Seder Olam Revisited: C38- al-Andalus
- Albert Benhamou
- Oct 6
- 19 min read
CHRONOLOGY OF JEWISH HISTORY
Generation 38: Hebrew years 4440-4560 (680-800 CE)
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Introduction
This 38th chronological generation sees the final extent of Islamic conquest (Jihad) to North Africa, Spain and France. In the Land of Israel, the Umayyad dynasty makes Jerusalem a new holy site for Islam.
Hebrew Year | CE | Event | Source |
4450 | 690 | The Kahina confronts the Jihad | ibn Khaldoun |
4452 | 692 | The Dome of the Rock over the Foundation Stone | Talmud, Yoma, 53b |
4465 | 705 | The Al-Aqsa mosque | |
4471 | 711 | The Muslims conquer Spain | |
4482 | 722 | Battle of Covadonga, Reconquista starts | |
4492 | 732 | Battle of Poitiers | |
4510 | 750 | The Abbasid caliphate | |
4519 | 759 | The Muslims leave France | |
4519 | 759 | The Makhir and the Jews of Narbonne | |
4520 | 760 | The Karaites | |
4528 | 768 | Charlemagne, king of the Franks | |
4560 | 800 | Charlemagne, Holy Roman Emperor | |
4560 | 800 | Al-Andalus, Umayyad dynasty | |
4560 | 800 | Avot de Rabbi Nathan | |
4590 | 830 | Pirke de Rabbi Eliezer |
Year 4450 – 690 CE – The Kahina
After defeating the Christians and the Berbers in the coastal region, the Muslim conquest of North Africa was not over yet because they had to face an unexpected enemy who came this time from the mountains: the Jews and the Judaized Berbers. They were led by a woman from one of the Jewish tribes of the Atlas: she was called the Kahina. Her name refers to priesthood in Hebrew, from the word Kohen. The account is given by one of the greatest Arab historians, ibn-Khaldoun from the 14th century:
Part of the Berbers professed Judaism they had received from their powerful neighbors, the Israelites of Syria [Syria-Palestine]. Among the Judaized Berbers, we found the Djeraoua, a tribe that lived in the Aures moutains and to which belonged the Kahina, a woman who was killed by the Arabs at the time of the first invasions. the other Jewish tribes were the Nefoussa, the Berbers of Ifrikya [Africa], the Fendelaoua, the Mediouna, the Behloula, the Ghiatha and the Fazaz, Berbers from the Maghreb-el-Aksa. (ibn Khaldoun, Histoire des Berbères, Slane edition, volume I, pp. 208-209, translation by Albert Benhamou)
The Kahina held back the Jihad for about 12 years, after forcing the Muslim army to retreat to Egypt, losing all the conquest they had previously achieved against the Byzantines. But a new Muslim army came about the year 700 and re-took the coastal region until modern-day Algiers. The Kahina was defeated in 702. According to one legend, she was assassinated by an advisor who secretly converted to Islam. But, according to the historian Ibn Khaldoun, she was killed in a battle inside the amphitheater of El Jem, in modern-day Tunisia, which was built by the Romans about 200 CE after their conquest of Carthage.
Kahina's two sons converted to Islam in exchange for a favorable treatment by the Muslim general. They joined the conquest of North Africa which quickly ended in 709, taking possession of all the accessible parts of North Africa including modern-day Morocco (but only the plains). Several Jewish tribes and some Judaized Berber tribes stayed away from this new conqueror and found refuge, once again, in the remote mountains of the Atlas range to keep their faith and tradition. These Jewish tribes who kept their faith in these mountains composed the Jews of Northern Africa who are not of Sephardi descent (Jews who came to North Africa after the expulsion from Spain in 1492): they are closer to Oriental Jews as found in the previous Eastern provinces of the Roman empire.
