The first Jews arrived at the beginning of the 8th century BCE – before the Common Era – on the Iranian plateau, a region already inhabited by Indo-European Aryan tribes (Medes to the north, Persians to the south, and Parthians to the east). They were taken to “cities of Media”1 (17 Kings 6:XNUMX) by the armies of the Assyrians, who, after defeating the Kingdom of Israel, scattered the population of the Ten Tribes to the four corners of their domains.
A second wave of Jews, originating from the Kingdom of Judah, settled in Media and Persia in the late 6th century BCE. In 586 BCE, the troops of Nebuchadnezzar II invaded Jerusalem, destroyed the First Temple, and took many Jews captive to Babylon. However, some of them settled in other regions, including Iranian lands.
It fell to Cyrus the Great, ruler of a small kingdom in the southwest of present-day Iran, to overthrow the Neo-Babylonian Empire in 539 BCE. Through the so-called “Edict of Cyrus” (538 BCE), mentioned in the Book of Ezra, the monarch allowed the Jews to return to the Land of Israel. However, some remained in Babylon, while others, including the prophet Daniel, accompanied Cyrus and his court to Susa in Persia.
During the reign of Darius I the Great, the Persian Empire reached unprecedented splendor and opulence. During this period, the local Jewish population experienced great development, prospering and achieving considerable political influence.
The sovereign was succeeded by his son Xerxes – to whom the Megillat Esther refers to as King Achashverosh – who ruled between 486 and 465 BCE. There were then Jewish communities “in all the king’s provinces...” (Esther 3:8). The majority, however, lived in Susa, Shiraz, Hamadan and Isfahan. According to the Iranian-Jewish historian Habib Levy2, the saga of Queen Esther, reported in Megillah, is a historical episode narrated in biblical style.
The Second and Third Persian Empires
At its height, the Parthian Empire, the second Persian Empire (247 BCE to 224 CE), stretched from the northern banks of the Euphrates to eastern Iran. During Parthian rule, Persian Jews lived in safety and comfort, playing an important role in international trade and controlling the Silk Road. After 70 CE, when Roman legions destroyed Jerusalem, they joined the Parthians in the fight against Rome.
In 224 CE, the Sassanid dynasty seized power and established the third great Persian Empire. Its founder, Ardashir I, made Zoroastrianism the official religion of his domains and granted great power to his priests. It was based on the teachings of Zoroaster (or Zarathustra), who lived between the 7th and 6th centuries BCE in Persia. Zoroastrianism is a dualistic doctrine that believes in the existence of two gods, one of good and one of evil, who are in constant conflict. It believes that, at the end of time, good will triumph. For Zoroastrians, followers of other religions, including Jews and Christians, “polluted the world”, and so it was up to them to fight against “non-believers”. This idea is of fundamental importance to understanding Jewish history in Persia, as it took deep root in Persian culture, with dire consequences for Jews that persist to this day.
Persecutions against “non-believers” reached unprecedented proportions and violence in the mid-5th century. In 451, for example, Jews were forbidden to observe Shabbat, and their religious leaders were executed. In 469, more than half of the community of Isfahan was massacred, and Zoroastrian priests forcibly took Jewish children to serve in their temples.
First Islamic period
In 642, the Arab invaders defeated the Sassanids, and Persia became a province of their empire. Islam was established as the state religion, and Sharia, the legal system of Islam, begins to govern the lives of the entire population. As in other places in Dar al Islam (Arabic for “Islamic territory”), Jews and Christians were allowed to live in Islamic domains on condition that dhimmis. Considered second-class citizens, they were forced to recognize the supremacy of Islam and the Islamic State, in addition to fulfilling a series of obligations and paying special taxes. In exchange, they were guaranteed life, property and the right to practice their religion.
The Iranian population gradually converted to Islam, but retained the Persian language. By the mid-9th century, they were mostly Sunni Muslims.3. The Shiites constituted an inferior minority.
During the first 600 years of Islamic rule, the Jewish population of Persia grew at an unprecedented rate, with Hamadan and Isfahan as its main centers. Jews played an important role in commercial activity and, from the 10th century onwards, in the financial sector. As international trade expanded, a thriving merchant class emerged among them in Ahwaz, Isfahan and Shiraz.
Thanks to the accounts of two travelers, Benjamin of Tudela and Pethahiah of Regensburg, we have information about the Jewish communities in Persia in the 12th century. According to the first, there were 30 Jews in Hamadan, 15 in Isfahan, 10 in Shiraz and 7 in Susa.
The Abbasid Caliphate fell in 1258 to the Mongol Emperor Hulagu Khan, grandson of Genghis Khan. As the new conquerors abolished distinctions between Muslims and followers of other religions, the situation of the Jews improved, and they began to hold government posts.
