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206 iisuu;i. W |S| I’KUSIAN GUI.I- ANI) ITS JI-WISII SliTTI.HMKNTS 207

ample evidence of llie existence of a Jewish settlement in their Also Siraf on the Persian shore of the Persian Gulf was
time. it the seat of a Jewish settlement towards the end of the 10th
O m a n, the territory south of Bahrain, on the tip of the century. Siraf became at that time the principal port, an inter­
Arabian peninsula and on the very outlet of the Persian Gulf national trading center, for the whole Orient, where merchandise
into the Indian Ocean, also was a sent of Jewish activities. from and for Yemen, India and China, was loaded and unloaded.
The presence of Jewish merchants in Oman is well attested It was one of the most prosperous trade stations, and the
for the 10th century by a Persian ship captain, Buzurg ibn !.?• merchants of Siraf were regarded as the wealthiest of all Persia.
Shahriyarof Kamhormuz (900-953)" in his story about a wealthy a Their luxurious houses and mansions, as well as their enormous
Jew, Isaak of Oman, who after a dispute with another Jew in fortunes have been mentioned by Arabic geographers. In this
Oman, left Oman and went to India; but after an absence of prosperity of Siraf, Jews also participated very prominently. We
thirty years, returned on his own ship with a tremendous fortune do not know the size of the Jewish community, but its promi­
pained as a result of his commercial activities. In arranpinp the nence is attested by the fact that the governor of that city for some
customs and the payment of the tithe, Isaak came to an under- time was a Jew by the name of Ruzbah, or Koz-bih (Yomtob)."
standinp with the povernor of Oman, Ahmad ibn Hillal, which Siraf served also as the center of Jewish commercial activities
involved a sum of more than a million dirhams. The preat for the more remote Jewish communities in the interior of Persia.
fortune of Isaak, so it is reported, had aroused the jealousy of The principal towns of the Persian provinces, Kars and Khuzis-
l
the officials in Baghdad, to whom it was pointed out that “a man / lau, had large Jewish communities which occupied an important
\
had left Oman without anything and had come back on a ship economic position. 'The greater part of the merchants of Tustar
laden with a million dinars worth of musk, as well ns silks and £ in the province of Kars, we are explicitly told, were Jews. In
porcelain of equal value and quite as much again in jewelry i. /■ Isfahan, the so-called "Yahudiyya” quarter had long been known
and stones, not counting a whole heap of marvelous objects as a great center of trade and commerce, In Ahwaz, in the
of Chinese workmanship.” Isaak became aware of an order province of Khuzistait, Jewish money changers and bankers hail
■i
from Baghdad to arrest him, he hurried all his possessions to- a prominent position. And it was just at this time that the
gether, put them on ship-board, and set sail again for China famous Jewish banking firm in Baghdad of Joseph ben Phineas
without leaving a dinar behind in Oman.'*' and Aaron ben Amram conducted their widespread international
activilies in the field of finance and commerce.14
When Siraf ceased to play its prominent role in the 11th cen­
References in llie Jews in Bahrain (luring die nineteenth century ,irc
frequently made by travelers. Mich as I). G. Hogarth: The Penetration of tury, the island of Kish (Kais) in the Persian Gulf became
Arabia 1004: A. /.clinic: Arabicn and die Arabcr 1875: J. J. benjamin II, the great emporium of the overseas trade to India. It is highly
H. A. Stern and others. See Da\ id Gustinsky: The Jews on the Island of
Bahrain" (Hebrew) in Edolh Jerusalem, 1946, Yol. I. p. 238-240. which deals significant that the Jews moved along with the shifting of the
commercial centers in the Persian Gulf, for Benjamin of Tudela
briefly with the small colony of Jewish settlors of today.
" Sec hi*. The Marvels of India, /Published from the Arabic by L. Marcel (1160-1173), the earliest of all Kuropean visitors to the Orient
Dcvic, London 1923, pp. 92-95. (since Arrian's narrative of Xearchus) whose travel story has
11 It is significant that the "Rndaniles", that group of Jewish merchants
from Western Furopc who traveled during the ninth century to the Last as '* See: The Eclipse of the Abbasid Caliphate edit, and transl. by H. F. Amo*
far as China ami India have also used Oman as one of their ports of call in droz and I). S. Margoliouth, Oxford 1921, Vol. Ill, p. 149-150, Vol. VI, p. 155.
their seaborne trade activities. About them see Ibn Khordadhbeh ed. de Gocjc " For documentary evidence of these references see Walter J. Fischel:
(Pibl. (ieo^r. .lr«i/>.) Vol. VI. Leyden 1889, p. 153, and 11m .iI-Fakih ed. de Jews in the Economic and Political Life of Medieuil Islam, London 1937.
Coejc (Hibl. lienor. Arab.), Vol. V, p. 270.
p. 32 If. (Royal Asiatic Society Monographs Vol. XXII)