Tag: Irano-Judaica

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An Unknown Illuminated Judeo-Persian Manuscript of Nizāmī’s Khosrow and Shīrīn

Khosrow Discovers Shīrīn Bathing, From Pictorial Cycle of Eight Poetic Subjects, mid 18th century. Brooklyn Museum.

Carmeli, Orit. 2021. An Unknown Illuminated Judeo-Persian Manuscript of Nizāmī’s Khosrow and Shīrīn. Ars Judaica. The Bar Ilan Journal of Jewish Art 17(1). 131–140.

This is a brief presentation of the mid-seventeenth-century illuminated Judeo-Persian copy of Nizāmī’s Khosrow and Shīrīn from the collection of the Museum for Islamic Art in Jerusalem. The Khamsa of Nizāmī Ganjavi (d. 1209) is one of the most famous medieval Persian love stories and one of the most admired poetical works ever written in the Persian language. Khosrow and Shīrīn (composed 1175/6-1191) is the second book in the Quinary and recounts the tragic love story of the Sasanian king Khosrow II Parviz and the Armenian princess Shīrīn. Nizāmī’s poetry, in addition to other works of Persian classical masters, was regarded by the Jews of Iran as an integral part of their literary and cultural heritage. Over the years these renowned poetical works were largely transliterated into Judeo-Persian and copies of the texts can be found in various public and private collections. The manuscript in question and other illuminated Judeo-Persian manuscripts clearly testify to their owners and patrons’ awareness of long-established Persian artistic tradition and cultural conventions, representing Jewish-Persian encounter in text and image.

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An Early Judeo-Persian Letter from the Cairo Genizah

Paul, Ludwig. 2021. The early Judeo-Persian letter L3 from the Cairo Genizah (Cambridge University Library T-S 18J3.16). Journal of Jewish Languages 9(1). 77–99.

Detail of the Early Judeo-Persian letter L3 from the Cairo Genizah (Cambridge University Library T-S18J3.16), recto

The article presents the edition and translation of an Early Judeo-Persian (EJP) private-commercial letter that was probably written around the late 10th or early 11th century C.E. It is the best-preserved and, with 51 lines, the longest from the ca. 25 EJP documents that were found in the Cairo Genizah. It is written in a cursive form of the Hebrew script and shows typical EJP archaic and dialectal features, as compared to the contemporaneous Early New Persian works that were written in Arabic script. Today, the letter is kept in Cambridge University Library as part of the Taylor-Schaechter collection.

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Judeo-Persian Writings: A Manifestation of Intellectual and Literary Life

Pirnazar, Nahid (ed.). 2021. Judeo-Persian Writings: A Manifestation of Intellectual and Literary Life (Iranian Studies 42). London: Routledge.

King Ahašveruš and the maidens, Šāhīn, Ardašir-nāme, Persia, 2nd half of the 17th century (Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin – Preußischer Kulturbesitz)

Introducing Judeo-Persian writings, this original collection gives parallel samples in Judeo-Persian and Perso-Arabic script and translations in English. Judeo-Persian writings not only reflect the twenty-seven centuries of Jewish life in Iran, but they are also a testament to their intellectual, cultural, and socioeconomic conditions.

Such writings, found in the forms of verse or prose, are flavored with Judaic, Iranian and Islamic elements. The significant value of Judeo-Persian writing is found in the areas of linguistics, history and sociocultural and literary issues. The rhetorical forms and literary genres of epic, didactic, lyric and satirical poetry can be a valuable addition to the rich Iranian literary tradition and poetical arts. Also, as a Judaic literary contribution, the work is a representation of the literary activity of Middle Eastern Jews not so well recognized in Judaic global literature.

This book is a comprehensive introduction to the rich literary tradition of works written in Judeo-Persian and also serves as a guide to transliterate many other significant Judeo-Persian works that have not yet been transliterated into Perso-Arabic script. The collection will be of value to students and researchers interested in history, sociology and Iranian and Jewish studies.

