INTRODUCTION:
Rambam (1135-1204) was born at the close of the five hundred
year period known as the Golden Age of Jewish Spain. This was a time when Jews
flourished under Islamic rule, and enjoyed great political and religious
freedom[1].
But this Golden Age came to an abrupt end in the mid 1100’s with the rise of a
radical Islamic sect known as the Almohadim who presented the Jews and
Christians with an ultimatum to either convert or die (which was later
rescinded to allowing for the option to leave the country).
One of the reasons for this persecution particularly against
Jews was the belief that the Messiah would arrive five hundred years after
Mohammad’s ‘revelation’ in 622. When the Messiah did not arrive, it was decided
that Jews needed to convert to Islam.
The Christians by and large found refuge in other European
countries but the Jews had difficulty in finding sanctuary (although some went
to neighbouring Christian Spain). Most
Jews, however, remained in Muslim Spain and were compelled to outwardly adopt
Islam as their new religion.
They reasoned that allegiance to Islam only required a
verbal declaration and anyway that religion was not considered to be
idolatrous. In a strange agreement, the authorities allowed the Jews to
practice Judaism in the privacy of their homes, but only after publically
attending Mosque and reciting the Koran.
(The Jews remained on in Spain until 1492 when they were
eventually expelled from what then became Christian Spain and they were no
longer permitted to practice their Judaism even discretely.)
 |
| Ramabm's house in Fez Morroco |
Rambam was thirteen years old when the Almohadim rose to
power. His family were on the run for eleven years, fleeing from Spanish city
to city, until they left for Morocco, where they lived for a number of years,
until similar Islamic persecutions forced them to flee again, and eventually they
settled in Egypt.
THE THREE LETTERS:
While on the move, Rambam’s father, Rabbi Maimon, wrote a
letter of comfort or Iggeret Nechama to the majority of Jews who had
remained behind in Spain, encouraging them to remain steadfast in their
Judaism.
It was at this time that a Moroccan rabbi also wrote a
letter to the Jews of Spain, but instead of encouraging them he condemned them
in the strongest terms for outwardly converting to Islam. He wrote that Islam was not a
monotheistic religion and was in fact a form of idolatry, for which the Spanish
Jews should rather have laid down their lives than to have converted. He
effectively placed all of Spanish Jewry under excommunication for their practices.
He said that even the act of entering a Mosque without praying was considered heretical.
When Rambam found out about this letter, he strenuously
believed it ran contrary to Jewish law. He became incensed and wrote a counter
letter of his own to those same Jews who had remained behind in Spain. The
letter is known as Iggeret haShmad or Letter of Apostasy.
In Iggeret haShmad Rambam refuted the Moroccan
rabbi’s claims and accusations and lifted their spirits. He accused the rabbi
of writing about circumstances he could never have understood from his distant
abode, without having experienced persecution firsthand.
Even some Talmudic sages, Rabbi Meir and Rabbi Eliezer
feigned conversion in order to save their lives.[2]
Rambam reiterated his belief that it was better to submit to
Islam and still lead a private Jewish life because that way their children
would remain Jewish instead of being orphaned. He further wrote that merely to
recite the Shahada (the Islamic proclamation of faith) is permitted if
one’s life is threatened.
He made the distinction between the three cardinal sins -
idolatry, adultery and murder - for which one is required to give up one’s life
rather than transgress them - as opposed to converting to Islam which in his
view was not idolatry.
He explained that a real Kiddush haShem
(sanctification of G-d’s name) was not to submit to death but rather to live an
exemplary, moral and honest life.
Rambam’s tone and tenor in this letter is significantly
forceful, even angry towards the Moroccan rabbi, when compared to his other
more measured writings.
While he did regard those Jews who remained behind in Spain
to have been somewhat negligent and while he did encourage them to try leave,
he nevertheless offered his support and even sanction to the way the Spanish
Jews were living.
It has been said that as a result of Iggeret haShmad
the huge numbers of Jews who continued living in Spain were finally given hope
and were made to feel exonerated and still connected to their people. This kept
the ‘door open’ for them to remain Jewish and thus saved their future
generations.
Had it not been for this letter, the vast majority of
Spanish Jews may have felt completely excommunicated and may have lost their
desire to remain committed to Judaism.
It is in this sense that it can be said
that Rambam played a pivotal role in saving a huge segment of Spanish Jewry.
WAS RAMBAM FORCED TO CONVERT TO ISLAM IN HIS YOUTH?
As a consequence of Iggeret haShmad some[3]
contend that Rambam too may have been forced to convert to Islam while still in
Spain (or Morocco). Accordingly, he may have experienced firsthand what forced
conversion felt like when he wrote about it in his letter - hence his empathy
for them.
Then, as soon as it became safe for him and his family, they
denounced their ‘conversion’.
It’s interesting to see that many Muslim writers[4]
have claimed Rambam, or Musa bin Maymun, as their own:
The 13th Century Muslim biographer Safadi (who hailed from
Safad) wrote;
“When Maimonides came from the West he prayed the tarawih
prayers out of the Koran with the people of the boat, it being the month of
Ramadan. He came...to Damascus. There the Kadi... happened to be ill.