The sons of the Kahina influenced their Judeo-Berber followers to also convert to Islam and joined the Jihad into Spain with many other converted Berber tribes. They retained however some notable particularities compared to the Muslims who came from Egypt and the Arabian Peninsula. But, in broad terms, the conquest of Spain has been carried out by these Northern African tribes (Berbers and Jews) who adopted Islam in order to participate to a revenge against Christian dominions who had previously persecuted them under the Byzantine rule. In total the Arab conquest of North Africa was not an easy one as it took over 50 years, which is more time it took the Jihad to crush the entire Sassanid/Persian empire and the Byzantine dominions in North Africa altogether. And it took barely another 30 years for the Jihad to conquer most of Spain from the Christianized Visigoths and even to invade half of the Frankish kingdom, until they were eventually stopped in modern-day France near Poitiers in 732. This perspective can give an idea of the heroic resistance opposed by the Kahina in the face of the Jihad in her time. Today she is venerated by local Arabas as the Queen of the Berbers although she was Jewish according to the historian ibn-Khaldoun.
Year 4452 – 692 CE – The Dome of the Rock
The Umayyad caliph Abdel al-Malik ordered the construction of a shrine on top of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, where the Temple of Solomon once stood. In Arabic sources, the city was known both as Aelia (from the Roman and Byzantine name Aelia Capitolina), and as Al-Quds, which means the Holy in Arabic. There is a large rock on top of the mount, the Biblical Mount Moriah, which was called the Foundation Stone in Jewish Tradition. For this reason, the shrine (it is not a mosque) has been named the Dome of the Rock.
The construction was carried out by Byzantine architects who were ordered to follow the pattern of the octagonal shrine for the Holy Sepulcher and the Kathisma (see document C37, year 662). The model fitted the goal of Abdel al-Malik to make a shrine (people turn around a shrine, which is not specifically for prayers). The intent of the Muslim leader was also surely to compete against Christian faith by making a shrine more beautiful and higher in location than their shrine (the Holy Sepulcher) and to attract Jews by showing that they should now adopt the new faith which has rebuilt the "temple of Solomon" as predicted in their scriptures and as a sign of Messianic times. The association of the Dome of the Rock with the temple of Solomon also confused the Crusaders when they conquered the city in 1099, as they thought that the Dome of the Rock was the ancient Temple of Solomon!
The Dome of the Rock is today the oldest monument in the world still standing as it was built and still used as it was designed for.
For the Jews, this rock was the location upon which the Holy of Holies, inside the Temple, stood upon. According to Tradition, this is the very location where God made Adam, also where Abraham was about to sacrifice his son Isaac (see document C18, year 1686 BCE), and where God appeared to David who then decided to build a Temple in this location. It is at the summit of the Temple Mount, known in Jewish world as Mount Moriah. There are two references of this sacred location in the Bible:
And He [God] said [to Abraham]: 'Take now your son, your only son, whom you love, even Isaac, and get you into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell you of.' (Genesis 22:2)
And later:
Then Solomon began to build the house of the Lord in Jerusalem at mount Moriah, where [the Lord] appeared unto David his father. (II Chronicles 3)
The Midrash considers the Foundation Stone as the navel of the world:
From Sion, the whole world took form. The Tanaim [Mishna writers] state: why is it called the foundation stone? Because from it the world was founded. And Solomon knew it when he said he was going to purchase [?], and he planted some peppers, and they immediately produced fruits. Thus, he said: 'I planted in them a tree of all fruits.'
Another thing. I planted in them a tree of all fruits, because there, the same way the navel is set in the centre of the human body, so is the land of Israel the navel of the world.
[...]
The land of Israel sits in the centre of the world, and Jerusalem in the centre of the land of Israel, and the Temple in the centre of Jerusalem, and the Holy of Holies in the centre of the Temple, and the foundation stone in front of the Holy of Holies, and from it the world was formed. (Midrash Tanchuma, Kodashim 10, translation by Albert Benhamou; for the Hebrew text online, click here)
The divine service of the Temple was performed on this stone after the Ark of the Covenant was hidden away by King Josiah (see document C27a, year 622 BCE) before the destruction of the city by Nebuchadnezzar:
Mishnah. After the Ark had been taken away, there was a stone from the days of the earlier prophets, called the Shetiyah [the Foundation Stone], three fingers above the ground, on which he [the High Priest during the annual service of the Day of Atonement] would place [the pan of burning coals]. (Talmud, Yoma, 53b)
There are 1700 years between the completion of the Temple of Solomon (completed in 1008 BCE) and the completion of the Dome of the Rock (completed in 692 CE). Both took 7 years to be completed.
