Jews and Muslims: Intimate Strangers

This is an account of the birth of Islam and a history of conquest stretching from Persia to Spain. For the conquered, what was their place in this empire? For the polytheists they had little choice but to convert, for the People Of The Book, Jews and Christians would be allowed to practice their religions, protected but restricted.

In the year 721, the Muslim Empire was vast. Across the empire Jews and Christians were minorities motivated by a desire to obtain the most favorable status. Their quest for an elevated status within the empire did not hinder cultural exchanges as can be determined with the House of Wisdom in Baghdad, nor prevent the occurrence in the 11th Century of the massacre of Jews in Granada and the persecution and forced conversion of Jews & Christians under the Almohads in the 12th Century. In the 15th Century, the Reconquista chased the Jews and Muslims from Spain which heralded the end of Al-Andalus.

History now takes us to Europe: the French Revolution. Nation-states. The Jews, now European citizens, became the target of a more asserted anti-Semitism. But having incorporated the new national elites, they began to take a greater interest in the fate of the Jews in the Muslim world and to play the role of their protectors. Trapped between Zionism and Arabic nationalism, Palestine -- called "Southern Syria" by the Ottomans -- became the object of religious and political contention.

In 1945, the world discovers the horror of the Nazi camps. In 1948, the birth of Israel aroused anger and bitterness among Arabs and Muslims, but triggered joy and exultation throughout the Jewish world. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were expelled or fled with the hope of a future return. Within just a few decades, the vast majority of Jews living in the Muslim world would leave Iraq, Egypt, Iran, Syria, Morocco and Tunisia.