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JewishHistoryעברית

Allahdad of Mashhad

Date
27 March 1839Hebrew date: 12th of Nisan, 5599
Location
MashhadIran
Then part of
Qajar Iran
Perpetrators
  • Muslim crowd in Mashhad (Mob)
Killed (estimate)
32 – 36[1]Jews killed before the surviving community converted. Encyclopaedia Iranica gives 32; Joseph Wolff, who visited about seven years later, gives 35; Raphael Patai gives 36.
Locality

1.6% – 1.8% of the Jewish population of Mashhad[1]

Country

0.064% – 0.09% of the Jewish population of Qajar Iran (c. 1935)[42]

Worldwide

0.00098% – 0.0011% of the worldwide Jewish population (c. 1825)[15]

Category
Pogrom, Forced conversion, Massacre
Confidence
Medium

Summary

On 27 March 1839 (11 Muharram 1255) a Muslim crowd entered the Jewish quarter of Mashhad. Encyclopaedia Iranica records that the attackers murdered 32 Jews, injured others, and offered the remaining community, about 2,000 people, death or conversion to Islam. Joseph Wolff later wrote that a Jewish woman had been told by a Muslim physician to immerse a sore hand in a dog's blood, that the crowd treated this as an insult to the Prophet, and that 35 Jews were killed in a few minutes before the rest converted. The converts were called Jadid al-Islam (new Muslims) and called themselves anusim; they took Muslim names, attended mosques, and practised Judaism in secret. Some families left for Herat and other towns. The day is known as the Allahdad.

Sources

  1. Amnon Netzer, CONVERSION iv. Of Persian Jews to other religions. Encyclopaedia Iranica
  2. Joseph Wolff, Narrative of a Mission to Bokhara in the Years 1843-1845. Harper & Brothers (Internet Archive) (1845)
  3. Raphael Patai, Jadid Al-Islam. Wayne State University Press (1997)
  4. Daniel Tsadik, JUDEO-PERSIAN COMMUNITIES v. QAJAR PERIOD (1). Encyclopaedia Iranica

Jewish population (estimates)

  • Worldwide: 3,281,000[15]c. 1825DellaPergola's Fundamentals Table 2 gives 3,281,000 Jews worldwide in 1825.
  • Qajar Iran: 40,000 – 50,000[42]c. 1935AJYB 1940–41 lists 40,000 for Persia. AJYB 1946–47 lists 50,000 for Iran in 1939 and 1945. These are late-Qajar / early-Pahlavi Year Book labels for the Iranian state; no opened page gave a verified countrywide Jewish total for Mashhad 1839 or Shiraz 1910. Use only as a late Qajar/early Pahlavi polity snapshot, not as an 1839/1910 figure.
  • Mashhad: 2,000[1]Probably about 2,000 Jews in Mashhad in March 1839, the community then given the choice of death or conversion. Encyclopaedia Iranica states this figure beside the killing of 32 Jews.

Sources for population estimates

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  3. Jewish Population of Europe in 1933. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
  4. Jewish Population of the World. American Jewish Year Book 1948–1949, via Berman Jewish Policy Archive (1949)
  5. Maristella Botticini and Zvi Eckstein, Voluntary Conversions and Diaspora: A Human Capital Interpretation of Jewish History. American Economic Association annual meeting paper (2007)
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  9. The Contagion of Violence. 1391 and the Jews of the Spanish Kingdoms. Palgrave / Springer chapter (preview) (2021)
  10. Maristella Botticini and Zvi Eckstein, Religious Norms, Human Capital, and Money Lending in Jewish European History. Handbook chapter PDF via zvi-eckstein.com
  11. Sergio DellaPergola, Some Fundamentals of Jewish Demographic History. Berman Jewish Policy Archive (PDF) (2001)
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