Calatayud (Ar. Qalʿat Ayyūb), a city located in northeastern Spain near Saragossa, had an important Jewish community throughout the period of Muslim rule. Following the Reconquista it became, after Saragossa, the second-most-importantaljama (autonomous community) in the Crown of Aragon.

Most scholars date the foundation of Calatayud to the ninth century, following the Nuṣūṣ ʿan al-Andalus of the Arab chronicler al-ʿUdhrī, known as ibn al-Dilāʾī (11th century), who states that the emir Muḥammad rebuilt the city in 862. The oldest archaeological test…