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Assess the position of Jews living in Medieval Islamic societies

By Kainaat Akbar

Edited by Mark Potter and Symran Annika Saggar




Figure 1: Phillip C. Hammond, “A Divorce Document from the Cairo Geniza.” The Jewish

Quarterly Review.


The Pact of Umar (637 AD) attributed to the second Rashidun Caliph, Umar ibn Khattab (637-644), was a piece of Islamic legislation that specified the rights and restrictions of non-Muslims (dhimmis) living under Muslim rule [1;2]. By abiding by these rules and paying a poll tax (jizya), dhimmis were granted protection by their Muslim leaders. However, only if they were part of the category mentioned in the Qur’an, the people of the book: Jews, Christians and even Zoroastrians to name a few. Yohanan Friedmann describes that there was a generally an ‘open character of life in medieval Islamic cities’ [3]. Islamic rule brought a new latitude to Jewish communal life; both the educated elite and the average Jewish inhabitants were affected by this [4]. It not only revolutionised Judaism, but aided its establishment and distribution. However, how much did this affect Jewish women? In this essay, I will be assessing the position of Jewish women in Fatimid and Mamluk Egypt using the Cairo Genizah documents. The three themes that will be analysed are; Jewish women dealing with marriage and divorce; their use of Jewish and Muslim courts; and their inheritance and ownership. Each theme will have a document from both the Fatimid caliphate (909-1171) and Mamluk Sultanate (1250-1517) to illustrate the position of Jewish women under these two different Muslim caliphates. I particularly desired to focus on Jewish women specifically as women in general were not at the forefront during the Middle Ages, especially minority women. The Cairo Genizah was essentially a storeroom situated in the Ben Ezra Synagogue. In Jewish law it was forbidden to burn anything that had the name of God on it and all documents made their way to this space. This included a lot of legal documents as the synagogue was the place of Jewish courts. Therefore, a lot of the points raised in this essay are taken from legal documents from this archive.


First, it is important to look further into the religious freedom of Jews with the preservation of the Cairo Genizah. As a result of Jews paying their annual poll tax to the Fatimids and the Mamluks they were allowed to practice their religion freely. In the 12th century, Rabbi Benjamin of Tudela left a description of the different communities of Jews he came across on his journey through Syria, Iraq and Egypt. He recognised that religious considerations played an integral role of Jews feeling there was an ‘international communal solidarity’ [5]. One of the places he visited was the Ben Ezra synagogue, hence why the preservation of these documents is recorded and is legitimate. This shows a consistency in dhimmi status for not only the Jews in Egypt but throughout the Muslim Middle Age world. The conservation of the Genizah suggests that there was religious tolerance during the Fatimid and Mamluk period. Jonathan Berkey comments that the texts ‘produced by the Jewish community of Fustat (near Cairo)’ showcase the daily lives of these otherwise muted groups in society [6]. Shelomo Dov Goitein refers to the society of the Genizah papers to not be a ‘man’s world’ [7]. It magnifies the rich culture that existed especially in regard to marriage and divorce, which is the first theme that will be discussed.


Marriage and divorce were a norm in Cairo throughout the Fatimid and Mamluk era for Muslim women and this social norm was not exclusive to Jewish women either. Uriel Simonsohn comments that ‘Jews under Islamic rule were socially embedded within their non-Jewish environment’ and this was the thought of modern scholars [8;9]. The first primary source is a formal divorce letter (gett) written by a man to his ex-wife during Fatimid rule. He states that he has no control over her and that she can marry anyone she wants as he gives those rights up according to the law of Moses [10 ]. This gett is significant according to David Amran because of its ‘divergences’ from the Mishneh Torah (code of Jewish law) of Maimonides and the dictates of the Shulchan ‘Arukh (main codification of Jewish law from Talmud) [11]. Maimonides (1138-1204) was a Jewish philosopher who was the leading rabbinic authority of his time during 1166 and had settled in Fustat during the Fatimid caliphate [12]. To note, the settlement of a renowned Jewish thinker and creator of a popularised compendium of Jewish law also exemplifies the freedom that Jews had but I digress. Phillip Hammon argues that this document ‘furnishes further light upon the general legal life of Judaism of this period’ and I agree [13]. This is because the source highlights the development of the rabbinic legal structure from Christian legislation before Fatimid rule. The existence of this document illustrates that Jewish women were honoured during the Fatimid Caliphate as their religious law was able to be enforced without consequences because of their dhimmi status.


