The Curious Case of the Jewish Sasanian Queen Sisinduxt: Exilarchal Propaganda and Zoroastrians in Tenth- to Eleventh-Century Baghdad.

• Author: Gross, Simcha

A well-known Pahlavi text called Sahrestaniha i Eransahr (The Provincial Capitals of Eransahr; henceforth The Provincial Capitals) describes the provinces and major cities of the Sasanian empire, and supplies a number of them with short foundation myths. In describing the establishment of the cities Susa and Sustar in Khuzistan, The Provincial Capitals reports: (1)

The cities of Susa and Sustar were built by Sisinduxt, the wife of Yazdgird, the son of Sabuhr, since she was the daughter of the exilarch (res-galudag), the king of the Jews (jahudagdn sah), and was also the mother of Wahram Gor. (2) According to this account, Sisinduxt, the daughter of a prominent Jewish figure, married the Sasanian king Yazdgird I (r. 399-420), birthed the next Sasanian king Wahram Gor (r. 420-438), and was powerful enough in her own right to establish two major Persian cities, Susa and Sustar. Her father is identified as the exilarch, the head of a dynastic Babylonian Jewish family and institution that claimed genealogical descent from King David. The exilarchate rose to prominence in the Sasanian period (224-651) and continued to be deeply influential within Jewish circles until well into the Middle Ages. (3) The Provincial Capitals uses the term res-galudag to describe the exilarch, a reworking of the Aramaic res galutha, meaning "head of the Diaspora," and characterizes the office as jahudagan sah, meaning "king of the Jews" in Pahlavi.

STsTnduxt appears two other times in The Provincial Capitals. In the first, she is credited with the establishment of the major Jewish community in Gay in the province of Isfahan: (4)

The city of Gay was built by the accursed Alexander, the son of Philip. The dwelling of the Jews was there. During the reign of Yazdgird, the son of Sabuhr, (the Jews) were led there by the request of STsTnduxt who was his wife. (5) Sisinduxt last appears in passing in a notice about prince Narseh, another son of Yazdgird I, who is also said to be "the son of the Jew(ess)" and to have established Khwarazm. (6)

The Provincial Capitals is the only text to mention Sisinduxt. (7) It is also the only Pahlavi source to expressly acknowledge the institution of the exilarchate.

As a historical source, The Provincial Capitals is subject to many of the uncertainties familiar to scholars of Pahlavi literature, including the date of the work's compilation and composition. In its current form, The Provincial Capitals certainly postdates the Sasanian period; for example, it mentions the second 'Abbasid caliph al-Mansur (r. 754-775 CE) and the foundation of Baghdad (ca. 762 CE). (8) The earliest manuscript dates to the fourteenth century but is likely a copy of earlier texts. Thus, we can suggest with some confidence that the text as it now stands likely dates from sometime between the ninth and eleventh centuries. (9)

Sisinduxt's story is, of course, entrancing, and it has potentially vast implications for the history of Jews in the Sasanian empire--but is it historically reliable? If Sisinduxt did indeed exist, this would suggest that Jews reached the highest positions of power and influence in the Sasanian empire to the point that the King of Kings himself viewed the Jewish exilarch as a figure worthy of an alliance through marriage. Most earlier scholars assumed that Sisinduxt was in fact a historical figure, even if they questioned the veracity of specific aspects of The Provincial Capitals' account. (10)

However, more recent scholars have concluded that the Sisinduxt story is fictional." They base their view on a number of arguments. First, as noted above, the story lacks corroborating evidence in any Jewish or non-Jewish literature. Second, certain elements of the story are clearly fictitious, such as the claim that the Jews settled Gay through Sisinduxt's intervention, a claim that is contradicted by the Armenian historians, Movses Xorenac'i and P (c)awstos Buzand, and various Arabic sources that place the Jews' settlement in the province of Isfahan in an earlier period and under different circumstances. (12) Third, the name Sisinduxt means literally "the daughter of Susa," which suggests that Sisinduxt was not a real name but rather an epithet selected in order to associate her with the establishment of Susa. (13) Fourth, Sisinduxt's connection to Susa bears a striking similarity to that of the biblical queen Esther, who also lived in Susa and wed a Persian king. This suggests that the Sisinduxt story is in some fashion a reworking of that older tale. (14) Finally, Jewish sources about the exilarchate in the fifth century indicate that the Sasanian king would likely not have considered the exilarch a prominent enough figure to merit an association through marriage. Indeed, the story's portrayal of the exilarch as "king of the Jews" vastly overstates his standing under Sasanian rule. (15)

