Search

This paper seeks to situate Jewish individuals from the upper echelons of the Mongol government in Iran and Iraq (1258‒1335) in relation to the process of confessional, Sunnī-Shīʿī polarization. Focusing on the case of the Baghdadi Jewish physician and vizier Saʿd al-Dawla (d. 1291), I explore how the Jewish minister sought to take advantage of Twelver-Shīʿī rise to prominence under the Mongols. I argue that the vizier attempted to strike an alliance with the Shīʿī communities in Iraq and with influential Shīʿī families with long-established ties to the Mongol regime, in order to curtail resistance to his policies and to the Jewish dominance in the realm's bureaucracy. I consider Saʿd al-Dawla's endeavors within the broader historical context of Shīʿī-Jewish relations. The article concludes by examining the two decades following Saʿd al-Dawla's downfall, when a group of eminent Jewish physicians at the Mongol court converted to Islam. I show how these converts continued to exploit the process of politicization of confessional identities under the Mongols. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the 6th-century AH, under Seljūq rule, Rayy was a center of learning, attracting many Ḥanafīs as well as Shāfiʿīs, Zaydīs, Imāmīs, and Muʿtazilīs from other regions. Nevertheless, because of the conflicts during that period between Ḥanafīs and Shāfiʿīs, as well as between Shīʿīs and Sunnis, and then the Mongol invasion, only a handful of sources survive describing the activities of the Sunni scholars of Rayy and their relationships with one another and also with the Zaydīs and the Imāmīs. Contrary to expectation, some of the most valuable sources on the Sunnis of this era are writings by Shīʿī authors, one of the most important of which is the Kitāb al-Naqḍ by ʿAbd al-Jalīl al-Qazwīnī al-Rāzī. What emerges from these sources is a portrait of a city in which Zaydīs, Imāmīs, Ḥanafīs, and Shāfiʿīs lived together, albeit in separate quarters of the city, and while their coexistence sometimes erupted into bloody conflict, at the same time their scholars engaged with one another in theological debate, learning, collecting Hadith, and taking part in various rites, including the commemoration of ʿĀshūrāʾ, as described by Qazwinī. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]