ABSTRACT
The arrival of Islam on the Iberian Peninsula in the first quarter of the eighth century brought about radically new developments in the political, social, and intellectual lives of Peninsula Jews. Documentary evidence on the state of the Iberian Jewish communities at the dawn of the century is scarce, yet all signs indicate that under the effects of hostile Visigothic law they had declined significantly and may have been on the verge of extinction. In contrast, beginning in the eighth century, the new framework granted by the Islamic legal system to Jews and Christians provided an opportunity for revival. As elsewhere in the Islamic world, Jews, along with other religious minorities holding sacred Scriptures, such as Christians and Zoroastrians, came to be considered Ahl alKitab (“People of the Book”) and, as such, were made subject to a special legal status, that of dhimma, which entailed certain social restrictions but in turn accorded them protection under Islamic rule.
