The only surviving pre-Ilkhanid materials in Judeo-Persian are commercial and legal documents of which samples have been found dating back to the 8 th century, and some biblical translations and exegeses dating from the 11th and the 12th centuries. Although the Jews living in Iran spoke the local language, and the Jewish religious dignitaries from Baghdad communicated with them in Persian, before the Mongols’ rule they used a Persian ‘with its own linguistic peculiarities’. Until Persian had displaced Arabic as the language of the elite and savants, the Jews were not inclined to write their literature in Persian.
Incidentally, along with the Mongol rulers, one of the first learned men to foster Persian as the medium for science and literature was of Jewish extraction. Indeed, Rashid al-Din wrote one of the most important medieval historical works in Persian. It is true that he converted to Islam; nonetheless, Judaism was an integral part of his formation and its influence on his work is visible. Moreover, he converted quite late in his life, along with his patron Ghazan Khan (1295-1304), whose conversion we argued earlier to have been prompted by political considerations.
Rashid al-Din was conscious that he was closely watched by the Muslims because of his Jewish background, and this is reflected in his book. Throughout his work, he was very careful to adhere to the Muslims’ mentality, and for instance he referred to Ananda, the Emperor of China, as a Muslim. Furthermore, Rashid al-Din omitted an anecdote in which Jews were wronged, even though we know that he drew extensively on the work of Juwayni, who had not hesitated to cite the occasion when Ugeday had exempted Muslim, Christian and Shamanist clergymen from taxation, leaving out the Jews. Rashid al-Din apparently deemed mention of the affair compromising.
Rashid al-Din knew Hebrew, so that it was possible to accuse him of having written a letter in Hebrew characters against the Il-Khan. He had a profound knowledge of Judaism, which is evident in his advice to the Il-Khan with regard to the Jewish diet and the religious laws emanating from the Exodus 34:26, Leviticus 11:4 and Deuteronomy 14:7. His works also include biblical citations and explanations of Hebrew words.
Another field to which Rashid al-Din greatly contributed was science. It is said that he was a pharmacist himself, but he reached fame as a physician. These were fields which attracted many Christians and Jews. As late as 1329, Ibn al-Ukhuwwa attested that many towns had dhimmi physicians, which demonstrates that the Muslims were not able to supplant them in this field. Elgood says that Rashid al-Din was the scholar who made Persian into the language of science, to the detriment of Arabic. He developed the hospitals of Shiraz and Hamadan, his native town and sought to eliminate corruption in the hospital administrations so that patients would receive proper treatment. In Tabriz he established a medical centre for training physicians and healing patients.477 Rashid al-Din also encouraged works of translation and invited foreigners and local Christians to collaborate with him in such tasks. He requested that a book called the History of Franks be translated for him into Persian from Latin.
Cultural Domination of Persian Language