Similarly, the divorce letter highlights the significance of Jewish marriage in Fatimid Egypt

just as much as it records the end of it. Marriage, as will be expressed in the documents later on in this essay, was a rich part of society not only for the Muslims but for Jews as well. Shelomo Dov Goitein noted how a marriage contract was supplemented by a Taqwm (an assessment of the numerous items given in by the bride). He concludes that during the Fatimid reign the majority of the civil cases (including marriage) were taken to Jewish courts in accordance with the Muslim courts, although it is not clear as to why [14]. What this reveals is the importance of both the Jewish and Muslim courts during the Fatimid period. It indicates how much family life was affected by religious law. Goitein shares an example of the practice of levirate law (an obligation of a brother to marry his deceased brother’s widow) and polygamy [15]. The practice of these modern-day controversial traditions was in force due to religious Jewish law that was supported by Islamic law. These laws allowed women to be under male support and care which was a major problem for women that did not have that during this time, as will be discussed in the other themes. Although, there were Jewish husbands that did support their wives during their absence, so they were not left to fend for themselves [16]. Renee Levine Melammed discusses, is someone called ‘Abu al-Fadl that obligates himself to support his wife, Khayra, in his absence’ [17]. This record was evidence declared in a Jewish court. It was a norm

for some women’s marriage contracts (ketubbah) to include regulations that protected their own earnings and hindered their husbands from taking their money. If this clause was absent from their ketubbah, their husbands would appropriate their earnings for themselves [18]. However, it was an obligation upon the husband to take care of his wife, regardless of how independent she was. In the discussed ketubbah both husband and wife agree to the modest amount (20 dirhems) that she will receive every month by her husband, so she was provided for and he met his obligation. The existence of this document illustrates how important it was for a woman to be provided for, for it to be written up in a formal form and taken to a Jewish court to be legitimised. Melammed notes that this particular piece was approved by an established scholar, Nathan the Cohen, who had moved from Israel to Egypt where he served as a judge during Fatimid reign between 1125-1150 [19]. This evidence provides proof that Jewish women were provided for during the Fatimid Caliphate through the advancement and existence of Jewish Law and Jewish courts. For a Jewish woman’s security to be enforced and accounted for exemplifies their importance in this time. Therefore, this shows that a Jewish women’s position

in Fatimid Egypt was significant to have their ketubbah and getts established in both Jewish and Muslim courts, and to have the clauses in their contracts honoured so they were not disadvantaged in society.


Having considered this, it is reasonable to consider the function of both Jewish and Muslim

courts during 909-1517 and to what extent they benefitted Jewish women. It was said for Jews not to take part in Islamic courts with the example of a gaon (Jewish Talmudic scholar) who expressed his concern over not excommunicating Jews that sought help from Muslim courts:


We excommunicate those who violate God’s Sabbath!... [Should we then

excommunicate] those who go out to litigate before the Gentiles and claim inheritance

according to their laws... [20]


However, there were weaknesses to Jewish Judiciary: a lot of judges that served as judges were laymen with knowledge of Jewish law [21]. Another weakness was its limited coercive power. A lot of Jews sought help from non-Jewish means and in doing so, made Jewish courts unable to pass judgement as they lost their legal sanctions. The Jewish court was exploited by those who intentionally violated the law and wanted to escape punishment like an example from an anonymous gaon of a brother who, had violated his brother’s wife and, upon getting her pregnant, fled [22]. There is another example in the Genizah documents where two orphan girls threatened the Jewish court, whereby if they did not help get their inheritance of their deceased father’s, they would seek judgement from a Muslim court [23]. These examples highlight that Muslim courts offered a rapid solution to their problems faster than the Rabbinic legal orders. Therefore, Jewish women were able to get a solution to their problems faster and they had a different legal system that could support them if the Jewish law did not, which would mean that their positions in society were important. It seems that their place was better under Fatimid rule than just Jewish rule because Muslim courts were used as leverage to exploit Jewish courts.


