Sunlight and Shadow : The Jewish Experience of Islam

by Gubbay, Lucien

• ISBN13: 9781892746696
• ISBN10: 1892746697
• Format: Trade Paper
• Copyright: 2000-07-01
• Publisher: Other Press

Summary

This book traces the condition of Jews living in the world of Islam, through good times and bad times, from the age of Muhammad to the present struggles between Arabs and Israelis. Muslims and Jews have lived together and reacted to each other for the past 1,400 years but few Jews today have much idea of how their brethren once fared under Islam. Muslims too know little of the history of what was to them an insignificant minority. Despite their subordinate status in Muslim society, Jews participated in the flowering of the brilliant international civilization made possible by the almost world-wide conquests of the Arabs and bound together by the Arabic language; and it was under Muslim rule that the early Judaism developed into the religion we know today. Later Jews enjoyed another golden age in the heyday of the Ottoman Empire. "Sunlight and Shadow" details this turbulent history.

Table of Contents

Series Editor's Introduction	vi
Samir Dayal
Acknowledgements	X
Foreword	XI
Dr Zaki Badawi
Introduction	1	(6)
Part 1 The coming of Islam
The Pre-Islamic World	7	(7)
Muhammad, Messenger of God	14	(6)
Conquests of the Arabs	20	(6)
Islam, Judaism and the Jews	26	(5)
The Dhimma	31	(8)
Part 2 Jews in the World of Islam - The first 500 years
Sources	39	(4)
Historical Background	43	(4)
Jews in the Early Centuries	47	(4)
Jewish Institutions and Officials in Abbasid Baghdad	51	(14)
Jewish-Arab Symbiosis	65	(8)
Al-Andalus	73	(10)
Massacres and Forced Conversions	83	(5)
Part 3 Jews in the World of Islam - The later period
Turkish and Mongol Invasions	88	(8)
The Ottoman Turks and the Jews	96	(9)
The Jews in Ottoman Society	105	(7)
Ottoman and Jewish Decline	112	(8)
Redemption	120	(9)
Provincial Life in 18th Century Aleppo	129	(14)
Westernisation	143	(6)
Part 4 Dissolution
Colonial Period and Independence	149	(5)
Islamic Fundamentalism	154	(6)
Sources and further reading	160	(1)
List of quotations	161	(3)
Significant Dates	164	(6)
Index	170