There are also source-critical indications that the Sisinduxt story is an external source that was added to The Provincial Capitals. For example, in Wahram Gor's other appearances in the text, he is identified only as the son of Yazdgird, without mention of Sisinduxt. (ifl) The account of Sisinduxt and the origins of the Jewish community of Isfahan is also presented in a highly atypical manner; nowhere else does The Provincial Capitals offer an account of a particular religious or ethnic subgroup. (17)

If indeed a fiction, the story of Sisinduxt gives rise to a series of important historical and historiographic questions concerning its formation. For example, who authored this unusual story? What purpose(s) would a fictional story about the marriage of King Yazdgird to the exilarch's daughter serve? And finally, how did the story come to be included in a Zoroastrian Middle Persian source?

Due to the story's uncertain historicity, the answers to these questions will necessarily remain tentative. In what follows, I suggest a plausible context for the story, arguing that it is a fictional product of tenth- through eleventh-century Babylonian Jewish institutional and political life. This legend was most likely produced in Baghdad, and reflects Jewish participation in broader political and cultural trends of the time. Ultimately, this story reveals lines of transmission between Zoroastrians and Jews, and offers a new perspective on the cultural context underlying the creation of The Provincial Capitals.

THE AUTHOR

It is unlikely that the figure of Sisinduxt was a Zoroastrian creation. What would a Zoroastrian author hope to gain by imagining a marriage between a Sasanian king and the daughter of the exilarch, providing Jewish ancestry to King Wahram Gor and attributing the establishment of a number of prominent Sasanian cities to this queen?

There is one figure who did have much to gain from such claims: the exilarch. Each of these claims serves to dignify and socially elevate him and his household. Indeed, the overblown title "king of the Jews" echoes the exilarch's professed descent from King David. This claim--already in circulation during the Sasanian period--gained special prominence under 'Abbasid rule when a fascination with noble ancestry (nasab) and descent from the house of Muhammad (ahl al-bayt) carried great cachet. (18) The exilarch constantly promoted and reinforced his claim to Davidic ancestry through publicly orchestrated events, pictorial representations, genealogical lists, and more. (19) The Jewish and Muslim fascination with noble genealogy, coupled with the exilarch's own promotional efforts, created a receptive audience for these claims. (20) For example, in the elaborate picture painted in Nathan HaBavli's tenth-century Ta'rikh al-Baghddd, the exilarch is described as riding in a carriage "like the carriage of the king's ministers," and traveling with "his entire cohort, and his progress resembles that of one of the king's ministers." (21) These claims are confirmed by Arabic authors as well; al-BTrunT reports that "the ra's al-jalut [Arabic rendering of res galutha]... is the master of every Jew in the world, and the one who rules over them." (22) Thus, The Provincial Capital's identification of the exilarch as "king of the Jews" fits well within this cultural context, reflecting both exilarchal claims and their popular acceptance. That this source emerged from the exilarch is supported by the fact that the Pahlavi term for exilarch in The Provincial Capitals--res-galudag--is clearly dependent on the Aramaic rendering of the exilarch's title (res galutha) rather than the Arabic (ra's al-jalut).

Inventing a political marriage between a Sasanian king and a daughter of the exilarch would indicate the latter's recognition as royalty not just by Jews but by the imperial power itself. The choice of a Sasanian king as the foil for this story likely dates the creation of this story to the tenth through eleventh centuries, as during this period claims of descent from Sasanian nobility proliferated as part of a broader resurgence of Persian identity. (23) This period also saw renewed interest in Persian history and culture, especially as it pertained to the Sasanian empire, royal dynasty, and court, leading to the influence of Sasanian courtly culture and belles lettres on the (c)Abbasid court and Perso-Arabic literature. (24) Elites from caliphs to poets bragged about their noble pedigrees which traced back to the Sasanians. (25) For instance, al-Husayn ibn (C)A1T was said to have married the daughter of the last Sasanian king, while many sources say that YazTd Ill's mother was the granddaughter of Yazdgird III (r. 632-651). (26) This interest in noble Persian genealogy therefore likely produced a parallel interest in the exilarch's connection to the Sasanian dynasty. (27)

Indeed, a number of dynasties at this time laid claim to Sasanian descent, leading scholars to dub this period the "Iranian intermezzo." (28) These dynasties included the Tahirids in ninth-century Khorasan, the $affarids in ninth- through...