Table of Contents

Part I Formation and History of Judeo-Persian

  • 1. An Overview of Iranian Jewish Intellectual History
  • 2. Thematic Contents of Judeo-Persian Literature: Literary Genres in Judeo-Persian Poetry
  • 3. Thematic Contents of Judeo-Persian Prose
  • Conclusion

Part II Samples of Judeo-Persian Writings

  • 1. Biblical Epic Poetry
  • 2. Historical Poetry
  • 3. Lyric Poetry
  • 4. Vernacular Poetry
  • 5. Mystic Poetry
  • 6. Didactic Poetry
  • 7. Panegyric Poetry
  • 8. Satirical Poetry
  • 9. Different Vocabularies and Ethnicities
  • 10. Literary Terms
  • 11. Epic Concepts and Legendary Heroes
  • 12. Zoroastrian Concepts
  • 13. Rhetorical Arts
  • 14. Rhythmic Embellished Prose
  • Bibliography
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The Judeo-Persian rendition of the Buddha biographies

Yasharpour, Dalia. 2021. The Prince and the Sufi: the Judeo-Persian rendition of the Buddha biographies (The Brill Reference Library of Judaism 62). Leiden: Brill.

The Prince and the Sufi is the literary composition of the seventeenth-century Judeo-Persian poet Elisha ben Shmūel. In The Prince and the Sufi: The Judeo-Persian Rendition of the Buddha Biographies, Dalia Yasharpour provides a thorough analysis of this popular work to show how the Buddha’s life story has undergone substantial transformation with the use of Jewish, Judeo-Persian and Persian-Islamic sources. The annotated edition of the text and the corresponding English translation are meticulous and insightful. This scholarly study makes available to readers an important branch in the genealogical tree of the Buddha Biographies.

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Moses and Garšāsp

Ehsani Chombeli, Azadeh. 2020. Moses and Garšāsp, Ardašīr and Herod: Narratives of the Babylonian Talmud in their Iranian context (Zoroastrian Studies Series 5). Costa Mesa: Mazda Publishers.

This book offers a comparative study between a number of Talmudic and Middle Persian narratives. The present work seeks first and foremost to examine Talmudic narratives in their Iranian context, and secondly to examine the Talmudic background of Iranian narratives where applicable.
The first and second chapters will offer an analysis of the alteration of historical and Biblical figures in the Bavli (the Babylonian Talmud) based on the influence of Iranian mythical and historical figures, while the third chapter will provide an account of how Iranists can learn from Talmudic studies. Here we suggest that a Talmudic narrative may have encouraged Zoroastrian priests to compose an extensive work of religious literature, namely the Ardā Wīrāz-nāmag, an idea which will be further explored in the appendix.

Azadeh Ehsani has a PhD in religion from Concordia University in Montreal, Canada (2018) and an MA in ancient languages and culture of Iran with a focus on Middle Persian (Pahlavi) from Institute for Humanities and Cultural Studies University in Tehran, Iran (2005).

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Menstrual Impurity and Difference in Babylonian Judaism and its Sasanian Context

Secunda, Samuel. 2020. The Talmud’s red fence: Menstrual impurity and difference in Babylonian Judaism and its Sasanian context. New York: Oxford University Press.

The Talmud’s Red Fence explores how rituals and beliefs concerning menstruation in the Babylonian Talmud and neighboring Sasanian religious texts were animated by difference and differentiation. It argues that the practice and development of menstrual rituals in Babylonian Judaism was a product of the religious terrain of the Sasanian Empire, where groups like Syriac Christians, Mandaeans, Zoroastrians, and Jews defined themselves in part based on how they approached menstrual impurity. It demonstrates that menstruation was highly charged in Babylonian Judaism and Sasanian Zoroastrian, where menstrual discharge was conceived of as highly productive female seed yet at the same time as stemming from either primordial sin (Eve eating from the tree) or evil (Ahrimen’s kiss). It argues that competition between rabbis and Zoroastrians concerning menstrual purity put pressure on the Talmudic system, for instance in the unusual development of an expert diagnostic system of discharges. It shows how Babylonian rabbis seriously considered removing women from the home during the menstrual period, as Mandaeans and Zoroastrians did, yet in the end deemed this possibility too “heretical.” Finally, it examines three cases of Babylonian Jewish women initiating menstrual practices that carved out autonomous female space. One of these, the extension of menstrual impurity beyond the biblically mandated seven days, is paralleled in both Zoroastrian Middle Persian and Mandaic texts. Ultimately, Talmudic menstrual purity is shown to be driven by difference in its binary structure of pure and impure; in gendered terms; on a social axis between Jews and Sasanian non-Jewish communities; and textually in the way the Palestinian and Babylonian Talmuds took shape in late antiquity.

