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Judeo-Persian Biblical Manuscripts

Transmission 38 min read By Guardians of the Sacred Text
An open paper codex on a carved wooden stand on a Persian carpet, with the last lines picked out in gold, beside a lacquered book cover and a pen case, before a tiled niche.
Illustration: a small paper codex on a carved stand before a tiled niche, with a lacquered cover and pen case beside it.

Judeo-Persian is the name commonly given to Persian written in Hebrew characters, and among the earliest and most important texts in it are translations of the Hebrew Bible.12 These translations, which Persian Jews called by the Arabic word tafsir, interpretation, were copied in manuscripts from the early centuries of New Persian until the nineteenth century, and they are now dispersed among libraries in Jerusalem, New York, Cincinnati, Paris, London, Rome, St Petersburg and Copenhagen.345 This article surveys the oldest Judeo-Persian documents, the early fragments of biblical commentary, the principal manuscripts of the Pentateuch and the other books, the verse paraphrases of the poet Šāhin and their illustrated copies, and the work of the scholars who brought this literature to the attention of the West. It follows chiefly the surveys by Jes P. Asmussen and Amnon Netzer in the Encyclopaedia Iranica, together with catalogue descriptions and more recent studies.

At a glance

  • Language: Persian written in Hebrew script, used by Jews in Iran, Afghanistan and Central Asia from at least the eighth century.
  • Earliest documents: three inscriptions from Tang-e Azāo in Afghanistan, dated by Henning to 752–753, and a merchant’s letter of the eighth century from Dandān Uiliq.
  • Oldest dated Pentateuch: British Library Or. 5446, copied by Joseph ben Moses in 1319.
  • First printed text: the Pentateuch translation of Jacob ben Joseph Tavus, printed at Constantinople in 1546.
  • Verse paraphrases: the poet Šāhin rendered the Pentateuch and the books of Esther and Ezra into Persian verse between 1327 and 1359.
  • Purpose: the biblical translations seem to have served chiefly as aids to understanding the Hebrew text, and their language is notably conservative.

Persian in Hebrew Letters

Netzer’s survey of Judeo-Persian literature begins with the observation that, several hundred years before a Persian Jewish literature emerged, and even before classical Persian literature itself, Persian documents and stone inscriptions were being written in Hebrew script.6 These texts are of historical importance for the light they shed on the development of the Persian language, and in particular on the language spoken by Jews.78 Orit Carmeli describes Judeo-Persian manuscripts as works composed in a Persian dialect close to classical or literary Persian combined with Hebrew and Aramaic words, and states that the practice of writing Persian in Hebrew letters was in use among Jews in Iran, Afghanistan and Central Asia as early as the eighth century and continued in manuscripts until the end of the nineteenth.910

The subjects covered by this literature are wide. Carmeli lists Hebrew grammar and lexicography, translations of the Bible, rabbinic works, midrashim and religious narratives, texts on philosophy, science, medicine and magic, and historical chronicles, together with transcriptions of classical Persian poetry and original epics on biblical and Jewish themes.11 The biblical translations, however, have a special place. Asmussen wrote that they count at the same time among the earliest monuments of New Persian, so that their value extends beyond Jewish studies to the history of the Persian language as a whole.12

The background to this literature lies in the long presence of Jews in Iran. Ilana Tahan, in a description of the British Library’s Judeo-Persian collection, traced the links between Jewish and Persian communities to the period of the Babylonian captivity, when the population of Judah was exiled by Nebuchadnezzar II in 597 and 586 BCE, and to the fall of Babylon in 539 BCE to Cyrus the Great, whose declaration is recounted in the Bible and alluded to in the Cyrus Cylinder.1314151617 Those exiles who remained in Babylonian and Persian territory, she wrote, formed the core of permanent Jewish settlements that spread gradually from the Babylonian centres into the cities and regions of Persia.18 Asmussen added that long before the earliest Judeo-Persian texts, Middle Persian and other Middle Iranian translations of the Bible, for example in Sogdian, were in circulation, and that already in the time of the Sasanians, when both Jews and Christians were persecuted by the Mazdayasnian, that is Zoroastrian, state church, there was a strong need for Iranian versions of biblical texts.1920

The Earliest Documents

The oldest Judeo-Persian documents are not biblical, but they establish the antiquity of the script and language in which the biblical translations were later written. Asmussen named three inscriptions from Tang-i Azao in central Afghanistan and a private letter of a Jewish merchant from Dandān Uiliq in Central Asia of the eighth century.2122 Netzer gives fuller details. The three stone inscriptions were found in 1952 by Roman Ghirshman and Richard N. Frye at Tang-e Azāo, a gorge in the mountains about 200 kilometres east of Herat in Ghor province. They bear the names of the engravers, who recorded their visit to the site.232425 Walter B. Henning, on the basis of an abbreviated date on the tablets, determined the year as 1064 of the Seleucid era, that is 752–753 CE.2627 Asmussen noted that E. L. Rapp proposed a later date of about 1300, so the dating of the inscriptions is not uncontested.28

The merchant’s letter consists of thirty-seven lines and was found in 1896 by an archaeological team led by Aurel Stein in the ruins of a Buddhist monastery at Dandān Öilïq in Khotan, in Chinese Turkestan. It deals with commercial matters and was apparently written in the eighth century.2930 Netzer’s date of 1896 for the discovery differs from the date given in Tahan’s description of the British Library’s collection, which describes the letter, now Or 8212/166, as the eighth-century trade letter found in 1901 in a Buddhist monastery at Dandan-Uiliq, in present-day Xinjiang, and calls it the star item of the collection.31 The sources thus differ on the year of the discovery. Netzer wrote that these two oldest texts are the earliest specimens preserved not only of Judeo-Persian but of New Persian generally, and that their language is free of Arabic influence and full of archaic terms.32

Netzer’s chronological list continues with other early documents. A copper tablet found in the nineteenth century at Quilon on the coast of Malabar in southern India, the modern Kollam, bears the testimony and signatures of four witnesses relating to a gift of money to a Christian church and is believed to date from the ninth century.3334 A Karaite document from the Cairo Geniza dated 17 Av 1262 of the Seleucid era, 22 July 951, deals with deliberations in a Karaite court, and a court document of 1020–1021, probably Karaite, comes from Khorramshahr in Khuzestan.353637 Numerous gravestones found south of the village of Jām in Ghor province, near the Minaret of Jam, bear inscriptions in Judeo-Persian, Hebrew and Aramaic dated from 1012 to 1218. Netzer noted that Jām is thought to be the site of the medieval Ghurid capital Firuzkuh, and that the latest gravestone, of 1218, makes it likely that the Jewish community there was destroyed in the Mongol invasion.3839

Torn and browned manuscript fragments laid out under glass on a conservation table, with a magnifying glass, tweezers, a brush and a pencil.
Illustration: torn fragments of the kind recovered from the Cairo Geniza, laid out for study under glass.

