Place · North Africa
Fez
City in Morocco under Almohad rule, to which Maimonides's family moved on leaving Spain.
34.0566°N 5.0023°W · representative coordinate · approximate · Natural Earth Fez ↗
Statements linked to this place
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The Almohad persecution drove the great sage Maimonides, born in Córdoba in 1135, to leave Spain with his family. Puzzlingly, they moved first to Fez, in Morocco, the Almohad heartland, and he later moved on to Egypt. On forced Islamization, Maimonides ruled that a temporary conversion to save one's life was allowed (Islam, being monotheistic, does not count as idolatry in Jewish law), provided the person left the persecuting country as soon as possible and went elsewhere to return to Judaism. Around the start of the twelfth century a legal scholar in Tangiers received a complaint against a Jewish doctor in Fez, who dressed like a Muslim notable and lacked the required distinguishing marks. The scholar restated the Pact of Umar's conditions and urged the authorities in Fez to enforce them, opening with a saying of Muhammad on the dhimmis: abase them, but do not oppress them. The point was to apply the law, not to repress arbitrarily.
Community: Jews of Fez, bringing together natives and Iberian exiles.
The distinction between exiled megorashim and native toshavim lasted for centuries. Fez transferred its Jews into a mellah in 1438, partly for protection.