armies advanced. Later, Spanish Christians would accuse Jews of betrayal, even
though most Christians had fled before the Muslims arrived. The Muslims
extended to Jews, along with Christians, dhimmistatus, a quarter of their own
in each town, and, in violation of the Pact of Umar, the right to bear arms.
Until 756, Muslim Spain was ruled by military governors from Muslim
North Africa, leading to a period of instability, anarchy, assassinations, and
tensions between Arabs, and Berbers, and Slavs. The situation improved after
750 following the Abbasid conquest of the Umayyad Dynasty. The lone
Umayyad survivor of the Abbasid slaughter was Abd-ar-Rachman, who fled
to Spain. After subduing the local rivals, he was proclaimed emir of al-
Andalus in 756. During his thirty-year reign, he ended the internal strife that
had plagued Iberia.
Distrustful of other Muslims, Abd-ar-Rachman implemented a broad pol-
icy of toleration of Jews and Christians, a policy that was pursued by his
successors as well. By the reign of Abd-ar-Rachman II (822–52), Spain had
become an international power with fleets and foreign embassies. Abd-ar-
Rachman II forged an alliance with Byzantium in order to fight their
common enemy: the Abbasid caliphate.
The rise of Muslim Spain as an important center of Jewish life coincided
with emergence of Spain as an independent caliphate. Full independence was
achieved during the reign of Abd-ar-Rachman III. In addition, this caliph
wanted to create a royal court that would rival the imperial court in Baghdad.
To this end, he invited leading Muslim, Christian, and Jewish intellectuals to
join his court. This coincided with the decline of the exilarchy and the
Gaonate in Baghdad.
The independence of Jews in Spain from the Jews of Baghdad was com-
pleted under the leadership of Hasdai ibn Shaprut, a Jewish parallel to
Abd-ar-Rachman III. Hasdai ibn Shaprut was a wealthy, well-connected
courtier, and thus a natural leader of Jews in Spain. He was also an accom-
plished scholar, characteristic of Jewish courtiers. In this sense, he combined
the religious leadership of a gaon with the political leadership of the exilarch.
His patronage, moreover, was instrumental in the flourishing of Jewish
culture in Spain. He imported volumes of the (Babylonian and Jerusalem)
Talmuds and spent lavishly to obtain correct talmudic manuscripts. Until
Hasdai expanded the parameters of Jewish culture according to the Islamic
Jewish model, there was no evidence of non-traditional Jewish culture in
Spain. The court of Abd-ar-Rachman III in Córdoba was worthy of emulation,
and, in addition, the royal policy of toleration encouraged interpenetration of
Islamic, Christian, and Jewish culture, based partly on religious competition.
Finally, the personal example of Hasdai himself spurred other Jews to expand
their cultural horizons.
As a patron of the arts, Hasdai sponsored many promising young scholars.
Principal among them were Menachem ibn Saruk and Dunash ibn Labrat.
The Jews of Islam 69