Fragments from the Cairo Geniza

The earliest extant Judeo-Persian Bible versions are known from fragments, some in a very bad state of preservation, of manuscripts that reached libraries in Europe and the United States from the Cairo Geniza. Writing in 1989, Asmussen stated that most of these fragments had not yet been published, and that those so far discovered belonged to six different manuscripts, each of different character and structure.40 The Geniza is described on this site in the article on the Cairo Genizah.41

Asmussen described the six manuscripts in turn. The first, of fifty-four pages, is a literal verse-by-verse translation of portions of Psalms, Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, with the Hebrew and Judeo-Persian texts alternating. The second, of twenty-eight pages, is of Karaite origin and contains portions of Ruth, the Song of Songs, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Daniel and Nehemiah. It does not translate the whole text but selects passages that require comment, especially on linguistic difficulties.42 The third, of eight pages, is an expanded commentary on Genesis 32–37 in the style of a midrash. The fourth, of twelve pages, is also Karaite and comments on difficult words and some historical matters in Isaiah, Daniel and Esther. The fifth, of four pages, comments on selected verses of Ruth, and the sixth, also of four pages, is a detailed translation and commentary on Ezekiel which forms a variant of the important early Judeo-Persian commentary on Ezekiel preserved in St Petersburg, Firkowicz II 1682.43

Asmussen judged that all this material probably belongs to the period before the Mongol conquest and contains valuable linguistic information, besides giving an idea of the literary production of the Jews of Iran in that period.44 Netzer’s survey adds that the Geniza material, preserved in Cambridge, Oxford, Manchester, London, New York and Jerusalem, includes personal letters, court decrees, commentaries on Genesis, Isaiah, Psalms, Proverbs, the Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Daniel and Nehemiah, discussions of Karaite religious law, medical works, works on Hebrew grammar and poems.45

The Early Manuscripts in London and St Petersburg

More recent research has reassessed some of the early manuscripts in London. Tahan reported in 2018 that a researcher who had studied a number of the British Library’s Judeo-Persian manuscripts had shown that the biblical commentaries in Or 2459 and Or 2460 date from the eleventh to twelfth century, some four hundred years earlier than the date given in George Margoliouth’s catalogue, which made them the second earliest Judeo-Persian manuscripts in the Library.46 The leaf she illustrated from Or 2459 carries a Judeo-Persian introduction to a commentary on Proverbs.47

Ofir Haim, in an article of 2021, studied a corpus of nine manuscripts in Early Judeo-Persian preserved in the British Library and in the National Library of Russia, which contain exegetical works copied by the same group of scribes during the eleventh and twelfth centuries.4849 According to the abstract, Haim sought to show that these manuscripts were also composed in the same intellectual milieu, possibly Karaite, and not merely copied by the same scribes. His criteria were similar explanations of the same biblical passages and the use of Karaite Hebrew terminology, and the examination also revealed an affinity with the works of the tenth-century Karaite scholar Yefet ben ʿEli, which suggests either reliance on Karaite exegetical works written in Judeo-Arabic or a shared background.50 The article lists among its sources the London manuscripts Or. 2459–2460, 2549, 2554 and 5062 and several manuscripts in St Petersburg.51 Only the abstract and reference list of this article were consulted here.

The Judeo-Persian commentary on Ezekiel in St Petersburg is among the oldest of these texts. Netzer described it as one of the oldest manuscripts in the St Petersburg library, noted that Carl Salemann described it in 1900 and published its fifth chapter, and that Thamar E. Gindin has studied it more recently. It is considered a significant source for Iranian philology, partly because of its archaic vocabulary.52 Asmussen cited it for one of the most striking conservative features of biblical Judeo-Persian, the passive formed with -ih-, as in gūyihad, “is said”, which survives in many dialects but was lost early in standard New Persian.53

A further early manuscript in London shows the range of this literature. Or 8659, which Asmussen dated to the tenth century or earlier and cited for its quotations from Joshua, is described by Tahan as containing a theological and apologetic section of a Sefer ha-mitsvot, a book of commandments, largely concerned with circumcision. Despite its brevity of ten leaves, she regarded it as a very early specimen of Karaite apologetic literature in Judeo-Persian.5455

The Pentateuch of Tavus and the London Polyglot

Western interest in Judeo-Persian Bible translations began in the seventeenth century with a printed text. Netzer wrote that the first Pentateuch tafsir to become known in the West was that of Yaʿqov ben Yosef Ṭāvus, a learned Persian Jew who taught at the Jewish academy in Istanbul. It appeared at Constantinople in 1546 in the polyglot Pentateuch printed by Elʿazar ben Gershon Soncino, together with the Hebrew text, the Aramaic Targum Onkelos and the Judeo-Arabic translation of Saadia Gaon.56575859 The Soncino printers are the subject of the article on the Soncino dynasty, and the Aramaic version of the article on Targum Onkelos.6061 Tahan described the British Library’s copy of this edition, the Torat Adonai, as beautifully crafted, and stated that it was the first printed Persian text of any kind as well as the first Judeo-Persian translation of the Pentateuch to become known in the West.62

The Tavus translation reached a wider audience through Christian scholarship. Thomas Hyde transcribed it from Hebrew into Persian characters and translated it into Latin, and in this form it was printed in the fourth volume of the London Polyglot edited by Brian Walton in 1657.6364 The polyglot is discussed on this site in the article on the Antwerp, Paris and London polyglots.65 Asmussen recorded that the Persian vocabulary of the text was included in Edmund Castell’s Lexicon Heptaglotton of 1669 and was used by Vullers in his Lexicon Persico-Latinum of 1855–1864, and that Alexander Kohut made it the subject of a detailed analysis in 1871 which did not receive the recognition it deserved.66 Netzer added that Hyde’s printing of the tafsir aroused interest in Judeo-Persian language and literature in the West.67

For a long time Western scholars regarded the work of Tavus as the first Persian Jewish translation of the Pentateuch. Both Asmussen and Netzer, citing Walter J. Fischel, emphasised that it was in fact the culmination of an activity that had been going on for centuries and that continued into the twentieth century, a link in a long chain of Persian Jewish Bible study whose beginnings are unknown.6869

The Scholars of the Nineteenth Century

The scientific study of Judeo-Persian began in the nineteenth century. Netzer regarded an article of 1829 by Konrad Dietrich Hassler, on a previously unknown direct Persian translation of the books of Solomon, as the first landmark in Judeo-Persian studies, and noted that in 1838 Solomon Munk wrote a brief study of portions of a manuscript in the Bibliothèque nationale in Paris.707172 Paul de Lagarde produced a comprehensive description of the characteristic elements of Judeo-Persian in his Persische Studien of 1884 and argued for its importance, and Theodor Nöldeke, Carl Salemann and Paul Horn agreed with him that these texts were important, chiefly for linguistic reasons.737475 Horn made extensive use of the published material for his Neupersische Etymologie of 1893.76

Wilhelm Bacher (1850–1913) was, in Netzer’s words, another significant and extremely prolific contributor, who was able to use hundreds of Judeo-Persian manuscripts purchased by Elkan Nathan Adler (1861–1946) in Iran and Central Asia at the end of the nineteenth century and brought to London.77 These are now in the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in New York, where, according to Netzer, the manuscripts bought in Tehran are marked T and those bought in Bukhara are marked B.78798081 Asmussen listed the other principal collections of Judeo-Persian Bible manuscripts as those of the Ben-Zvi Institute in Jerusalem, the Klau Library of the Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, the Bibliothèque nationale in Paris, the British Library and the Royal Library in Copenhagen.8283

