traNSLatioN aND coNqueSt • 201certain “misunderstandings” they had about Jews. the language of
Moyal’s work is thus not incidental but rather central to its purpose
and message.
the charge of Jewish ritual Murderpart of Moyal’s agenda in translating the talmud— which had never
been translated in its entirety into arabic— may be illustrated with a
brief line Moyal includes in his review of the ancient Israelite judges.
When he reached the figure of Jephtah, who, according to the Bible,
slaughtered his own daughter in accordance with his vow to sacrifice
the first thing that came to greet him from his home if he was victori-
ous in battle, Moyal writes: “It is said of him in the torah that he killed
his only daughter with his own hands, in fulfillment of his vow.^61 there
is a long discussion about him in the talmud that will be mentioned
in the appropriate place. Many have protested against him for having
killed his daughter due to the impermissibility of human sacrifices in
Jewish law.”^62 Moyal was undoubtedly correct in insisting that many
biblical interpreters and commentators have criticized Jephtah for ful-
filling his vow. Yet, in asserting “the impermissibility of human sacri-
fices in Jewish law,” Moyal was not merely continuing an internal Jew-
ish exegetical debate about this story, nor was it the biblical tale that
he likely had foremost in mind. More recent events were paramount.
accusations of ritual murder perpetrated by Jews, though common
in medieval and later Christian europe, were generally unknown in
the arab Middle east.^63 With the increasing presence and influence of
european Christians in the Middle east in the nineteenth century, how-
ever, the blood libel began to penetrate into Christian arab discourse.
the most famous of Middle eastern blood libels was the Damascus af-
fair of 1840, in which a group of Jews were accused and convicted of
having ritually murdered an Italian monk and his Muslim servant who
had disappeared together in Damascus.^64 this was not the first such
case in the Middle east, though. the accusation had already struck the
(^61) the author’s footnote refers the reader to Judges 11:34.
(^62) Mūyāl, at- Talmūd: Aṣluhu wa- tasalsuluhu wa- ādābuhu, 11.
(^63) With the ottoman conquest of constantinople in 1453 and eastern regions of eu-
rope, the incorporation of these lands’ populous Greek Orthodox Christian communities
into the Islamic empire introduced the Ottomans to the blood libel. But even then it
tended to be used almost exclusively by Christians. See Lewis, Semites and Anti- Semites,
132.
(^64) on the Damascus affair and its historical and historiographical implications, espe-
cially in europe, see Frankel, The Damascus Affair.