Jews and Muslims - Intimate strangers

This documentary is an account of the birth of Islam and its conquest of a territory stretching from Persia to Spain, over a century. What was the place of the millions of non-Muslims in this empire? The polytheists had no choice but to convert. As for the “People of the Book" — Jews and Christians — they were allowed to continue practicing their religion but became Dhimmis: protected, though subject to certain restrictions.

In the year 721, the Muslim Empire was vast. Jews and Christians were minorities and their actions motivated by the desire to obtain the best possible status within the Empire. Still, this did not prevent cultural exchanges as we can see with the House of Wisdom in Baghdad. Nor would it prevent the occurrence of tragic events such as the massacre of Jews and Christians of Granada by the Almohads in the eleventh century. In the fifteenth century, the Reconquista chased the Jews and Muslims from Spain and heralded the end of Al-Andalus.

Our story takes us to Europe: the French Revolution. Nation-states. The Jews, now European citizens, became the target of a more asserted anti-Semitism. But having incorporated the new national elites, they were taking a greater interest in the fate of the Jews in the Muslim world and began to play the role of their protectors. Trapped between Zionism and Arabic nationalism, Palestine — called “Southern Syria” by the Ottomans — became the object of religious and political contention.

The world discovers the horror of the Nazi camps. In 1948, the birth of Israel aroused anger and bitterness among Arabs and Muslims, but triggered joy and exultation throughout the Jewish world, from New York to Tel Aviv. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were expelled and fled with the hope of a future return, while over just a few decades, the vast majority of Jews in the Muslim world would be leaving Iraq, Egypt, Iran, Syria, Morocco and Tunisia — by choice. Or by force.