The Varieties of Tafsir

Netzer explained that the literal meaning of tafsir is interpretation, including translation, or commentary on sacred writings, chiefly the Hebrew Bible and the Talmud. The word is the same as the Arabic term for commentary on the Qurʾan.8485 The beginnings of tafsir production are obscure, but Netzer supposed on the basis of the surviving texts that the earliest were devoted to the Bible, and he noted that most of their authors remain unknown. General rules probably existed for making them, such as those mentioned in the introduction to the Psalms tafsir of Bābāʾi ben Nuriʾel.86

Netzer divided the Judeo-Persian tafsirs into five categories. The first is literal translation from Hebrew or Aramaic, which keeps the syntax of the original and so departs from Persian syntax. He saw a certain similarity between this kind of translation and the way Muslim sacred writings in Arabic were rendered into Persian.87 The second is literal translation accompanied by brief explanations and synonyms for difficult words. This type became prevalent in recent centuries because of a decline in the understanding of the sacred texts, and in many cases later copyists kept the explanatory synonyms instead of the translated words, so that many manuscripts are of doubtful precision as translations though of interest to linguists.88

The third category consists of paraphrases accompanied by commentaries and homiletic expositions, common in both prose and verse. Netzer noted that the poet Šāhin called his own verse tafsir of the Pentateuch and of Esther a šarḥ, a commentary.89 The fourth comprises works called tafsir whose resemblance to the original is so slight that they can hardly be considered translations, usually renderings of liturgical poems, and the fifth comprises commentaries on words, ideas and verses, including sermons that draw on tales, proverbs and quotations from Persian poetry.90

The purpose of the biblical translations is a question of some importance. Asmussen, following Gilbert Lazard, wrote that biblical Judeo-Persian does not seem to represent a living language, and that the Bible texts were clearly not meant to be read for themselves but served as a help to understanding and memorising the Hebrew text.91 Their greatest importance, in his view, lies in their linguistic conservatism in grammar and vocabulary and in their evidence for non-standard early Persian.92 This judgment explains both the literalness of many tafsirs and the persistence of archaic forms in manuscripts copied centuries after the translations were first made.

The Manuscripts of the Pentateuch

Of the numerous manuscripts of the Pentateuch in Judeo-Persian, a few have been edited and are central to scholarship. One is the manuscript in the Vatican Library, Vat. Pers. 61, which Netzer described as an undated tafsir bought by the Italian traveller Giambattista Vecchietti at Lār in southern Fārs in May 1606.9394 Limited linguistic research, Netzer wrote, dates it to no later than the fourteenth century. Ignazio Guidi described it in 1885, Max Seligsohn compared parts of it with the British Library Pentateuch and with the Tavus translation in 1903, and the whole text has been published in transliteration by Herbert H. Paper.9596

The most important single manuscript is British Library Or. 5446, which Asmussen called the oldest dated translation.97 The British Library’s catalogue describes it as a Judeo-Persian translation of the Pentateuch, written and probably also translated by Joseph ben Moses, imperfect at the beginning and with some lacunae. It has 124 folios measuring 230 by 158 millimetres, written in a Persian Hebrew semi-cursive script of the fourteenth century, and some words have superlinear vocalisation.98 The first and last folios are the most damaged, and folio 1r is partly illegible. At the end, on folio 124v, the last two lines are written in gold letters with geometrical ornaments, now mostly oxidised, and there is ink decoration at the beginnings of sections.99

The date of the manuscript is given in its colophon, but the sources read it differently. Netzer wrote that the colophon states that the tafsir was copied by Yosef bar Mosheh on 14 Adar II 1630 of the Seleucid era, which he equated with 6 March 1319.100 The colophon as transcribed in the British Library’s catalogue reads “ארבעה ועשרים יום בחדש אדר שני שנת אלף ושש מאות ושלשים לשטרות”, which is the twenty-fourth day of the second Adar in the year 1630 of the Seleucid era.101 The discrepancy between the fourteenth and the twenty-fourth of the month is not discussed in either source, and it is not resolved here. The catalogue also records a note added by a later hand stating that the manuscript was written in the year 5078 of the creation, which corresponds to 1317–1318, a different year again.102 Tahan described Or 5446 as dated 6 March 1319 and regarded it as the earliest dated Torah text in Judeo-Persian.103

The history of the manuscript in London is documented on its own leaves. An acquisition note on the back flyleaf records that it was bought from Mirza Azzussah on 15 November 1898, and the date of accession, 4 February 1900, is written in pencil in the lower margin of folio 124v.104 Netzer described the vendor as a resident of Tehran visiting London.105 Seligsohn determined the correct order of its pages, and Paper published the manuscript in 1972.106 Paper later re-edited the Vatican and British Library manuscripts together with a manuscript of the Jewish Theological Seminary, Hebrew Union College ms. 2193 and Ben-Zvi Institute ms. 1028 in his Biblia Judaeo-Persica: Editio Variorum of 1973.107

Other Pentateuch manuscripts show how the tradition continued. Adler B.63 in the Jewish Theological Seminary, acquired by Adler in Bukhara at the end of the nineteenth century, has a text broadly identical with that of the Vatican manuscript, but Netzer described it as not a literal translation but a collection of homilies, commentaries and midrashim. A manuscript bought for the Ben-Zvi Institute in Tehran in 1973, BZI 4559/1, contains a Pentateuch tafsir copied in 1788 whose language and syntax suggest that it was copied from an older text.108 Tahan noted that the British Library also holds a Pentateuch copied at Qom in 1483–1484, Or 2451, which includes the calendar of Josiah ben Mevorakh al-ʿAqūlī with rules for fixing the Jewish festivals.109110

The Prophets and the Writings

For the Prophets, Netzer listed a Judeo-Persian commentary on Samuel called ʿAmuqot Shemuʾel, British Library Or. 10482, an old manuscript whose language was studied by Bacher in 1897.111 Tahan described it as a compilation of definitions of difficult words in the book of Samuel arranged in the order of the verses, an early work of great lexical importance.112 A tafsir of Isaiah in the Bibliothèque nationale was published by de Lagarde in 1884, together with Jeremiah and the beginning of Ezekiel from manuscripts in the same library, and part of a tafsir of Hosea in the Bibliothèque nationale, BN 101, was studied by Asmussen in 1975.113 Netzer also listed unstudied tafsirs of Joel, Amos, Jonah, Micah, Nahum and Zephaniah in the Ben-Zvi Institute, of which the one on Jonah is probably older than the rest.114

Among the Writings, the Psalms were widely read by Persian Jews. Netzer recorded that Vecchietti bought several Psalms tafsirs in Shiraz and Lār in 1601, and that one of them was read aloud to a Persian Christian named Šams-al-Din Ḵonji, who transcribed it in Persian script on 12 May 1601 at Hormoz.115116 One of the most important Psalms tafsirs was written in 1740 by Bābāʾi ben Nuriʾel, a rabbi of Isfahan, at the command of Nader Shah, with the help of a learned Muslim scholar, Mirzā Mahdi ʿAqili, who is named in the introduction.117118119 Ezra Zion Melammed published a critical edition of it in 1968 based on five manuscripts, of which the apparently oldest, copied in 1797 near Isfahan, belonged to his father.120

