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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 February 2021
This article explores three important Zoroastrian legal texts from the ʿAbbasid period, consisting of questions and answers to high-ranking priests. The texts contain a wellspring of information about the social history of Zoroastrianism under Islamic rule, especially the formative encounter between Zoroastrians and Muslims. These include matters such as conversion, apostasy, sexual relations with outsiders, inheritance, commerce, and the economic status of priests. The article argues that the elite clergy responsible for writing these texts used law to refashion the Zoroastrian community from the rulers of Iran, as they had been in Late Antiquity, into one of a variety of dhimmī groups living under Islamic rule. It also argues that, far from being brittle or inflexible, the priests responded to the challenges of the day with creativity and pragmatism. On both counts, there are strong parallels between the experiences of Zoroastrians and those of Christians and Jews, who also turned to law as an instrument for rethinking their place in the new Islamic cosmos. Finally, the article makes a methodological point, namely to show the importance of integrating Pahlavi sources into wider histories of Iran and the Middle East during the early Islamic period.
I would like to thank the following people for their assistance and feedback: Kianoosh Rezania and Eduard Iricinschi (whose invitation to Bochum prompted me to write an early draft of this piece), Robert Hoyland, Götz König, Yuhan Vevaina, Uriel Simonsohn, Oded Zinger, and the two anonymous reviewers. All remaining mistakes are my own. I would also like to thank the John Fell–OUP Fund of the University of Oxford, which supported research leading to this article.
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7 Sahner, C.C., “A Zoroastrian dispute in the Caliph's court: the Gizistag Abāliš in its early Islamic context”, Iranian Studies 52, 2019, 61–83, here: 63–4CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For overviews of Pahlavi literature in the Islamic period, see Menasce, J. de, “Zoroastrian literature after the Muslim conquest”, in Frye, R.N. (ed.), The Cambridge History of Iran. Volume 4: The Period of the Arab Invasion to the Saljuqs (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975), 543–65CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Daryaee, T., “Middle Iranian sources for the study of medieval Islamic history”, Al-‘Usur al-Wusta 10, 1998, 36–9Google Scholar. And an interesting effort to compare Zoroastrian law with other legal systems: Jany, J., Judging in the Islamic, Jewish and Zoroastrian Legal Traditions (Farnham: Ashgate, 2012)Google Scholar.
8 Hoyland, R.G., Seeing Islam as Others Saw It: A Survey and Evaluation of Christian, Jewish and Zoroastrian Writings on Early Islam (Princeton: Darwin Press, 1997), 242–3Google Scholar, and more generally, 241–3, 321–30, 511–12.
9 For instance, see the medieval work known as the Pahlavi Rivāyat Accompanying the Dādestān ī Dēnig (a title given by a modern editor), which has overlapping contents with the responsa, but is not structured around questions and answers in the same way: Williams, A.V., The Pahlavi Rivāyat Accompanying the Dādestān ī Dēnīg, 2 vols (Copenhagen: Munksgaard, 1990)Google Scholar. Another example are the later New Persian rivāyats (c. 15th–18th c.), consisting of epistolary exchanges between Indian and Iranian Zoroastrians on ritual, theological, and legal matters; for an overview, see D.J. Sheffield, “Primary sources: New Persian”, in WBCZ, 529–42, here: 533–4.
10 U. Simonsohn, “Conversion to Islam: a case study for the use of legal sources”, History Compass 11/8, 2013, 647–62; Simonsohn, U., “Are geonic responsa a reliable source for the study of Jewish conversion to Islam? A comparative analysis of legal sources”, in Franklin, A.E. et al. (eds), Jews, Christians and Muslims in Medieval and Early Modern Times: A Festschrift in Honor of Mark R. Cohen (Leiden: Brill, 2014), 119–38Google Scholar; Simonsohn, U., “The legal and social bonds of Jewish apostates and their spouses according to Gaonic responsa”, The Jewish Quarterly Review 105, 2015, 417–39CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Simonsohn, U., “Communal membership despite religious exogamy: a critical examination of east and west Syrian legal sources of the late Sasanian and early Islamic periods”, Journal of Near Eastern Studies 75, 2016, 249–66CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
11 For editions and translations, see below, notes 13–15. For discussion, see esp. Hjerrild, B., Studies in Zoroastrian Family Law: A Comparative Analysis (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, 2002)Google Scholar; Macuch, M., “Pahlavi literature”, in Emmerick, R.E. and Macuch, M. (eds), The Literature of Pre-Islamic Iran: A Companion to A History of Persian Literature (London: I.B. Tauris, 2009), 116–90, here: 130–51, 185–90Google Scholar; M. Macuch, “Law in pre-modern Zoroastrianism”, in WBCZ, 289–98, here: 296–7. See also Cereti, C.G., La letteratura pahlavi: Introduzione ai testi con riferimenti alla storia degli studi e alla tradizione manoscritta (Milan: Mimesis, 2001), 139–69Google Scholar.