Year 4465 – 705 CE – The Al-Aqsa Mosque
Beside the Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount today also stands the Al-Aqsa Mosque. This mosque is considered as the third "holy site" for Muslims, after Mecca and Medina. There are several debated reasons for this.
First, the caliph Omar had already built a mosque on the Temple Mount, orientated to the south, towards Mecca. At the time, this wooden mosque was not a "holy" site but created a precedent that this place, the Temple Mount, deserved to have a more permanent mosque.
Second, the Jews consider the Temple Mount as holy, as the place for the creation of Adam, of Abraham's altar and so on. Christians too know from the gospels that Jesus used to come and pray at the Temple, and he also cleansed the Temple from the merchants. So, the Umayyad rulers borrowed this tradition of holiness and, as Muslims also consider that Adam, Abraham, Jesus were Muslim prophets before Muhammad, they too wanted to bring a degree of Muslim holiness to the Temple Mount.
Third, the holiness of the place would make it easy for Jews and Christians to convert to the new faith because they will be able continue to consider the Temple Mount as holy under Islam.
Yet, the Umayyad rulers needed to find a Muslim reason to declare a new mosque holy. The Koran narrates the Night Journey (Lailat al-Miraj) of Muhammad when he was taken to heavens by the angel Gabriel to meet with all "Muslim prophets" before him (Adam, Moses, David, Jesus, etc.) who had failed to impose Islam but explained to Muhammad how he will succeed with the reinforced laws of prayers, fasting, etc. in other words, the five pillars upon which Islam must be based. In the text of the Koran, it is said that Muhammad went to the "farthest mosque" to do this night journey.
Glory be to the One Who took His servant ˹Muhammad˺ by night from the Sacred Mosque to the Farthest Mosque whose surroundings We have blessed, so that We may show him some of Our signs. (Koran, Surah al-Isra, 17:1)
And therefore, al-Walid built a new mosque on the Temple Mount and declared that this was the "farthest mosque" mentioned in the Koran and called it "al-Aqsa" which, in Arabic, means "the farthest". There is however no mention of Jerusalem in the Koran, so some Muslim clerics believe that the farthest mosque mentioned in the Koran must be a place in the Arabian Peninsula. Indeed, at the time of Muhammad, Jerusalem had no significance for Islam, which didn't even fully exist as a religion yet, and was in a land of the Christian Byzantines. It is also worth noting that al-Malik started and completed the Dome of the Rock before al-Walid completed the al-Aqsa Mosque which shows that the shrine over the Foundation Stone was initially more important to erect than a new mosque!
Where to build this new mosque? It was built upon the rudimentary first mosque on the Temple Mount, the wooden mosque of Omar described by Arculf the pilgrim of Bordeaux when he visited the Holy Land after Jerusalem fell to the Muslims (see document C37, year 670). There is some debate about its location on the mount, but it is admitted that Omar erected this mosque at the edge of the southern side of the Temple Mount so that Muslims prayers would be directed towards Mecca and not towards any other shrine on this mount. So, it made sense for al-Walid to build a large mosque, Al-Aqsa, on the same place to replace the wooden one. And then, he declared Jerusalem as a holy city for Muslims.
The Al-Aqsa Mosque was destroyed by natural disasters (such as earthquakes) and rebuilt several times. The first earthquake to destroy the new mosque occurred around 748, less than 50 years after its dedication ! Curiously, the Dome of the Rock was never damaged. The reason is that Al-Aqsa is located on a geological faultline, unlike the Dome of the Rock. Also, the mosque is held by underground arches that King Herod had built to compensate the steep slope at this southern side of the Temple Mount and to create a flat esplanade.
But, although the Al-Aqsa Mosque was named a holy site, there are no Muslims going there on pilgrimage that would count as the Hajj because Jerusalem has never replaced Mecca and Medina. Even the Arabs from Jerusalem go to Mecca and Medina to perform the Muslim duty of the Hajj.
For Jews, the mosque is located precisely at one of the entrance gates systems to the Temple Mount and evidence of it can be found inside the mosque itself with some of the pillars and walls.