Netzer’s list of other books gives a sense of the scale of the material. A tafsir of Job published by Paper from an incomplete manuscript without a colophon was, in Paper’s opinion, copied “in the 15th century or earlier”.121 The tafsir of the Song of Songs in BN 116, edited by Asmussen and Paper, is dated by linguistic and palaeographic evidence to no later than the fourteenth century.122 A tafsir of Ruth in BN 90 was copied at Lār in 1601. The tafsir of Esther, edited from BN 127 and 116, is accompanied in BN 127 by a calendar whose author states that it begins in the year 1591 of the Seleucid era, 1280 CE.123124 Netzer remarked that, like Psalms and Proverbs, the book of Esther held a place of particular importance for Persian Jews because of its connection with their history.125 A tafsir of Daniel, edited from BN 128 and 129, includes in BN 128 a work called Qeṣṣa-ye Dāniāl, which scholars regard as a tafsir of a lost translation or midrash on Daniel and which some date to about the thirteenth century.126 Tahan noted that the British Library’s Or 4743 is the only known complete manuscript of the Daniyal Nameh, the story of the biblical Daniel.127 The sources do not state whether these two Daniel texts are the same work, and they are kept distinct here.

The courtyard of a traditional Persian house with a long pool and a pomegranate tree, where a small family group on a veranda listens to a reading from a book.
Illustration: an imagined reading in the courtyard of a Persian house, of the kind of household for which Judeo-Persian books were copied.

Šāhin and the Biblical Epics

In the fourteenth century Judeo-Persian biblical literature took a new form in verse. Netzer described Šāhin as arguably the most important and, as far as is known, the earliest of the Jewish Persian poets. He is dated to the fourteenth century, but nothing is known of his life and even his real name is unknown, Šāhin, “hawk”, being presumably a pen name.128 Bacher stated that he lived in Shiraz, but Netzer noted that scholars are divided on this point, and Carmeli refers to him as Mowlānā Shāhīn-i Shīrāzī.129130

Šāhin’s first work, the Musā-nāma, the Book of Moses, rendered the last four books of the Pentateuch in 1327. According to Netzer it comprises about ten thousand verses and is not a literal translation but incorporates legends from Jewish midrashim and from non-Jewish traditions. It opens with praises of God, Moses and the prophets and includes a section glorifying the ruler of the time, Sultan Abu Saʿid of the Ilkhanate, who reigned from 1317 to 1335.131132133 About six years later Šāhin produced a work on the books of Esther and Ezra, which scholars have usually treated as two works, the Ardašir-nāma and the ʿEzrā-nāma, but which Netzer argued was intended as a single poem in two sections. The ʿEzrā-nāma gives the date of completion as the middle of Šawwāl 733, early July 1333.134

The Ardašir-nāma tells in about six thousand verses the story of Esther and King Ardašir, identified with Ahasuerus, together with a love story concerning Ardašir’s son by Vashti and a Chinese princess, in scenes that Netzer compared to the world of Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh.135136137 The shorter ʿEzrā-nāma, of about five hundred verses, describes the life and death of “Cyrus ben Esther” and his meetings with Ezra, Haggai, Zechariah and Mordecai, and ends with the deaths of Mordecai and Esther at Hamadan.138139 The last work, the Berešit-nāma, completed in 1359 in about nine thousand verses, paraphrases Genesis and so completes Šāhin’s rendering of the whole Pentateuch.140 Netzer stressed that Šāhin did not rely on biblical sources alone, drawing many episodes from midrashim and from the Muslim tradition of the stories of the prophets, the Qisas al-Anbiya.141142

Šāhin’s successor ʿEmrāni, born at Isfahan in 1454 and died at Kashan after 1536, tried to continue this enterprise.143144 His Fatḥ-nāma, the Book of Conquest, which Carmeli dates to about 1474, recounts in verse the main events of Joshua, Judges, Ruth and Samuel.145 Netzer also recorded that ʿEmrāni composed in 1536 a verse paraphrase of Pirkei Avot called Ganj-nāma.146147 These poems are not translations of the Bible in the strict sense, but they belong to the same tradition of making Scripture accessible in Persian, and Netzer classed Šāhin’s work among the tafsirs of the paraphrastic type.148

Illustrated Manuscripts

A small number of Judeo-Persian manuscripts are illustrated. Carmeli stated in 2016 that only thirteen illustrated Judeo-Persian manuscripts had been discovered, divided between Hebrew transliterations of Persian poetry, such as Jami’s Yusof va Zoleyḵā and Nizami’s Khosrow and Shirin, and original works by Jewish Persian poets.149150151152 Because they lack colophons giving date or place, and because there is little comparative Jewish material, they are difficult to evaluate, but stylistically the miniatures appear to be provincial products of the late Safavid and Qajar periods.153154155

Two illustrated copies of the Ardašir-nāma are known. Carmeli described the first, JTS 40919 [8270] in the Jewish Theological Seminary, as a complete copy of 164 folios with thirty-three miniatures, and the second, Or.Qu.1680 in the Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz in Berlin, as a complete copy of 203 folios with twenty-four miniatures. Both are dated on stylistic grounds to the second half of the seventeenth century.156 A miniature found only in the New York manuscript depicts Esther giving birth to Cyrus, a scene that follows from Šāhin’s making Esther the mother of Cyrus, the king who allowed the Jews to return from Babylonia.157 Carmeli observed that the details of the birth are described neither in the midrash nor in Šāhin’s text.158

The only illustrated Judeo-Persian manuscript with a colophon is a copy of the Musā-nāma in the Israel Museum, IMJ 180.54, a complete copy of 262 folios with nineteen miniatures, copied in 1686 by Nehemiah ben Amshal of Tabriz.159160161 Throughout its illustrations Moses is shown with a halo of golden flames rising from his shoulders, in the manner of Islamic depictions of prophets, and one miniature shows his mother hiding him in a flaming oven, a story that Carmeli traced to the Muslim Stories of the Prophets written by al-Thaʿālibī in the eleventh century rather than to Jewish sources.162 Two illustrated copies of ʿEmrāni’s Fatḥ-nāma are also known: BZI 4602 in the Ben-Zvi Institute, incomplete, of 291 folios with twenty-three miniatures, dated stylistically to the second half of the seventeenth century, and British Library Or. 13704, also incomplete, of 335 folios with seven miniatures, dated to the first half of the eighteenth century.163

Carmeli emphasised that, while the scribes of these manuscripts were undoubtedly Jewish, there is no evidence of the identity of the painters, and no visual or textual evidence has yet established that Jews in Iran practised miniature painting.164 The closest artistic medium known to have been used by Iranian Jews was the decoration of the ketubbah, the marriage contract, though it is not known when this custom began among them.165166 Tahan likewise noted that the British Library’s illustrated Judeo-Persian manuscripts lack colophons, so that the identities of the artists remain unknown. Besides Or 13704 she described Or 4730, an incomplete eighteenth-century copy of Nizami’s Haft Peykar in a neat Persian Hebrew semi-cursive script with thirteen illustrations.167168

Talmud, Midrash and the Wider Library

The biblical tafsirs were part of a larger body of translated religious literature, and Netzer’s survey shows what was and was not translated. Only small sections of the Babylonian or Jerusalem Talmud are known in Judeo-Persian. Netzer suggested two reasons. The Talmud was the domain of the learned elite, for whom no translation was thought necessary, as dictionaries compiled by Persian Jews with explanations of difficult Talmudic words indicate, and in recent centuries the number of students with Talmudic expertise declined while attention turned to the Zohar and to kabbalistic study.169170 The contrast with the Bible is instructive. The Bible, read in the synagogue and studied by a wider public, needed a Persian aid to understanding, whereas the Talmud, studied by a smaller circle, did not.

