Please join us for our upcoming seminar on: "The Emergence of Early Judeo-Persian Literature in Its Wider Islamic Context" by Dr. Ofir Haim (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem).

Monday, May 24, 2021, from 17:30 to 19:00 (Israel time) via zoom.

ABSTRACT

An array of Judeo-Persian manuscript finds, some of them dating back to the tenth century CE, bears testimony to the extensive literary production of Jewish communities in the Persian-speaking world during the pre-Mongol period. A substantial portion of the extant Judeo-Persian texts may be regarded as Jewish in nature, in that these texts rely on Rabbanite and Karaite literature, whether written in Hebrew, Aramaic or Judeo-Arabic. However, other textual fragments show direct literary contacts with Arabic and New Persian Islamic literary traditions.

In this paper, I present several case studies and examine the possible contacts between the Judeo-Persian literary tradition and its Arabic and Perso-Islamic counterparts. I make an attempt to determine the nature of these contacts that are manifest, for example, in the transmission of historical accounts from the early history of Islam and the adoption of models from Persian poetry, which emerged in the tenth and eleventh centuries. In addition, I will discuss the identity of the Judeo-Persian authors who introduced and adapted these materials to suit their Jewish audience.