You're recycling long discredited myths.
For starters, while anti-Semitism would seem to imply one hates all Semites, it has always been used to describe anti-Jewish feeling and has almost always been exclusively directed at Jews. Wilhelm Marr, the man who popularized the term proudly called himself an anti-semite and, to the best of my knowldedge, never attacked Arabs. Hitler was very close to Amin Al-Husayni, an Arab, but I'm sure you wouldn't hesitate to label him an anti-Semite. Therefore it seems fare to say that Arabs can be anti-semitic. And certainly anti-Jewish sentiment has a long history in the Islamic world.
The Prophet himself would probably be puzzled by your statement that Muslim treatement of Jews has "been consistently good since the dawn of Islam." The Quran is filled with anti-Jewish passages, such as claims that the are the worst enemies of Islam(5:82) and are condemned for believing that Ezra is son of God just as Christians believe Jesus is the son of God.(9:30) and the ahadith are even worse. Also while I suspect he would defend his decision to have all the men of the Banu Qurayza beheaded, and all the women and children enslaved or turned into concubines, I doubt he would claim that the treatment of them was "good."
Moreover, while up untill the 18th or 19th Centuries Jews were treated better in the Islamic world than they were in the Islamic world to say that it was "good" or that they lived "in harmony" is absurd and frankly insulting to the Jews of that time period. Being Dhimmis, in accordance with the pact of Umar, amongst other things they were forbidden to bear arms, forced to pay the Jizya(poll tax), forbidden to ride horses or camels and forced to wear distinctive clothing. According to Norman Stillman, they were regularly subjected to "ritualized degradation." That's why Jews and Christians were allowed only to ride donkey and use pack saddles as if they were women. Even Maimonides was forced to ride a donkey while he was Saladin's personal doctor and Saladin, one of the most "tolerant" Muslim leader of the Middle Ages, reportedly had one Jewish doctor executed for riding a horse. Similarly, the Jizya was often, though not always, collected in ways designed to humiliate. Dhimmis were not allowed to testify in courts against Muslims which menat that often a Muslim could do whatever he wanted to a Jew without fear of punishment so long as he wasn't observed by another Muslim. Muslim men could marry Dhimmi women but Dhimmi men certainly weren't allowed to marry Muslim women.
Also, no one familiar with Muslim-Jewish relations would say that their treatment was "consisent." Their treatment and status often varied dramatically depending on the whim of whatever Muslim leader held power. Now, they rarely faced the violent persecution that Jews in Chrisendom often faced because they were usually usefull because they filled in administrative, commericial, and medical fields that Muslims, for a variety of reasons, tended to shy away from, and they were always a good source of taxes, but there were still many pogroms against in the Islamic world. The Jews of Corobda, Grenada, and Fez could certainly testify to how fast relations could change.
I'll also note that in Persia of the 18th and 19th Century, Jews were classified as Najes(unclean) and they were forbidden from coming into physical contact with Muslims and limited in their occupations to prevent them from "polluting" Muslims, and regularly pelted with stones by children. There were even laws forbidding them from going outside in the rain lest the rainwater wash filth off them onto Muslims.
I have no problem saying that not only would I rather be a Jew in 19th Century Britain than in 19th Century Persia, but I would rather be a free black person in the antebellum South(prior to the reconstruction) than be a Jew in 18th and 19th Century Persia.
To be fair, what was true in Persia was not true in the Sunni parts of the Islamic world, though even during the best of times referring to the relationship between Jews and Muslims as "apartheidlike" would not be completely unfair and a far better description than the term "good."
Also, the idea that Jewish settlers in Palestine "seized" Muslim land prior to the recognition of the state of Israel is absurd.
Jewish settlers and Jewish agencies didn't "seize" the land. They legally purchased it from the Arab owners, almost of whom were absantee landlords who usually lived in Beirut or Damascus. Usually the land was considered unarable, but yes, there were many Arab fellahin(peasants) who lost land this way, but they didn't own the land. Moreover, as Benny Morris, one of Israel's harshest critics whose work is often cited by such Israel lovers as Noam Chomsky and Edward Said, notes while thousands of Arabs were effectively displaced this way over the course of fifty years, it was nowhere near the numbers put forward by many of Israel's critics and also didn't come close to the number of Arabs who were often pushed off their land by their own governments due to projects like the Al Aswan dam. While Morris doesn't mention it, it's worth keeping in mind that far more people have been displaced by various urban renewal projects in the west.
Now, most of us many not like urban renewal or absantee landlords selling off land that others lived on, lets not treat it like a massive human rights violation or use words like "seized" to describe it. Let's just say "legally bought" instead. Let's keep in mind two things. First, as Morris notes more
land was being offered for sale by Arabs than was being bought by Jews. Second, not all Muslims believed that the Jews were "seizing" land. In his memoirs King Abdullah of Transjordan acidly wrote, "The Arabs are as prodigal in selling their land as they are in weeping about it."
Once can make legitmate criticisms of the early settlers but let's leave aside the misleading terms.
You're recycling long discredited myths.
