16. Meanwhile, the Early Medieval Islamic world was also a tough place for Jewish people to live
Jewish people have historically suffered in the Islamic world, too. The problem with the Abrahamic religions – Judaism, Christianity, Islam – is that they not only overlap in their scriptures but geographically, and Jerusalem is claimed as the holy city by all three. The Koran records the Battle of Khayber, in which Mohammed (like Christ, seen as a heretic by Jewish people) decimated a Jewish army in 628. Recent centuries have seen a rise in Islamic antisemitism, but in the Early Medieval period, Islamic countries were generally more tolerant of Jews than Christian nations. Things weren’t all that great outside Christendom, nonetheless.
Jewish people had to put up with more restrictions than others, including paying higher taxes, wearing badges to distinguish them, and not being allowed to bear arms. In certain places, Jews couldn’t bear witness against Islamic people in court. Periodic antisemitic violence also broke out when, as in Egica’s Spain, it suited the ruling powers, accompanied by propaganda characterising Jews as traitors and sworn-enemies of Islam. When the Almoravid Dynasty came to Southern Iberia, it persecuted Jews and Christians alike and encouraged racist mob-violence. In fact, things got so bad under the Almoravids that many Jews fled to Christian countries.