Year 4471 – 711 CE – The Muslim conquest of Spain
An army mostly composed of Berber and Jewish converts to Islam, totaling about 12,000 men, led by Tariq ibn Ziyad a general of the Umayyads, crossed the sea at the narrow level of the Pillars of Hercules and reached the rock of Gibraltar in 711. The word Gibraltar is named after this general as it means Jabal Tariq in Arabic, i.e. the Mountain of Tariq.
This conquest was very swift after Tariq won a decisive battle against the Visigoths during which their king was killed.
Year 4472 – 712 CE – The Table of Solomon
According to contemporary accounts, Tariq ibn Ziyad found among the treasures he took from the Visigoths a table encrusted with precious stones. When enquiring about it to the defeated, they told him that it was the Table of Solomon that the Visigoths found in Rome when they sacked the city (see document C36, year 455) and brought it back with them. This was most probably the Table of Shewbread for the divine service at the time of the Second Temple, which was brought to Rome by the army of Titus along many other precious items from the Temple.
This table can be seen depicted on the Arch of Titus in Rome, carried by Jewish prisoners:
Tariq sent the precious table as a gift to the Umayyad caliph, who was Al-Walid at the time, in Damascus, and its track has been lost since.
Year 4492 – 732 CE – The Jihad is stopped in France
After their swift success against the Visigoths, the Muslim army crossed the Pyrenees into the kingdom of the Franks and reached half the way north until they were stopped by Charles Martel at the Battle of Poitiers, near Tours, in 732.
This battle was a turning point for the Jihad, as it caused the Muslims to retreat back, first in the southern part of France and then back into Spain. They were never able to renew their invasion attempts: the Muslim Jihad came to a stop. The reasons were multiple. First, the Franks were more organized to fight the Muslim army and regained their lost territories pushing the Muslims back over the southern mountain range into Spain. Second, the Christian army in Spain was regrouped in the northern part of the peninsula and was starting to threaten to reconquer their lost kingdom too: their victory in 722 at the Battle of Covadonga signaled the start of the Reconquista, but this reconquest took 770 years to be completed (in 1492). Last, the Muslim army itself was facing some internal issues caused by ethnic tensions between the different groups: the Berbers although being the main component of the invasion army were treated with contempt by the Arabs, so many of them revolted in 740 by changing allegiance and by even converting to Christianity. These troubles ended in 742 with the leadership of the Muslim conquest was changed to a Berber leader. So, the Muslims returned beyond the Pyrenees in 759 and preferred to consolidate their presence in Spain.
Year 4510 – 750 CE – The Abbasid Caliphate
The Umayyad caliph and all his family was assassinated in Antipatris (also known today as Tel Afek, Israel) by members of the Banu Hashim clan who founded a new Muslim rule and established the third Caliphate, the Abbasid. They also moved the capital of the Caliphate from Damascus to Baghdad. The Umayyad Caliphate however continued to rule in its province of Spain with a capital-in-exile, Cordoba, after one member of this family had escaped the slaughter at the hands of the Banu Hashim.
With these new Abbasid rulers, who embraced Sunni Islam, the Jews enjoyed a greater tolerance, unlike the Christians who nearly entirely disappeared from their dominion. The main reason for this is that Jews were not perceived as a threat, compared to Christians who still hoped for a reverse of good fortune with the Byzantine Empire.
In the Frankish kingdom, Charles Martel started a new ruling dynasty, from the Merovingians to the Carolingians. Then, when his son Pepin the Short ruled from 752 CE, the status of the Jews took a favorable turn under this new dynasty. Under Charlemagne (Carlo Magno), son of Pepin who succeeded him as king of the Franks in 768 and became Emperor of the Roman Empire from 800 CE, the Jews prospered. The new rulers employed them mostly for commercial transactions and international commerce. For example, Charlemagne sent diplomatic envoys to the Abbasid ruler Harun al-Rashid in Baghdad in 797: among them there was a Jew called Isaac.
