Some Arab supporters would have the world believe that the modern Arab-Israel conflict is due to forced appropriation of Muslim lands by Jews (Said and Hitchens). Sir Martin Gilbert in his latest book In Ishmael’s House: a History of Jews in Muslim Lands shows another side. Jews, he writes, were indigenous to the region; they were engulfed by Muslim expansion, and suffered greatly through the centuries of Muslim rule. Ironically, this persecution, as Gilbert shows, led to the birth of Israel, an intolerable development in the eyes of the surrounding Muslim states.
Historian Martin Gilbert, manifestly superb in his field, has written eighty-two books, including the prodigious biographical series on Winston Churchill, and many accounts of war and Jewish oppression such as Kristallnacht: Prelude to Destruction, and The Holocaust: The Jewish Tragedy. He has been knighted by Queen Elizabeth II and was a member of the British government’s Iraq War Inquiry. In this his latest book, Gilbert, a Jew and a proud Zionist, brings all his talents to bear in this narrative of the Biblical Isaac’s descendants in the house of Ishmael.
Jews Made Enormous Contributions to the Muslim Umma
Writing skilfully with factual detail, Gilbert describes a greater Middle East that has long been home to both Judaism and Islam. He relates the stories of Jews who, in their own ancient towns and cities, found themselves surrounded by hostile, supremacist forces inspired by the religion of Islam.
Since the time of Muhammad, the Muslim prophet, from the seventh century onward, the lands of the Middle Eastern region came increasingly—and violently— under Muslim control (Lewis). Although Jews were endemic there, they are scarce now—except in the young Jewish state of Israel. This modern-day phenomenon, a Jewish state surrounded by Muslim states, is the end-point of a centuries-long process.
Gilbert expresses regret and puzzlement at the causes of this decline in Jewish numbers in Muslim society: “Throughout those 1,400 years, Jews made enormous contributions to the well-being and continuity of the umma—the worldwide community of Muslims. They have had no desire to convert Muslims to Judaism, nor in any way to subvert the Muslim religion.”
But Gilbert knows the causes, which he describes in the chapter “The Prophet Mohammed and the Jews.” In the Qur’an there are three specific curses against the Jews, and the Muslim prophet himself sometimes protected, sometimes persecuted Jews, whom he expelled from the Arabian peninsula. Gilberts states, “Throughout the centuries to follow, Muslims had to decide in their relations with the Jews whether to see them as a cursed people, or as a people protected by Islam.” In this way, Gilbert, who avoids direct criticism of Islam, shows that Muslims bear responsibility for their treatment of Jews.
Jews Under Islam and Christianity
About one-third of Gilbert’s book concerns the history of Jews from the seventh to the 19th century. The rest focuses appropriately on the 20th century and the first decade of the 21st century, for it is then that Jewish statehood came to fruition, albeit at a heavy and ongoing cost, as he documents.
Gilbert shows that at various times Jews in Muslim lands were given opportunities, respect, and recognition to a greater degree than that which they found under Christianity, at that time. But what often goes unsaid by apologists for Islam is that in the present world, this no longer applies: Jews are clearly better treated in Western “Christian” countries, than in Muslim countries (Lewis).
There is also the dark other side of which Gilbert calmly states, “They have also been subjected to the worst excesses of hostility, hatred and persecution.” He goes on to show how Jews have, time and again, been victims of Muslim animosity.
Objectivity Draws Criticism
The tone of Gilbert’s book is often one of understated horror. As he must, he coolly describes the most shocking atrocities, the most humiliating of restrictions. To do otherwise, to allow human feelings such as compassion or outrage to enter into his narrative would only call his objectivity into question.
As it is, he has been criticized in his other works for failing to draw even broad conclusions "about attitudes or conduct,” as in Commentary Magazine. Similarly, in In Ishmael’s House he also refrains from analyzing and drawing conclusions.
However, Gilbert has told that which had to be told—unembellished—and there is great value in that.
Despite the lack of expressed emotion, the reader can detect a sadness that runs throughout Gilbert’s writing: it is easy to imagine him reflecting on the suffering and the loss of good, intelligent, and industrious Jews and what that loss means to the lands where they once lived.
