230 ISLAM AT WAR
or exile. Could this situation be considered anything other than a life spent
in constant terror where at any instant death could be whimsically applied?
In 1033 more than 6,000 Jews were massacred at Fez, Morocco; hun-
dreds more were killed between 1010 and 1013 near Cordoba, Spain; the
entire Jewish community, some 4,000 in Granada were slaughtered during
the Muslim riots of 1066.
In Kairouan, Tunisia, the Jews were persecuted and forced to leave in
1016, returning later only to be expelled again. In Tunis in 1145 they were
forced to convert or to leave, and during the following decade fierce anti-
Jewish persecutions occurred throughout the region. In Morocco a similar
pattern of events followed the massacre of Jews in Marrakesh in 1232.
In all fairness, at this time the treatment of Jews in Western Europe was
no kinder. Western Jewry was destroyed in the Middle Ages. The Spanish
Inquisition was an instrument of forced conversion or death to the Spanish
Jewish community. Pogroms against the Jews occurred in Russia until the
twentieth century, and no one can ever forget the horrors of Auschwitz.
Then again, no one is attempting to imply that any enlightenment has
altered European treatment of Jews, nor is there an effort to claim that
terror was not a tool frequently used by western society against Jewish
minorities. This is in stark contrast to the current trend of the media and
of many scholars vis-a`-vis the history of the treatment of minorities under
Islamic rule.
Under no circumstances should this be seen as an attempt to ignore
such acts of terror and repression that have occurred in Christian lands or
at Christian hands. The principal difference between Islamic and Christian
oppression is that when committed by Christians, that is, the Crusades, it
was done in spite of the teachings of Christianity. This contrasts sharply
with Islam, where acts of oppression and terror were in accordance with
Koranic scripture.
A similar history exists for the Islamic persecution and destruction of
the Zoroastrian communities of the Middle East. By aboutA.D. 944 Islam
had been imposed on the reluctant Zoroastrian inhabitants of Bukhara.
The Bukharans reverted to their original beliefs no less than four times,
and three times the Muslims returned and reinstated Islam. On the fourth
reversion the Koranic commandment of death was instituted. The Muslim
leader, Qutayba, came with fire in hand, waged war, seized the city, and
reestablished Islam after considerable bloodshed. In response, the Zo-
roastrians took their religion underground.
Many Zoroastrians were induced to convert by bribes, or by the eco-
nomical pressure and eventual financial ruin of thejizyatax. Many of
these “economic converts” were later executed for having adopted Islam