Jewish Heritage in Azerbaijan ( The Second Part)

 Jews, who experienced many waves of persecution in the Persian Empire and later in imperial Russia and the Slavic regions of the Soviet Union fled to this land of asylum at the imperial frontier. According to historian Mammedov Azerbaijan "was a unique place where the Jews were enabled to preserve their religion and their identity."^[1] In particular, in the last three centuries, Azerbaijan provided a welcome place of refuge for Persian and Russian Jews. This atmosphere of prosperity and tolerance, which Jews throughout history experienced in Azerbaijan, should be contrasted with the intolerance of the societies to the north, Russia in general, and Dagestan in particular, and neighbouring Armenia. A Canadian Immigration and Refugee Board Documentation Centre report quotes a former Jewish resident of Baku stating in January 1992 that Azerbaijan, of the former Soviet republics, is "perhaps the best place for Jews to live"^[2]. The historical memory of amicable treatment, popular acceptance and an absence of anti-Semitism even today affect the perceptions and dispositions of foreign policy elites both in Israel and Azerbaijan towards each other. This perception is shared by the organized American Jewish community, which is influential in some aspects of American foreign policy.

Jews arrive in Azerbaijan in 5th century BC

Jews by some accounts lived in the territory of Azerbaijan from the 5th century BC. The traditional view of indigenous Jews is that their ancestors arrived on the territory of Azerbaijan following the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonian king, in 586 BC. Nebuchadnezzar deported the majority of the  Emperor Cyrus, the great founder of the Achaemenid Empire (580-529 BC), brought Jewish settlers into his new empire. After the Persian emperor captured the Babylonian possessions in 539 BC, he decreed the return of the Jews to Jerusalem, but a sizable community of Jewish settlers remained.^[3 As a result, a significant Jewish Diaspora formed within the boundaries of the Persian Empire. At the same time Persians extensively utilized the cultural, legal and administrative traditions of the conquered nations in their empire building. Some Jewish subjects joined the bureaucratic and economic elites of Persia, which included Media (653-625, modern southern Azerbaijan) as its northern frontier. An important historical source, the Murashu family documents from Babylonia (the present-day Iraq), which date back to the 6th century BC, describes the activities of Jews in the region. These documents contain evidence that Jews were active in renting agricultural land and other possessions of the Achaemenid throne and of members of the Persian royal family^[4]. Under Shapur I (241-272) the Sassanid authorities allowed Jews to establish their communal institutions and adopt formal leadership by an Exillarch or Rosh Ha Gola ("The Head of the Diaspora"). Jewish population centres were also found in the Persian Empire´s provinces of Shirvan and Derbent. Important archaeological proof of the Jewish presence in historical Azerbaijan was provided by the discovery of a 6thcentury synagogue during excavations of Shabran settlement^[5]. Other Jewish centres in early medieval Azerbaijan were located in Hoy, Salmas and Tabriz.

Jews under the Caliphs and Mongols

Islam came to Azerbaijani society with the Arab conquests of Persia and the Caucasus in the middle of the 7th century. In Azerbaijan, the pace of conversion to Islam was uneven. Southern Azerbaijan became a part of the Umar Caliphate in 639. In northern Azerbaijan, the Albanian kingdom at first became a vassal state of the Caliphate, where the predominantly Zoroastrian, Christian and Jewish populations, as Ahli-Kitaba (Peoples of the Book), were forced to pay non-Muslim Jizya tax, locally known as haraj. The Albanian kingdom rebelled against the Arab imposition, so the new caliph, Usman (644-656), sent Arab armies to convert the local population by force^[6].
Jews found the stability provided by the Caliphates appealing. During the Abbasid Caliphate (750-803) Jewish settlements were found in the region of Zargelan and Semender (the modern day aul or village of Turki in Dagestan). After the collapse of the Caliphate, Quba-Khacmaz province became part of the Shirvanshah Emirate (799-1063) with its capital in Shabran, a town with a significant Jewish population.

The medieval Jewish community reached the zenith of its influence during the reign of the Il-khanids in Azerbaijan. From the 13th to the 15th centuries Mongolian Il-khans ruled an empire that extended from the Caucasus to the Persian Gulf. It included the present-day Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Azerbaijan. Hulegu Khan (1256-65) chose Azerbaijan as the centre of his empire in the second half of the 13th century. During the Il-Khanid dynasty Azerbaijan included the region of Gilan, the cities of Urmiye, Hoy, Salmasa, Maraga and Ushnia, and the Sheki region, including Derbent. 

