The poet ‘Imrāni (lived 1454‒ca. 1536) rendered episodes from the Bible—specifically the Tanakh or Old Testament books of Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 Samuel, and part of 2 Samuel—into a Fath-Nāmeh, “Book of Conquests,” composed in Judeo-Persian. Judeo-Persian is a dialect combining Persian, Aramaic, and Hebrew, written using Hebrew letters. Judeo-Persian texts from the eighth through nineteenth centuries survive. In the volume under review, Vera Moreen has masterfully produced an eloquent, highly readable translation into English of ‘Imrāni’s verses. Although the original Judeo-Persian text is not presented, couplets written on the twenty-three illustrated folios that are included in the volume indicate that Moreen’s translations are largely spot-on. The manuscripts Moreen consulted date to after the poet’s time (pp. 9, 19). As Orit Carmeli notes in her own chapter, those manuscripts were illuminated with miniature paintings at the time of production between the second half of the seventeenth century and the first half of the eighteenth century (p. 256).
Following Iranian tradition, ‘Imrāni did his work with the support of patrons including a rabbi, probably while living at Kashan (pp. 11‒12, 16). Moreen’s renderings capture the continued relevance of biblical themes to those medieval Iranians for whom ‘Imrāni wrote in order to preserve and transmit sectarian tradition. Moreover, the passages Moreen translates demonstrate how religious literature relevant to Iranian Jewry was modified with terminology more germane to the community’s position as a dhimmi, “protected minority,” which, like groups in biblical times, “dwell under the protection of their truce” (p. 85). Among other accommodations, these Judeo-Persian verses place emphasis on the tawhid, “oneness” or unity of God, so important to Muslims (pp. 31, 52). So ‘Imrāni’s text and Moreen’s scholarly interpretation reveal the extent to which Persian mores, politics, and religions permeated and integrated Jews into Iran’s society.
As Moreen observes, ‘Imrāni had a clear model from Classical Persian to emulate in language, imagery, and ideals—Ferdowsi’s Shāh-Nāmeh, “Book of Kings,” filled with its use of ancient or pre-Islamic Iranian themes and religiosity (pp. 16‒17). Sacral rule with “greatness and kingship” (p. 156) being bestowed by God upon a chosen individual who then rules as shāh, a notion central to ancient Iran politics and buttressed by the Zoroastrian faith, permeates the Fath-Nāmeh (see further the verses on p. 190). So, royal blood should not be shed or a king’s life taken by subjects (pp. 224, 226) unless that ruler has fallen out of God’s grace. Joshua is presented as one such shāh (pp. 58‒9) who stands rather than kneels while worshipping his deity once the sun rose (p. 59)—emulating Zoroastrian practice. Saul’s biblical kingship is likened to that of the Pishdādian mythical ruler Jamshid of the Zoroastrian Avesta and later Iranian epics (p. 200). Battle-preparation scenes with the beating of kettle drums (p. 184) are worded by ‘Imrāni following Ferdowsi; and both poets present mighty warriors as kuh-e pulād, “mountain of steel” (p. 89). Like Darius I, who ruled the Achaemenian Empire during the mid-sixth and early fifth centuries BCE, ‘Imrāni’s biblical leaders and heroes had defeated foes’ “eyes plucked out” before hanging or impaling them (pp. 72, 110). The notion that great names must endure is presented by ‘Imrāni (p. 179), again echoing the Shāh-Nāmeh (especially Rostam’s lament, upon realizing he had killed his son Sohrāb, that his name should cease to be).
Not surprisingly, the Iranian tradition of andarz (Middle Persian handarz), “wisdom,” or pand, “advice,” literature, so-called mirrors for princes, made its way into ‘Imrāni’s writing. The Judeo-Persian poet’s advice (pp. 66, 159‒63) closely reflects passages attributed to the renowned fourth century Sasanian high magus Ādurbād ī Māraspandān as preserved in ninth century Middle Persian or Pahlavi texts. In this context the line translated by Moreen as “Get rid of greed, go beyond then” (chap. 4:155, pp. 66, 279 note 25) could be rendered better as “Get rid of greed, go beyond avarice” from Middle Persian and Classical Persian āz, “avarice, concupiscence, greed, lust,” represented by the Zoroastrian and Manichean demoness Āz. Likewise, as in Middle Persian and Classical Persian literatures, gender relations are structured hierarchically by ‘Imrāni even in situations where women like the biblical Abigail connect wisdom with peace-making through oratory skill to guide powerful men into making appropriate decisions (pp. 232‒9).