The tractate Pirkei Avot, by contrast, suited the outlook of Persian Jews through its moral and homiletic character and was translated by various authors. Netzer named Rabbi Yaʿqov Paltiel of Rasht in the mid-nineteenth century and Rabbi Simān-Ṭov Melammed, and recorded that Shimʿon Ḥākhām, in his tafsir published in 1907, stated that it “would be studied in the cities of Bukhara and its districts on the Sabbaths between Passover” and the autumn festivals. He noted that the Ben-Zvi Institute holds more than thirty manuscripts of Pirkei Avot, mostly tafsirs.171

Persian Jews were also much interested in midrash, which entered not only the biblical tafsirs, prayers, sermons and prose stories but also verse, as in the poetry of Šāhin and ʿEmrāni.172173 Among the manuscripts bought by Adler and now in New York, Netzer singled out the Midrash Leqaḥ Ṭov of Rabbi Ṭuviah ben Elʿazar, an anthology of midrashim on the Pentateuch and the Five Scrolls compiled in the twelfth century, of which the sections on Genesis and Exodus are in MS B.5 and the continuation in MS T.76.174 The presence of such works alongside the biblical tafsirs shows that the Judeo-Persian Bible was read within the same interpretive tradition as the rest of rabbinic literature, and this explains why many tafsirs pass so readily from translation into commentary.

The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

The tradition of Judeo-Persian Bible translation did not end with the manuscript age. Netzer recorded that the Jews of Central Asia were pioneers in printing Judeo-Persian books, most of them printed in Jerusalem, and that Shimʿon Ḥākhām, born in Bukhara in 1843 and died in Jerusalem in 1910, was the most prominent early figure in printing and editing Judeo-Persian manuscripts.175176 Asmussen described the new translations made by Ḥākhām and his circle in Jerusalem as Judeo-Persian or rather Judeo-Tajik, and listed his editions of the Pentateuch, Joshua, Judges, Samuel and the Song of Songs.177 All of Šāhin’s works were published in Jerusalem by Ḥākhām, though Netzer noted that the printed text of the commentary on Esther is incomplete.178

Christian missionary publishing also used the Hebrew script for Persian. Asmussen recorded that from 1900 the British and Foreign Bible Society published the Persian translation of the Old and New Testaments by Robert Bruce, transcribed into Hebrew letters by Mīrzā Nūr-Allāh and Mīrzā Ḵodādād.179180 Netzer described Mīrzā Nur-Allāh ben Ḥakim Mosheh as a baptised Jew engaged in missionary activity among Persian Jews, and stated that his Hebrew-letter edition of Bruce’s Persian Psalms was published in London by the same society in 1895.181 The two sources thus give different starting dates, 1895 for the Psalms and 1900 for the wider series, which are not necessarily in conflict.

The Significance of the Manuscripts

The Judeo-Persian biblical manuscripts matter in several fields at once. For the history of the Persian language, the oldest of them, together with the inscriptions and letters of the eighth century, are among the earliest evidence for New Persian, and the biblical translations preserve archaic grammar and vocabulary that disappeared from the literary language.182183 For Jewish history they document the learning of communities in Iran and Central Asia over a thousand years, from the Karaite exegetes of the eleventh and twelfth centuries studied by Haim to the printers of Bukhara and Jerusalem in the nineteenth.184185 For the history of the Bible in translation they show that a Jewish community in the Islamic world produced, over many centuries, a tradition of vernacular versions comparable in purpose to the Aramaic Targum and the Judeo-Arabic version of Saadia, with which the Tavus Pentateuch was printed in 1546.186187

Much remains uncertain. Many manuscripts, as Netzer’s survey repeatedly notes, have not been studied or edited, and the dates of several important texts rest on linguistic and palaeographic judgment rather than colophons.188 The sources differ on details as basic as the day in the colophon of the oldest dated Pentateuch and the year in which the Dandān Uiliq letter was found.189190191 The British Library’s programme of digitisation, which by 2018 had made thirty-four of its Judeo-Persian manuscripts available online, has made the study of these questions easier than at any time since the manuscripts reached Europe.192

Further Study

The surveys by Asmussen on Judeo-Persian Bible translations and by Netzer on Judeo-Persian literature in the Encyclopaedia Iranica give the fullest lists of manuscripts and editions, with extensive bibliographies.193194 The British Library’s catalogue record for Or 5446 transcribes its colophon and later notes, and Tahan’s description of the Library’s collection introduces its other important items.195196 Carmeli’s article in Iran Namag is a guide to the illustrated manuscripts, and Haim’s article on the early manuscripts in London and St Petersburg presents current research on their Karaite background.197198