Hitler was very close to Amin Al-Husayni, an Arab, but I'm sure you wouldn't hesitate to label him an anti-Semite.
I'm not sure I really want to get into this, but do you suppose it is accurate that Hitler was "close" to Husseini? Unless, of course, by "close" you mean "vaguely aware of someone after having been introduced on one official occasion." I don't think they were best friends for ever. I don't even think that Hitler considered the Arabs anything more than a sideshow.Once can make legitmate criticisms of the early settlers but let's leave aside the misleading terms.
Syria (Bilad ash-Sham): most of the inhabitable parts of today's Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine. The northwestern portions of the Transjordan. Hatay.
Mesopotamia (al-Jazira): northern region between the Tigris and the Euphrates, including the region east of the Khabur in Syria. Major cities include Nusaybin-Qamishli, Mosul, and Hasakah.
Iraq: (in the traditional sense) southern region between the Tigris and the Euphrates.
Note that I do not mean to imply that these should be separately governed. I merely note that when people attempt to carve up the Middle East they rarely give any thought to the traditional divisions.
Here are seven traditional (if not necessarily logical) regions of the Arab world:
Syria (Bilad ash-Sham): most of the inhabitable parts of today's Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine. The northwestern portions of the Transjordan. Hatay.Note that I do not mean to imply that these should be separately governed. I merely note that when people attempt to carve up the Middle East they rarely give any thought to the traditional divisions.
Mesopotamia (al-Jazira): northern region between the Tigris and the Euphrates, including the region east of the Khabur in Syria. Major cities include Nusaybin-Qamishli, Mosul, and Hasakah.
Iraq: (in the traditional sense) southern region between the Tigris and the Euphrates.
Hejaz: southwestern Transjordan, northwestern Saudi Arabia.
Asir: mountainous region south of the Hejaz on the border with Yemen (famous for having produced most of the 9/11 hijackers).
Nejd: arid plateau covering much of central Saudi Arabia.
Ahsa / Hasa: northwestern Saudi Arabia
Deserts: These include the Syrian desert, the Nafud, the Rub' al-Khali, and other smaller ones.
Would you not consider the Maghreb (Northwest Africa) to be part of the Arab world?
And Egypt, of course.
Ajami Iraq (or "Persian" Iraq) is merely the lowlands region east of the Tigris but west of the Zagros mountains. Arab Iraq is the region between the two rivers in the south. What is today "northern Iraq" was formerly known as al-Jazeera, except for the parts which are desert, which were never considered to be part of Iraq traditionally.Isn't the border between these Saddam's dear Tikrit? Iraq proper is also known as Arabian Iraq; there's also a Persian Iraq, with which it has little to do with. I think another name for it is Sawad, but I might be wrong on this.
Ajami Iraq (or "Persian" Iraq) is merely the lowlands region east of the Tigris but west of the Zagros mountains.
It's not a matter of being non-Arabic speakers (indeed, most Berbers speak Arabic as a second or even a first language), it's a matter of identification with the Arabs. Apart from the Kurds and the Berbers, non-Arab minorities in the Arab world are statistically negligible. In places like Morocco, you have upwards of half or more of the population identifying as something other than Arab. To identify these countries as "Arab countries" is extremely exclusive of the significant minorities (or even majorities) who are emphatically not Arab.While I agree that the Maghreb may have the largest percentage of non-Arabic speakers in the wider Arab World, is it really the only part of the Arab world with a distinct non-Arab presence?
Am I right in my understanding of ash-Sham being "the North" and Al-Maghreb being "the West"
I was under the impression that the name was restricted to the lowlands, and that Amarah was its chief city, but I went to the Encyclopaedia Iranica, and apparently there's an interesting "Kingdom of Two Sicilies" explanation for it all.Are you sure of this? I've seen maps showing it on both sides of the Zagros. Could there have been some "migration" from east to west of the range in the middle or late 19th century?
I'm not sure I really want to get into this, but do you suppose it is accurate that Hitler was "close" to Husseini? Unless, of course, by "close" you mean "vaguely aware of someone after having been introduced on one official occasion." I don't think they were best friends for ever. I don't even think that Hitler considered the Arabs anything more than a sideshow.
Incidentally, najes or "ritually impure" applies all kinds of things and people. You make it seem like a specific thing reserved for Jews, when even Muslims can be najes. And, as it happens, the Jews of the region have (and have had, since long before the Muslims appeared) similar views of members of other religions - they are, by nature, ritually impure and therefore render food and the like impure by their contact.
You've expressed a guarded respect for Bernard Lewis here before, but he is the primary source of what you are describing as "long discredited myths" about the treatment of Jews under Islam. His own opinions about the subject have often brought him into conflict with "Bat Ye'or," a polemicist who writes under a pseudonym and, to our knowledge, has absolutely no credentials whatsoever besides an engaging style of writing. I'm afraid that, if forced to make a choice between the two, I would choose to believe Lewis without a doubt.
