This research paper examines the status, accomplishments and influence of the Jewish communities in Muslim Spain during the 11th century. That century witnessed a remarkable intellectual and cultural renaissance as well as economic prosperity in the parts of Spain under Muslim rule in which Jewish elites and communities participated and toward which they made major contributions, a Golden Age of Jewish achievement and Muslim-Jewish collaboration. Paradoxically, some of the factors which enabled the Jews to expand their influence, particularly in practical affairs, such as the growing disunity of the Muslim empire in Spain, also made the 11th century a time of great trial and stress for many Jews, who increasingly found themselves caught in the middle of the great struggle between Muslims and Christians for political and religious dominance in the Iberian Peninsula. That struggle produced great migrations of Jews within Muslim Spain and from Muslim to Christian Spain and elsewhere which in the long run helped spread to the West important scientific and other intellectual currents originating in the East, but also weakened the position of the Jews in the Muslim community and, as the century ended, left them uncomfortably dependent upon their new found Christian protectors.
Jews in Spain Before 711 AD. Jews migrated to Spain long before the Arab conquest of 711 AD. Some accompanied Phoenician colonizers as traders in Carthaginian times. Larger groups of Jews made their way to Spain as part of the Diaspora of Jews throughout the Roman Empire not long after the death of Christ. Jews enjoyed full citizenship rights under the Romans. The first serious tensions between the Jews in Spain and Christians developed in the 4th century AD when under the Council of Elvira, Christians were forbidden from allowing their daughters to marry Jews, to eat with them or to have their lands blessed by them. The first massacre of Jews by Christians occurred...