Mountain Jewish woman from Quba by Max Tilke (19th century painting)

All these areas had significant Jewish populations in the 12th

 century. Under the dynasty, whose early rulers professed Buddhism, Azerbaijan experienced a period of great religious tolerance and a revival of economic activity^[7]. The Buddhist Il-Khans attracted Jews into their higher echelons of civil service and bureaucracy. The Jewish ad-Dawla dynasty dominated the political sphere during the rule of the Il-Khanid, Argun Khan (1284-91). His first vizier was Saad ad-Dawla. Saad ad-Dawla controlled both domestic and foreign policy in the empire. His relative, Muhaziim ad-Dawla, was a governor of one of the Il-Khanid capital cities, Tabriz. Later, a Jewish potentate Labid en Abi-IRabi ruled the whole province of Azerbaijan^[8]. After the conversion to Islam of Khan Mahmud Ghazan (1295-1304), an anti-Jewish faction rose to power in the Il-Khanid Empire. At the instigation of this faction Saad ad-Dawla was arrested. At the time, a series of Jewish massacres occurred in Tabriz and Hamadan. As a result many Jewish courtiers converted to Islam, including Rashid al-Din Tabib. He was the first vizier in 1298 and served as court historian and geographer under Khan Mahmud Ghazan^[9]. Tabib wrote Jamiat Tavarih (The Collection of Chronicles), a compendium of history and geography. His chronicle is one of the most comprehensive sources of Oriental historiography in the Persian language. He was killed on the orders of a Shariah court in 1318.

Jewish renaissance under Fatali Khan

By the 17th century Jewish villages formed a band of settlements from Derbent to Quba. Western travellers attest to a substantial Jewish presence in the eastern Caucasus during that period^[10]. During the reign of the Shirvanshahs, the majority of the Jewish population of Azerbaijan concentrated in the Quba-Khachmaz Khanate. After several waves of anti-Jewish persecution and forced conversions in the 16th and 17th centuries, the Jewish population of the Persian Empire dwindled. Fear of persecution led a large group of Persian Jews to resettle in the Quba-Khacmaz Khanate in the 17th century. These Jewish settlers came from Gilan and Tehran. During the struggle for possession of northern Azerbaijan between the Ottoman and Persian Empires, indigenous Jews experienced persecution and destruction of their property by the invading armies. Shortly thereafter, a significant portion of Persianspeaking Jews migrated to the Khanate of Quba during the rule of Huseyn Ali Khan. Jews also fled from Dagestan and other Azerbaijani khanates to seek the protection of the benevolent Huseyn Ali Khan (1711-12). Particularly harsh reprisals against Jews were unleashed by Persia´s Nadir Shah (circa 1736-47.) During this period the Jews established a new Jewish settlement near the Quba Khanate´s capital. Qirmizi Qasaba (Red Colony or Krasnaya Sloboda as it is known in Russian) was founded on the site of the destroyed Jewish town of Kulgat. In 1797 Surhay Khan of the Kazikumyks (from Dagestan) also destroyed another Jewish town, Aba-Saba, in 1797.

The Jewish community experienced a true renaissance under the benign rule of Fatali Khan of Quba (1758-89). Fatali Khan provided protection to the Jewish community and attracted numerous Jews from outlying regions of Dagestan, Baku and Gilan. Jewish artisans, silk weavers, gardeners and merchants contributed significantly to the economy of the khanate under his rule. Fatali Khan left an indelible mark of gratitude in the memory of Azerbaijani Jews so that his name is commemorated in the name of the main street of Krasnaya Sloboda, which has survived the Soviet period^[12]. The Jews settled in Qirmizi Qasaba and formed particular quarters on the basis of their place of their origin, e.g. Gilan, Tehran, Turkey and Dagestan^[13].

