1. Lewis, Bernard, The Jews of Islam (Princeton, 1984), pp. 40, 52 and 82.Google Scholar

2. Ibid., p. 40.

3. According to this concept, contact of any type, however minimal, disqualifies a Shi'i from performing his religious duties until and unless he undergoes an elaborate ritual of purification. The origins and development of the concept of naiasa from the point of view of Shi'i law still needs study. Its extreme application to “infidels” and “Peoples of the Book” has been recently spelled out in Ayatollah Khomeini's A Clarification of Questions (Boulder and London, 1984). See its index under Infidels, Jews, Christians, etc.

4. This statement must be qualified by the fact that the relevant Iranian chronicles have not yet been thoroughly sifted for information on the Iranian Jewish communities.

5. The fairly large corpus of Judaeo-Persian manuscripts scattered in various Western libraries consists primarily of Hebrew transliterations of Persian poetry, a few original Judaeo-Persian epics, and a large miscellany of medical and religious texts. Although important in their own way, these texts aid only the reconstruction of Iranian Jewry's cultural and, to a certain extent, social life. They are not helpful in reconstructing the economic and political survival of the Jewish communities of Iran.

6. For the limited use of Iranian chronicles in reconstructing, at least in part, the history of the Jews in Iran in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, see my Iranian Jewry's Hour of Peril and Heroism (New York, 1986), pp. 9-11 and my Iranian Jewry during the Afghan Invasion (forthcoming), Bibliography (“Primary Sources“).

7. This chronicle is the subject of my book, Iranian Jewry's Hour of Peril and Heroism (New York, 1986).

8. A critical edition and translation of this chronicle is the subject of my book Iranian Jewry during the Afghan Invasion (forthcoming).

9. See my “The Kitab-i Anusi of Babai b. Lutf (17th century) and the Kitab-i Sar Guzasht... of Babai b. Farhad (18th century): A Comparison of Two Judaeo-Persian Chronicles,” forthcoming in Festschrift in Honor of Martin B. Dickson, eds. Michel M. Mazzaoui, Vera B. Moreen et al.

10. The case of the persecution of the Zoroastrians can hardly be reconstructed since there is practically no documentation about it. Nevertheless, it is well known that they occupied the lowest rung of the Iranian population and were usually the first to suffer from most types of persecution. See my Iranian Jewry, p. 139, and other entries cited in the Index.

11. For biographical information on Beg, Muhammad, see my article “The Downfall of Muhammad ['Ali] Beg, Grand Vizier of Shah 'Abbas II (r. 1642-1666),” JQR 72 (1981), pp. 81-99Google Scholar, as well as the entries listed under his name in the Index of my Iranian Jewry.

12. The Jews of Isfahan were banished to Kulah-i Qadi and later to Takht-i Pulad. I was unable to identify the first site but the second, located in the southeast of Isfahan, is described by the nearly contemporary merchant/traveler J. Chardin as: “Au delà, est la plaine de… Hézar dereh… Elle est aride et sèche; et cela vient, dit la légende, de ce qu c'etoit un repaire de dragons, de serpens et de toute sorte de bètes venimeuses, qui s'etoitent amassées la en si grand nombre qu'on n'osoit en rapprocher ni demeurer au voisinage” (Voyages [Paris, 1811], Vol. 8, p. 99). The area is now, apparently, a Muslim cemetery. (Spicehandler, E., “The Persecution of the Jews of Isfahan under Shah ‘Abbas II (1642-1666),” HUCA 46 (1975), p. 334, n. 9.Google Scholar) The Jews of Kashan were banished to Siyah Kuh, described by both Mukaddasi and Istakhri around the middle of the tenth century, as very inhospitable, dark, rugged mountains. For more information on the terms of the banishments and on these sites, see my Iranian Jewry, pp. 100 and 183.

13. It is difficult to determine how many Jews actually converted during this wave of persecutions. The ‘Abbasnama of Muhammad Tahir Wahid Qazvini is the most important contemporary chronicle and the only one to mention, in laudatory terms, the conversion of Iranian Jews. It covers events at the court of Shah ‘Abbas II up . to 1663. According to this work, 20,000 Jewish families throughout Iran converted (Arak, 1329/1951), pp. 218-19. A contemporary Armenian Kurd Arakel's Livre d'Histoires, claims that 350 men (or 300 families) converted in Isfahan alone (in I. M. Brosset's Collection d'Historiens Armeniens. Vol. I, St. Petersburg, 1874-76, pp. 489-93), while the anonymous Chronicle of the Carmelites claims that up to 100,000 Iranian Jews were supposed to have been forced into this condition (London, 1939, Vol. I, p. 364). Since we lack proper demographic data about Iran's Muslim and non-Muslim population in this and earlier periods, we cannot assess the value of these figures.

14. Iranian Jewry, p. 96.

15. Ibid., pp. 28-29.

16. Ibid., pp. 56-59.

17. Ibid., p. 71 and Appendix D.

18. Maimonides, Moses, “Epistle to Yemen,” in A Maimonides Reader, ed. Twersky, I. (New York, 1972), p. 448.Google Scholar

19. For more information about the concept of anusim, see Encyclopedia Judaica, Vol. I, pp. 170-74. Among the especially useful works cited there are H. J. Zimmels, Marranen in der rabbinischen Literatur (1932); A. Galanté, Marranes Iraniens (1935); and B. Netanyahu, Marranos of Spain from the Late 14th to the Early 16th Centuries (1966).