12 Macuch, M., “Die Zeitehe im sasanidischen Recht – ein Vorläufer der šīʿitischen mutʿa-Ehe in Iran?”, Archäologische Mitteilungen aus Iran 18, 1985, 187–203Google Scholar; Macuch, M., “Die sasanidische Stiftung ‘für die Seele’ – Vorbild für den islamischen waqf”, in Vavroušek, P. (ed.), Iranian and Indo-European Studies: The Memorial Volume of Otakar Klíma (Prague: Enigma Corporation, 1994), 149–67Google Scholar; Macuch, M., “Die sasanidische fromme Stiftung und der islamische waqf: Eine Gegenüberstellung”, in Meier, A., Pahlitzsch, J. and Reinfandt, L. (eds), Islamische Stiftungen zwischen juristischer Norm und sozialer Praxis (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2009), 19–38Google Scholar; Macuch, M., “Descent and inheritance in Zoroastrian and Shiʿite law”, Der Islam, 94, 2017, 322–35CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For the view that Sasanian law had little influence on Islamic law, see János, J., “The four sources of law in Zoroastrian and Islamic jurisprudence”, Islamic Law and Society 12, 2005, 291–332CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
13 Pahlavi text and transcription, English translation: B.T. Anklesaria, The Pahlavi Rivāyat of Āturfarnbag and Farnbag-Srōš, 2 vols (Bombay: M.F. Cama Athornan Institute, 1969). Manuscript facsimile, Pahlavi transcription, Persian translation: Hassan Rezai Baghbidi, The Revāyat of Ādur-Farrōbay ī Farroxzādān (Tehran: Centre for the Great Islamic Encyclopaedia, 2005).
14 English translation (complete text): E.W. West, Pahlavi Texts, Part II: The Dâdistân-î Dînîk and the Epistles of Mânûshîhar (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1882), 1–276; Pahlavi text of questions 1–40: T.D. Anklesaria, The Datistan-i Dinik (Bombay: Fort Printing Press, no date); Pahlavi text of questions 41–92: P.K. Anklesaria, “A critical edition of the unedited portion of the Dādestān-i Dīnīk” (Ph.D. thesis, School of Oriental and African Studies, London, 1958); Pahlavi transcription, English translation (questions 1–40 only): Mahmoud Jaafari-Dehaghi, Dādestān ī Dēnīg. Part I: Transcription, Translation and Commentary (Paris: Association pour l'Avancement des Études Iraniennes, 1998).
15 Pahlavi text and transcription: Anklesaria, B.T., Rivāyat-ī Hēmīt-ī Asavahistān (Bombay: The K.R. Cama Oriental Institute, 1962)Google Scholar; Pahlavi transcription and English translation: Safa-Isfehani, N., Rivāyat-i Hēmīt-i Ašawahištān: Edition, Transcription, and Translation. A Study in Zoroastrian Law (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Printing Office, 1980)Google Scholar.
16 For instance, Dādestān ī Mēnōg ī Xrad (exchanges between “the knowing one” [dānāg] and the “Spirit of Wisdom”): English translation: E.W. West, The Book of Mainyo-i Khard or the Spirit of Wisdom (Stuttgart: Carl Grüninger, 1871); Pahlavi text: T.D. Anklesara, Dānāk-u Mainyō-i Khard (Bombay: T.D. Anklesaria and Sons, 1913). Or Dēnkard 5 (exchanges between Ādurfarnbag and the Jew Yaʿqūb son of Xaled and the Christian Bōxt Mārē): J. Amouzgar and A. Tafazzoli, Le cinquième livre du Dēnkard (Paris: Association pour l'Avancement des Études Iraniennes, 2000).
17 See for instance Mihrxwaršēd son of Ādurmāh, the main questioner in the Dādestān ī Dēnīg: Jaafari-Dehaghi, Dādestān ī Dēnīg, 30–31; or Ādurgušnasp son of Mihrātaxš, the questioner in the Rivāyat of Ēmēd ī Ašawahištān: Anklesaria, Rivâyat-î Hêmît-î Asavahistân, 1; Safa-Isfehani, Rivāyat-i Hēmīt-i Ašawahištān, 1–2. While it is likelier that these men were priests, the ʿAbbasid period was a time when highly educated lay intellectuals were coming to prominence, at least if Mardānfarrox son of Ohrmazddād, author of the Škand-gumānīg Wizār, is any indication: Timuş, M., “Changer les mots, altérer les idées: autour du traité apologétique Škand Gumānīg Wizār”, Studia Asiatica 9, 2010, 135–48Google Scholar.
18 Along with Simonsohn's articles listed above (n. 10), see I. Ta-Shema, “Responsa”, in F. Skolnik and M. Berenbaum (eds), Encyclopaedia Judaica, second ed., 22 vols (Detroit: Macmillan and Keter, 2007), here: xvii, 228–31; Brody, R., The Geonim of Babylonia and the Shaping of Medieval Jewish Culture (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998)Google Scholar; B. Lifshitz, “The legal status of the Responsa literature”, in H. Ben-Menahem and N.S. Hecht (eds), Authority, Process and Method: Studies in Jewish Law (Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1998), 59–100; O. Zinger, “Toward a social history of Jewish Responsa in medieval Egypt” (forthcoming).
