AN ALMOHAD “FUNDAMENTALIST”? 59
in the Almohad system, provided it be understood that the parallelism is
not complete.
Maimonides and the AlmohadsMaimonides spent almost twenty years of his life— between 1148 and
1165—under the Almohads, and he retained contacts with Jews living
under this regime after he had moved out of its reach, to Egypt. Accord-
ing to Muslim sources, Maimonides’ family underwent forced conver-
sion, like the rest of the Jewish community.^27 Jewish sources, which at-
test to the forced conversion of the Jewish communities and lament it,
refrain from openly discussing the forced conversion of individuals. This
results in a paradoxical situation, where, according to Jewish sources,
the Maghrebi community as a whole suffered greatly from shemad, or
forced conversion, while hardly anyone among its members seems to
have converted, even if only outwardly. It would be mistaken, however,
to interpret the silence regarding individuals as indicating anything ex-
cept the decision of the Jewish sources to keep silent. The general feel-
ing must have been that in mass conversion under duress, individuals
had no free choice. Conversion under such conditions should not,
therefore, be held against a person, and should not be recorded as a
blemish on him or on his family. Even in the course of debates and bit-
ter polemics, a decorous hush was preserved regarding this painful part
of an ex- convert’s biography. Bringing it up must have been considered
a dirty campaign that, if used, might boomerang. It is thus no wonder
that Jewish sources pass in silence the forced conversion of Maimonides
and his family. By the same token, we would be wrong to conclude
from this silence that Maimonides did not have to feign conversion to
Islam.^28 Indeed, the only exemptions from conversion were grudgingly
granted to itinerant Italian merchants, who were allowed entrance to the
North African harbors. None of our sources rec ords any other excep-
tions to the forced conversions, and there is no reason to believe that
Maimonides’ family alone would have been granted the abolished status
ofdhimma.
The less strict supervision of the converts in North Africa may explain
the choice of Maimun’s family to move from al- Andalus to Fez, close
(^27) See IQ, 317– 19; IAU, 582; M. A. Friedman, Maimonides, The Yemenite Messiah and
Apostasy (Jerusalem, 2002), 31– 37 [Hebrew]; A. Mazor, “Maimonides’ Conversion to Is-
lam: New Evidence,” Peamim 110 (2007): 5– 8 [Hebrew].
(^28) Cf. Davidson (note 16, above).