Pre-Zionist pogroms and persecution of Jews in the “Islamicate” world

The entire history of the development of Anti-Jewish propaganda in Ithnā’ `Ashariyyah Shī`īsm is too long a history to recount here. It will suffice, however, to jump forward a few centuries to the Allāhdad massacre of 1839 in Iran. The dismal picture of the severe limitations imposed on Jewish residents, clearly, as the author of Jādīd Al-Islām, Raphael Patai writes, “with the avowed purpose of humiliating them” is found in two surviving lists of prohibitions, one before the Allāhdad and one three decades after it.

1. The Jews who pay no taxes have no claim to safety.
2. A convert who returns to his Judaism is to be punished by death.
3. If Jews and Muslims have a quarrel, woe to the Jew who comes to the help of his brethren: his punishment is death.
4. A Jew who calls upon Allāh or his Prophet to help him against a Muslim will be put to death.
5. The Jews are forbidden to build prayer houses in cities where Muslims live.
6. The house of a Jew must not be higher than that of a Muslim
7. A Jew must wear a badge on his coat, and his garb must be different from that of a Muslim.
8. When riding a donkey, a Jew must keep his two legs hanging down on one side of the animal.
9. A Jew is forbidden to purchase a horse for himself.
10. A Jew is forbidden to carry arms.
11. A Jew must walk at the very side of the street.
12. A Jewish woman must not dress like a Muslim woman: she is not allowed to wear a veil over her head.
13. The blood-price of a Jew is forty toman.
14. If a Jew converts [to Islām], all the property of his family passes to him.

Patai clarifies that the side of the road was used as effectively a sewer, and that the price of forty toman was significantly lower than the price for a Muslim. In 1870 Muḥammad `Abdullāh issued the second, further decree:

1. On a rainy day a Jew must no go out into the street.
2. The veil of a Jewish woman must be of two colors.
3. The Jews must wear coats of blue color.
4. A Jew must step aside to let a Muslim pass.
5. A Jew must not raise his voice when speaking to a Muslim.
6. A Jew must ask in a tremulous and submissive voice the payment of a debt by a Muslim.
7. He must not wear a matching pair of shoes.
8. He must listen to insults by a Muslim with a lowered head and without opening his mouth.
9. A Jew must wrap up thoroughly the meat he buys, lest a Muslim eye see the impurity.
10. A Jew must not dwell in a beautiful house.
11. He must not clear the furniture of his house.
12. The door of his house must be low.
13. A Jew must not take off his coat and carry it in his hands.
14. A Jew must not comb his beard.
15. He must not take walks outside the city.
16. A Jewish physician is not allowed to ride a horse.
17. If a Jew is found drunk in the street, his punishment is death.
18. A Jewish wedding must be arranged in secret and without any noise.
19. A Jew must not eat fruits, except rotten ones.

We do not need to wonder at the purpose of so many of these regulations. Their primary objective was to utterly humiliate Jewish residents, in as many ways as imaginable. These were not merely products of the 19th century in Iran but dated back, easily to the restrictions contained in Jāmi’-I `Abbāsī (The `Abbāsian Collector), Muḥammad al-`Amili’s (1547-1621) popular collection of Shī`ī law, as it had been codified formally by the time of Shah `Abbās I (1571-1629). So while the Ithnā’ `Ashari line of Shī`īsm does not appear to be the earliest example in that minority of such policies of Jewish oppression, it did not take long before they filed in line with the examples set by both the Zaidīyyah and Fātimid Dynasty.