A.D. 740-980.
THE JEWS UNDER THE CALIPHS IN THE EAST.
The period which ensued after the Conquest of Persia and Syria in
the East, and of Spain in the West, is called by Milman the ‘Golden
Age of Judaism’; but the title does not suit very well with the
circumstances of the case. It was not, as the Golden Age of legend is
represented to have been, a peaceful and happy beginning, which the
crimes of men gradually embittered and corrupted. It rather resembled
a succession of cool showers on a burning summer day, when the fierce
heat of the morning is tempered during the midday hours, but only to
break out with more intolerable oppression as the afternoon comes on.
The contrast which this lull in the storm of injustice and cruelty
presented to the savage fury of preceding, as well as after times, is
indeed most striking. Everywhere the flames of persecution sank down;
and what had been a consuming fire smouldered on, with only a feeble
flicker here and there, to show that it was not quite extinct.
In the Byzantine empire we are told singularly little of the
condition and actions of the Jews during this period. The emperors
who filled the throne were, for the most part, men of very ordinary
ability. Nor were there among their subjects men of greater mark.
‘On the throne, in the camp, and in the schools,’ says the historian
Gibbon, ‘we search, perhaps with fruitless diligence, for names
and characters that deserve to be rescued from oblivion.’ This may
in itself explain why so little is heard of the Jews. Occupy high
positions in Church or State we know they could not, or openly
interfere with the direction of public affairs; and what private
influence they might exercise in these would be carefully kept
secret. As for attacks upon them, we have already seen that their
numbers, their rare intelligence, and their ever increasing wealth,
rendered them a dangerous body for any but a powerful ruler to
assail; and assuredly the weak and incompetent occupants of the
imperial throne at that era would be but little inclined to make the
experiment. What little has been recorded goes to prove that the
emperors were anxious to conciliate them. Nicephorus, who received
the purple A.D. 793, is said to have shown them particular favour,
probably because of their acquiescence in his iconoclastic views; and
Michael the Stammerer, whose reign dates from 821, was reviled by his
enemies as being half a Jew.[84] When we remember how Constantinople
was at this period distracted at once by civil and religious
factions, and that the Jews—however little they might seem to be
personally interested in the question at issue—were always ready to
throw their weight into the one scale or the other, we shall cease to
wonder that they remained wholly unmolested.
In the dominions of the newly established Caliphs they were not only
left in peace, but treated with especial honour.[85] The victorious
Arabs were but a rude and uncivilized people, and the aid of the
Jews in teaching them the arts and pleasures of a refined state of
society was found alike useful and welcome. Their learning, their
intelligence, their widespread knowledge of foreign lands, rendered
them especially qualified for this office. Omar, the second Caliph,
is related to have entrusted the coinage to a Jew, immediately after
his accession to the throne. It was a subject with which, as might
be expected, he had no acquaintance, nor was there any one among
his principal officers who knew more of the matter. Similarly,
if an embassy was to be despatched to a foreign sovereign, or a
subsidy negotiated, the person selected for the office would in
all likelihood be a Jew. When Abu Giafar imposed a heavy fine on
the Christians, it was to Hebrew officials that the collection of
the impost was committed; and even between sovereigns so potent
as Charlemagne and the Caliph Haroun Alraschid, the envoy who was
entrusted with the letters and presents was a Jew.
In war they were no less necessary than in peace. The sums required
for the equipment of a fleet or the victualling of an army were
furnished from Hebrew coffers. Nor were their avocations limited to
this. The Jews would accompany the march of the Mussulman armies,
and—as their fathers had done in the instance of the Gothic and
Hunnite invasions—purchase from the ignorant soldiery the plunder
they had amassed, at a price which brought them an enormous
profit,[86] or it might be a captive whose family or friends
afterwards redeemed him at a price tenfold exceeding what they had
given. We learn that at this time they almost entirely abandoned
agriculture; partly because of the heavy tax laid on unbelievers, and
partly because trade had become so much more profitable to them.
