![]() It is no wonder that the apogee of classical Islamic civilization in Spain, for example, coincided with a flourishing Jewish culture, while the Mamluke regime in Egypt, fighting both the Crusaders and the Mongols, strictly enforced Muslim rules for minorities which conferred second-class status on all Peoples of the Book. Clarifying two seemingly opposite interpretations of Muslim-Jewish relations-that Jewish life under Islam was the antithesis of medieval European persecution, and that the Jews were a persecuted minority in the Mideast-Stillman skillfully steers through the ebb and flow of this relationship as it existed in various periods under different regimes. ![]() There are glimpses of social history in descriptions of Baghdad Jewry during the reign of Harun al-Rashid (of the Thousand and One Nights), in a medieval curriculum of advanced Jewish and secular studies, in the story of the rise and fall of a family of court Jews, and in the various Jewish sects which disputed the authority of the Talmud. Stillman's brief, enlightening narrative and sourcebook of documents together depict a variegated Jewish existence in the Mideast from Muhammad to the mid-19th century. At long last a work has appeared to fill a large gap in both Jewish and Mid-eastern history. ![]()
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