Continue reading “Menstrual Impurity and Difference in Babylonian Judaism and its Sasanian Context”
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Irano-Judaica VII

Rubanovich, Julia & Geoffrey Herman (eds.). 2019. Irano-Judaica VII: Studies Relating to Jewish Contacts with Persian Culture throughout the Ages. Vol. VII. Jerusalem: Ben-Zvi Institute for the Study of Jewish Communities in the East.
The volume includes twenty-three papers, arranged in five thematic parts, which reflect the variety of subjects the volume encompasses. Part One deals with the topics of law, ritual and eschatology in Zoroastrianism and Judaism. Part Two is devoted to the textual patterns and transmission in Avestan and Middle Persian sources. Jewish-Iranian historical and literary interrelations through the centuries, including the literary perception of Jews in Persian literature and Iranian folklore, are the focus of Part Three. The articles in Part Four highlight specific patterns of permutations that Jewish, Zoroastrian, Manichaean, and Christian motifs, themes and concepts undergo while migrating from one religious and social milieu to another. The fifth and the last section of the volume is devoted to Judaeo-Persian language and literature: a Hebrew text and early Judaeo-Persian translation of a large portion of the seventh chapter of Jeremiah are presented and analyzed for the first time; the Jewish reception of a Persian classical text is discussed, and the literary legacy of two medieval Judaeo-Persian poets, Shāhīn and ʿImrānī, is further investigated.
Table of Contents
Part One: Law, Ritual and Eschatology in Zoroastrianism and Judaism
  • Almut Hintze: “Defeating Death: Eschatology in Zoroastrianism, Judaism and Christianity”
  • Maria Macuch: “A Pahlavi Legal Term in Jesubōxt’s Corpus Iuris”
  • Benjamin Jokisch: “Cultural Intertwinedness and the Problem of Proving Reception. A Case Study on Late Antique Foundations: ruwānagān, heqdēsh, piae causae, and waqf“
  • Yaakov Elman: “Samuel’s Scythe-handle: Sasanian Mortgage Law in the Bavli”
  • David Brodsky: “‘Thought Is Akin to Action’: The Importance of Thought in Zoroastrianism and the Development of a Babylonian
    Rabbinic Motif”

Part Two: Textual Patterns and Transmission in Avestan and Middle Persian Sources

  • Desmond Durkin-Meisterernst: “Observations on the Form of Avestan Texts in the Context of Neighboring Traditions”
  • Mihaela Timuș: “Les raisonnements taxinomiques dans le Dēnkard 3″
  • Dieter Weber: “Christlich-jüdische Spuren in Pahlavi-Dokumenten des 7. Jhs. n. Chr.”
  • Yaakov Elman: “The Hērbedestān in the Hērbedestān: Priestly Teaching from the Avesta to the Zand”

Part Three: Jewish-Iranian Historical and Literary
Interrelations through the Centuries

  • Domenico Agostini: “Luhrāsp and the Destruction of Jerusalem: A Note on Jewish-Iranian Syncretism”
  • Geoffrey Herman: “Back to Bustanay: The History of a Legend”
  • Julia Rubanovich: “On Representations of Jews in Medieval Persian Epic Poetry”
  • Orly R. Rahimiyan: “The Image of the Jew in Iranian Folklore”

Part Four: Texts and Motifs: Between Interaction and Polemics
Reuven Kiperwasser “ʻThree Partners in a Personʼ: The Metamorphoses of a Tradition and the History of an Idea”

  • Yishai Kiel: “The Usurpation of Solomon’s Throne by Ashmedai (b.Giṭ. 68a-b): A Talmudic Story in Its Iranian and Christian Contexts”
  • Sergey Minov: “Jews and Christians in Late Sasanian Nisibis:
    The Evidence of the Life of Mār Yāreth the Alexandrian“
  • Samuel Thrope: “Therefore He Himself is the Demon, Lord of Hell: On Manichaean and Zoroastrian Anti-Judaism”