They cultivated also astrology and medicine, and became everywhere
the most successful professors of both sciences. In many, if not in
most of the royal courts, the chief physicians and astrologers were
Jews. Nor were they less successful in literature. In the East and
West alike, their schools were crowded with students, and the names
of their learned men of this era are held in reverence even to the
present day.
It is at this date that we first hear of a sect called the
Karaites.[87] They claim, indeed, a far greater antiquity, insisting
on their descent from the ten tribes led captive by Shalmaneser, and
putting forward a catalogue of their doctors, in regular succession
from the time of Ezra. But it is believed that their first founder
was one Ananus, a Babylonian Jew of the race of David, who, together
with his son Saul, A.D. 750, entered a public protest against the
extent to which tradition had corrupted the written word, and
insisted on this latter as the sole rule of faith. We have evidence
in the Gospels, of the length to which tradition had run even in
our Lord’s day, and how He had, declared that the Pharisees ‘had
made the Word of God of none effect’ through it. But after that
time the Cabbalist and Masoric Rabbins, who were the successors of
the Pharisees, laid greater stress than ever on the importance of
tradition; and the completion of the Babylonian Talmud in the sixth
century, was, as it were, the keystone of their work. We cannot
wonder that men of sense and reverent feeling should be shocked at
the wild fables and ridiculous fancies of the Talmudists. It would
appear that a strong feeling was widely entertained in secret on
the subject; but its first expression was due to the failure of
Ananus to obtain the dignity of Prince of the Captivity, for which
office he was a candidate. Disgusted at the election of a younger
man to the post, Ananus gathered together the remains of the old
Sadducean party, or what was so called, and induced them to nominate
him as a rival to his successful opponent. Ananus was thrown into
prison, but gained the ear of the Caliph sufficiently to obtain his
release. He then retired, with his followers, to the neighbourhood of
Jerusalem, where they established themselves as a separate sect. They
still exist, chiefly in Eastern countries, and in parts of Europe,
especially the Crimea.[88]
Notwithstanding the general prosperity enjoyed by the Jews at this
period, there were some reverses. Giaffir, called the Great, is
said to have issued an edict requiring Christians and Jews alike to
embrace Islamism. Al Wathek also, the successor of Mamun, one of
the Abasside Caliphs, residing at Cufa, inflicted heavy fines upon
them, partly because they had committed frauds in the management of
the finances entrusted to them, and partly because they refused the
religion of Mahomet. But the amount of suffering inflicted could
not, in either instance, have been great. Motakavel, however, his
brother and successor, was still harsher in his dealings with them.
He compelled them to wear a leathern girdle, to distinguish them from
the Faithful. He prohibited them from using stirrups when they rode
on horseback, and afterwards from riding horses at all. A summary of
the various badges and marks of degradation imposed on the Jews by
European and Asiatic sovereigns would form a curious study.
To this period also belongs the strange story of the kingdom of
Khozar, which has been regarded by some historians as being full of
misstatement and exaggeration, and by some as simple fiction. Khozar
belonged to the Turcomans, a heathen people; and it is reported
that, somewhere about the middle of the eighth century, Bular, its
king, a pious and thoughtful prince, received a revelation through a
dream,—or, according to another version, through the instruction of
an angel,—which showed the hollowness of the religion he professed.
Thereupon he began to make inquiry after a purer faith: and having
conversed with learned men professing Christianity, Islamism, and
Judaism, he made his election in favour of the last-named creed.
According to one version of the story, he came to this resolution
in a somewhat singular manner. Conversing apart with a Christian,
he asked of him whether he did not consider Judaism preferable to
Mahometanism, and was answered that he did. Then holding a similar
discussion with a Mahometan, he inquired whether _he_ did not regard
Judaism as superior to Christianity. Receiving an affirmative answer
here also, he decided in favour of the first-named faith, as it
appeared that it held the first place in the estimation of the Jew,
and the second in that of each of the other two. Having himself
received circumcision, he sent for learned Jews from neighbouring
countries, by whom in time the whole of his people were brought over
to the faith of Israel. A tabernacle was erected, similar to that
set up by Moses in the wilderness, and the Jewish worship regularly
carried on.