Dimashq/Dammasheq/Damascus is not an Arabic word. In Syria, they refer to the city itself as Sham, although historically it is known as Dimashq (which, as I've said, is a loanword).I thought that Dimashq was the Arabic name for Damascus.
Dimashq/Dammasheq/Damascus is not an Arabic word. In Syria, they refer to the city itself as Sham, although historically it is known as Dimashq (which, as I've said, is a loanword).
Being an Ottomanist, Lewis has an undeniable tendency to highlight the more positive aspects of the Ottoman empire. He also dislikes Iran (and all of its historical incarnations, it seems) intensely, which seems to cloud his judgment.I have no problem believing that Lewis would find my post far more accurate than Pasha's claims that Jews and Muslims lived "in harmony." He along with Cohen have fought against what he called the "two competing myths" of the relationship between Jews and Muslims being an "interfaith utopia" on the one hand or a constant tale of persecution on the other, both of which he has argued are false.
Here you're conflating a religious category with a legal one. Najes is not a legal category. As far as I know, even in Iran, no one has ever been punished for being najes, as a Muslim who uses TP instead of washing himself after defecating would automatically be subject to the same punishments as a Jew. Furthermore, my impression of najes was that one could cleanse oneself of impurities by following Islamic purity laws (not drinking alcohol, doing the ablutions, not touching certain animals) and the main reason why Christians, Jews, and others were najes was simply because they did not follow these laws, not because of any racial ideas.As to the question of Najes, no I did not mean to imply that it was something only referred to Jews, however I think comparing it to the beliefs of the Jews at that time is unfair. If at the time the Jews had controled a state and punished any gentile who dared to ride a horse, walk in the rain or come into physical contact with Jew you'd have a point, but they didn't. I think a more apt comparison is the treatment of the Untouchables in India or the Eta in feudal Japan.
While not wholly inaccurate, I do have to disagree with several particulars. For starters, the treatment of Jews and other Peoples of the Book is written into the very basis of Islamic law, and the Pact of Umar is merely a recognition of this status. Second, while they were undoubtedly second class citizens, they were not "low rank" by any means and were often the most successful sectors of society. Thirdly, apart from certain notable parts of the Islamic world at certain times, I'm not so sure that Jews as a whole were forced to "ignore constant reminders of their inferiority." Finally, I don't agree that Muslims usually viewed Jews with contempt. While I have seen anecdotal examples of Muslim contempt for Judaism, I haven't seen any evidence that it was as pervasive as it was in, say, European society for much of history."Jews were entitled und the Pact of Umar to a whole host of protections that religious minorities in Christian lands did not. Wht the Pact did was define their place in a hierarchial society in which they held a low rank, but a rank nonetheless. In exchange for special taxes, the acceptance of several social disabilities, the recognition of the primacy of Islam, and the willingness to ignore constant reminders of their legal and social inferiority they would not be molested and, with rare exceptions, they never faced the violent persecutions that Jews in Europe faced. As long as they 'knew their place' they were left alone and while Christians usually viewed them with hate and fear, Muslims usually only viewed them with contempt."
Do you think my assessment is fair?
Now who is perpetuating discredited myths? I'm really not in the mood to rehash the same tired discussions about misquotes of the Koran and right-wing anti-Islamic nonsense about dhimmitude. Anyone can get a superficial knowledge of history off the internet and cut and paste texts here. Read a book about Jews in Ottoman Syria and Palestine then get back to me. If you need any recommendations, I'm happy to provide them.
Furthermore, the status of non-Muslims in Iran and elsewhere was nothing like the dalits. For starters, one was born an dalit and could do nothing to alter one's status (one could not "convert" to Brahmanism). Intermarriage was also against the rules and, when it happened, one's children were automatically relegated to the lowest sphere of society. Also, I think it's ludicrous to suggest that the degree to which non-Muslims were treated in Islamic countries ever approached the kind of systematized oppression of the caste system in India.
That non-Muslims were prohibited from riding horses is indeed a good example of oppressive legislation, but I fail to see what it has to do with najes or the broader topic of anti-Semitism.
Here you're conflating a religious category with a legal one. Najes is not a legal category. As far as I know, even in Iran, no one has ever been punished for being najes,
Now, I'm willing to admit that I may be wrong here - I'm not the one of Iranian descent - but that was what I have come to understand.
That non-Muslims were prohibited from riding horses is indeed a good example of oppressive legislation, but I fail to see what it has to do with najes or the broader topic of anti-Semitism.
While not wholly inaccurate, I do have to disagree with several particulars. For starters, the treatment of Jews and other Peoples of the Book is written into the very basis of Islamic law, and the Pact of Umar is merely a recognition of this status. Second, while they were undoubtedly second class citizens, they were not "low rank" by any means and were often the most successful sectors of society. Thirdly, apart from certain notable parts of the Islamic world at certain times, I'm not so sure that Jews as a whole were forced to "ignore constant reminders of their inferiority." Finally, I don't agree that Muslims usually viewed Jews with contempt. While I have seen anecdotal examples of Muslim contempt for Judaism, I haven't seen any evidence that it was as pervasive as it was in, say, European society for much of history.