Year 4519 – 759 CE – Makhir and the Jews of Narbonne
Narbonne is a city in the Languedoc region in France where the first road linking Italy to Spain was laid by the Romans in the 2nd century BCE. Jews arrived there when Narbonne was part of the Caliphate of Cordoba before 759 CE and remained there when the Franks pushed the Muslims back beyond the Pyrenean mountains.
According to a Jewish scholar who was born in Narbonne many years later, Rabbi David Kimchi, the Jewish community started to thrive when Charlemagne asked from the Abbasid caliph of Bagdad to send one Jew who could lead the community of Narbonne. This Jew was called Makhir ibn Habibi and he died in Narbonne about 793 CE. He gave root to a lineage who stayed connected with the Carolingian dynasty by representing the Jews of Narbonne since Charlemagne granted the title of nassi in 791 to Makhir and his descendance. In old French official documents, the title of nassi was understood as king of the Jews. The last "king of the Jews" was called Kalonimos bar Todros [Theodoros] because the Jewish community was expelled from the city in 1306 following a decree by the French king Philippe Le Bel (Commission archéologique de Narbonne, Procès-verbaux des séances de 1842 à 1889, Narbonne, 1944, page 374; to see this document online, click here). The seal of this last nassi had one face written in Latin and one in Hebrew. On each face, there is a lion representing the royal Tribe of Judah. On the face in Hebrew, a star of David and the following inscription: קלונימוס בר טורדוס (Kalonimos bar Todros) followed by Hebrew letters corresponding to the initials of a verse from Isaiah.
Year 4520 – 760 CE – The Karaites
In Babylonia, after the death of the exilarch Shlomo ben Hisdai II in 759, who was childless, the role of Exilarch should have been passed to his eldest nephew, Anan ben Shefat. But, the Rabbinical authority did not approve him in such role, on the reason that he was not pious enough. Instead his younger brother Isaac was chosen. As a response, Anan created a new movement which rejected the authority of the Rabbis and, to do so, borrowed from what the ancient Sadducees used to believe, i.e. that they should only obey the written scripture (the Torah) and not the rabbinical oral laws (the Talmud). This new movement was called Karaite, based on the Hebrew word to refer to Readers of the scriptures.
Anan also composed a book to lay down the rules of his new community. Another theory considers that Anan was not the actual founder of Karaism but one of the biggest promoters. But there is little known of Karaism before him. He also changed his name and adopted ben David, thus willing to stress that he was of Davidic descent.
To avoid conflicts with the traditional Judaism, the Caliph of Bagdad ordered Anan and his followers to be sent to Jerusalem. There they established a synagogue from which they spread their ideas. The movement gained some followers over the years, mainly in Egypt, Turkey and the rest of the Muslim dominions around the Mediterranean Sea, including in Crimea. Today there are still some Karaites around the world, but they represented a small minority (the largest community is in Israel with about 40,000 members). They still maintain a synagogue in the Old City of Jerusalem. They also distance themselves from Anan's rules, because Karaism has evolved: they now make a distinction between Karaism and Ananism. Similarly to the Sadducees before them, the Karaites owe their existence to an initial power struggle with religious authorities, which led to a deviation from core Judaism.
Year 4560 – 800 CE – Al-Andalus
The conquered region of Spain became known to the Arabs as Al-Andalus, which gave the name Andalusia in Spanish. The Iberian Peninsula was mostly ruled by the Umayyad dynasty, except for the most northern-western region which was still Christian and from which the Reconquista started. To the Christians, the Muslims occupying Spain were known as the Moors, a name which correctly describes their Berber origin from the Maghreb. Indeed, the word Moor comes from the name given to the Maghreb region by the Romans, which was Mauretania. This name itself came from the ancient way to call the tribes of this region before the arrival of the Romans, which was the Mauri. The origin of this name is Greek but borrowed from the Hebrew-Phoenician word Maharavi meaning People of the West
The Jews of Al-Andalus, who lived in the previous Visigoth/Christian dominion before the arrival of Islam, came there in various waves, from the Phoenicians era but, mostly, at the time of the Roman empire, initially as slaves or prisoners to work on the various Roman provinces. The Jews had lived in Spain along the Visigoths after the fall of the Roman empire. Among the Muslim army, there were many Jews too but those had converted to Islam. Yet, because Berbers and Jews had always been in good terms, the Jews of Spain could look at a peaceful future under the rulers of Umayyad Spain.