Notes

  1. Jes P. Asmussen, “Bible vi. Judeo-Persian Translations”, Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. IV, fasc. 2 (1989), pp. 208–209. *
  2. “Judeo-Persian”. *
  3. Jes P. Asmussen, “Bible vi. Judeo-Persian Translations”, Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. IV, fasc. 2 (1989), pp. 208–209. *
  4. Amnon Netzer, “Judeo-Persian Communities of Iran ix. Judeo-Persian Literature”, Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. XV, fasc. 1 (2009), pp. 139–156. *
  5. “New Persian”. *
  6. Amnon Netzer, “Judeo-Persian Communities of Iran ix. Judeo-Persian Literature”, Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. XV, fasc. 1 (2009), pp. 139–156. *
  7. Amnon Netzer, “Judeo-Persian Communities of Iran ix. Judeo-Persian Literature”, Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. XV, fasc. 1 (2009), pp. 139–156. *
  8. “Persian language”. *
  9. Orit Carmeli, “Illuminated Judeo-Persian Manuscripts”, Iran Namag 1, no. 2 (Summer 2016). *
  10. “Central Asia”. *
  11. Orit Carmeli, “Illuminated Judeo-Persian Manuscripts”, Iran Namag 1, no. 2 (Summer 2016). *
  12. Jes P. Asmussen, “Bible vi. Judeo-Persian Translations”, Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. IV, fasc. 2 (1989), pp. 208–209. *
  13. Ilana Tahan, “The Judeo-Persian manuscript collection in the British Library”, British Library Asian and African Studies blog, 5 November 2018, archived copy in the British Library research repository. *
  14. “Babylonian captivity”. *
  15. “Nebuchadnezzar II”. *
  16. “Cyrus the Great”. *
  17. “Cyrus Cylinder”. *
  18. Ilana Tahan, “The Judeo-Persian manuscript collection in the British Library”, British Library Asian and African Studies blog, 5 November 2018, archived copy in the British Library research repository. *
  19. Jes P. Asmussen, “Bible vi. Judeo-Persian Translations”, Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. IV, fasc. 2 (1989), pp. 208–209. *
  20. “Sasanian Empire”. *
  21. Jes P. Asmussen, “Bible vi. Judeo-Persian Translations”, Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. IV, fasc. 2 (1989), pp. 208–209. *
  22. “Afghanistan”. *
  23. Amnon Netzer, “Judeo-Persian Communities of Iran ix. Judeo-Persian Literature”, Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. XV, fasc. 1 (2009), pp. 139–156. *
  24. “Herat”. *
  25. “Ghor Province”. *
  26. Amnon Netzer, “Judeo-Persian Communities of Iran ix. Judeo-Persian Literature”, Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. XV, fasc. 1 (2009), pp. 139–156. *
  27. “Seleucid era”. *
  28. Jes P. Asmussen, “Bible vi. Judeo-Persian Translations”, Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. IV, fasc. 2 (1989), pp. 208–209. *
  29. Amnon Netzer, “Judeo-Persian Communities of Iran ix. Judeo-Persian Literature”, Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. XV, fasc. 1 (2009), pp. 139–156. *
  30. “Aurel Stein”. *
  31. Ilana Tahan, “The Judeo-Persian manuscript collection in the British Library”, British Library Asian and African Studies blog, 5 November 2018, archived copy in the British Library research repository. *
  32. Amnon Netzer, “Judeo-Persian Communities of Iran ix. Judeo-Persian Literature”, Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. XV, fasc. 1 (2009), pp. 139–156. *
  33. Amnon Netzer, “Judeo-Persian Communities of Iran ix. Judeo-Persian Literature”, Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. XV, fasc. 1 (2009), pp. 139–156. *
  34. “Kollam”. *
  35. Amnon Netzer, “Judeo-Persian Communities of Iran ix. Judeo-Persian Literature”, Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. XV, fasc. 1 (2009), pp. 139–156. *
  36. “Karaite Judaism”. *
  37. “Cairo Geniza”. *
  38. Amnon Netzer, “Judeo-Persian Communities of Iran ix. Judeo-Persian Literature”, Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. XV, fasc. 1 (2009), pp. 139–156. *
  39. “Minaret of Jam”. *
  40. Jes P. Asmussen, “Bible vi. Judeo-Persian Translations”, Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. IV, fasc. 2 (1989), pp. 208–209. *
  41. “The Cairo Genizah – The Sacred Chamber of Ben Ezra”, Masoretes Online. *
  42. Jes P. Asmussen, “Bible vi. Judeo-Persian Translations”, Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. IV, fasc. 2 (1989), pp. 208–209. *
  43. Jes P. Asmussen, “Bible vi. Judeo-Persian Translations”, Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. IV, fasc. 2 (1989), pp. 208–209. *
  44. Jes P. Asmussen, “Bible vi. Judeo-Persian Translations”, Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. IV, fasc. 2 (1989), pp. 208–209. *
  45. Amnon Netzer, “Judeo-Persian Communities of Iran ix. Judeo-Persian Literature”, Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. XV, fasc. 1 (2009), pp. 139–156. *
  46. Ilana Tahan, “The Judeo-Persian manuscript collection in the British Library”, British Library Asian and African Studies blog, 5 November 2018, archived copy in the British Library research repository. *
  47. Ilana Tahan, “The Judeo-Persian manuscript collection in the British Library”, British Library Asian and African Studies blog, 5 November 2018, archived copy in the British Library research repository. *
  48. Ofir Haim, “The Early Judeo-Persian Manuscripts in the British Library and in the National Library of Russia”, Intellectual History of the Islamicate World 9 (2021), pp. 29–61, abstract. *
  49. “National Library of Russia”. *
  50. Ofir Haim, “The Early Judeo-Persian Manuscripts in the British Library and in the National Library of Russia”, Intellectual History of the Islamicate World 9 (2021), pp. 29–61, abstract. *
  51. Ofir Haim, “The Early Judeo-Persian Manuscripts in the British Library and in the National Library of Russia”, Intellectual History of the Islamicate World 9 (2021), pp. 29–61, abstract. *
  52. Amnon Netzer, “Judeo-Persian Communities of Iran ix. Judeo-Persian Literature”, Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. XV, fasc. 1 (2009), pp. 139–156. *
  53. Jes P. Asmussen, “Bible vi. Judeo-Persian Translations”, Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. IV, fasc. 2 (1989), pp. 208–209. *
  54. Jes P. Asmussen, “Bible vi. Judeo-Persian Translations”, Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. IV, fasc. 2 (1989), pp. 208–209. *
  55. Ilana Tahan, “The Judeo-Persian manuscript collection in the British Library”, British Library Asian and African Studies blog, 5 November 2018, archived copy in the British Library research repository. *
  56. Amnon Netzer, “Judeo-Persian Communities of Iran ix. Judeo-Persian Literature”, Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. XV, fasc. 1 (2009), pp. 139–156. *
  57. “Constantinople”. *
  58. “Targum Onkelos”. *
  59. “Saadia Gaon”. *
  60. “The Soncino Dynasty”, Masoretes Online. *
  61. “Targum Onkelos and the Birth of Aramaic Scripture”, Masoretes Online. *
  62. Ilana Tahan, “The Judeo-Persian manuscript collection in the British Library”, British Library Asian and African Studies blog, 5 November 2018, archived copy in the British Library research repository. *
  63. Jes P. Asmussen, “Bible vi. Judeo-Persian Translations”, Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. IV, fasc. 2 (1989), pp. 208–209. *
