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Mawza Exile


The Exile of Mawzaʻ (the expulsion of Yemenite Jews to Mawza') Hebrew: גלות מוזע‎, pronounced [ğalūt mawzaʻ];‎ 1679–1680, is considered the single most traumatic event experienced collectively by the Jews of Yemen, in which Jews living in nearly all cities and towns throughout Yemen were banished by decree of the king, Imām al-Mahdi Ahmad, and sent to a dry and barren region of the country named Mawzaʻ to withstand their fate or to die. Only a few communities, viz., those Jewish inhabitants who lived in the far eastern quarters of Yemen (Nihm, al-Jawf, and Khawlan of the east) were spared this fate by virtue of their Arab patrons who refused to obey the king’s orders. Many would die along the route and while confined to the hot and arid conditions of this forbidding terrain. After one year in exile, the exiles were called back to perform their usual tasks and labors for the indigenous Arab populations, who had been deprived of goods and services on account of their exile.

With the rise to power of the Qāsimīd Imām, al-Mutawakkil Isma'il (1644–1676), there was a crucial turning point in the condition of Jews living under the Imamate kingdom of Yemen. He endorsed the most hostile policies toward his Jewish subjects, partly due to the claim that the Jews were aiding the Ottoman Turks during the local uprising against them. The rise of the Shabbathian movement in Yemen in 1666 exacerbated the problems facing the community, calling into question their status as protected wards of the State. One decree led to another. The king initially demanded their conversion to Islam and when they refused, he made them stand out in the sun without apparel for three days, which was later followed by harsher decrees. It is said that al-Mutawakkil Isma'il consulted with the religious scholars of Islam and sought to determine whether or not the laws concerning Jews in the Arabian Peninsula applied also to Yemen, citing Muhammad who was reported as saying, “There shall not be two religions in Arabia.” When it was determined that these laws did indeed apply to Yemen, since the country was an indivisible part of the Arabian Peninsula, it then became incumbent upon Jews living in Yemen to either convert to Islam or to leave the country. Yet, since the king fell ill and was bedridden, he did not presently perform his ill-designs to expel the Jews from his kingdom, but commanded the heir to his throne, al-Mahdi Ahmad, to do so.


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