'Maimonides,' by Sherwin B. Nuland - The New York Times Book Review - New York Times

'Maimonides,' by Sherwin B. Nuland - The New York Times Book Review - New York Times: "MAIMONIDES lived from about 1135 to 1204, first in cities in Spain, then in Morocco and Palestine, and finally in Egypt, where he eventually became the leader of the Egyptian Jewish community and its principal teacher. As Jewry's pre-eminent legal authority and philosopher, he was humane and tough-minded, a comfort to Jews and a chastiser of heresy. He wrote that it was incumbent upon a Jew restricted in the practice of his worship to depart for another place, as he himself had been repeatedly forced to do at the hands of the Almohads, a violent Islamic sect that took control of the Spanish peninsula in 1148 and gave non-Muslims the choice of conversion or death. But he also wrote: 'If a man asks me, 'Shall I be slain or utter the formula of Islam?' I answer, 'Utter the formula and live.' '"