19 For an overview, see Friedmann, Y., Tolerance and Coercion in Islam: Interfaith Relations in the Muslim Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, on Zoroastrians, see 72–6, 184–6.
20 Along with the overviews cited in n. 11, see Macuch, M., Das sasanidische Rechtsbuch “Mātakdān i hazār Dātistān” (Teil II) (Wiesbaden: Kommisionsverlag Franz Steiner, 1981)Google Scholar; Macuch, M., Rechtskasuistik und Gerichtspraxis zu Beginn des siebenten Jahrhunderts in Iran: Die Rechtssammlung des Farroḫmard i Wahrāmān (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1993)Google Scholar; Perikhanian, A., The Book of a Thousand Judgements (A Sasanian Law Book), tr. Garsoïan, N. (Costa Mesa, CA: Mazda Publishers, 1997)Google Scholar.
21 S. Shaked, “Administrative functions of priests in the Sasanian period”, in G. Gnoli and A. Panaino (eds), Proceedings of the First European Conference of Iranian Studies. Part 1: Old and Middle Iranian Studies (Rome: Istituto Italiano per il Medio ed Estremo Oriente, 1990), 261–73.
22 For an overview of these changes, see also P.G. Kreyenbroek, “The Zoroastrian priesthood after the fall of the Sasanian empire”, in P. Gignoux (ed.), Transition Periods in Iranian History: Actes du Symposium de Fribourg-en-Brisgau (Paris: Association pour l'Avancement des Études Iraniennes, 1992), 57–79.
23 Macuch, “Law in pre-modern Zoroastrianism”, 296–7.
24 Williams, Pahlavi Rivāyat accompanying the Dādestān ī Dēnīg, i, 14, 80–81, ii, 26–9; on Sasanian penal law and its representation in Syriac sources, see C. Jullien, “Peines supplices dans les Actes des martyrs persans et droit sassanide: nouvelles prospections”, Studia Iranica 33, 2004, 243–69.
25 P. Gignoux, “Une archive post-sassanide du Tabarestān (I)”, Res Orientales 21, 2012, 29–96; P. Gignoux, “Une archive post-sassanide du Tabarestān (II)”, Res Orientales 22, 2014, 29–71; P. Gignoux, “Une archive post-sassanide du Tabarestān (III)”, Res Orientales 24, 2016, 171–84; M. Macuch, “The legal context of the Tabarestān court records (Tab. 1–8, 10)”, Res Orientales 24, 2016, 145–70; M. Macuch, “Pahlavi legal documents from Tabarestān on lease, loan and compensation: the juristic context (Tab. 13, 14, 15, 17, 18, and 23)”, Res Orientales 26, 2017, 165–95; D. Weber, “Court records of lawsuits in Tabarestān in the year 86/7 PYE (737 CE): a philological examination”, Res Orientales 24, 2016, 21–144; D. Weber, “Two documents from Tabarestān reconsidered (Tab. 12 and 26)”, Res Orientales 24, 2016, 185–92; D. Weber, “Pahlavi legal documents from Tabarestān on lease, loan and compensation: a philological study (Tab. 13, 14, 15, 17, 18 and 23)”, Res Orientales 26, 2017, 131–64.
26 That being said, priests continued to give opinions on small-scale economic activity, such as matters of credit and debt, e.g., Anklesaria, Pahlavi Rivāyat of Āturfarnbag, i, 35–38, 120–21, ii, 77–80; Rezai Baghbidi, Revāyat of Ādur-Farrōbay, 50–55.
27 Macuch, “Pahlavi literature”, 185.
28 L.E. Weitz, Between Christ and Caliph: Law, Marriage, and Christian Community in Early Islam (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018), here: 2.
29 For a successful example of this, see S. Secunda, “On the age of the Zoroastrian Sages of the Zand”, Iranica Antiqua 47, 2012, 317–49, which attempts to identify the dates and relationships among the priestly authorities cited in the Zand.
30 See the collected essays in A. Musson and C. Stebbings (eds), Making Legal History: Approaches and Methodologies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012).
31 A point also made by A. de Jong, “The culture of writing and the use of the Avesta in Sasanian Iran”, in É. Pirart and X. Tremblay (eds), Zarathustra entre l'Inde et l'Iran. Études indo-iraniennes et indo-européennes offertes à Jean Kellens à l'occasion de son 65e anniversaire (Wiesbaden: Reichert, 2009), 27–41, here: 29–30. Generally, we know almost nothing about most of the authorities cited in these texts: P. Gignoux, “La controverse dans le mazdéisme tardif”, in A. Le Boulluec (ed.), La controverse religieuse et ses formes (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1995), 127–49.
32 A. de Jong, “Zoroastrianism and the three Judaisms”, Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam (forthcoming); I am grateful to Albert de Jong for sharing this work with me in advance of its publication.
33 For good comment on this, see Y. S.-D. Vevaina, “Theologies and hermeneutics”, in WBCZ, 211–34, here: 213.
34 M. Macuch, “Legal constructions of identity in the Sasanian period”, in C.G. Cereti (ed.), Iranian Identity in the Course of History: Proceedings of the Conference held in Rome, 21–24 September 2005 (Rome: Istituto Italiano per l'Africa e l'Oriente, 2010), 193–212, here: 199–208; J. Mokhtarian, “The boundaries of an infidel in Zoroastrianism: a Middle Persian term of otherness for Jews, Christians, and Muslims”, Iranian Studies 48, 2015, 99–115.
