How Jews were Protected Under Muslim Rule

(Since lately Muslims and their Jewish apologists have been repeatedly claiming how Muslims 'protected' Jews under their rule... an example of that protection)

c. 1853: E.L. MITFORD from "Appeal in Behalf of the Jewish Nation"

"I will narrate a case which took place at Tangier, and with which I was, therefore, well acquainted. The individual sufferer was an interesting Jewess, of respectable family, residing at Tangier; and much is it to be regretted that our Consul-General had not influence--or, if he did possess any, that he did not exert it--to avert the horrid catastrophe.

This young creature was summoned before the Cadi, by two Moors, who deposed to her having pronounced their confession of faith. This, however, she utterly denied, but in vain; and the Cadi had no alternative, even had he possessed the inclination, but to decree her conformity to Islamism, on pain of death. I was never able to obtain correct information as to whether the witnesses were actuated by sinister motives, or whether the poor girl really did repeat the fatal words in jest. There is, doubtless, much friendly intercourse between the Jews and the better-disposed Moors, in which gossip and jesting are sometimes carried beyond the verge of safety...

Again, in a scriptural language like the Arabic, in which the name of G-d so constantly occurs, there are many ejaculations repeatedly uttered by the Jews which approach very near to this formula, and might, therefore, be mistaken for it. Be this as it may, the affair was of too serious a nature to be passed over lightly by the Jewish community, who at least deserve the credit of uniting for mutual protection, and, consequently, every exertion was made, but unsuccessfully, by influence and money, to crush it in the bud. It had, however, become too public not to reach the ears of Malai Abderahman, to whose decision it was, therefore, referred, and the parties repaired to Fez for that purpose.

Whatever might have influenced her accusers, there could be no doubt of the motive of the Sultan in enforcing the decree, which was, to obtain another plaything for his harem; in fact, so well known was his character in that respect, that, from the moment of her being ordered to his presence, no one expected any other result--for few possibly imagines, not did the Sultan himself, that she would have courage to brave the alternative, rather than abandon the faith of her fathers. Such, however, was the case...

The Jews came forward with offers of immense sums of money to save her, but her fate was irrevocably decided, and the only mercy the baffled tyrant could afford his young and innocent victim, was to allow of her being decapitated, instead of being burnt alive. I had an account of the closing scene from an eyewitness, who was one of the guards at the execution--and although, as a body, there is nowhere a more dissolute set of irregular soldiery than the Morocco Moors, yet he confessed to me that many of his vice-hardened companions could not restrain their tears, and that he himself could not look with dry eyes on a sight of such cold-blooded atrocity.

This beautiful young creature was led out to where a pile ready for firing had been raised for her last couch, her long, dark hair flowing disheveled over her shoulders, she looked around in vain for a heart and hand that could succor, though so many eyes pitied her; for the last time she was offered--with the executioner and the pyre in all their terror before her--her life, on condition of being false to her G-d; she only asked for a few minutes for prayer, after which her throat was cut by the executioner, according the barbarous custom of the country, and her body consumed on the fire."