The Absence of the Jewish Usurer Trope in Andalusī Written Sources

Abstract

ABSTRACT Starting in the twelfth century, usury became one of the immoral activities attributed to the Jews in Christian anti-Jewish propaganda. Jews became so commonly associated with usury in the Latin-Christian world that the word “Jew” itself became a synonym for “usurer”, mainly in the texts of Christian exegetes. However, although this trope spread geographically and over time, it does not seem to have existed in al-Andalus. In Islamic texts, while some examples associate ribā (usury) with Jews, it is equally attributed to Christians. Moreover, the practice of usury does not seem to have been used as an argument against the Jews in Muslim polemical literature. This article focuses on the Andalusī context, showing how the trope of the Jewish usurer did not take root in Muslim Iberia as it did among the Christians of the Peninsula. Of special interest are developments that took place in the Naṣrid kingdom, where several legal opinions (fatāwā) issued between the eighth/fourteenth and the ninth/fifteenth centuries reveal a concern among the population about loans at interest issued by Jews. The Naṣrid jurists, however, appear to have tolerated these interfaith activities.