Year 4560 – 800 CE – Avot de-Rabbi Nathan (אבות דרבי נתן)
The famous tractate Avot from the Talmud contains the Ethics of the Fathers, their guidelines to a righteous life. Unlike other tractates from the Mishna, Avot doesn't have any Gemara. However, in the times of the Gaonim in Babylonia (see document C37, year 589), a Tosefta (additional commentary) was composed on Avot, and it was named after one of the leading figures of the Babylonian Sages, Rabbi Nathan. The Avot de-Rabbi Nathan, as it was titled, comments on some of the morale sayings from the Fathers. Here is an example:
Mishna B. Simeon the Just was one of the remnants of the Great Assembly. His motto was: "The order of the world rests upon three things: the Torah, the divine service, and deeds of kindness."
How so? It is written [Hosea 6:6]: "For piety I desired and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings." Infer from this that the burnt-offering is more favored than ordinary sacrifices, because it is all burnt up in the fire, as it is written [Leviticus 1:9]: "And the priest shall burn the whole of the altar", and elsewhere [I Samuel 7:9]: "And Samuel took the sucking lamb and offered it for an entire burnt-offering unto the Lord." Yet the study of the Torah is more acceptable in the sight of the Lord than burnt-offering because he was is studying the Torah knows the will of the Lord as it is written [Proverbs 2:5]: "Then will you understand the fear of the Lord, and the knowledge of God will you find." From this it may be inferred that when a sage lectures to the public, it is accounted to him in Scripture as if sacrificing fat and blood upon the altar. (Tosefta Avot de-Rabbi Nathan, in Rodkinson, Michael, The Babylonian Talmud, Volume I (IX), page 22, published 1900)
Concerning the study of the Torah, it is one of the most important positive commandments expressed by God to Moses:
"And these words, which I command you this day, shall be upon your heart, and you shall teach them diligently unto your children, and shall talk of them." (Deuteronomy 6:6-7)
This divine commandment was repeated to Joshua in Canaan:
"This book of the Torah shall not depart out of your mouth, but you shall meditate therein day and night." (Joshua 1:8)
Consequently, since the time of Moses, the Torah was read in public congregations on Shabbats and Festivals. At the time of the Babylonian exile, the reading of the Torah was organized according to the number of weeks in a year: so, the Torah was divided into 54 sections (called sidrot) and a new section (sidra) is read each Shabbat. The reading cycle is completed on Simchat Torah (meaning the Joy of the Torah) the day after the end of the Sukkot festival (to know more about this festival, click here).
Year 4590 – 830 CE – Pirke de-Rabbi Eliezer
About 30 years after the Avot de-Rabbi Nathan, another important work was composed in the times of the Gaonim: the Pirke de-Rabbi Eliezer. But the final text may have been composed from various sources added at various times, some earlier than the time of final composition. For example, the first two chapters were at some point extracted from the Avot de-Rabbi Nathan, thus placing the dating of the Pirke after it. The Jewish Encyclopedia of 1906 states that it was first composed after 833 CE, but one story that appears in the Koran is borrowed from the Pirke: it is the story of the crow that unearthed the corpse of Abel that was buried by Cain: this means that some parts of the Pirke were known before the Koran was composed (no later than 700 CE).
The work includes many passages of the Talmud and is written as if it contains the teaching of Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrkanos, one prominent tana (Sage of the Mishna) of the 1st century. The first chapters concern the days of the Creation, with astronomical discussions applied to the Jewish Calendar, and then a discussion about the 10 occurrences when God came down to Earth, including sources alluding to Messianic times. Being a composition of sources for some Midrashic themes such as the Resurrection, the End of Days, etc. the Pirke has been extremely popular among the Jewish communities, as proven by the early efforts to publish it soon after the invention of printing. Indeed, the first known edition dates from 1514 in Constantinople, and the second one dates from 1544 in Venice. Today editions are derived from the most complete one, from Rabbi David Luria who added valuable commentaries, dated 1837 in Vilna.
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Albert Benhamou
Private Tour Guide in Israel
Tishri 5786 - October 2025
