1066 Granada massacre
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On December 30, 1066 (9 Tevet 4827), a Muslim mob stormed the royal palace in Granada, which was at that time in Muslim-ruled al-Andalus, assassinated Jewish vizier Joseph ibn Naghrela and massacred most of the Jewish population of the city.[1][2] According to scholars Richard Gottheil and Meyer Kayserling: "More than 1,500 Jewish families, numbering 4,000 persons, fell in one day."[3]
According to historian Bernard Lewis, the massacre is "usually ascribed to a reaction among the Muslim population against a powerful and ostentatious Jewish vizier."[4]
Lewis writes:
Particularly instructive in this respect is an ancient anti-Semitic poem of Abu Ishaq, written in Granada in 1066. This poem, which is said to be instrumental in provoking the anti-Jewish outbreak of that year, contains these specific lines:
- Do not consider it a breach of faith to kill them, the breach of faith would be to let them carry on.
- They have violated our covenant with them, so how can you be held guilty against the violators?
- How can they have any pact when we are obscure and they are prominent?
- Now we are humble, beside them, as if we were wrong and they were right![5]
Lewis continues: "Diatribes such as Abu Ishaq's and massacres such as that in Granada in 1066 are of rare occurrence in Islamic history."[5]
The episode has been characterized as a pogrom. Walter Laqueur writes, "Jews could not as a rule attain public office (as usual there were exceptions), and there were occasional pogroms, such as in Granada in 1066."[6]
[edit] See also
[edit] Notes
- ^ Lucien Gubbay (1999). Sunlight and Shadow: The Jewish Experience of Islam. New York: Other Press. pp. 80. ISBN 1-892746-69-7.
- ^ Norman Roth (1994). Jews, Visigoths, and Muslims in Medieval Spain: Cooperation and Conflict. Netherlands: E. J. Brill. pp. 110. ISBN 90-04-09971-9.
- ^ Granada by Richard Gottheil, Meyer Kayserling, Jewish Encyclopedia. 1906 ed.
- ^ Lewis, Bernard (1987) [1984]. The Jews of Islam. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. pp. p. 54. LCCN 84-42575. ISBN 9780691008073. OCLC 17588445.
- ^ a b Lewis, Bernard (1987) [1984]. The Jews of Islam. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. pp. pp. 44–45. LCCN 84-42575. ISBN 9780691008073. OCLC 17588445.
- ^ Laqueur, Walter (2006). The changing face of antisemitism: from ancient times to the present day. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. pp. p. 68. LCCN 2005-030491. ISBN 9780195304299. OCLC 62127914.
[edit] Further reading
- Nagdela (Nagrela), Abu Husain Joseph Ibn by Richard Gottheil, Meyer Kayserling, Jewish Encyclopedia. 1906 ed.
