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>That's false. Native Jewish population across the whole Middle East have always been a second-class citizen persecuted minority in the Muslim Arab countries, a

>That's false. Native Jewish population across the whole Middle East have always been a second-class citizen persecuted minority in the Muslim Arab countries, as all other conquered people — if they had the fortune to survive and save their identity at all. >Jews have been slaughtered and persecuted across the whole of Arab world, just as in Palestine, for centuries. So were other ethnical and religious groups. Can you find a single one which was not? I think this needs to be viewed in context. At various points in time in Antiquity, Jews were enslaved, subjected to poll taxes, massacred, and denied the right to full citizenship even after emancipation. After Theodosius enacted the Edict of Thessalonica, Jews lost the right to build synagogues and were barred from holding many professions. Pogroms became common and Jews were segregated; this was the story well into the 9th century in Byzantine territories. Meanwhile, in western Europe, this is the period where the blood libel originates. Quite a lot of Jews actually migrated into Muslim territories as paying the jizya was considered a sight better than what they got in Christian ones. The jizya itself is not some unique artifact of Islamic polity anyway, poll taxes, temple taxes in India, and tithes have all variously been levied by rulers of specific sects against constituents who adhered to other ones. The same is true for sectarian hierarchy, which continued well into the age of exploration, when, for example, the Portuguese levied the Xenddi against Muslims and Hindus alike in its territories in India. Not to suggest that there isn't widespread antisemitism in the Muslim world, but I do think characterizing it as unique and unprecedented when it emerges in the medieval Levant is at least anachronistic if not orientalist.

golergka 2y ago
This is weird — I agree with you completely. I'm sorry if my characterisation came off as something unique and unprecedented, this is really not my intent here. On the contrary, my point is that this is exactly what different ethnical and religious groups have been doing to each other for centuries, and treatment that Jews got in the Muslim Arab world was nothing out of the ordinary. That's exactly why I wrote that > Also, please don't think that my description of Arab Muslim world shows prejudice. Almost all other nations have always worked the same way. Arab Muslims, especially at the time, were not dissimilar from Chinese or English. Humans become more tolerant and humane as their level of living increases, but for most of history, humans across the whole world were equally horrible to one another.

golergka 2y ago

This is weird — I agree with you completely. I'm sorry if my characterisation came off as something unique and unprecedented, this is really not my intent here. On the contrary, my point is that this is exactly what different ethnical and religious groups have been doing to each other for centuries, and treatment that Jews got in the Muslim Arab world was nothing out of the ordinary. That's exactly why I wrote that > Also, please don't think that my description of Arab Muslim world shows prejudice. Almost all other nations have always worked the same way. Arab Muslims, especially at the time, were not dissimilar from Chinese or English. Humans become more tolerant and humane as their level of living increases, but for most of history, humans across the whole world were equally horrible to one another.