Like the best-known versifier of the Iranian national epic, the later Jewish poet too knew the society he extolled was long gone, swept aside by the Arab conquest and the spread of Islam. The Fath-Nāmeh, like the Shāh-Nāmeh, captures the poignancy of that past. Possibly the blood-soaked scenes ‘Imrāni chose to reproduce from the Bible for his Iranian readers, reciters, and listeners even served as an ironic reminder of that reversal of fate. After all, by then they were subjects who alongside Zoroastrians and Christians experienced hardships and feared punishments due to being typecast by the Muslim majority as kāfer, “infidel,” and gabr, “unbeliever” (compare p. 18). As ‘Imrāni’s biblical ancestors supposedly did “color the earth with infidel blood” (p. 40), both Jewish and Zoroastrian writings from medieval times claim that Arab Muslims did likewise when conquering the Sasanian Empire during the seventh century and that Arab, Iranian, and Turkic Muslims continued to do so to compel the older religious communities to adopt Islam. Thus biblical battle descriptions by ‘Imrāni, such as “wild beasts, birds, and humans, male, female, shed the blood of each … let none survive!” (p. 46), and “All fell, struck by the sword … Old men and youths, males and females, children and nursing babes, camels and donkeys were all dispatched” (p. 50), seem to be based on exaggerated Persian descriptions of the Mongol conquest.
Moreen also shows how poetical techniques refined by generations of masters after Ferdowsi, including Rumi, Sa‘di, and Hāfez, shaped ‘Imrāni’s verbal artistry (pp. 18‒19). For instance, ‘Imrāni writes about the differential states of qodesh ve-ḥol, “the sacred [clean] and the profane [unclean]” (pp. 25, 272 note 11), just as Rumi before him spoke more symbolically through the terms pokhteh, “cooked,” and khām, “raw,” in his thirteenth century Masnavi. Physical aggrandizement is used by ‘Imrāni for heroes by their being statuesque like a sarv, “cypress” (pp. 37, 88), and for women by their having faces bright like the māh, “moon” (pp. 140, 151), as Nezāmi of Ganja did earlier in his late twelfth century Leyli va Majnun. Turks and Hindus serve as metaphors for lightness and darkness, and for noble and ignoble behaviors, in ‘Imrāni’s composition (pp. 115, 284 note 2), as they did for Hāfez.
‘Imrāni, paralleling Ferdowsi, provides a plethora of titles, attributes, and epithets for God. These are rendered into English by Moreen as: “Almighty” (pp. 26. 30, 39, 41, 43, 46, 52, 156, 176), “Pure Almighty” (pp. 159, 176, 180), “Almighty Displayer of Might” (p. 182), “Exalted” (pp. 26, 70, 151), “Peerless Living One” (p. 188), “Lord of the World” (pp. 29, 180), “Lord of the earth and the revolving spheres” (p. 182), “God of the Universe” (p. 40), “King of Kings” (p. 28), “World Master” (pp. 26, 37), “World Protector” (pp. 29, 32, 59, 172), “Guardian of the Suspended Firmament” (p. 29), “Beneficent God” (p. 29), “Architect” (p. 143), “Bestower” (p. 28), “Judge” (pp. 34, 182), “Forgiver” (p. 32), “Pardoner” (p. 28), and “Friend” (p. 34) who is “gracious” (p. 37, 159) and “merciful” (p. 37). Yet without the original text being made available in the book under review it is not possible to determine which Persian and/or Hebrew terms are used by ‘Imrāni. Nor is it always possible to determine whether specific designators for God are utilized in particular narrative contexts—exceptions include “Living,” “Almighty,” “Omnipotent,” and “Exalted” as counterpoints to people who are executed by the Israelites (pp. 56‒7).