Second Islamic period
The Safavid dynasty's seizure of power in the 16th century represented another important milestone in the history of Persian Judaism. At the time, around 30 Jews lived in the region. The dynasty's founder, Shah Ismail I, established Shiism as the official religion, forcing Sunnis to convert to it. Known as mullahs4, the Shiite clerical elites came to hold almost unlimited power. The ulemas (scholars of religious law) became the only legitimate source of authority, so much so that their fatwas (decrees) were imposed on all the people, even the shahs. It is worth noting that the Shiite clerical elites maintain this supremacy to this day in Iran. As we will see in the article Jews of Iran: Rise and Fall, They were only removed from power between 1925 and 1979, when the country was ruled by the Pahlavi dynasty.5. After the Islamic Revolution of 1979 they regained absolute power.
Unlike Sunnism, Iranian Shiism believed that a Muslim becomes “impure” when coming into contact with “infidels,” especially Jews, who are considered “najas” (polluters). This belief accounts for most of the humiliations and persecutions against our people in Persia. The ulemas They preached the need to avoid physical contact with followers of other religions, as well as the consumption of food they prepared or the use of utensils they used.
The 17th century was a period of intense suffering for the country's Jewish population. Ketab e-anusi, a Judeo-Persian chronicle by Babai ben Lotf, describes the persecutions and forced conversions to Islam between 1617 and 1662. In Isfahan and Kashan, the rulers ordered the Jews to “choose” between being eaten by animals or accepting Shiism. However, many “new Muslims” (jadid al-Islam) continued to practice Judaism in secret. They were only able to publicly return to their religion with the rise to power of the new Shah Safi I. Ben Lotf's grandson, Babai ben Farhad, wrote another chronicle between 1721 and 1731, Katab-e sargozasht-e kashan dar bab-e ibri va-guyimi-ye-sani (“The Book of Events in Kashan”), in which he recounted the forced conversion of the Jews of that city.
From the end of the 18th century, Persia, although not actually invaded, was the target of the expansion of the Russian Empire in Central Asia and the British Empire in India, and ended up losing parts of its territory.
19st century
At the beginning of the 19th century, there were about 30 Jews living in Persia, mainly in large cities such as Tehran, Isfahan, Shiraz, Hamadan and Kermanshah. Isolated and despised, they had almost no contact with Jews from other countries. The vast majority led a very modest life, with no class that had economic power or political influence. Due to the belief in their “impurity” (juhud-e cobras), the Jewish population was subject to humiliating legislation and, from the 17th century onwards, ceased to have any legal protection.
In the early decades of the 19th century, persecutions, massacres and forced conversions intensified. In Tehran, abuses were constant. In Tabriz, the violence was so extreme that Jews fled the city. In Mashhad, in March 1839, mass forced conversions took place in an episode known as the “Allahdad Incident”. On an Islamic religious holiday, during an attack on the Jewish quarter, houses and synagogues were vandalized and burned. There were 40 murders, rapes and forced marriages of girls to Muslims. The violence led to an intervention by the local authorities, who promised the Muslim population that the city’s approximately 2.400 Jews would be converted. The local Jewish leaders agreed to this decision in order to save Jewish lives. Many of these jadid al-Islam (“new Muslims”) remained, in secret, faithful to Judaism, to which they were only able to openly return almost a century later, with the rise of the Pahlavi dynasty to power.
As Persia's contact with the West intensified, new business opportunities arose, and Jewish merchants began to prosper again. mullahs, who were concerned with the economic advancement of the Jewish population, instituted more than fifty restrictions designed to segregate, demean, and humiliate them. Some laws sought to guarantee the superiority of Muslims. In economic matters, Jews were prohibited, for example, from opening shops in the bazaars. In civil terms, they were kept without legal protection, which left them vulnerable to Muslim violence. By paying a small fine, a Muslim could avoid conviction even for murdering a Jew. The laws also encouraged conversion to Shiism. Through this, a Jew could save himself from attacks by Muslims and, as a jadid al-Islam, had the right to claim the entire family inheritance for himself, to the detriment of non-converted relatives.
The belief in the “ritual impurity” of any “infidel” in general, but especially of Jews, imposed restrictions on the social life of the Jewish population. As we saw above, they were forbidden from having physical contact with Muslims or their property. They could not walk in the middle of the street, touch goods in stores or enter Islamic homes. When it rained, they were not allowed to leave their homes, as it was believed that the rain falling on them would transfer their impurity to the “believers”. Ironically, Jewish money was not considered “impure”.
