AN ALMOHAD “FUNDAMENTALIST”? 57
The persecution of minorities, however, was not uniformly enforced in
all Almohad territories and at all times. Whereas in the Iberian peninsula
the conversion policy remained strictly enforced throughout Almohad
rule, it seems to have relaxed at times in North Africa.^17 While some
sources recount that the choice given to certain communities was that of
conversion or death, others indicate that the possibility of going into hasty
exile, abandoning all property, was also available. Even in this last case,
however, the hardship involved was such that many people who owned
property opted to feign conversion.^18 The Christian communities of North
Africa did not survive these persecutions, and gradually withered, but the
Jewish communities managed to weather the storm.^19 Some idea about
the way in which they survived can be gained from the description given
by the historian al- Marrakushi, who says that during the rule of the Ca-
liph Abu Yusuf Yaqub al- Mansur (r. 1181– 1198) the state of dhimma
was denied to both Jews and Christians, but the authorities suspected the
sincerity of the Jewish converts:^20 “Jews in our midst behave outwardly
as Muslims: they pray in the mosques, they teach their sons the Quran,
(^17) Thus, following the agreements signed in 1186, Pisan merchants were allowed into North
African harbors, but only in an emergency were they permitted to take refuge in the har-
bors of al- Andalus, and then only in Almeria. See D. Abulafi a, “Mediterraneans,” in Har-
ris,Rethinking the Mediterranean, 69, 114 (quoting M. Amari, I diplomi arabi del R. Ar-
chivio Fiorentino [Florence, 1863], 20); O. R. Constable, Trade and Traders in Muslim
Spain: the Commercial Realignment of the Iberian Peninsula, 900– 1500 (Cambridge and
New York, 1994), 79.
(^18) As the case of Maimonides’ student Joseph Ibn Shimon clearly indicates. On the identity
of this Joseph, to be distinguished from Ibn Aqnin, see Stroumsa, The Silencing Epistle,
13–15. Ibn al- Qifti was a close friend of Maimonides’ student (pace Lewis, “Jews and Ju-
daism in Arabic Sources”, 178, who relies on Munk; and Bos, Maimonides on Asthma,
xxix, who quotes Lewis). According to him, “when the Jews and Christians in those coun-
tries were forced to choose between embracing Islam or exile, he concealed his religious
belief. Then, when the opportunity to travel presented itself, he contrived to leave and go to
Egypt, and managed to take his money with him.” See IQ, 392. The casual way in which
this information is given adds a ring of truth to it. Ibn al- Qifti does not elaborate on the
hardships of going hastily into exile without any source of livelihood, but Joseph’s choice
to stay as a false convert clearly did not appear to him as refl ecting a “crass motive,” but
rather as a self- explanatory move for survival. Ibn al- Qifti’s longer and more explicit re-
marks on the economic aspect of Maimonides’ decision to feign conversion (IQ, 318) must
be read in this light, too; cf. Lewis, “Jews and Judaism in Arabic Sources”, 173; Davidson,
Moses Maimonides, 27. On the possible hardships that determine a similar decision in a
later period, cf. also Harvey, Muslims in Spain: 1500– 1614 , 48.
(^19) On the Christian communities, and on possible explanations for the different resilience of
the two religious communities, see Burman, Religious Polemic, 191; M. Talbi, “Le chris-
tianisme maghrébin de la conquête musulmane à sa disparition: une tentative d’explication,”
inConversion and Continuity: Indigenous Christian Communities in Islamic Lands, Eighth
to Eigh teenth Centuries, M. Gervers and R. J. Bikhazi, eds. (Toronto, 1990), 330– 31.
(^20) It is noteworthy that the Christians are not included in this suspicion.