35 In attempting to decipher pre-modern Zoroastrian views of religious outsiders, scholars have often turned to the famous inscriptions of the priest Kerdīr (fl. late third c.) which mention the treatment of Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, “Nazarenes”, Christians, “Baptists”, and Manichaeans: G. Herrmann and D.N. MacKenzie, The Sasanian Rock Reliefs at Naqsh-i Rustam (Berlin: Dietrich Reimer Verlag, 1989), esp. 57–61; see now the thought-provoking analysis of R. Payne, A State of Mixture: Christians, Zoroastrians, and Iranian Political Culture in Late Antiquity (Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2015), 23–58.
36 This is not unique to Zoroastrian responsa. A Christian text in Arabic known as the Questions and Answers of Basil and Gregory, also a responsa work, was written after Islam but is set in the fourth century. It alludes to Muslims but does not call them by name due to the frame story, referring to them as “pagans” (ḥunafāʾ) instead. See B. Roggema, “Christian–Muslim–Jewish relations in Patristic literature: the Arabic questions and answers of Basil and Gregory”, in D. Bertaina, S.T. Keating, M.N. Swanson and A. Treiger (eds), Heirs of the Apostles: Studies on Arabic Christianity in Honor of Sidney H. Griffith (Leiden: Brill, 2019), 395–414.
37 Concerning whether it is permissible to purchase wine and other foods from Christians (tarsāgān), see Anklesaria, Pahlavi Rivāyat of Āturfarnbag, i, 67, 139, ii, 109; Rezai Baghbidi, Revāyat of Ādur-Farrōbay, 104–5.
38 Anklesaria, Rivāyat-ī Hēmīt-ī Asavahistān, 10; Safa-Isfehani, Rivāyat-i Hēmīt-i Ašawahištān, 21–2; on circumcision in early Islamic culture, see A.J. Wensinck, “Khitān”, EI2.
39 For the rivāyat works, see J. de Menasce, “La « Rivāyat d’Ēmēt i Ašavahištān »”, Revue de l'histoire des religions 162, 1962, 69–88, here: 76; Williams, Pahlavi Rivāyat accompanying the Dādestān ī Dēnīg, i, 15 (though Williams’ claim that the author avoided referring to Islam out of fear of persecution is far-fetched – as if most Muslims had the ability to read Pahlavi books! Furthermore it misses the logic of an all-encompassing term such as agdēn). While Muslims are in all likelihood the targets of terms such as agdēn, to proactively translate agdēn as “Muslim” is also misleading, as in Safa-Isfehani, Rivāyat-i Hēmīt-i Ašawahištān, 20.
40 See above, notes 10 and 36.
41 Here, we might draw parallels between law and hagiography: both are important sources of information about the social history of the pre-modern Middle East, but both are tricky to use because they are bound by the conventions of their respective genres and the need to project ideals as opposed to describe realities; for further reflections, see C.C. Sahner, Christian Martyrs under Islam: Religious Violence and the Making of the Muslim World (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2018), esp. 7–12.
42 On the style of this text, see Macuch, “Pahlavi literature”, 143.
43 On the style of this text, see Safa-Isfehani, Rivāyat-i Hēmīt-i Ašawahištān, vii.
44 Crone, Nativist Prophets; see also below, n. 96.
45 This individual may be related to Farroxmard son of Wahrām, who compiled the Mādayān ī Hazār Dādestān and is named in the text's preface. He is usually thought to have been alive in the seventh century, when the text was written, but it is equally possible that he was a later compiler who was alive in the Islamic period. The preface shows a marked stylistic difference from the rest of the text, recalling that of Islamic-era works such as the Dādestān ī Dēnīg and the Dēnkard instead: Macuch, Rechtssamlung, 10–11, 16–21; Macuch, “Mādayān ī Hazār Dādestān”, EIr. I owe these ideas to a conversation with Götz König.
46 A. Tafażżoli, “Ādurfarnbag ī Farroxzādān”, EIr.
47 Sahner, “A Zoroastrian dispute”.
48 On the literature of this community, see de Jong, “Zoroastrians of Baghdad”.
49 Y. Kiel and P.O. Skjærvø, “Apostasy and repentance in early medieval Zoroastrianism”, Journal of the American Oriental Society 137, 2017, 221–43.
50 Anklesaria, Pahlavi Rivāyat of Āturfarnbag, i, 2–3, 101, ii, 48; Rezai Baghbidi, Revāyat of Ādur-Farrōbay, 2–3. For overviews of Zoroastrian family law, see Hjerrild, Zoroastrian Family Law; M. Macuch, “Zoroastrian principles and the structure of kinship in Sasanian Iran”, in C.G. Cereti, M. Maggi and E. Provasi (eds), Religious Themes and Texts of Pre-Islamic Iran and Central Asia (Wiesbaden: Dr. Ludwig Reichert Verlag, 2003), 231–45; Macuch, “Judicial and legal systems”, EIr. On pādixšāy marriage specifically, see M. Macuch, “The Pahlavi marriage contract in the light of Sasanian family law”, in M. Macuch, M. Maggi and W. Sundermann (eds), Iranian Languages and Texts from Iran and Turan (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2007), 183–204.
