Voluntary Conversions of Iranian Jews in the Nineteenth Century Nahid Pirnazar UCLA, NELC Department: Iranian Studies Prior to the nineteenth century, with few exceptions, voluntary conver- sion was an unknown phenomenon in Iranian Jewish history. In Islamic Iran, infrequent voluntary conversions were mainly for socio-economic or cultural reasons. According to the Shi‘ite interpretation of Koranic Sura IX, verse 28, Jews were characterized as “impure and non-beleiv- ers.”1 In this respect, Ephraim Neumark, a visitor from the Holy Land in late 19th century, reported: “In Iran, they do not purchase bread or oth- er food stuffs from Jews, and should a Jewish to purchase from a Mus- lim, he must point to the product he wishes to purchase from a distance.2 1The Quranic verse 9:28, “Inama al-Mushrikun najs” meaning the “Idolaters are indeed unclean” has been interpreted differently throughout time. In early Islam non-believer meant “polythe- ist,”but later on the term implied to “non-Muslim.” As for Sunnis, “non-believer implies only to the polytheists, whereas, Shi‘ites interpret and imply the term to followers of other monotheist faiths as well. 2Habib Levi, Tarikh-e Yahud-e Iran, 2nd ed., vol. 3 (Costa Mesa: Mazda Publishers, 1999), 422- 423. Ephraim Neumark, born in 1860, moved to the Holy Land as a child with his parents. But at the age of 23, he traveled through Tiberias, Syria, Kurdistan, Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan. After Nahid Pirnazar <
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[email protected]> earned her Ph.D. from UCLA in Iranian Studies and received the Habib Levy Visiting Professorship of Judeo-Per- sian Literature and The History of Iranian Jews at UCLA.