The laws also determined the appearance and where the Jews lived. They were required to dress simply, without fine or white clothing, and to wear a turban that was distinct from the rest of the population. They were also required to live in specific neighborhoods known as mahallahs, in which the houses had to be humble, with small, low doors so that people were forced to bow when entering.
Intervention of European Jewry
With the opening of Persia to the West, European Jewish groups became aware of the terrible situation of their brothers in the Asian country. In February 1866, during a meeting of the Alliance Israélite Universelle (AIU), the first reports of these horrors were read. In Barforush, for example, 18 Jews had been murdered and two burned alive.
In view of these facts, the Board of Deputies of British Jews and the AIU pressured the British and French governments to have their ambassadors intervene on behalf of the Jewish communities in Persia. In 1873, the then Shah Nasir al-Din promised to address the issue and approved the establishment of AIU schools in the country. The first of these establishments was opened in Tehran in 1898, followed by others in Hamadan in 1900; in Isfahan in 1901; in Shiraz, in Sena in 1903; and in Kermanshah in 1904. The AIU schools provided a European education that opened up new possibilities for young students.
By means of an edict in 1880, the shah prohibited the expropriation by Shiite clerical elites of lands and properties of deceased Jews and, three years later, repealed some discriminatory laws, among them the one that allowed jadid al-Islam receive the inheritance of the entire family.
However, the persecutions intensified again. The mullahs demanded even stricter provisions from the Shah to continue the segregation of the Jews. In 1897, in Tehran, a Jew drank water from a public fountain, which led to the Jewish community being attacked by Muslims.
Towards Jewish Emancipation
According to the AIU, at the end of the 19th century there were around 50 Jews living in Persia, which was then on the brink of socio-economic collapse, with protests against oppression and corruption taking place throughout the country. It had become public knowledge that Shah Nasir al-Din had sold concessions, including the monopoly on tobacco cultivation and trade, to foreign companies to finance his opulent trips to Europe.
In 1906, the Shah, under political pressure, established constitutionalism in the country, and a National Constituent Assembly was formed. For the first time in Persian history, minorities had national representation. For the Jewish population, this was the first step towards civil equality, an idea, however, vehemently rejected by the Shiite leadership. Fearful of opposition from the Shiite clergy, the constitutionalists asked the minorities to renounce direct participation in the assembly. Jews and Christians agreed to be represented by two Muslim clerics.
A constitution was drafted, but met with strong opposition from the Shiites, who questioned the document's “Islamic legitimacy.” This objection found support when Shah Muhammad Ali Mirza ascended the throne in 1907. In June of the following year, he ordered the bombardment of the National Assembly. Numerous delegates were arrested and hanged. Martial law was imposed in the country.
These actions resulted in a wave of bloody clashes between government forces and constitutionalists. In the so-called Iranian Constitutional Revolution, the rebels, who had the support of many Jews, entered Tehran in July 1909. After deposing and exiling Shah Muhammad Ali Mirza, they placed his 11-year-old son, Ahmad Shah, on the throne. The new government dismissed the Shiite clerics and established a revolutionary tribunal. Anti-constitutionalist leaders were tried and executed. As Habib Levy wrote in History of the Jews of Iran, with the victory of the revolutionaries, “the Jews believed that the time of freedom had finally arrived.”
However, within a year of the rebel forces entering Tehran, there was already strong popular discontent. As discontent spread, the anti-constitutionalists gained strength. Deep-rooted anti-Semitism was used to incite the people. There were attacks on Jewish neighborhoods, many of whom were killed. This was a clear sign not only of how deeply ingrained hatred of Jews was in Persia, but also of how difficult it would be for them to gain full citizenship in that country.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Sarshar, Houman, (editor) Esther's Children: A Portrait of Iranian Jews, The Center for Iranian Jewish Oral History, 2002
Levy, Habib, Ebrami, Hooshang and Maschke, George W., Comprehensive History of the Jews of Iran: The Outset of the Diaspora, Mazda Pub, 1999
1 Media was a political entity, from the 7th century BCE to the mid-6th century BCE, that dominated much of the Iranian plateau.
2 Author of the work History of the Jews in Iran (Tarikh-e-Yahud-e Iran), published in 1960 and considered the most comprehensive on the Iranian Jewish community.
3 Shiites and Sunnis are two distinct sects within Islam, with conflicting religious interpretations and successions. The division dates back to the beginning of Islam and the succession after the death of the Prophet Muhammad.
4 Mule is an honorific title for Muslim clergy and mosque leaders.
5 The Pahlavi dynasty, the last Iranian royal dynasty, which ruled Iran for nearly 54 years, led a process of Westernization and economic growth.
