Summary Of Ab Allah Ibn Buluggin

The excerpt from Abd Allah ibn Buluggin’s memoir, where he discusses his experience with the Jewish vizier, Joseph, reveals the most about relations between the Muslim and Jewish faiths of the time. The powerful position of the author as well as the experiences he tells reinforces how closely Jewish and Muslim people worked together. Andalus is known for being based on covivencia, but this source supports that even more. The Jewish viziers were often central in Muslim administrations which speaks to the tolerance and cooperation between the two groups. In fact, Buluggin’s family trusted their Jewish viziers so much that people found it plausible for the viziers to murder their superiors without anyone preventing it. Buluggin’s story is a perfect example of how interfaith relations were ever-changing. He speaks well of the prior vizier, and he described various members of his family as having an intimate relationship with their viziers and placing a lot of trust in them. The power the
His recollection ends with him very objectively stating that all the Jews in the city were killed. This hostility towards Joseph show how despite the fact that Jewish viziers held prestigious roles in Muslim administrations there was still a strict hierarchy and tension between the two. Buluggin’s purpose in writing this is most likely to explain what happened to the Jewish population in Granada. He wanted it to be seen favorably, so telling the entire backstory of Joseph is necessary. Buluggin explains why Joseph is seen as trying to have the city sacked, and the populace has no doubt in murdering all the Jews since they had an “underhanded way” and forced “widespread changes they had wrought for the worse”. This writing gives a good basis for any distasteful treatment of Jewish people by Granada or Buluggin