The Fate of the Jews in the Early Islamic Near East : Tracing the Demographic Shift From East to West

"In this book, Phillip I. Lieberman revisits one of the foundational narratives of medieval Jewish history--that the rise of Islam led the Jews of Babylonia, the largest Jewish community prior to the rise of Islam, to abandon a livelihood based on agriculture and move into urban crafts and long-distance trade. Here, he presents an alternative account that reveals the complexity of interfaith relations in early Islam. Using Jewish and Islamic chronicles, legal materials, and the rich documentary evidence of the Cairo Geniza, Lieberman demonstrates that Jews initially remained on the rural periphery after the Islamic conquest of Iraq. Gradually, they assimilated to an emerging Islamicate identity as the new religion took shape, sapping towns and villages of their strength. Simultaneously, a small, elite group of merchants and communal leaders migrated westward. Lieberman here explores their formative influence on the Jewish communities of the southern Mediterranean that flourished under Islamic conquest"--back cover Cover 1 Half-title 3 Title page 5 Copyright information 6 Contents 7 LIst of Figures 9 List of Tables 11 Acknowledgements 13 Preface 17 List of Abbreviations 19 1 The Field of History and the Fields of Iraq 21 Introduction 21 2 Jewish Occupational Choice and Urbanization in Iraq 64 Jewish Settlement in Babylonia at the Rise of Islam 68 Jewish Urbanization in the Early Centuries of Islam 69 Economic Alternatives to Urbanization 73 Changing Landholding Patterns in Iraq 77 The Population of Baghdad 82 What Happened to the Jews? 91 3 Conversion to Islam among the Jews of Early ʿAbbāsid Iraq 95 Writing Oneself In or Out: Conversion to Islam in the Wake of the Conquest of Iraq 105 Geonic Materials on Conversion from Judaism 109 The Frequency and Location of Conversion to Islam 118 Conceiving of Conversion: Approaches from Elsewhere 120 Conclusion: The Role of Assimilation to Islamic Culture in the Retreat of Iraqi Jewry 123 4 Onomastics, the Cairo Geniza, and Jewish Exceptionalism 125 What's in a Name? 128 5 The Early Vulgar Judeo-Arabic Spelling (EPJAS) and Westward Movement 165 Whither EVJAS/EPJAS? 167 How Much Arabic? 171 Arabic among Jews in Iraq 175 The Penetration of Arabic into the Jewish Community of the West 176 Classical Arabic among the Jews of Tenth-Century North Africa 181 Palestine and Babylonia: Karaites and Se'adya 185 Urban versus Rural in Tenth-Century Judeo-Arabic 187 Enhanced Urban-Rural Contacts in the Tenth Century 190 Some Historical Problems with Blau and Hopkins' Solution 194 Seʿadya and Arabic in the Documents Preserved in the Geniza 197 Contextualizing the Disappearance of EVJAS 198 Conclusion 201 6 The Development of Jewish and Islamic Commercial Law in the Early Islamic Centuries 203 Legal Sources from the Early Islamic Centuries 209 The Development of Jewish Commercial Law: Rabbanite Sources 213 The Basic Models for Commercial Cooperation from the Talmud to the High Middle Ages 213 The ''Wage as a Worker'': Indications of Deepening Commercial Networks 215 Dividing Profits and Losses: Exposure to Islamic Partnership Practice 218 ''Administrator'' as ''Investor'': Developing Patterns of Investment 223 Other Changes in Commerce Visible in the Law 225 Law and Literature: Writing for One's Audience 227 The Suftaja - Expanding Penetration into Long-Distance Trade, Gradual Acceptance by Jurists 230 The ''Economic Factor'' and the Expanding Acceptability of Documents 232 Dating the Expansion of Markets 233 Developments in Rabbanite Law - Conclusions 236 Detail from Karaite Materials Shedding Light on the Development of Commercial Law 236 Proto-Karaite/Early Karaite Authorities: Adumbrating Commercial Law 237 Developments in the Law: Tenth and Eleventh Centuries 241 The Twelfth Century: Evidence of Further Development 243 Islamic Commercial Law from Shaybani to Kasani 246 Comparing Developments in Rabbanite, Karaite, and Islamic Commercial Law 253 7 Migratory Movements throughout the Islamic Mediterranean in the Early Islamic Centuries 256 Political and Military Stimuli 259 The Thughur: Migration due to Military and Political Forces 260 Immigration More Broadly: ''Religious'' as well as Military 264 Controlling Local Economies and Urban Unrest by Managing Migration 268 Economic Forces on the Individual 273 Talab Al-ilm and ''Religious'' Forces Revisited 280 ''Push'' versus ''Pull'' Factors in General 287 Conclusions 291 Bibliography 303 Index 321