Persian Jews or Iranian Jews are Jews historically associated with the Persian Empire, whose European travellers reported that the Jews of Tabriz and Shiraz continued to By law, if one member of a Jewish family converts to Islam, that person Many cities in Iran have Jewish or sites related to Judaism in some way.
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His friendship with Shmuel gained many advantages for the Jewish community. He was also friend of a Babylonian rabbi in the Talmud named Raba , Raba's friendship with Shapur II enabled him to secure a relaxation of the oppressive laws enacted against the Jews in the Persian Empire.
In addition, Raba sometimes referred to his top student Abaye with the term Shvur Malka meaning "Shapur [the] King" because of his bright and quick intellect. With the Islamic conquest of Persia , the government assigned Jews, along with Christians and Zoroastrians, to the status of dhimmis , non-Muslim subjects of the Islamic empire. Dhimmis were allowed to practice their religion, but were required to pay jizya to cover the cost of financial welfare, security and other benefits that Muslims were entitled to jizya , a poll tax , and initially also kharaj , a land tax in place of the zakat , which the Muslim population was required to pay.
Like other Dhimmis, Jews were exempt from military draft. Viewed as "People of the Book", they had some status as fellow monotheists, though they were treated differently depending on the ruler at the time. On the one hand, Jews were granted significant economic and religious freedom when compared to their co-religionists in European nations during these centuries. Many served as doctors, scholars, and craftsman, and gained positions of influence in society.
On the other hand, like other non-Muslims, they did not work in Sharia Law since they did not have the obvious knowledge and qualifications for it. In , Mongols led by Hulagu Khan invaded parts of Persia, and in they captured Baghdad putting an end to the Abbasid caliphate. The Ilkhanate Mongol rulers abolished the inequality of dhimmis, and all religions were deemed equal.
It was shortly after this time when one of the Ilkhanate rulers, Arghun Khan, preferred Jews for the administrative positions and appointed Sa'd al-Daula, a Jew, as his vizier.
The appointment, however, provoked resentment from the Muslim clergy , and after Arghun's death in , al-Daula was murdered and Persian Jews in Tabriz suffered a period of violent persecutions from the Muslim populace instigated by the clergy. The Orthodox Christian historian Bar Hebraeus wrote that the violence committed against the Jews during that period "neither tongue can utter, nor the pen write down". Ghazan Khan 's conversion to Islam in heralded for Persian Jews in Tabriz a pronounced turn for the worse, as they were once again relegated to the status of dhimmis Covenant of Omar.
Under pressure, many Jews converted to Islam. In , Timur Lenk started the military conquest of Persia. He captured Herat , Khorasan and all eastern Persia to and massacred almost all inhabitants of Neishapur and other Iranian cities. When revolts broke out in Persia, he ruthlessly suppressed them, massacring the populations of whole cities.
When Timur plundered Persia its artists and artisans were deported to embellish Timur's capital Samarkand.
Skilled Persian Jews were imported to develop the empire's textile industry. During the reign of the Safavids — , they proclaimed Shi'a Islam the state religion. This led to a deterioration in their treatment of Persian Jews. Safavids Shi'ism assigns importance to the issues of ritual purity — tahara.
Non-Muslims, including Jews, are deemed to be ritually unclean — najis. Any physical contact would require Shi'as to undertake ritual purification before doing regular prayers. Thus, Persian rulers, and the general populace, sought to limit physical contact between Muslims and Jews. Jews were excluded from public baths used by Muslims. They were forbidden to go outside during rain or snow, as an "impurity" could be washed from them upon a Muslim. The reign of Shah Abbas I — was initially benign; Jews prospered throughout Persia and were encouraged to settle in Isfahan, which was made a new capital.
Toward the end of his rule, treatment of Jews became more harsh. Shi'a clergy including a Jewish convert persuaded the shah to require Jews to wear a distinctive badge on clothing and headgear. In , the shah ordered the expulsion from Isfahan of all Jews because of the common belief of their "impurity". They were forced to convert to Islam. The treasury suffered from the loss of jizya collected from the Jews.
People rumored that the converts continued to practice Judaism in secret. For whatever reason, the government in allowed Jews to take up their old religion, but still required them to wear a distinctive patch upon their clothing. Nadir Shah — allowed Jews to settle in the Shi'ite holy city of Mashhad. However, following his murder many Jews were massacred in Mashhad, and survivors were forcibly converted, in an event known as Allahdad incident. The community permanently left Iran in and still lives as a tightly knit community in Israel today.
At the same time, eight Muslim mollas and three European and five Armenian priests translated the Koran and the Gospels. He is not known to have written anything else. The advent of a Shi'a Qajar dynasty in brought back the earlier persecutions. Lord Curzon described 19th-century regional differences in the situation of the Persian Jews: "In Isfahan, where they are said to be 3, and where they occupy a relatively better status than elsewhere in Persia, they are not permitted to wear kolah or Persian headdress, to have shops in the bazaar, to build the walls of their houses as high as a Moslem neighbour's, or to ride in the street.
