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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