Jewish Life Continually Assaulted
Gilbert factually and calmly recounts incidents from the past 14 centuries of Middle Eastern history, when being Jewish was a sufficient criterion for being oppressed:
- Arabia, 7th century–The Muslim prophet, Muhammad, ordered the slaughter of 700 Jewish men from the Qurayzah tribe in the market square of Medina.
- Baghdad, 14th century–Under the Mongol emperor, Jews were persecuted, synagogues burned, and a mosque was built on top of the prophet Ezekiel’s tomb.
- Morocco,1834–The beheading of a young Jewish girl drew world condemnation. Sol Hachuel, tricked into converting to Islam, was executed for apostasy when she denied her conversion.
- Persia,19th century–Restrictions were placed on Jews and other dhimmis (non-Muslims) forbidding them to wear matching shoes. Every Jew was required to wear a piece of red cloth on his chest.
- Iraq, late 1940s–Jews were harassed, robbed, tortured, and murdered by agents of the Iraqi government incensed at the formation of the state of Israel.
Such were the conditions of daily life of Jews in Muslim lands.
Arab Warnings at the Birth of Israel
Following World War II, when the UN proposed the formation of two states in British Mandate Palestine, one Jewish and one Arab, Gilbert tells how Arab leaders warned the UN that “it might be responsible for very grave disorders and for the massacre of the large number of Jews.” Nonetheless, Israel was born in 1948 and immediately “pressure against the Jews living in Muslim lands intensified.”
The irony is, of course, that if Jews had been able to live freely and in peace in Muslim lands there would have been no need for a separate Jewish state.
Restitution and a Just Settlement for Jewish Refugees
Gilbert tells of recent stirrings in the Jewish community: “The time had come, many Jews from Muslim lands believed, for their story to be at the forefront of the Jewish narrative.” Although he explains that well over $100 billion in property was lost by Jews to Arab governments in the years of the 20th century, he states that this movement for restitution is not about money, it is about justice.
He describes how the United Nations Security Council Resolution 242 came to be. Carefully, he shows that this Resolution, which calls for "a just settlement of the refugee problem," actually includes all refugees—"Palestinian refugees from Israel and the Jewish refugees from Muslim lands." The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in the 1950s and 1960s also included "Jews from Middle Eastern and North African countries" within his mandate. By writing of these little known facts, Gilbert helps the Jews who lived under Muslim rule make their sufferings more widely known.
The Maps of Sir Martin Gilbert
Gilbert might not have intended it, but with the title of this book comes an unstated premise: the lands we know as the Middle East were and are Muslim. In that case, the Jews were visitors, minorities, or interlopers.
However, with his love of maps as evidenced in his other books, Gilbert includes many here too—all created by himself—and they tell a different story. Helpful to the reader in a way that words cannot be, these maps are illustrative of the extent of the historical Jewish presence in the greater Middle East. These lands, the “Muslim lands,” of Gilbert’s title, were dotted with Jewish villages, towns, and cities. Even the Arabian Peninsula had significant Jewish communities— Mecca, Medina, Sanaa, Aden, and others.
Modern Jewish Narrative
Had Gilbert coloured his accounts with emotion, he would have been accused of bias—yet, he writes objectively and factually and is accused of not providing analysis. In letting the facts speak for themselves, he has revealed a modern Jewish narrative which cannot be challenged.
Although not drawing any conclusions from his accounts, Gilbert envisions some good coming from them. Despite centuries of injustice and cruelty meted out to Jews from Muslims, he entreats modern-day readers to try to understand the past. This, he thinks hopefully, would nurture a future that “emulates only the best aspects of the past.” In In Ishmael’s House: a History of Jews in Muslims Lands, Martin Gilbert has laid the foundation for that understanding.
In Ishmael’s House: a History of Jews in Muslim Lands by Martin Gilbert. Published by McClelland & Stewart, Ltd., Toronto, 2010. ISBN 978-0-7710-3369-8.
Sources:
- Lewis, Bernard, What Went Wrong?: the Clash Between Islam and Modernity in the Middle East. New York: HarperCollins, 2002.
- Said, Edward W. and Christopher Hitchens, Editors. Blaming the Victims: Spurious Scholarship and the Palestinian Question. New York: Verso, 2001.
Jen L. Jones - Based in Canada, Jones writes on human rights, history,and the natural world. She focuses also on Turkish and Scottish travel and ...
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