  64. Amnon Netzer, “Judeo-Persian Communities of Iran ix. Judeo-Persian Literature”, Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. XV, fasc. 1 (2009), pp. 139–156. *
  65. “The Antwerp, Paris and London Polyglots”, Masoretes Online. *
  66. Jes P. Asmussen, “Bible vi. Judeo-Persian Translations”, Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. IV, fasc. 2 (1989), pp. 208–209. *
  67. Amnon Netzer, “Judeo-Persian Communities of Iran ix. Judeo-Persian Literature”, Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. XV, fasc. 1 (2009), pp. 139–156. *
  68. Jes P. Asmussen, “Bible vi. Judeo-Persian Translations”, Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. IV, fasc. 2 (1989), pp. 208–209. *
  69. Amnon Netzer, “Judeo-Persian Communities of Iran ix. Judeo-Persian Literature”, Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. XV, fasc. 1 (2009), pp. 139–156. *
  70. Amnon Netzer, “Judeo-Persian Communities of Iran ix. Judeo-Persian Literature”, Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. XV, fasc. 1 (2009), pp. 139–156. *
  71. Jes P. Asmussen, “Bible vi. Judeo-Persian Translations”, Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. IV, fasc. 2 (1989), pp. 208–209. *
  72. “Bibliothèque nationale de France”. *
  73. Amnon Netzer, “Judeo-Persian Communities of Iran ix. Judeo-Persian Literature”, Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. XV, fasc. 1 (2009), pp. 139–156. *
  74. “Paul de Lagarde”. *
  75. “Theodor Nöldeke”. *
  76. Jes P. Asmussen, “Bible vi. Judeo-Persian Translations”, Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. IV, fasc. 2 (1989), pp. 208–209. *
  77. Amnon Netzer, “Judeo-Persian Communities of Iran ix. Judeo-Persian Literature”, Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. XV, fasc. 1 (2009), pp. 139–156. *
  78. Amnon Netzer, “Judeo-Persian Communities of Iran ix. Judeo-Persian Literature”, Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. XV, fasc. 1 (2009), pp. 139–156. *
  79. “Jewish Theological Seminary of America”. *
  80. “Tehran”. *
  81. “Bukhara”. *
  82. Jes P. Asmussen, “Bible vi. Judeo-Persian Translations”, Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. IV, fasc. 2 (1989), pp. 208–209. *
  83. “British Library”. *
  84. Amnon Netzer, “Judeo-Persian Communities of Iran ix. Judeo-Persian Literature”, Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. XV, fasc. 1 (2009), pp. 139–156. *
  85. “Tafsir”. *
  86. Amnon Netzer, “Judeo-Persian Communities of Iran ix. Judeo-Persian Literature”, Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. XV, fasc. 1 (2009), pp. 139–156. *
  87. Amnon Netzer, “Judeo-Persian Communities of Iran ix. Judeo-Persian Literature”, Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. XV, fasc. 1 (2009), pp. 139–156. *
  88. Amnon Netzer, “Judeo-Persian Communities of Iran ix. Judeo-Persian Literature”, Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. XV, fasc. 1 (2009), pp. 139–156. *
  89. Amnon Netzer, “Judeo-Persian Communities of Iran ix. Judeo-Persian Literature”, Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. XV, fasc. 1 (2009), pp. 139–156. *
  90. Amnon Netzer, “Judeo-Persian Communities of Iran ix. Judeo-Persian Literature”, Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. XV, fasc. 1 (2009), pp. 139–156. *
  91. Jes P. Asmussen, “Bible vi. Judeo-Persian Translations”, Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. IV, fasc. 2 (1989), pp. 208–209. *
  92. Jes P. Asmussen, “Bible vi. Judeo-Persian Translations”, Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. IV, fasc. 2 (1989), pp. 208–209. *
  93. Amnon Netzer, “Judeo-Persian Communities of Iran ix. Judeo-Persian Literature”, Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. XV, fasc. 1 (2009), pp. 139–156. *
  94. “Vatican Library”. *
  95. Amnon Netzer, “Judeo-Persian Communities of Iran ix. Judeo-Persian Literature”, Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. XV, fasc. 1 (2009), pp. 139–156. *
  96. Jes P. Asmussen, “Bible vi. Judeo-Persian Translations”, Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. IV, fasc. 2 (1989), pp. 208–209. *
  97. Jes P. Asmussen, “Bible vi. Judeo-Persian Translations”, Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. IV, fasc. 2 (1989), pp. 208–209. *
  98. British Library, “Or 5446: Pentateuch in Judeo-Persian”, Archives and Manuscripts Catalogue. *
  99. British Library, “Or 5446: Pentateuch in Judeo-Persian”, Archives and Manuscripts Catalogue. *
  100. Amnon Netzer, “Judeo-Persian Communities of Iran ix. Judeo-Persian Literature”, Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. XV, fasc. 1 (2009), pp. 139–156. *
  101. British Library, “Or 5446: Pentateuch in Judeo-Persian”, Archives and Manuscripts Catalogue. *
  102. British Library, “Or 5446: Pentateuch in Judeo-Persian”, Archives and Manuscripts Catalogue. *
  103. Ilana Tahan, “The Judeo-Persian manuscript collection in the British Library”, British Library Asian and African Studies blog, 5 November 2018, archived copy in the British Library research repository. *
  104. British Library, “Or 5446: Pentateuch in Judeo-Persian”, Archives and Manuscripts Catalogue. *
  105. Amnon Netzer, “Judeo-Persian Communities of Iran ix. Judeo-Persian Literature”, Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. XV, fasc. 1 (2009), pp. 139–156. *
  106. Amnon Netzer, “Judeo-Persian Communities of Iran ix. Judeo-Persian Literature”, Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. XV, fasc. 1 (2009), pp. 139–156. *
  107. Jes P. Asmussen, “Bible vi. Judeo-Persian Translations”, Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. IV, fasc. 2 (1989), pp. 208–209. *
  108. Amnon Netzer, “Judeo-Persian Communities of Iran ix. Judeo-Persian Literature”, Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. XV, fasc. 1 (2009), pp. 139–156. *
  109. Ilana Tahan, “The Judeo-Persian manuscript collection in the British Library”, British Library Asian and African Studies blog, 5 November 2018, archived copy in the British Library research repository. *
  110. “Qom”. *
  111. Amnon Netzer, “Judeo-Persian Communities of Iran ix. Judeo-Persian Literature”, Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. XV, fasc. 1 (2009), pp. 139–156. *
  112. Ilana Tahan, “The Judeo-Persian manuscript collection in the British Library”, British Library Asian and African Studies blog, 5 November 2018, archived copy in the British Library research repository. *
  113. Amnon Netzer, “Judeo-Persian Communities of Iran ix. Judeo-Persian Literature”, Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. XV, fasc. 1 (2009), pp. 139–156. *
  114. Amnon Netzer, “Judeo-Persian Communities of Iran ix. Judeo-Persian Literature”, Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. XV, fasc. 1 (2009), pp. 139–156. *
  115. Amnon Netzer, “Judeo-Persian Communities of Iran ix. Judeo-Persian Literature”, Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. XV, fasc. 1 (2009), pp. 139–156. *
  116. “Shiraz”. *
  117. Amnon Netzer, “Judeo-Persian Communities of Iran ix. Judeo-Persian Literature”, Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. XV, fasc. 1 (2009), pp. 139–156. *
  118. “Isfahan”. *
  119. “Nader Shah”. *
  120. Amnon Netzer, “Judeo-Persian Communities of Iran ix. Judeo-Persian Literature”, Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. XV, fasc. 1 (2009), pp. 139–156. *