The authenticity of the story having been disputed some two centuries
and a half afterwards, Rabbi Hosdai, a learned man, much patronized
by Abderraman, the Caliph of Cordova, resolved to ascertain the
truth respecting it, and obtained, with considerable difficulty, a
letter from Joseph, the reigning sovereign of Khozar. In this the
king repeated the history of his ancestor’s conversion, very much
as popular rumour had stated it. The letter of Hosdai is still
extant, as well as the reply, and there seems no reason to doubt the
authenticity of the former, at all events.
Basnage and others reject the whole story as fable. It is argued
that this kingdom of Khozar, when searched for, could no more be
found than the Eldorado of the Spaniards, or the dominions of Prester
John; even the famous traveller of Hosdai’s time, Benjamin of Tudela,
though anxious, for the credit of his patron, to discover it,
entirely failed to do so. But modern research has proved that such a
kingdom did at all events exist; and the most judicious historians,
Jost among them, incline to believe that the story may have at all
events a groundwork of truth.
In Spain, during this period, all seems to have gone prosperously
with the Jews, except that an impostor named Serenus, who professed,
as so many before and after his time have done, to be the Messiah,
taking advantage of the unsettled state of things between France and
Spain, persuaded large numbers of his countrymen to follow him into
Palestine, where he proposed to set up his kingdom. He does not seem
to have reached the Holy Land, and the greater part of his followers
perished in the attempt. Those who survived returned to their homes,
but only to find that their possessions had been confiscated to the
State.
In the year 750 a revolution took place at Damascus, during which
nearly the whole of the Ommiad dynasty (as the descendants of
Caliph Omar were called) was cut off, and Abul Abbas succeeded to
the Caliphate. Yusef, the Mussulman Emir in Spain, sided with the
usurping family; but the Moorish chiefs generally were desirous of
establishing their own independence, and finding in Abderachman ben
Moasiah a still surviving representative of the Ommiad family, placed
him on the throne, under the title of the Caliph of Cordova. His
government was wise and powerful, and under him the Jews attained the
zenith of their prosperity.
We are now about to transfer our attention to the countries of
Western Europe, where occurred almost every event of importance in
which the Jews are concerned for several ensuing centuries. But
before doing so, it will be proper to record what is known of the
Hebrew communities who dwelt in those countries of the distant
East which acknowledged neither the sceptre of Rome nor of Persia.
The records of these are very scanty, and rest upon very doubtful
authority, but that affords no sufficient reason for not preserving
all that can be gleaned from various sources respecting them.
FOOTNOTES:
[84] Similarly, and for the like reason, Constantine Copronymus was
nicknamed ‘the Jew.’
[85] The Caliph Almamon, a great patron of learning, caused many of
the Rabbinical books to be translated into Arabic, and placed in the
Royal Library at Bagdad.
[86] After the capture of Rhodes, a Jew belonging to Edessa purchased
the remains of the celebrated Colossus, which had been lying on the
ground since its overthrow by an earthquake. It had been seventy
cubits high, and was constructed of brass. The fragments are said to
have loaded nine hundred camels. Probably the purchase money was a
sum ridiculously small, the profit enormous.
[87] Textualists, that is. It was attached to them in the first
instance as a term of reproach.
[88] The tenets of the Karaites are said to have been:
1. The Creation of the world, as opposed to its eternal existence.
2. That God had no beginning, has no form, and that His unity is
absolute.
3. That He sent Moses, and delivered to him the Law.
4. That every believer must derive his belief from the simple
interpretation of Holy Scripture, without regard to tradition.
5. That God will raise the dead, and judge men hereafter.
6. That He has not cast away His chosen people.
In recording these opinions, it should be noted that it is quite
possible (indeed, likely) that a party existed among the Jews,
long previously to the time of Ananus, who held notions identical
with or very like them, and who were also called Karaites, _i.e._,
‘Textualists;’ but they did not withdraw themselves into a separate
community, under the name of Karaites, until A.D. 780.