YUSUF IBN TESHUFIN:
Almoravid king of Spain in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. He was the only Almoravid ruler hostile to the Jews, and he once endeavored to force Islam upon them. Passing through Lucena in 1105, he noticed the flourishing Jewish community there, and convoked its representatives, telling them that Mohammed had granted the Jews religious freedom only on condition that the Jewish Messiah should come within five hundred years after the Hegira, and that the Jews had agreed to embrace Islam if at the end of the half-millennium the Messiah had not appeared. He informed them further that as the term was then just at an end, he would withdraw from them his protection and declare them outlaws if they did not accept the religion established by the Prophet. The Jews of Lucena averted the danger, however, by presenting Yusuf, through his vizier 'Abd Allah ibn 'Ali, with large sums of money.
- Grätz, Gesch. 3d ed., vi. 99.