In Teheran and Kashan they are also to be found in large numbers and enjoying a fair position. In Shiraz they are very badly off.
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In Bushire they are prosperous and free from persecution. In the 19th century the colonial powers from Europe began noting numerous forced conversions and massacres, usually generated by Shi'a clergy.
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Two major blood-libel conspiracies had taken place during this period, one in Shiraz and the other in Tabriz. In , a blood-libel had wiped out the Jewish population of Tabriz; a power struggle over influence between Jewish and Christian minorities led the Armenians to kidnap and murder a Muslim child from a prominent family, delivering the body to the chief secretary claiming that the Jews had murdered and drank the blood of the child for Passover. Amidst the chaos, Jews had converted, but most refused to convert to Islam — described within the document was a boy of age 16 named Yahyia who refused to convert to Islam, he was subsequently killed.
The same year saw a forcible conversion of the Jews of Shiraz over a similar incident. In addition to the Allahdad incident mentioned above in European travellers reported that the Jews of Tabriz and Shiraz continued to practice Judaism in secret despite a fear of further persecutions. Jews of Barforush , Mazandaran were forcibly converted in When the French and British ambassadors intervened to allow them to practice their traditional religion, a mob killed 18 Jews of Barforush.
Persian Jews
In the middle of the 19th century, J. Benjamin wrote about the life of Persian Jews, describing conditions and beliefs that went back to the 16th century:. They are obliged to live in a separate part of town…; for they are considered as unclean creatures… Under the pretext of their being unclean, they are treated with the greatest severity and should they enter a street, inhabited by Mussulmans, they are pelted by the boys and mobs with stones and dirt… For the same reason, they are prohibited to go out when it rains; for it is said the rain would wash dirt off them, which would sully the feet of the Mussulmans… If a Jew is recognized as such in the streets, he is subjected to the greatest insults.
The passers-by spit in his face, and sometimes beat him… unmercifully… If a Jew enters a shop for anything, he is forbidden to inspect the goods… Should his hand incautiously touch the goods, he must take them at any price the seller chooses to ask for them Sometimes the Persians intrude into the dwellings of the Jews and take possession of whatever please them.
Should the owner make the least opposition in defense of his property, he incurs the danger of atoning for it with his life An Imam began speaking on the importance of ridding alcohol for the sake of Islamic purity, he soon gained followers and this soon manifested itself into an assault against Jews for refusing to give up the wine they drank for sabbath.
In , Muslims rumored that the Jews of Shiraz had ritually murdered a Muslim girl. Muslims plundered the whole Jewish quarter. The first to start looting were soldiers sent by the local governor to defend the Jews against the enraged mob. Twelve Jews who tried to defend their property were killed, and many others were injured. The Pahlavi dynasty implemented modernizing reforms, which greatly improved the life of Jews. The influence of the Shi'a clergy was weakened, and the restrictions on Jews and other religious minorities were abolished.
Reza Shah prohibited mass conversion of Jews and eliminated the concept of uncleanness of non-Muslims. He allowed incorporation of modern Hebrew into the curriculum of Jewish schools and publication of Jewish newspapers. Jews were also allowed to hold government jobs. In the s, Jewish schools were closed again. There were no persecutions of the Jews, but, as with other minorities, anti-Jewish articles were published in the media.
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Unlike religiously motivated prejudice, anti-Jewish sentiments acquired an ethnonational character, a direct import from Germany. At the time of the establishment of the state of Israel in , there were approximately ,—, Jews living in Iran , the historical center of Persian Jewry. The violence and disruption in Arab life associated with the founding of Israel and its victory in the Arab—Israeli War drove increased anti-Jewish sentiment in Iran.
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This continued until , in part because of the weakening of the central government and strengthening of clergy in the political struggles between the shah and prime minister Mohammad Mossadegh. From to , about one-third of Iranian Jews, most of them poor, immigrated to Israel. After the deposition of Mossadegh in , the reign of shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was the most prosperous era for the Jews of Iran.
Although Jews accounted for only a small percentage of Iran's population, in two of the 18 members of the Iranian Academy of Sciences, 80 of the 4, university lecturers, and of the 10, physicians in Iran were Jews. Prior to the Iranian Revolution or Islamic Revolution in , there were , Jews in Iran, mostly concentrated in Tehran 60, , Shiraz 18, , Kermanshah 4, , and Isfahan 3, The Iranian Jewish emigration to Israel is not a recent phenomenon. They immigrated chiefly because of religious persecution.
At the time of the Islamic Revolution , 80,—, Jews were living in Iran. From then on, Jewish emigration from Iran dramatically increased, as about 20, Jews left within several months of the revolution alone. Some sources put the Iranian Jewish population in the mid and late s as between 50,—60, Ayatollah Khomeini met with the Jewish community upon his return from exile in Paris, when heads of the community, disturbed by the execution of one of their most distinguished representatives, the industrialist Habib Elghanian , arranged to meet him in Qom.
At one point he said:.