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

Challenges a foundational narrative of Jewish history under early Islam—that Jews went from farmers to merchants—presenting an alternative.

Phillip Lieberman (Author)

9781316512227, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 23 June 2022

300 pages
23.6 x 15.8 x 2.2 cm, 0.64 kg

'… a very suitable resource for those interested in Near Eastern studies, archaeology, and Jewish studies … [while] this book focuses on Jews, it can be considered as a very useful source for understanding the Islamic world of the Middle Ages too.' Maryam Ghasemnejad, Immigrants & Minorities

In this book, Phillip 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.

Preface
1. The field of history and the fields of Iraq
2. Jewish occupational choice and urbanization in Iraq
3. Conversion to Islam among the Jews of Early-?Abb?sid Iraq
4. Onomastics, the Cairo Geniza, and Jewish exceptionalism
5. The early vulgar Judeo-Arabic spelling (EPJAS) and westward movement
6. The development of Jewish and Islamic commercial law in the early Islamic centuries
7. Migratory movements throughout the Islamic Mediterranean in the early centuries of Islam.

Subject Areas: Judaism [HRJ], Islam [HRH], Medieval history [HBLC1], Middle Eastern history [HBJF1]