  121. Amnon Netzer, “Judeo-Persian Communities of Iran ix. Judeo-Persian Literature”, Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. XV, fasc. 1 (2009), pp. 139–156. *
  122. Amnon Netzer, “Judeo-Persian Communities of Iran ix. Judeo-Persian Literature”, Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. XV, fasc. 1 (2009), pp. 139–156. *
  123. Amnon Netzer, “Judeo-Persian Communities of Iran ix. Judeo-Persian Literature”, Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. XV, fasc. 1 (2009), pp. 139–156. *
  124. “Book of Esther”. *
  125. Amnon Netzer, “Judeo-Persian Communities of Iran ix. Judeo-Persian Literature”, Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. XV, fasc. 1 (2009), pp. 139–156. *
  126. Amnon Netzer, “Judeo-Persian Communities of Iran ix. Judeo-Persian Literature”, Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. XV, fasc. 1 (2009), pp. 139–156. *
  127. Ilana Tahan, “The Judeo-Persian manuscript collection in the British Library”, British Library Asian and African Studies blog, 5 November 2018, archived copy in the British Library research repository. *
  128. Amnon Netzer, “Judeo-Persian Communities of Iran ix. Judeo-Persian Literature”, Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. XV, fasc. 1 (2009), pp. 139–156. *
  129. Amnon Netzer, “Judeo-Persian Communities of Iran ix. Judeo-Persian Literature”, Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. XV, fasc. 1 (2009), pp. 139–156. *
  130. Orit Carmeli, “Illuminated Judeo-Persian Manuscripts”, Iran Namag 1, no. 2 (Summer 2016). *
  131. Amnon Netzer, “Judeo-Persian Communities of Iran ix. Judeo-Persian Literature”, Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. XV, fasc. 1 (2009), pp. 139–156. *
  132. “Abu Sa’id Bahadur Khan”. *
  133. “Ilkhanate”. *
  134. Amnon Netzer, “Judeo-Persian Communities of Iran ix. Judeo-Persian Literature”, Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. XV, fasc. 1 (2009), pp. 139–156. *
  135. Amnon Netzer, “Judeo-Persian Communities of Iran ix. Judeo-Persian Literature”, Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. XV, fasc. 1 (2009), pp. 139–156. *
  136. “Ferdowsi”. *
  137. “Shahnameh”. *
  138. Amnon Netzer, “Judeo-Persian Communities of Iran ix. Judeo-Persian Literature”, Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. XV, fasc. 1 (2009), pp. 139–156. *
  139. “Hamadan”. *
  140. Amnon Netzer, “Judeo-Persian Communities of Iran ix. Judeo-Persian Literature”, Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. XV, fasc. 1 (2009), pp. 139–156. *
  141. Amnon Netzer, “Judeo-Persian Communities of Iran ix. Judeo-Persian Literature”, Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. XV, fasc. 1 (2009), pp. 139–156. *
  142. “Qisas al-Anbiya”. *
  143. Amnon Netzer, “Judeo-Persian Communities of Iran ix. Judeo-Persian Literature”, Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. XV, fasc. 1 (2009), pp. 139–156. *
  144. “Kashan”. *
  145. Orit Carmeli, “Illuminated Judeo-Persian Manuscripts”, Iran Namag 1, no. 2 (Summer 2016). *
  146. Amnon Netzer, “Judeo-Persian Communities of Iran ix. Judeo-Persian Literature”, Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. XV, fasc. 1 (2009), pp. 139–156. *
  147. “Pirkei Avot”. *
  148. Amnon Netzer, “Judeo-Persian Communities of Iran ix. Judeo-Persian Literature”, Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. XV, fasc. 1 (2009), pp. 139–156. *
  149. Orit Carmeli, “Illuminated Judeo-Persian Manuscripts”, Iran Namag 1, no. 2 (Summer 2016). *
  150. “Jami”. *
  151. “Nizami Ganjavi”. *
  152. “Khosrow and Shirin”. *
  153. Orit Carmeli, “Illuminated Judeo-Persian Manuscripts”, Iran Namag 1, no. 2 (Summer 2016). *
  154. “Safavid Iran”. *
  155. “Qajar Iran”. *
  156. Orit Carmeli, “Illuminated Judeo-Persian Manuscripts”, Iran Namag 1, no. 2 (Summer 2016). *
  157. Orit Carmeli, “Illuminated Judeo-Persian Manuscripts”, Iran Namag 1, no. 2 (Summer 2016). *
  158. Orit Carmeli, “Illuminated Judeo-Persian Manuscripts”, Iran Namag 1, no. 2 (Summer 2016). *
  159. Orit Carmeli, “Illuminated Judeo-Persian Manuscripts”, Iran Namag 1, no. 2 (Summer 2016). *
  160. “Israel Museum”. *
  161. “Tabriz”. *
  162. Orit Carmeli, “Illuminated Judeo-Persian Manuscripts”, Iran Namag 1, no. 2 (Summer 2016). *
  163. Orit Carmeli, “Illuminated Judeo-Persian Manuscripts”, Iran Namag 1, no. 2 (Summer 2016). *
  164. Orit Carmeli, “Illuminated Judeo-Persian Manuscripts”, Iran Namag 1, no. 2 (Summer 2016). *
  165. Orit Carmeli, “Illuminated Judeo-Persian Manuscripts”, Iran Namag 1, no. 2 (Summer 2016). *
  166. “Ketubah”. *
  167. Ilana Tahan, “The Judeo-Persian manuscript collection in the British Library”, British Library Asian and African Studies blog, 5 November 2018, archived copy in the British Library research repository. *
  168. “Haft Peykar”. *
  169. Amnon Netzer, “Judeo-Persian Communities of Iran ix. Judeo-Persian Literature”, Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. XV, fasc. 1 (2009), pp. 139–156. *
  170. “Zohar”. *
  171. Amnon Netzer, “Judeo-Persian Communities of Iran ix. Judeo-Persian Literature”, Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. XV, fasc. 1 (2009), pp. 139–156. *
  172. Amnon Netzer, “Judeo-Persian Communities of Iran ix. Judeo-Persian Literature”, Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. XV, fasc. 1 (2009), pp. 139–156. *
  173. “Midrash”. *
  174. Amnon Netzer, “Judeo-Persian Communities of Iran ix. Judeo-Persian Literature”, Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. XV, fasc. 1 (2009), pp. 139–156. *
  175. Amnon Netzer, “Judeo-Persian Communities of Iran ix. Judeo-Persian Literature”, Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. XV, fasc. 1 (2009), pp. 139–156. *
  176. “Bukharan Jews”. *
  177. Jes P. Asmussen, “Bible vi. Judeo-Persian Translations”, Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. IV, fasc. 2 (1989), pp. 208–209. *
  178. Amnon Netzer, “Judeo-Persian Communities of Iran ix. Judeo-Persian Literature”, Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. XV, fasc. 1 (2009), pp. 139–156. *
  179. Jes P. Asmussen, “Bible vi. Judeo-Persian Translations”, Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. IV, fasc. 2 (1989), pp. 208–209. *
  180. “British and Foreign Bible Society”. *
  181. Amnon Netzer, “Judeo-Persian Communities of Iran ix. Judeo-Persian Literature”, Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. XV, fasc. 1 (2009), pp. 139–156. *
  182. Jes P. Asmussen, “Bible vi. Judeo-Persian Translations”, Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. IV, fasc. 2 (1989), pp. 208–209. *
  183. Amnon Netzer, “Judeo-Persian Communities of Iran ix. Judeo-Persian Literature”, Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. XV, fasc. 1 (2009), pp. 139–156. *
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  195. British Library, “Or 5446: Pentateuch in Judeo-Persian”, Archives and Manuscripts Catalogue. *
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  198. Ofir Haim, “The Early Judeo-Persian Manuscripts in the British Library and in the National Library of Russia”, Intellectual History of the Islamicate World 9 (2021), pp. 29–61, abstract. *