20. See B. Netanyahu, Marranos of Spain.

21. The similar plight of the Moriscos and Mudejars of Spain, many of whom remained faithful to Islam, forms an interesting and still little explored parallel to the experiences of Jewish Marranos.

22. Antoine de Gouvea, Relation des Grandes guerres et victoires obtenues par le roy de Perse Chah Abbas... (Roven, 1646), pp. 56-58, where the author, traveling through Iran in 1602, relates an interesting theological discussion he had with a Jew from Lar who claimed that his grandparents hailed from the kingdom of Leon. He apparently told de Gouvea, in Spanish, about the Jewish community of Lar that still retained many Spanish customs as well as the language. See also Bernard Lewis, The Jews of Islam, p. 100.

23. One of the basic Jewish dietary rules forbids the cooking and eating of meat and dairy products together or deriving any benefit from food containing such a mixture. Based on Exodus 23:19, Exodus 34:26, and Deuteronomy 14:21, this prohibition, probably intended originally as yet another means of separating the Jews from the customs of the peoples around them, remained one of the most powerful facts and symbols preventing Jewish assimilation through the centuries. Abraham Chill, The Mitzvot. The Commandments and Their Rationale (Jerusalem, 1974), pp. 113-14.

Abu'l Qasim ‘Abd Allah al-Kashani, a contemporary of Rashid ud-Din Fazlullah and rival historian from the Il-Khanid period, claims that the swallowing of such a terefa mixture was introduced by the famous Jewish apostate, historian, and Grand Vizier to two Mongol rulers, Rashid ud-Din Fazlullah. This cannot be proved or disproved but may well be one of the many calumnies Rashid ud-Din had to endure after his death. Blochet, E., Introduction a l'histoire des Moneoles (Leiden, 1910), p. 19Google Scholar, cited in Fischel's, W. J. Jews in the Economic and Political Life of Medieval Islam (London, 1937), p. 122, n. 4).Google Scholar The KA cites one case in which the Jews held the mixture in their mouths and rushed home to spit it out. Iranian Jewry, pp. 103-4).

24. Arjomand, S. A., The Shadow of God and the Hidden Imam (Chicago, 1984), pp. 36-37, 61, 253CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For Professor Arjomand's definition of taqiyya see ibid., pp. 36-37 and 176-77.

25. Mazzaoui, Michel M., The Origins of the Safawids (Wiesbaden, 1972), Chap. IV.Google Scholar

26. It should be recalled here that Shi'ism became the “state religion” of Iran only after 1501, upon the advent of the Safavid dynasty, and that it was enforced upon its largely Sunni population at a more or less swift pace. It is doubtful whether the complete Shi'itization of Iran was accomplished much before the beginning of the eighteenth century. Alessandro Bausani, The Persians (New York, 1971), pp. 139-140.

27. The KA expresses only conventional Messianic feelings, showing no trace of Sabbatian influence. For more on this interesting but highly unlikely possibility, see my Iranian Jewry, pp. 32-33.

28. Iranian Jewry, pp. 75-79.

29. On the low economic status of Iranian Jews, see my Iranian Jewry, pp. 149-52.

30. On the value of the tuman see my Iranian Jewry, pp. 20-21, n. 8.

31. Iranian Jewry, pp. 101-2.

32. This tolerant attitude is probably based on Sura II:256, la ikraha fi'l din, “there is no compulsion in religion.” For more on this and related concepts, see Bernard Lewis, The Jews of Islam, pp. 13-14.

33. I am indebted to Professor Alfred Ivry (Brandeis University) for expressing some penetrating questions at the conference regarding the existence of such fatwas.

34. The most notable outbreak of persecutions was the mass forced conversions in Mashhad in 1840. See the following articles of W. J. Fischel: “History of the Marrano Community in Persia,” Zion (1936), pp. 49-74; “Secret Marranos of Persia,” Commentary (1949), pp. 28-33; “The Secret Jews of Persia,” India and Israel (1950), pp. 12-13; and “The Jews of Persia under the Kajar Dynasty (1795-1940),” JSS (1950), pp. 119-60.

35. S. A. Arjomand, The Shadow of God and the Hidden Imam, Part Two, Chaps. 7 and 8.

36. Lockhart, L., The Fall of the Safavi Dynasty and the Afghan Occupation of Persia (Cambridge, 1958), Chaps. II-IV.Google Scholar

37. See above, n. 9.

38. Nadir Shah financed his campaigns to Qandahar and beyond with extremely heavy taxes and levies demanded from the population of Iran, which was already greatly impoverished by the Afghan invasion. This policy was among the reasons for the revolts against him in 1743-1744. L. Lockhart, Nadir Shah (London, 1938), pp. 112 and 238 ff.

39. Ibid., pp. 278-81. Nadir Shah encouraged the settlement of Jews and Christians in Mashhad, one of the holiest sites of Shi'i pilgrimage, partly to irritate the Shi'is (throughout his life he sought a rapprochement between Sunnis and Shi'is through the establishment of a fifth, ‘Ja'fari’ rite) and partly, no doubt, because he would not have considered the maltreatment of these dhimmis as a serious loss. Therefore, this gesture can hardly be perceived in the unqualified positive light in which some scholars have viewed it. See Bernard Lewis, The Jews of Islam, p. 152 and David Littman, “Jews under Muslim Rule: The Case of Persia,” Wiener Library Bulletin, n.s. 32 (1979), p. 4.

40. KS, Chaps. 7-8.

41. KS, Chaps. 13-16.

42. For the present, see the brief remarks on the subject by W. J. Fischel, “The Behai-Movement and Persian Jewry,” Jewish Review (1934), pp. 47-55.