51 Anklesaria, Pahlavi Rivāyat of Āturfarnbag, i, 2, 101, ii, 47–8; Rezai Baghbidi, Revāyat of Ādur-Farrōbay, 2.
52 Anklesaria, Pahlavi Rivāyat of Āturfarnbag, i, 3, 102, ii, 48; Rezai Baghbidi, Revāyat of Ādur-Farrōbay, 3–4.
53 Anklesaria, Pahlavi Rivāyat of Āturfarnbag, i, 19–20, 110, ii, 61–2; Rezai Baghbidi, Revāyat of Ādur-Farrōbay, 24–5; on divorce in Zoroastrian law, see B. Hjerrild, “Zoroastrian divorce”, in W. Sundermann (ed.), A Green Leaf: Papers in Honour of Jes. P. Asmussen (Leiden: Brill, 1988), 63–71.
54 Anklesaria, Pahlavi Rivāyat of Āturfarnbag, i, 72, 142, ii, 48; Rezai Baghbidi, Revāyat of Ādur-Farrōbay, 114–5 (see also the following question, which concerns a similar subject).
55 Though it of course happened: ʿAbd al-Razzāq al-Ṣanʿānī, al-Muṣannaf, ed. Ḥ.-R. al-Aʿẓamī, 12 vols (Beirut: al-Maktab al-Islāmī, 1970–72), here: vii, 210 (in which an Arab woman confesses to the caliph ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz to sleeping with her Greek slave boy – presumably of Christian stock, though possibly a convert – justifying her actions on the basis that Muslim men could freely have sex with their slaves, so why not Muslim women with theirs? I owe this reference to Michael Cook); Sahner, Christian Martyrs under Islam, 72 (martyrs in al-Andalus born to a Christian father and Muslim mother).
56 Friedmann, Tolerance and Coercion, 184–6; extensive discussion in Abū Bakr al-Khallāl, Aḥkām ahl al-milal, ed. S. Kisrawī Ḥasan (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 2003), 159–68 (marriage), 196–8 (slave girls); on Zoroastrians in Islamic law generally, see ʿA.-Ḥ. S. Riḍwān, Min aḥkām al-majūs fī ʾl-islām (dirāsa fiqhiyya) (Cairo: Dār al-Nahḍa al-ʿArabiyya, 1999). According to al-Khallāl (162 and supra), the companion Ḥudhayfa ibn al-Yamān married a Zoroastrian woman from al-Madāʾin (Ctesiphon) named “Shīrīn Duḥt” (read: “Dukht” for “daughter”), though other reports claim she was a Jew or Christian (which may reflect later disapproval of the practice of taking Zoroastrian women). The story is attested elsewhere: ʿAbd al-Razzāq, al-Muṣannaf, vii, 178 (where Ḥudhayfa is said to have inspired other Muslims to marry Zoroastrians); and for further comment on sex with Zoroastrian slaves: Ibn Abī Shayba, al-Kitāb al-muṣannaf fī ʾl-aḥādīth wa-ʾl-āthār, ed. M. ʿA.-S. Shāhīn, 9 vols (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 2005), here: iii, 476–7 (including the view that one may have sex with Zoroastrian women without their needing to convert), vi, 433–4.
57 To cite but a few examples: the Sasanian king Narseh (r. 293–302) had a Jewish mother and Yazdgerd I (r. 399–420) had a Jewish wife (Shīshīnduxt). She was reportedly the daughter of the Jewish exilarch and the mother of Yazdgerd's successor Bahram Gor (r. 420–38): T. Daryaee, Šahrestānīhā ī Ērānšahr: A Middle Persian Text on Late Antique Geography, Epic, and History (Costa Mesa, CA: Mazda Publishers, 2002), 25, 27. Khusraw II (r. 590–628) had two Christian wives – Maria, a Roman, and Shirin, a Mesopotamian. Shirin later became famous in Persian lore: W. Baum, Schirin: Christin—Königin—Leibesmythos (Vienna: Verlag Kitab, 2003).
58 Anklesaria, Pahlavi Rivāyat of Āturfarnbag, i, 69–70, 111, ii, 63–4; Rezai Baghbidi, Revāyat of Ādur-Farrōbay, 27–8.
59 Anklesaria, Pahlavi Rivāyat of Āturfarnbag, i, 50–51, 127, ii, 90; Rezai Baghbidi, Revāyat of Ādur-Farrōbay, 72; for background, see M. Moazami, “The dog in Zoroastrian religion: Vidēvdād chapter XIII”, Indo-Iran Journal 49, 2006, 127–49.