The final segment of this essay will discuss Jewish women with their inheritance and

ownership, specifically in regard to the poverty they faced. In one Genizah document is a

widow of a cantor, Ben Nahman, and it is to the head of Jews of her unfortunate circumstance. She owned a share of a house that was left by her deceased husband. She sustained with what was left by him, a rent from another apartment he had when he was alive. Unfortunately, her stepson with the support of his aunt (the late Ben Nahman’s sister) had kicked her out of her residence with none of her belongings. Her stepson beat her near to death. Apparently, the apartment was not in her name even if it was rightly hers as her late husband’s family had possession of the apartment while fixing repairs in it some time earlier. In this case, we see a widow abused by her own family and stripped of her right to ownership. Therefore, because the widow could not seek help from her family, her strategy was to appeal to the legal system for justice. Various petitions were issued after this incident for the widow of Ben Canham, but she was not a unique case. This situation highlights how significant the court system was for women because in this

instance, it was the only way for a woman to fight for her rights that were given to her by the state.


On the other hand, Jewish women also struggle with their rights of ownership even if their

husbands were alive due to a Talmudic law that prevents this. However, Goitein discusses that women went against this by freely disposing of their properties as seen in the Genizah letters. Even husbands, when going on travel, sometimes granted their wives to dispose even their properties. He concludes that this is not much ‘influence of Muslim law but the working of social forces’ which, either way, has the influence of Muslims involved [24]. This is a reasonable judgement to make as Muslims were the majority and their behaviours and actions would have impacted non-Muslims living with them. Especially during the Mamluk period, using the example of divorce, it was a norm for women to be remarried many times and it was treated like a business contract. Al-Sakhawi’s Al-Daw’ al-Lami’ records the marital history of 168 Cairene women, including 287 marriages that led to a divorce. Yossef Rapoport comments on this that it was probable that the rate of divorce among the lower classes was higher than the elite indicating that marriage was a shorter affair than a long-time commitment [25]. And with the case studies discussed in this essay, women needed male support and if they were not able to get this, they would seek through legal means to be supported. In addition, with the norm of husbands taking an absence to travel for work, it left women to be unattended. Therefore, they were more independent to make their own choices and to divorce their husbands and marry someone that would be present, which was a viable option since it was common in Fatimid and Mamluk Egypt.


A criticism of the Genizah documents to assess women’s positions should also be regarded.

Many scholars, such as Cohen and Goitein, highlight the fact that most of the documents from women were written by males as mentioned with the sources above. The reason for this is not clear why, it could be that there were few literate Jewish women, or they preferred the handwriting of someone else, but I lean towards the first explanation. Cohen argues that women did not know the different and proper ways of addressing their correspondents with Arabic etiquette [26]. Especially with the formulation of the divorce letter that was written in perfect Arabic form. The focus on this rare fact illustrates that Jewish women did not know Arabic well enough to write their own letters and relied on male guidance. This is a problem as the women would not know how well their voice was being argued to reach a viable solution for them since they did not possess enough knowledge to differentiate in these circumstances. Therefore, Jewish women were not given equal opportunity to their male Jewish halves to be educated. However, I argue this is not a problem with the Fatimids or the Mamluks, but rather that it stipulates a problem with the Jewish Cairene community.


In conclusion, I argue Jewish women thrived in Fatimid and Mamluk Egypt because they were supported by the Islamic law. The personal letters from the Genizah archive illustrate personal accounts of Jewish women and these documents shed light on their lives. However, it is important to note that there was not a shared same experience among Jewish women. Although married Jewish women seem to be provided for and still had support, the most disadvantaged were Jewish widows that struggled to get what was rightly theirs, with the example of the widow of Ben Canham. The Muslim court provided a safe space for women to be supported additionally if they were not by the Jewish court first, hence why most civil cases were taken to both institutions. As a result, this benefitted women. Furthermore, it was not just the Islamic law that aided Jewish women but the society itself provided comfort. Although most of the documents discussed in this essay unfortunately come from the Fatimid Egypt, there was not much difference of neither the legal nor the societal treatment towards Jews and Jewish women since the Pact of Umar was still abided by and the Islamic law did not change.








Figure 2: Renée Levine Melammed, "Jewish women in Muslim territory in the Middle Ages: two documents from the Cairo Geniza", Clio. Women, Gender, History.






Notes


[1] John L Esposito, The Oxford Dictionary of Islam (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), p. 241.


[2] Mark Cohen, Under Crescent and Cross, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008), p. 54.


[3] Yohanan Friedmann, Tolerance and Coercion in Islam: Interfaith Relations in the Muslim Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), p. 160.


[4] Mark R Cohen, “In Islamic Lands, Jews and Muslims in the Eastern Islamic World”, in Abdelwahab Meddeb and Benjamin Stora, A History of Jewish-Muslim Relations: From the Origins to the Present Day (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013.), pp. 77-78.


