These rare and unique manuscripts which scattered throughout various collections worldwide have received limited notice in the research of Jewish art and are hardly mentioned in studies of Persian painting.
These manuscripts and their cycles of illustrations can be divided into two main categories: Hebrew transliterations of Persian poetry such as Jāmī’s Yusof va Zoleyḵā and Neẓāmi’s Ḵosrow va Shirin and original works by Jewish Persian poets. In this ample and varied literary corpus only thirteen illustrated manuscripts have been discovered to date. Additionally, JP transcriptions of Persian classical poetry and original JP epics based on biblical and Jewish themes are the most important and significant genre in JP literature. Their subject matter is broad, including Hebrew grammar and lexicography translations of the Bible rabbinical works Midrashim and religious narratives texts about philosophy, science, medicine and magic and historical chronicles. JP manuscripts have been copied by scribes up to the end of the 19 th century. The practice of writing the Persian language in Hebrew letters has been in use by Jews in Iran, Afghanistan and Central Asia as early as the 8 th century. This body of literature contains a wide range of themes – both religious and secular – in prose and verse, with varying styles and levels of sophistication.
Written in Hebrew characters, JP manuscripts and texts are essentially works composed in a Persian dialect that closely resembles ‘classical’ or ‘literary’ Persian combined with Hebrew and Aramaic words.
Over the years the term “Judeo-Persian” (hereafter JP) assumed a wide range of usages and meanings in reference to various literary and cultural aspects of Jewish life across Iran.
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