Similarly, ‘Imrāni employs a series of vilifications and degradations of unbelievers—in his narrative specifically against Amorite and Canaanite groups—denouncing them as “ill-tempered” (p. 70), “perfidious” (pp. 73, 173), “malicious” (p. 79), “vengeful” (p. 173), “warlike” (p. 173), “tyrannical” (p. 173), “conceited” (p. 196), “ignorant” (p. 71), “cursed” and “accursed” (pp. 72, 76, 96, 97), and “vile” (pp. 70, 71, 78, 197). He likens them to “dogs” (pp. 72, 195) who “stray” (p. 170) and are “wayward” (p. 173) from the path of righteousness because their faith is “mean” (p. 105)—the latter negative characterization used by Zoroastrians and Jews for Muslims—resulting in “treachery, deceit, and falsehood” (p. 78). Unbelievers are said by the poet to be best suited to be “servants” (p. 76) who “toil” (p. 82), or else to “roam the desert day and night in sorrow” (p. 82). Again, inclusion by Moreen of the original terms used by ‘Imrāni (in addition to her translations of those words) would have helped readers to more precisely understand religious, political, and social relations between Muslims, Jews, Zoroastrians, and Christians in medieval Iran.
Miniatures in Fath-Nāmeh manuscripts follow established Iranian styles of the Safavid and early Qajar periods as observed by Carmeli (pp. 256, 258). So Samson’s killing of a lion (p. 119, folio 101r) resembles numerous other illuminations of Rostam taking down wild beasts. Biblical prophets and kings such as Joshua, Samuel, and David bear flame halos (for example pp. 24, 148, 212, folios 5v, 157v, 212r respectively) much like the Prophet Muhammad does in illustrated manuscripts of his Sīrat and ‘Ali and the other eleven imāms do in Shi‘ite manuscripts. In addition to stylistic influences from Muslim artistic circles and perhaps also from Jewish and Christian ones, as Carmeli points out (pp. 262‒5), the possibility of continuity from the Zoroastrian illustrated book tradition as was present in the now-lost Sasanian Xwadāy-Nāmag, “Book of Rulers,” and surviving in Ardā Wirāz Nāmag, “Book of Righteous Wirāz,” manuscripts should also be considered.
As was standard for Iranian manuscripts, the text was written before illumination with spaces left for illustrations and several artists then worked on different aspects of each scene (p. 260). Divergences between parallel illustrations in manuscripts of the Fath-Nāmeh can be explained not only as products of different artists (p. 259) but as compositions from separate ateliers. Certainly, ateliers that produced the surviving illustrated Fath-Nāmeh manuscripts did not enjoy the same high degree of resources that workshops at the Safavid and Qajar royal courts did (p. 257). Yet because they come from outside the official artistic establishment, miniatures accompanying ‘Imrāni’s verses add to contemporary scholarly understanding of the range of visual arts in medieval Iran. After all, although illuminated Classical Persian manuscripts are numerous, to date only thirteen Judeo-Persian illustrated manuscripts are attested (Orit Carmeli, “Illuminated Judeo-Persian Manuscripts.” Irān Nāmag 1, no. 2 (2016): xxviii‒xli).
Chapter 3 was previously published in Moreen’s In Queen Esther’s Garden: An Anthology of Judeo-Persian Literature (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000, pp. 125‒36), where preceding verses (on pp. 123‒5), not included in the volume under review, set the stage for the conquest of Jericho by “the Prophet Joshua and the Hebrews.” In Queen Esther’s Garden (pp. 136‒43) also contains the translation of another section of the Fath-Nāmeh on the “Birth of Jesse, David’s Father,” which also is not included in The Bible as a Judeo-Persian Epic.
Words and images of the Fath-Nāmeh are products of devotion to faith, heritage, and community by the Judeo-Persian poet ‘Imrāni, subsequent copyists, painters, and their patrons. Likewise with dedication and fine erudition Moreen and Carmeli have made available to readers one more literary treat from the Jews of medieval Iran. Now study of this Fath-Nāmeh will no longer be restricted to specialists of Judeo-Persian. Rather, its contents can contribute to better understanding of Iranian and Jewish literatures, arts, cultures, and beliefs specifically and comparatively. Their translation and analysis indeed demonstrate the validity of ‘Imrāni’s maxim that “Truth can be attained through knowledge” (Ganj-Nāmeh, “Book of Treasure,” line 5).