[5] Friedmann, Tolerance, p. 165


[6] Jonathan P Berkey, The Formation of Islam: Religion and Society in the Near East, 600–1800 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), p. 161.


[7] S. D. Goitein, “The Documents of the Cairo Geniza as a Source for Mediterranean Social History”, Journal of the American Oriental Society, 80/2 (1960), pp. 91-100


[8] Uriel I. Simonsohn, A Common Justice: The Legal Allegiances of Christians and Jews Under Early Islam (Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011), p. 181.


[9] Goitein, “Documents of the Cairo”, pp. 91-100.


[10] Phillip C. Hammond, “A Divorce Document from the Cairo Geniza”, The Jewish Quarterly Review, 52/2 (1961), pp. 131-153


[11] David Amram, "Two Legal Documents of The Eleventh Century", Green Bag, 13/3 (I90I), pp. 115-119.


[12] Kenneth Seeskin, (2021) "Maimonides", Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Archive <https://stanford.library.sydney.edu.au/archives/spr2021/entries/maimonides/> [accessed n/d].


[13] Hammond, “A Divorce Document”, pp. 131-153


[14] Goitein, “Documents of the Cairo”, pp. 91-100.


[15] Goitein, “Documents of the Cairo”, pp. 91-100. 16 Renee Levine Melammed, “Jewish Women in Muslim territory in the Middle Ages: two documents

from the Cairo Geniza”, Judaism: Gender and Religion, 44 (2016), pp. 229-241.


[17] Renee Levine Melammed, “Jewish Women in Muslim territory in the Middle Ages: two documents from the Cairo Geniza”, Judaism: Gender and Religion, 44 (2016), pp. 229-241.


[18] Renee Levine Melammed, “Jewish Women in Muslim territory in the Middle Ages: two documents from the Cairo Geniza”, Judaism: Gender and Religion, 44 (2016), pp. 229-241.


[19] Renee Levine Melammed, “Jewish Women in Muslim territory in the Middle Ages: two documents from the Cairo Geniza”, Judaism: Gender and Religion, 44 (2016), pp. 229-241


[20] Simonsohn, Common Justice, p. 174.


[21] Simonsohn, Common Justice, p. 178.


[22] Simonsohn, Common Justice, p. 178.


[23] Moshe Gil, A History of Palestine: 634–1099, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), p. 274


[24] Goitein, “Documents of the Cairo”, pp. 91-100.


[25] Yossef Rapoport, “Women and Gender in Mamluk Society: An Overview”, Mamlūk Studies Review, 11/2 (2007), pp. 1-47.


[26] Cohen, Under Crescent, p.85


Bibliography


Amram, David. "Two Legal Documents of The Eleventh Century”. Green Bag. 13/3. I90I

Berkey, Jonathan P. Berkey The Formation of Islam: Religion and Society in the Near East, 600– 1800. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002


Cohen, Mark R. “In Islamic Lands, Jews and Muslims in the Eastern Islamic World”. In Abdelwahab Meddeb and Benjamin Stora, A History of Jewish-Muslim Relations: From the Origins to the Present Day, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013


Cohen, Mark. Under Crescent and Cross. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008


Friedman, Yohanan. Tolerance and Coercion in Islam: Interfaith Relations in the Muslim Tradition, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003


Gil, Moshe. A History of Palestine: 634–1099, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997


Goitein, S. D. “The Documents of the Cairo Geniza as a Source for Mediterranean Social History”. Journal of the American Oriental Society. 80/2. 1960


Hammond, Phillip C. “A Divorce Document from the Cairo Geniza”. The Jewish Quarterly Review. 52/2, 1961


Levine, Renee. “Jewish Women in Muslim territory in the Middle Ages: two documents from the Cairo Geniza”. Judaism: Gender and Religion, 44, 2016


Esposito, John L The Oxford Dictionary of Islam. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003


Rapoport, Yossef. “Women and Gender in Mamluk Society: An Overview”. Mamlūk Studies Review, 11/2. 2007


Seeskin, Kenneth. (2021) "Maimonides", Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Archive.

<https://stanford.library.sydney.edu.au/archives/spr2021/entries/maimonides/> [accessed n/d]


Simonsohn, Uriel I. A Common Justice: The Legal Allegiances of Christians and Jews Under Early Islam, Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011

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