Jewish misfortunes abruptly reversed with Islam’s uninvited 711 arrival. Cordoba’s Jews must have been stunned more than delighted when its Muslim conquerors gathered their community leaders and “left them in charge… trusting them in preference to the Christians, on account of their hatred and animosity toward the latter.” This was no isolated occurrence, as is clear later in the chronicler al-Makkari’s report: “This practice became almost general in the succeeding years; for whenever the Muslims conquered a town, it was left in custody of the Jews, with only a few Moslems, the rest of the army proceeding to new conquest.”-- Chris Lowney, A Vanished World