chapter 10 Persian Jews: Western Contacts and Missions (1811–90s) (1): Historical Perspectives: Early History of the Persian Jews, Persian and Western Intellectual Interaction with European Jews, and Missions to the Jews in Europe and Persia The ancient lands of Persia1 provide the setting for the Books of Esther, Tobit and Daniel of the Hebrew sacred Scriptures and for significant events in the history of the Jewish people. Western Persian cities and towns, preeminently Ecbatana (Hamadan) and Shūsh (Susa) are historically immortalised in Jewish biblical and secular literature. It was at Shūsh in south-western Persia that Esther (in Hebrew her birth-name was Hadassah, signifying myrtle or the myr- tle tree, myrtus in Latin), who became the Jewish Persian queen of Ahasuerus or King Xerxes i. In the Hebrew Scriptures the Book of Esther records how Queen Esther and her uncle Mordechai pre-empted the slaughter of the Jews of Hamadan and throughout Persia plotted by Haman, the king’s chamberlain. Queen Esther persuaded her husband King Xerxes to permit the Jews to attack their enemies before they were destroyed themselves. Some locations are claimed to be the burial places of Jewish prophets, sacred to Persians, Jews and Muslims alike. The shrine and burial place of the heroine Esther and her uncle Mordechai at Hamadan are still preserved and venerated by a tiny remnant of local Jews, in spite of vicissitudes affecting the Jews of Hamadan and its shrine down the ages. The venerated but long-overlooked shrine-tomb of the prophet Habakkuk is located at Tuyserkan near Hamadan.2 The prophetic visions of Daniel occurred near Shūsh. In the Islamic tradition, Shūsh is his reputed burial place, as his popular Islamic shrine there testifies. All of these Biblical associations are the more remarkable when one considers the distance sepa- rating Persia from Jerusalem and Palestine. 1 P. Briant, ‘Persian Empire’ in Anchor Bible Dictionary, 5, 1992, 236–44 passim; R. E. Stone, ‘Persia’ in Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 2000, 1030–34. 2 See Dr J.-B. Feuvrier, Trois ans à la cour de Perse: Nouvelle édition illustrée de nombreuses gra- vures Paris 1906, 352–354; photo, dated 18 July 1892, is shown on page 353: ‘Tombeau du prophète Habacuc’; S. Soroudi, ‘Ḥabaquq, Tomb of’, EIr, 11, 425. 758 chapter 10 In 721 ʙᴄ following the death of King Solomon, the northern portion of his kingdom of Israel was conquered by Assyria and its people widely dispersed. In 587 ʙᴄ, the remaining southern portion, Judah and Jerusalem fell in turn to the Babylonians and the inhabitants were deported to Babylon. This deportation resulted in large communities of Jews in western Babylonia (modern Iraq) and its capital Babylon. Renowned Jewish academies sprung up there and became the greatest centres of Jewish life and learning in that age. Nonetheless the bitterness of this devastating exile was powerfully expressed in Psalm 137. The prelude to exile in Babylon and the exilic experience coincided with the rise of the prophets, Jeremiah, Isaiah and Ezechiel and their monumental works. The conquest of the Babylonian Empire (539–8 ʙᴄ) by Persia under Cyrus ii was followed by the establishment of the Medo-Persian monarchy. His father Cambyses i had formed an alliance by marrying the daughter of his powerful neighbour and overlord, Astyages, King of Media. Cyrus, their son, revolted against and conquered Media. These victorious developments enabled the overthrowing of Babylonian power and this in turn paved the way for the res- toration of the exiled Jewish people to Jerusalem and Judah under the guid- ance of Ezra and Nehemiah. The liberation of the Jewish people was made possible by the conquest of Babylon by Cyrus ii the Great (Kūrūsh-i Kabīr, 550–c.528 ʙᴄ), King of Persia and founder of the vast Achaemenian Empire.3 This was followed in 538 ʙᴄ by Cyrus ii’s Edict, a unique declaration in that era of human and religious rights, whereby the Judean exiles were permitted and indeed enabled to return freely to their homeland and Jerusalem. Indeed, Ezra and Nehemiah report the help of the early Achaemenians in rebuilding the Temple at Jerusalem. This marks the beginning of the Second Temple period (Ezr. 1. 1–4; 6.1–5; 2 Chr. 36. 22–23). Accordingly, King Cyrus ii (Heb. Kōresh) is the only non-Israelite mentioned in the Hebrew Bible to be theologically regarded as the divinely anointed one (mashiaḥ), whom Almighty God had specifically chosen to carry out his mission on behalf of his people Israel (Isa. 44. 4–45. 8). The prophet Isaiah refers to King Cyrus as a deliverer of the Jewish people and, speaking in the Lord’s name, says of him (44:28): He is my shepherd, and shall perform all my pleasure: even saying to Jerusalem, Thou shalt be built; and to the Temple, thy foundation shall be laid.4 3 R. Schmidt et al., ‘Cyrus’ in EIr, 6, 515–26; M. A. Dandamayev, ‘Cyrus ii the Great’, 516–21; — ‘The Cyrus Cylinder’ in EIr, 6, 521–2; T. Cuyler Young, ‘Cyrus’ in Anchor Bible Dictionary, 1, New York–London 1992, 1231–2. 4 C. Cohen, ‘Cyrus’ in Oxford Dictionary of the Jewish Religion, Oxford 1997, 184. In the Cyrus cylinder, on the other hand, the priests of Marduk wrote that the deposed chief Babylonian .