayyubid and Mamluk Syria 1. The Ideology of Decline 2. The Neo-Lachrymose Conception of Jewish History, Revisited 3. Jews as Agents in Mamluk Syria Paulina B. Lewicka: Healer, Scholar, Conspirator. The Jewish Physician in the Arabic-Islamic Discourse of the Mamluk Period Elisha Russ-Fishbane: Earthquake, Famine, and Plague in Early Thirteenth-Century Egypt: Muslim and Jewish Sources 1200–1202: The Environmental Calamity and its Human Toll 1200–1202: Impact on Minority Communities 1216–1228: Ensuing Crisis and Communal Leadership Walid A. Saleh: The Status of the Bible in 9th/15th Century Cairo: The Fatwas collected by al-Biqāʿī (d. 885/1480) Commentary Authors