Early Middle Ages and Crusades
Capture of the city by the Almohades
1147·Marrakech
The toll is reproduced exactly as the source states it — never rounded, never added to another. Tolls overlap from one event to the next.
the Jews ordered to choose between Islam, exile and death; the juderia disappears
The Almohads, a reform movement from the High Atlas, took Marrakech and brought the Almoravid empire to an end. Their doctrine, founded on the absolute unity of God, did not recognize the protected status of the People of the Book: it left them the choice between Islam, exile, and death.
The juderia of Marrakech disappeared. The same policy was applied in every city conquered, from Morocco to Andalusia. Many converted outwardly and continued to live as Jews behind closed walls — it was for their sake that Maimonides, whose family had fled Córdoba, wrote his Epistle on Forced Conversion, in which he refuses to condemn those who had pronounced the profession of faith under duress.
The Almohads then imposed on the converts a distinctive garment, proof that they themselves doubted the sincerity of these conversions. The end of their empire allowed communities to reconstitute themselves, but Jewish Andalusia never recovered.
- Period :
- Early Middle Ages and Crusades
- Type :
- Military repression
- Region :
- Egypt and Maghreb
- Country :
- Maroc
Maïmonide, Épître sur la conversion forcée ; Abraham ibn Dawd ; chroniques almohades.