Mountain Jews flourish as farmers under Russian rule

All these waves of Jewish migration formed a nucleus of Mountain Jews of Azerbaijan and Dagestan. They call themselves Juhur. They speak the Tat language, a dialect of Persian.  In 1806 northern Azerbaijan was annexed to the Russian Empire (a status that was officially confirmed by the 1813 Treaty of Gulustan)^[14]. Colonial Russian rule marked a new chapter in the history of Azerbaijan and its Jewish population. This period was characterized by the development of capitalism, westernized ("Russified") education and the integration of the local economy into the international market system. The strong non-Muslim colonial ruler elicited strong reactions from the traditional Muslim religious elites in the Caucasus. Russian settlement in Dagestan exacerbated popular perceptions of foreign invasion and occupation stirred by the more radical interpretation of Islam among Naqshbandiyya, a Sufi tariqate led by Sheikh Shamil. Shamil raised a rebellion of the Murids, his followers, in Dagestan and Chechnya (1834-58). During the anti-Russian Shamil mutiny, which enveloped some regions of northern Azerbaijan, there were numerous bloody attacks on the Jewish population. Shamil practised forced conversion as part of the jihad and thus whole Jewish villages were converted to Islam. The main economic activity of Mountain Jews was agriculture. They were involved primarily in wine-making, forbidden to Muslims, fisheries and medium scale cultivation of madder, the region´s main source of textile dyes. The first Jewish millionaires in Azerbaijan, the Hanukayevs, were major producers and exporters of wine to Russian and Western markets. Another family of local Jewish tycoons, the Dadashevs, also owned wineries and fisheries on the Caspian. During the first oil boom in the 1880s, they owned shipping and dock facilities in Baku^[15]. As a result of the development and penetration of Western industrially-produced aniline dyes, the madder growers lost business and turned to small-scale trade or became seasonal workers in Baku and Derbent. The Jews of Azerbaijan excelled in vine growing even during the Soviet period, when they were organized in Soviet collective farms.

In the 1820s-30s the Mountain Jews established the first contacts with Russian-speaking Ashkenazi Jews and started sending their young to Russian education centres. In the late 19th century, the Mountain Jews became active in the process of the Jewish settlement of Palestine. A delegation of Mountain Jews took part in the Second Zionist Congress in Basel in 1898. Assaf Pinkhasov translated from Russian to Judeo-Persian the book Zionism by Dr Yoseph Sapira in 1903. This book, published in Vilnius, was the first book published in the Tat language^[16].

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Bibliography

1. Interview with Eljan Mammedov, a son of a popular Azerbaijani writer a historian and journalist of Express newspaper, August 3, 2004.

2. Arye Wasserman, The Jerusalem Post, 4 January 1992, quoted in "CIS, Baltic States and Georgia: Situation of the Jews" (Ottawa, Canada: Immigration and Refugee Board Documentation Centre, July 1992), p. 21.

3. Personal Interview with Semyon Borisovich Ikhilov, the head of the community of Azerbaijani Mountain Jews, Baku, 30 July 2004); Moisey Bekker, Yevrei Azerbaidzhana: Istoria i Sovremennost (Jews of Azerbaijan: History and Modernity) (Ozan, Baku, 2000) p.104

4. Massoume Price, A Brief History of Iranian Jews (September 2001) Source: http://www.iranchamber.com/religions/history_of_iranian_jews1.php .

5. Bekker, op. cit., p. 13; See details in an Interview with Shirin Manafov, Pechalnaya uchast drevnego Shabrana (The Sad Fate of Ancient Shabran), source:http://www.azerros.ru/modules.php?op=modload&name=PagEd&file=index&topic_id=28&page_id=121

6. Igrar Aliyev, Istoriya Azerbaijana: S Drevneyshih Vremen do Nacahala XX veka (Baku: Elm, 1995) p.190

7. Azerbaijan in KEE, vol 1, col.57.

8. Bekker, op .cit., p.14.

9. Azerbaijan, KEE, vol.1,col.58.

10. Gorskiye Yevrei (Mountain Jews) in KEE, vol 2, col.183.

11. Bekker, op. cit., p. 21

12. Ibid.

13. Personal communication with a Mountain Jew elder in Krasnaya Sloboda, 6 August 2004

14. Igrar Aliyev, op .cit., p.281.

15. Gorskiye Yevrei in KEE, vol 2, col.184; Bekker, op. cit., p.21

16. Gorskiye Yevrei, ibid., col. 187.