60 Anklesaria, Pahlavi Rivāyat of Āturfarnbag, i, 69, 111, ii, 63; Rezai Baghbidi, Revāyat of Ādur-Farrōbay, 27–8.
61 Jaafari-Dehaghi, Dādestān ī Dēnīg, 23–4; M. Shaki, “Dādestān ī Dēnīg”, EIr; P. Gignoux, “Zādspram”, EIr.
62 Overview with further references given in M.A. Andrés-Toledo, “Primary sources: Avestan and Pahlavi”, in WBCZ, 519–28, here: 526.
63 J. de Menasce, Škand-gumānīk Vičār: La solution décisive des doutes. Une apologétique mazdéenne du IXe siècle (Fribourg: Librairie de l'Université, 1945); with updated edition and translation in D. Taillieu, “The Zoroastrian polemic against Manichaeism in Škand-Gumānīg Wizār and Dēnkard III”, 2 vols (PhD thesis, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, 2004). I owe this observation to Götz König.
64 Al-Iṣṭakhrī, Kitāb al-masālik wa-ʾl-mamālik, ed. M.J. de Goeje (Leiden: Brill, 1870), 139; Ibn Ḥawqal, Kitāb ṣūrat al-arḍ, ed. J.H. Kramers, 2 vols (Leiden: Brill, 1938–39), here: ii, 292; Spuler, Iran, 180–81. More broadly, see T. Daryaee, “The fall of the Sāsānian empire and the end of Late Antiquity: continuity and change in the Province of Persis” (PhD thesis, University of California Los Angeles, 1999).
65 Kreyenbroek, P.G., “The Dādestān ī Dēnīg on priests”, Indo-Iranian Journal 30, 1987, 185–208CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For further comment on this rivalry, emphasizing how it was overlain with concerns about the hāwišts usurping the more senior hērbeds (in essence, acting uppity), see Y.S.-D. Vevaina, “Miscegenation, ‘mixture’, and ‘mixed iron’: the hermeneutics, historiography, and cultural poesis of the ‘four ages’ in Zoroastrianism”, in P. Townsend and M. Vidas (eds), Revelation, Literature, and Community in Late Antiquity (Heidelberg: Mohr Siebeck, 2011), 237–69, here: 260–62.
66 This comparison requires further development. For preliminary thoughts on the crisis of leadership in Jewish and Christian communities, see Simonsohn, U., A Common Justice: The Legal Allegiances of Christians and Jews under Early Islam (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011), 114–17CrossRefGoogle Scholar (decline in the reputation and status of Christian clergy), 135–42 (decline in numbers of direct graduates of the central rabbinic academies and their replacement by local figures of diverse educational and social backgrounds); Sahner, Christian Martyrs under Islam, 212–25 (tensions within the Christian clergy regarding collaboration with the Muslim authorities).
67 T.D. Anklesaria, Datistan-i Dinik, 18; Jaafari-Dehaghi, Dādestān ī Dēnīg, 48–9.
68 T.D. Anklesaria, Datistan-i Dinik, 8; Jaafari-Dehaghi, Dādestān ī Dēnīg, 38–9.
69 For the passage about apostasy, see P.K. Anklesaria, “Dādestān-i Dīnīk”, 72–4; West, Dâdistân-î Dînîk, 139–41.
70 See the parallel case of a Jew who lost property that then ended up in the hands of a Muslim: Simonsohn, Common Justice, 180–81.
71 P.K. Anklesaria, “Dādestān-i Dīnīk”, 124; West, Dâdistân-î Dînîk, 196–7; the passage is singled out for discussion in Macuch, “Pahlavi literature”, 143. For a Jewish parallel, which bans the sale of weapons to enemies, but permits their sale to Persians and Muslims “who defend us”, see Abramson, S., “Five sections of Rabbi Hai Gaon's ‘Sefer Hamekach’”, in Israeli, S., Lamm, N. and Raphael, Y. (eds), Jubilee Volume in Honor of Moreinu Hagaon Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, 2 vols (Jerusalem and New York: Mosad Harav Kook and Yeshiva University, 1984)Google Scholar, here: ii, 1312–70, esp. 1350 (in Hebrew). I thank Uriel Simonsohn for this reference.
72 P.K. Anklesaria, “Dādestān-i Dīnīk”, 110; West, Dâdistân-î Dînîk, 182–3.
73 P.K. Anklesaria, “Dādestān-i Dīnīk”, 106; West, Dâdistân-î Dînîk, 176–7; note the parallel passage on the permissibility of selling wine to Christians in the responsa of Ādurfarnbag, above, n. 37; more generally, Daryaee, T., “Food, purity and pollution: Zoroastrian views on the eating habits of others”, Iranian Studies 45, 2012, 229–42CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For their part, early Islamic legal texts have much to say about Zoroastrian food, especially meat, which Muslims were forbidden from consuming: e.g. ʿAbd al-Razzāq, Muṣannaf, vi, 108–9, 121; Ibn Abī Shayba, Muṣannaf, iv, 246–7, v, 125–6, vi, 435–6; al-Khallāl, Aḥkām, 375–82; for a famous debate on this issue, see M. Cook, “Magian cheese: an archaic problem in Islamic law”, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 47, 1984, 449–67.
