Flight from persecution
Flight from the Almohads
← View on the mapWhy it happened
The puritanical Almohad movement, rooted in Ibn Tumart's rigid monotheism,1 repudiated the dhimma pact that had protected non-Muslims;2 overrunning the Maghreb and al-Andalus from 1147,1 it forced Jews to choose conversion to Islam, death, or flight.3
The migration
Abd al-Mu'min's forces destroyed the Almoravid state and took Marrakesh in 1147, then crossed into al-Andalus, seizing Córdoba and the renowned yeshiva-town of Lucena in 1148.14 Abolishing the dhimma that had shielded non-Muslims, the Almohads left Jews only conversion, death, or exile.23 A contemporary Cairo Geniza letter by Solomon Cohen reports massacres from Sijilmasa to Tlemcen; its tolls of 100,000 slain at Fez and 120,000 at Marrakesh are wildly inflated but convey the catastrophe.3 Many outwardly embraced Islam while secretly remaining Jews; others were deported or fled.3 Refugees crossed into Christian Castile, Aragon and Portugal — Lucena's academy reopened in Toledo — while others reached Ayyubid Egypt and Syria.234 The young Maimonides wandered southern Spain and North Africa, settling briefly in Fez before reaching Acre and Fustat.5 The upheaval ended al-Andalus's Jewish golden age.3
Sources
- BEncyclopaedia Judaica. 2007. Almohads. Encyclopaedia Judaica (2nd ed.), reprinted by the Jewish Virtual Library link
- BBennison, Amira K.. 2016. The Almoravid and Almohad Empires. Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh (The Edinburgh History of the Islamic Empires)
- BStillman, Norman A.. 1979. The Jews of Arab Lands: A History and Source Book. Jewish Publication Society of America, Philadelphia link
- BPeláez del Rosal, Jesús (ed.). 1985. De Abrahán a Maimónides, III: Los judíos en Córdoba. Ediciones El Almendro, Córdoba
- BRabinowitz LI, Dienstag JI, Hyman A, et al.. 2007. Maimonides, Moses. Encyclopaedia Judaica (2nd ed.), ed. Fred Skolnik & Michael Berenbaum, Macmillan Reference USA / Thomson Gale link