Islamic moon
Islamic mooniStock
There is a direct connecting line, like an explosive fuse, that runs from Muhammad the founder of Islam and modern day Muslims, Islamists, Jihadis and Intifadists be they of the violent or the non-violent kind. Looking at the broader long term historical picture, it is clear that since the times of the founding of Islam by Muhammad (570-632), Islam has been continuously on the warpath, recruiting adherents and confronting all religions and cultures that oppose it both by war and by diplomacy.
For reasons best known to God, the early Muhammadans as they were known proved to be successful and brilliant masters of war and creators of rich and powerful ruling dynasties that they called Caliphates. They fearlessly came out of the Arabian deserts, gathered steam and strength and went on to subdue large parts of North Africa, Southern Europe and Asia.

Before Islam, the Arabs were pagans. The Jews living in Arabia influenced the surrounding Arab tribes around them. Therefore, Islamic faith is in large part based on the Jewish faith because in the areas of Arabia where Muhammad started his rise, the cities of Mecca and Medina, the capitals of Islam, there were large Jewish populations and tribes with whom Muhammad interacted and from who he learned.
The Wikipedia article "Jewish Tribes of Arabia" states that: "The earliest attested presence of Jews in the Arabian Peninsula dates back to the early 6th century BCE, following the Babylonian conquest of Judah, which resulted in their expulsion from the Land of Israel. Over time and through successive exiles, the local Jewish tribes, who were concentrated in the Hejaz [Western Arabia] and partly in South Arabia, established themselves as one of the most prominent ethno-religious communities of pre-Islamic Arabia."

"Likewise, Judaism, which had been introduced as one of the few monotheistic religions in the region, stood as a deviation from the typical polytheistic practices of Arab paganism. These Jewish tribes continued to have a presence in Arabia during the rise of Muhammad, who founded Islam in the early 7th century CE. Muhammad's interaction with the Jewish community is documented to a considerable degree in Islamic literature, including in many hadith. The Jewish tribes of the Hejaz are seen in Islam as having been the descendants of the Israelites/Hebrews. Two of Muhammad's wives were Jewish: Safiyya bint Huyayy and Rayhanah bint Zayd, both of whom belonged to the Banu Nadir by birth, though Rayhanah's status as a wife is disputed."

"The Jewish tribes played a significant role during the rise of Islam. Muhammad had many contacts with Jewish tribes, both urban and nomadic. The eating of pork has always been strongly prohibited in both religions. In the Constitution of Medina, Jews were given equality to Muslims in exchange for political loyalty and were allowed to practice their own culture and religion. A significant narrative symbolising the inter-faith harmony between early Muslims and Jews is that of Rabbi Mukhayriq. The rabbi was from Banu Nadir and fought alongside Muslims at the Battle of Uhud and bequeathed his entire wealth to Muhammad in the case of his death. He was subsequently called 'the best of the Jews' by Muhammad."

"Later, as Muhammad encountered opposition from the Jews, Muslims began to adopt a more negative view on the Jews, seeing them as something of a fifth column. Early Muslim conquests resulted in the exile of the Banu Qainuqa and Banu Nadir, two of the main three Jewish tribes from Medina, and the mass execution of all male adults of the Banu Qurayza clan. Some historians, like Guillaume, see the attacks on the Banu Qaynuqa for their hostility against the Muslims and for mocking them. They left for modern-day Der'a in Syria. In one account, the Banu Nadir tribe was evicted from Medina after they attempted to assassinate Muhammad."

The Muslim conquest of the lands in the former Persian empire went easily for them and soon after the life of Muhammad there arose Islamic rulers in the areas of Persia and Iraq by 654. The expansion by Muslims into Pakistan was then completed by 711. The spread of Islam was slower in Indonesia as it grew from the 700s to the 1400s.

Muhammad's ambivalent and even two-faced approach vis-à-vis the Jews of Arabia was carried forth by his many successors, the various leaders of the Islamic armies and empires, not much different to the ambivalence Jews faced in lands dominated by the rival Christians of Europe. The Muslims were astonishingly successful on the battle fronts in their confrontations with mainly Christian Europe. The Arab Muslims successfully converted many non-Arab nations to Islam by either the sword or by persuasion.

In the year 711 a North African army of Berber Moors combined with Arabs conquered the entire Iberian peninsula in South West Europe, areas later known as Spain and Portugal that they renamed Al Andalus and they then marched forth successfully into the areas of southern Frankish France. The Moors were eventually defeated and stopped at the Battle of Tours in France in 732 and over the next centuries were slowly driven out of Spain and Portugal after 700 years of warfare called the Reconquista between Muslims and Christians, culminating with the fall of Granada, the last Muslim holdout, in 1492.

In the areas of South East Europe a long war was waged between Muslim armies and the Eastern Roman Empire known as Byzantium. After 700 years, Muslim armies, led by the Islamic Ottoman Turks, finally managed to defeat the Eastern Orthodox Christian Byzantines symbolized by the Fall of Constantinople to the Muslim Turks in 1453. They renamed it Istanbul and did not stop there, but thrust their seasoned armies forth to conquer the Balkans, Greece and South Eastern Europe that had until then been part of the Christian Byzantine Empire.

Finally after almost 900 years, after penetrating into the heart of Europe, the Islamic Ottoman Turks were stopped in 1683 at the Battle of Vienna in Austria where they were defeated by the combined Christian armies of the Holy Roman Empire coming from Germany, Austria, France, Poland, However the Ottoman Turks managed to retain control of their home country of Turkey and its capital Istanbul and most of the Middle East, North Africa and Mesopotamia until defeated and expelled mainly by the British during the First World War (1914-1918).

With the rise of modern Western European Imperialism and the colonization (to various degrees) of the countries across North Africa that coincided with the weakening of Islamic Ottoman Turkish control over those same areas, Spanish, French, Italian and British colonial control took over. This was also true in the Middle East overall as local Arab rulers were turned into puppet regimes and made subject to European colonial masters in the 1800s and 1900s, something they hated and wanted to overthrow.

Until the era of the Second World War (1939-1945) over one million Sephardi and Mizrahi Oriental Jews had lived continuously in communities in the Sunni Islamic Arab countries of Spain and Portugal when under Islamic rule, and in Morocco, Algeria, Libya, Tunisia, Egypt, Palestine, Yemen, Abyssinia/Ethiopia, Somalia, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Turkey, Greece and the Shiite Muslims of Persia/Iran, Kazakhstan, Bucharia, Afghanistan for about 2,500 years or longer.

Considering that in Muhammad's lifetime the Jews of Saudi Arabia were exterminated and either murdered, forcibly converted, escaped or were expelled making it in effect Judenrein, it is remarkable that Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews were able to live, survive and sometimes even thrive under hostile conditions for 2,500 years in so many other Muslim lands not located at the heart of Islam itself, away from the Arab lands surrounding Mecca and Medina that were reserved for Muslims only.

Rabbi Yitschak Rudomin was born to Holocaust survivor parents in Israel, grew up in South Africa, and lives in Brooklyn, NY. He is an alumnus of Yeshiva Rabbi Chaim Berlin and of Teachers College-Columbia University. He heads the Jewish Professionals Institute dedicated to Jewish Adult Education and Outreach - Kiruv Rechokim. He was the Director of the Belzer Chasidim's Sinai Heritage Center of Manhattan 1988-1995, a Trustee of AJOP 1994-1997 and founder of American Friends of South African Jewish Education 1995-2015. He is the author of The Second World War and Jewish Education in America: The Fall and Rise of Orthodoxy.Contact him at izakrudomin@gmail.com