74 P.K. Anklesaria, “Dādestān-i Dīnīk”, 150–53; West, Dâdistân-î Dînîk, 229.
75 For discussion of this work's historical context, see de Menasce, J., “Problèmes des mazdéens dans l'Iran musulman”, in Wiessner, G. (ed.), Festschrift für Wilhelm Eilers: Ein Dokument der internationalen Forschung zum 27. September 1966 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1967), 220–30Google Scholar.
76 Generally, J.J. Modi, “The Modadān Mobad Omîd bin Ashavast, referred to by Hamzā Isphahâni. Who was he?”, in W. Wüst (ed.), Studia Indo-Iranica: Ehrengabe für Wilhelm Geiger (Leipzig: Harrassowitz, 1931), 274–88; de Menasce, “Rivāyat d’Ēmēd Ašavahištān”.
77 al-Masʿūdī, Kitāb al-tanbīh wa-ʾl-ishrāf, ed. M.J. de Goeje (Leiden: Brill, 1893), 104–5; French translation in de Goeje, Le livre de l'avertissement et de la revision, tr. B. Carra de Vaux (Paris: Imprimerie nationale, 1896), 149. See de Goeje's note (104–5, n. T) on the orthography of the name. The report also mentions a mawbadh named Isfandiyār ibn Adharbād ibn Anmīdh (read “Umīdh”), whom the caliph al-Rāḍī had killed in Baghdad in 325/936–37 for collaborating with the notorious Qarmaṭī leader Abū Ṭāhir al-Jannābī. On this episode and its significance for the history of Zoroastrianism, see now C.C. Sahner, “Ending Islamic rule in medieval Iran? The life and times of Mardāwīj b. Ziyār (d. 323 H/ 935 CE)”, in A. Bosanquet, S. Heidemann and K. Mewes (eds), The Reach of Empire: The Early Islamic Empire at Work Vol. 2 (Berlin: De Gruyter, forthcoming).
78 Yāqūt al-Ḥamawī, Muʿjam al-buldān, no ed., 5 vols (Beirut: Dār Ṣādir, 1977), here: i, 294.
79 For another priestly informant, this one named Bahrām ibn Mardānshāh (alias Bahrām al-Mawbadhānī), see Hämeen-Anttila, J., Khwadāynāmag: The Middle Persian Book of Kings (Leiden: Brill, 2018), 71–2CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
80 On xwēdōdah in this work, see Anklesaria, Rivâyat-î Hêmît-î Asavahistân, 84–6, 96–8, 104–10; Safa-Isfehani, Rivāyat-i Hēmīt-i Ašawahištān, 155–8, 175–8, 189–206; for background, see Macuch, M., “Incestuous marriage in the context of Sasanian family law”, in Macuch, M., Weber, D. and Durkin-Meisterernst, D., Ancient and Middle Iranian Studies (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2010), 133–48Google Scholar; on Islamic portrayals of the practice, see Van Gelder, G.J., Close Relationships: Incest and Inbreeding in Classical Arabic Literature (London: I.B. Tauris, 2005)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
81 Anklesaria, Rivâyat-î Hêmît-î Asavahistân, 31–48; Safa-Isfehani, Rivāyat-i Hēmīt-i Ašawahištān, 56–85. It is unclear what real-world scenario the text has in mind when it speaks about priests serving in an army (Anklesaria, 33–8; Safa-Isfehani, 60–67). The author of an earlier Christian question-and-answer work, Jacob of Edessa (d. 708), discussed whether priests, deacons, and monks who were forced to fight on behalf of Muslims had committed a sin; cited in Tannous, J., The Making of the Medieval Middle East: Religion, Society, and Simple Believers (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2018), 459Google Scholar.
82 Anklesaria, Rivâyat-î Hêmît-î Asavahistân, 57–58, 68–69; Safa-Isfehani, Rivāyat-i Hēmīt-i Ašawahištān, 104–5, 123–24.
83 Anklesaria, Rivâyat-î Hêmît-î Asavahistân, 2–5; Safa-Isfehani, Rivāyat-i Hēmīt-i Ašawahištān, 3–10; on the institution of proxy marriage (stūrīh) and related concepts, see M. Shaki, “Ayōkēn”, EIr; B. Hjerrild, “The institution of Stūrīh in the Pahlavi Rivāyat of Āturfarnbag, Trust settled property”, in A. van Tongerloo (ed.), Iranica Selecta: Studies in Honour of Professor Wojciech Skalmowski on the Occasion of his Seventieth Birthday (Turnhout: Brepols, 2003), 91–107.
84 This was a common dilemma for many kinds of non-Muslims; for a Jewish parallel, see Simonsohn, “Legal and social bonds of Jewish apostates”.
85 Friedmann, Tolerance and Coercion, 57.
86 Anklesaria, Rivâyat-î Hêmît-î Asavahistân, 9–12; Safa-Isfehani, Rivāyat-i Hēmīt-i Ašawahištān, 19–24. A nearly identical passage appears later in the text (Anklesaria, 98–100; Safa-Isfehani, 179–82).
