in the town of Mahon in Minorca in 418. According to Mocatta, "when, on the fall of the Roman Empire, the Goths and Vandals conquered the country, large numbers of them were already established in various districts throughout the land."
As the Visigoths became dominant in areas where most Jews were located, the capital, Toledo, Catalonia and Andalucia and converted to Catholicism, they increasingly oppressed the Jews, culminating in King Sisebut's decree in 612 ordering their forced conversion to Christianity and deprived those who refused to convert of much of their property. Since the Arab conquest coincided with Visigoth persecution, Baer said "Arabic Spain became a refuge for the Jews." As late as 1000, only a few thousand Jews lived in northern or Christian parts of Spain. Jews opened the gates of Toledo to the Muslim armies in 712 and were entrusted with important garrison command responsibilities in rear areas such as Seville and Granada as the Muslims swept north.
Status of Jews under Muslim Rule 711-1000. Although the Muslims quickly overran all of Spain in the early 8th century and their armies crossed the Pyrenees, they were pushed back by French and other Christian princes to a line below which lay most of the wealthiest parts of Spain, Toledo, the major northern and eastern cities of Saragossa and Valencia and all of Andalucia. A long period of relative peace ensued. According to Baer, the Omayyad Caliph Abd-ar-Rahman III (912-961) "having suppressed the separatist political forces, established a unified and powerful kingdom whose high cultural level commanded the respect of Europe." Ashtor said the "the political security which Moslem Spain enjoyed . . . set its stamp upon its economic life" leading to great "prosperity and abundance." After the 10th century, Carpenter said "economic, political, and intellectual opportunities [for Jews and others] available in al-Andalus far outstripped those in the Christian no...