Part Five: Judaeo-Persian Language and Literature

  • Gilbert Lazard: “La dialectologie du persan préclassique à la lumière des nouvelles données judéo-persanes”
  • Shaul Shaked: “A Fragment of the Book of Jeremiah in Early Judaeo-Persian”
  • Vera B. Moreen: “Reflections on a Judaeo-Persian Manuscript of Rūmī’s Mathnavī“
  • Nahid Pirnazar: “Observations on the Epic Legacy in Judaeo-Persian Poetry”
  • Vera B. Moreen: “Shāhīn’s Interpretation of Shira and Haʾazinu“

Hebrew Section

  • Alex Tal: “Between Jews and Gentiles in Talmudic Babylonia: Reading between the Lines”
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Studies in Honor of Professor Shaul Shaked

Friedmann, Yohanan & Etan Kohlberg (eds.). (2019). Studies in honor of Professor Shaul Shaked. Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Sciences.

The present volume is based on lectures delivered at a symposium organized by the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities on the occasion of the eightieth birthday of Professor Shaul Shaked, who became a Member of the Academy in 1986.

Table of contents:

  • Michael Shenkar: The Scholarly Oeuvre of Shaul Shaked, 1: Shaul Shaked and the Study of Zoroastrianism
  • Ofir Haim: The Scholarly Oeuvre of Shaul Shaked, 2: Shaul Shaked and the Study of Judeo-Persian
  • Yuval Harari: The Scholarly Oeuvre of Shaul Shaked, 3: Shaul Shaked on Jewish Magic
  • Moshe Idel: From Iran to Qumran and Beyond: On the Evil Thought of God
  • Gideon Bohak: Babylonian Jewish Magic in Late Antiquity: Beyond the Incantation Bowls
  • Geoffrey Herman: Holy Relics in Mata Meḥasya: Christians and Jews after the Muslim Conquest of Babylonia
  • Geoffrey Herman: Holy Relics in Mata Meḥasya: Christians and Jews after the Muslim Conquest of Babylonia
  • Julia Rubanovich: The Medieval Persian Author on Guard: In Defense of Authorship

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New Perspectives on Late Antique Iran and Iraq

Pregill, Michael (ed.). 2018. New perspectives on late antique Iran and Iraq. Mizan. Journal for the Study of Muslim Societies and Civilizations 3(1).

Aramaic incantation bowl from Sasanian Babylonia, 4th-7th c., currently held in the collection of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology & Anthropology (B2945; courtesy Penn Museum Blog)

This volume of the peer-reviewed, open access Mizan: Journal for the Study of Muslim Societies and Civilizations presents several articles (and a provocative postscript) centering on the theme of “New Perspectives on Late Antique Iran and Iraq.” The articles featured here originated with a pair of conference panels convened in 2016. The first was held during the summer of 2016 at the Eleventh Biennial Iranian Studies Conference at the University of Vienna, August 2–5, 2016; the second followed in the fall of that year, convened during the 50th Anniversary Annual Meeting of the Middle East Studies Association held in Boston, November 17–20, 2016.

ToC
– Touraj Daryaee: “How the Sasanians Saw the Late Antique World: A Persianate View of the Interconnectedness of Eurasia”
– Isabel Toral-Niehoff: “Al-Ḥīra: An Arab Late Antique Metropolis in Sasanian Iraq”
– Shai Secunda: “East LA: Margin and Center in Late Antiquity Studies and the New Irano-Talmudica”
– Teresa Bernheimer: “The Revolt of Qaṭarī b. al-Fujāʿa (d. 79/698) and the Kharijite Revolts of Early Islamic Iran: Social Change between Late Antiquity and Early Islam”
– Rahim Shayegan: “On Diachrony in Sasanian Studies”
– Jason Mokhtarian: “Religious Polemics in Sasanian Writings”
– Thomas Carlson: “The Long Shadow of Sasanian Christianity: The Limits of Iraqi Islamization to 950”
– Mimi Hanaoka: “Authority and Identity in Early Medieval Persianate Islamic Historiography: Methologies for Reading Hybrid Identities and Imagined Histories”

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On Yaakov Elman

Perpetual Motion: Shai Secunda on Yaakov Elman, who passed away on July 29, 2018.