Maimonides attended to him...The Kadi was grateful to him and wished to
remunerate him. Maimonides, however...would take nothing from him.
Presently he
bought a house and asked the Kadi to antedate (backdate) the contract by five
years. The Kadi, seeing no harm that could arise, readily agreed to the
request...Maimonides presently went to Egypt where he entered the service of (another
Kadi) Al-Fudil. Some of his fellow passengers on the boat then came and said:
‘This man came with us from the West and prayed...with us in such and such a
year.’ Maimonides produced the contract, saying: ‘I was in Damascus long before
that year...’[5]
Thus according to Safadi, Rambam cleverly and deviously hid
his conversion from the Egyptian Kadi so as not to be punished (by death) for
abandoning Islam and openly returning to Judaism.
Herbert Davidson quoting another medieval Muslim writer, Al-Kifti
wrote:
“(Those) who had few ties departed (Spain), whereas those
who were concerned about property and family ‘exhibited the external guise of
Islam’...Moses the son of Maimon chose the latter course. He publicly lived the
life of a Muslim. Reading the Quran and reciting Muslim prayers, until he was
able to put his affairs in order.
He then left Spain...travelled to Egypt and
resumed the identity of a Jew. At the end of Maimonides’ life, a Muslim jurist
from Spain...arrived in Egypt, recognized him, and accused him of having
‘accepted Islam in Spain’. Maimonides’ patron in the sultan’s court rescued him
– recidivism from Islam being punishable by death – by declaring; ‘When a man
is coerced, his acceptance of Islam is not legally binding’.” [6]
But Davidon contends Al-Kifti’s account
:
“Maimonides had
bitter personal enemies in Egypt as well as ideological enemies throughout the
Jewish world who would have clapped their hands in glee at the opportunity of
undercutting his reputation and besmirching his name. Yet no information about
the conversion of the Maimon family...is known to have penetrated Jewish
circles; no medieval Jewish writer ever hints at anything of the sort.”[7]
Historian Alan Nadler, also refutes this and other such
claims:
“Maimonides practiced the time-honoured medieval
tradition of Taqiyya, or prudent dissimulation, by dressing and behaving like a
Muslim publically, perhaps occasionally presenting himself at a mosque, while
remaining an observant Jew during the darkest period of the Almohad
persecution...which...resulted in thousands of forced apostasies and deaths.
There is simply no credible evidence that Maimonides converted, let alone that
he was a ‘practicing Muslim.’”
Dr. Friedlander, best known for his English translation of
The Guide for the Perplexed, similarly and completely refutes any claims that
Rambam converted saying that the charge (which was apparently well known); “...was
probably started by some less favoured physician who envied Maimonides’ successes
at the Ayyubids’ court.”
Rambam himself wrote that while on a visit to Jerusalem he entered
the Temple Mount (a place usually out of bounds for a practicing Jew). This
only added fuel to the rumour that he had converted to Islam. The fact of the
matter is that Jews are permitted to enter only certain areas of the
Temple Mount, and that is most likely what Rambam did.
In more contemporary terms Jerome A. Chanes writes that “...the
practice, during periods of persecution in Sefardic lands, of behaving publicly
in a Muslim manner, whilst remaining traditionally observant,“ was very
common.
“The early Ashkenazi residents of Jerusalem’s Meah Shearim quarter
adopted the same practice of ‘blending in’ for security reasons, a practice
copied from the older Sefardic community, dressing like Arabs in striped robes.
The ‘zebrot’ of the Batei Ungarn neighbourhood today are the remnants of this
history.”[8]
ANALYSIS:
During the eleven
years that Rambam and his family were persecuted in Spain, and the years they
spent running from danger in Morocco, whilst so many other Jews had been forced
to convert (or feign conversion) to Islam on pain of death - could he not have
been subject to that same fate?
It is feasible,
and as we have seen most probable that he may have been coerced to adopt some
outward Muslim practices.
But the
definitive answer as to whether or not he was forced to convert to Islam
is as elusive as the question is uncomfortably contentious.
[1]
There is some contention amongst historians as to whether the Golden Age was as
utopian for Jews as it is often made out to be. According to Bernard Lewis the
perception is largely exaggerated. He claims that Islam did not offer equality
or even pretend that it did.
[2]
Avodah Zara 18a
[3]
Including Graetz (who refers to anyone who denies this as ‘critical
imbecility’), and Prof. Menachem Ben-Sasson of Hebrew University (but he
hastens to point out that it was a ‘feigned conversion’).
[4] Al-Kifti
[5]
The unpublished Biographical Dictionary of Safadi (Bodleian MS. Arch. Seld.)
For a fascinating
refutation of this story see The Legend of the
Apostasy of Maimonides, by D. S.
Margoliouth The Jewish Quarterly Review Vol. 13, No. 3 (Apr., 1901), pp.
539-541
[6]
Moses Maimonides: the Man and his Works, by Herbert Davidson, p. 17
[7]
Ibid. p. 18
[8] Jerome A. Chanes, faculty scholar at
Brandeis University’s Cohen Center, is the author of “A Dark Side of
History: Antisemitism through the Ages.”
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