87 Muslim jurists were also interested in the inheritance of Zoroastrians, especially in the context of conversion and close-kin marriage, e.g. ʿAbd al-Razzāq, Muṣannaf, vi, 30–32, x, 351–4; Ibn Abī Shayba, Muṣannaf, vi, 284–5; al-Khallāl, Aḥkām, 412–4.
88 O. Irshai, “The apostate as the inheritor in Responsa of the Ge'onim: foundations of the ruling and parallels in gentile law”, Shenaton ha-mishpat ha-ʿivri, 11–12, 1984–86, 435–61 (in Hebrew); summarized in Simonsohn, “Legal and social bonds of apostates”, 424.
89 Kiel and Skjærvø, “Apostasy and repentance”; and for the wider non-Muslim context, see Simonsohn, U., “‘Halting between two opinions’: conversion and apostasy in early Islam”, Medieval Encounters 19, 2013, 342–70Google Scholar.
90 Anklesaria, Rivâyat-î Hêmît-î Asavahistân, 100–3; Safa-Isfehani, Rivāyat-i Hēmīt-i Ašawahištān, 183–8. Muslims also puzzled over the salvation of non-Muslim relatives, usually those who had lived before Islam, as opposed to contemporaries who did not convert (as in the case of the Zoroastrians). A nice example comes from Ibn Saʿd (Kitāb ṭabaqāt al-kabīr, ed. ʿA.M. ʿUmar, 11 vols (Cairo: Maktabat al-Khānjī, 2000), i, 280–82), where the Prophet tells two converts from the tribe of Juʿfiyy that their beloved mother – who was a pagan, but had exemplary conduct, almost like that of a Muslim – was burning in Hell because she had engaged in the jāhilī practice of burying a baby girl alive. I owe this reference to Ella Landau-Tasseron. Early Muslims also debated the salvation of the Prophet's pagan ancestors: Husayn, N.A., “Treatises on the salvation of Abū Ṭālib”, Shii Studies Review 1, 2017, 3–41CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
91 Anklesaria, Rivâyat-î Hêmît-î Asavahistân, 157–60; Safa-Isfehani, Rivāyat-i Hēmīt-i Ašawahištān, 281–6.
92 Sheffield, D.J., “The Wizirgerd ī Dēnīg and the evil spirit: questions of authenticity in post-classical Zoroastrianism”, Bulletin of the Asia Institute 19, 2005, 181–9Google Scholar, here: 186 n. 3.
93 Anklesaria, Rivâyat-î Hêmît-î Asavahistân, 77–9; Safa-Isfehani, Rivāyat-i Hēmīt-i Ašawahištān, 141–8. Typically, an infidel religion is referred to as agdēn(īh), but here the term used is kēš or “doctrine”, from Avestan tkaēša- (“[There is no rule about] keeping hixr and nasāy away from water and fire in their religion” [pad kēš]). While relatively uncommon in the responsa, it is a standard term for non-Zoroastrian religions in texts such as Dēnkard 3 and the Škand-gumānīg Wizār, where it is often used in the pejorative sense of a “false doctrine”; e.g. J. de Menasce, Le troisième livre du Dēnkart, 9, 46, 65, 182; Taillieu, “Škand-Gumānīg Wizār”, i, 36–7, 80–3, 100–1, 112–3, 132–3.
94 For some of this recent scholarship, see above, n. 3.
95 Bulliet, R.W., Conversion to Islam in the Medieval Period: An Essay in Quantitative History (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1979), 43–63CrossRefGoogle Scholar (stating that most Iranians became Muslims by the mid-ninth century, and by the tenth, Iran was a “Muslim country”). Bulliet's 1979 estimates for Iran are too early in my view, and indeed, he himself subsequently argued that it may be necessary to push them a century later. As he put it, they did not take the slower pace of rural conversion into account: R.W. Bulliet, “Conversion-based patronage and onomastic evidence in early Islam”, in J. Nawas and M. Bernards (eds), Patronate and Patronage in Early and Classical Islam (Leiden: Brill, 2005), 246–62, here: 261. See also Choksy, Conflict and Cooperation, 93 (stating that by the fourteenth century, Zoroastrians formed less than 20 per cent of the population).
96 Patricia Crone's final book, The Nativist Prophets of Early Islamic Iran, makes the case that early medieval Zoroastrianism was more doctrinally diverse and regionally varied than the monolithic picture we gain from the Pahlavi books. While Crone is no doubt correct in broad stroke, it is difficult to reconcile her view with the complete absence of these “competing Zoroastrianisms” in the priestly texts of the period, even if it is only for the purposes of criticism. Were these really different expressions of the same general religious beliefs, and if so, would these competing forms of Zoroastrianism have been recognizable to one another as “Zoroastrian” in their own day?
Still, what is obvious is that the priestly texts of the period are extremely limited in their allusions to the views of competing groups, even if these groups may have been known to the authors in actual fact. For example, a passage from Dēnkard 6, as discussed by Shaul Shaked (Wisdom of the Sasanian Sages, Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1979, 176–83) mentions dissension among a group of priests who criticized court clergy for their life of luxury. It is difficult to say whether such opposition was ever organized. I am grateful to one of the anonymous reviewers for this reference.
