From Parthian to Sasanian Babylonia

At the Battle of Hormozdgan in 224 CE, the last Parthian ruler, Artabanus IV, was defeated by Ardashir I, the founder of the Sasanian Empire. The Sasanians ruled the region until the beginning of the Muslim conquest in the mid-seventh century CE. The Sasanians were adherents of Zoroastrianism, the ancient Iranian religion, which they established as the official religion of the empire. Zoroastrian priests, called magi, filled important roles in the Sasanian bureaucracy, including judicial positions.

Although most Jews who came under Sasanian sovereignty were concentrated in Mesopotamia and western Iran, Jewish communities extended to Armenia and Georgia. Later, from the second half of the sixth century CE to the eleventh century CE, the so-called Babylonian Jewish community—that is, the community that took root in this region during the time of the Babylonian exile in the late sixth century BCE and lived there for millennia—would become one of the most influential in Jewish history. This influence was primarily due to the rise of the geonim, the heads of the rabbinic academies of Sura and Pumbedita—named after their initial third-century CE locations, two towns on the Euphrates. At the end of the ninth century CE, these academies relocated to Baghdad, where the geonim studied, interpreted, and disseminated the Babylonian Talmud throughout the early medieval Jewish world.

For reasons not fully understood, the appearance of the Babylonian rabbinic community more or less coincided with the rise of the Sasanians. Talmudic passages depict, for example, a founding member of the Babylonian rabbinic community known as Rav mourning the last Parthian emperor, Artabanus IV (r. 213–224 CE). Other talmudic anecdotes imagine rabbis—especially Rav’s regular interlocutor, Samuel of Nehardea—in conversation with, and even performing for, the newly minted Sasanian royals. The historicity of these sources is debatable, and they most likely reflect minority fantasies of proximity to the royal court. At the same time, however, there is a historical record of another minority religious figure who gained notice in the Sasanian court: Mani. The founder of Manichaeism preached to royals like King Shapur I (r. 241–272 CE) and was later executed by King Bahram I (r. 271–274 CE).

As is the case with other religious minorities, Jews are not mentioned in any Sasanian royal inscriptions. Nevertheless, Jews do appear in a third-century CE inscription that was commissioned by a Zoroastrian priest named Kartīr (also spelled Kerdēr, Kirdēr, or Kirdīr), who rose to prominence in the first decades of the Sasanian Empire. Jews also appear in the Dēnkard, the largest collection of Middle Persian Zoroastrian traditions to have survived from late antiquity.