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This chapter draws from the field of comparative religion in order to map out the prospects and pitfalls of juxtaposing the Talmudic and Middle Persian corpora, a task beset with significant limitations. Building on the writings of Jonathan Z. Smith, this chapter argues that the best comparative approaches toward Talmudic and Middle Persian literatures are ones that seek a nuanced application of sameness and difference and avoid humanistic attempts at harmonization. Instead of forcing insular, exegetical Talmudic and Middle Persian texts into dialogue with one another through parallel taxonomies, this chapter explains why the rabbis are insular in a diverse social context and how comparativists can differentiate between (a) which types of data are phenomenological affinities between two ancient religions in contact, and (b) which are evidence of intercultural activity. After this theoretical discussion of comparison, the chapter goes on to provide readers with a sweeping overview of the Middle Persian (Pahlavi) corpus, highlighting the key differences between it and the Talmud, such as their dates and transmissional backgrounds, as well as those sources that prove most useful for Talmudic studies, such as the Book of a Thousand Judgments, the Zand-Avesta, and archaeological relics such as seals and inscriptions.

This chapter aims to draw attention to the importance of coin iconography in the Parthian and Sasanian periods and to suggest an alternative approach to the conventional reading of the symbolism. The iconography of Iranian coins after the conquest of Alexander shows similarity with the iconography of Seleucid coins, and in both cases the king on the obverse enjoys divine support. The chapter suggests that the iconography of pre-Islamic Iranian coins must therefore be understood not as part of the Hellenistic tradition but should be seen within its Iranian/Zoroastrian context.

This chapter discusses some observations about dakhmas in Zoroastrianism during the Sasanian period in Bandiyan based on 1994 archaeological excavations. On the basis of the evidence gathered, it can be concluded that every religion, including Zoroastrianism, has undergone changes due to social and political pressures. The chapter argues that the unusual and unexpected range of buildings discovered at Bandiyan are of exceptional importance and have opened a new chapter in the religious architecture of the Sasanian period.

The first references to Hermes and his works in Arabic appear among the Iranian astrologers at the court of the ʿAbbāsid caliphs during the second half of the 8th century. These astrologers knew works of Hermes written in Middle Persian. This chapter investigates the existence of this pre-Islamic tradition of Hermetica in Arabic. First it verifies that Middle Persian Hermetica did indeed exist, although no Hermetic work survives in Middle Persian today. Then it investigates the extant accounts of how Hermetica came to be translated into Middle Persian in the Sasanian Empire. The chapter includes an extended discussion of precisely when these Middle Persian works were composed or translated from Greek. The extant sources suggest, albeit inconclusively, that Greek Hermetica were translated into Arabic already in the 3rd century. The pre-Islamic Persian Hermetic tradition provides a historical basis for understanding the origins of the Arabic Hermetica and the earliest Arabic accounts of Hermes’ identity.

The Talmud includes around two dozen passages about the Arsacid or Sasanian monarchs Ardawan IV, Shapur I, Shapur II, Yazdegird I, and Peroz. This chapter researches the Talmudic texts that describe the rabbis and Persian kings in dialogue with one another. Although the sage-king dialogues do not contain direct citations from Middle Persian sources, they nevertheless were influenced by the Sasanian Empire’s historiography and propaganda about the deeds of these monarchs. As this chapter shows, the Persian context affects the way in which the Talmud depicts the monarchs as symbols of authority.

Rome and Sasanian Iran's fraught relationship as brothers and enemies was the crucible that forged the late antique Mediterranean, Europe, and western Asia. The end result of their coexistence was not just an exchange of cultural material, but a truly global, cross-cultural, and extrareligious language of debate and legitimacy. Despite the collapse of the Sasanian empire and the radical transformation of the Roman empire after the Muslim invasions, the traditions of the earth's two eyes survived this cataclysmic period and endured long after the empires themselves fell. The meeting and melding of Roman and Sasanian practices of kingship shaped the expression of power in the Mediterranean, Near East, Central and South Asia, and China from the Middle Ages to the seventeenth century. Despite the destruction of the old order, Rome and Sasanian Iran's relationship indelibly imprinted world politics and symbolics of power for almost a millennium thereafter, serving as a prestigious template for the exercise of power and diplomacy from the Atlantic to Central and South Asia.

This chapter discusses the challenge of determining how modern Persia/Iran might value Alexander. The land whose great empire had been destroyed by Alexander did not forget its conqueror and could even be more inclined to forgive him. Indeed, it proved to have the longest memory of antiquity, although not in the immediate aftermath of its defeat. There is virtually nothing of Alexander in Parthian story or art, and Sasanian art appears to ignore him, often in favour of more “classical” subjects. In the years before the advent of Islam, there was knowledge of the Alexander Romances via the Pahlavi and Arabic versions, but then two great compilations of Persian history gave him prominence, as did artists.

This chapter explores the ties between the Babylonian rabbis and Zoroastrian priests in judicial contexts. After giving a detailed review of the philological background of the two terms that the Talmud uses in reference to the Persian priests (amgosha and chabarim), this chapter then delves into the historical context of Jewish and Persian courts of law in the Sasanian Empire. As demonstrated in the Book of a Thousand Judgments and seals, the Zoroastrian priesthood, which was composed of administrative mowbeds and scholar-priests called herbeds, functioned in numerous capacities in Sasanian society that exhibit both similarities to and differences from the role of the rabbis in Jewish society. This chapter argues that the Jewish courts—and especially the role of the public experts (mumkheh) —were to some degree a subsystem of the Sasanian judicial structure that supported the adjudication of monetary and other noncriminal cases by local non-imperial authorities. In the end, the representations of the Zoroastrian priests in the Babylonian Talmud are illuminated by keeping an eye open toward the social ties between the Jews and Persians in courts of law.

This chapter examines the rhetoric of family relations in Sasanian martyr literature, focusing on the legend of Mar Qardagh. Familial strife is a critical leitmotif of the Qardagh legend, yet there has been no previous commentary on this aspect of the legend. En route to his martyrdom, Qardagh separates himself from the obligations invoked by his parents, wife, father-in-law, and other “noble relatives,” only to be executed by his own father. Both the historical and the narrative dimensions of these events require explication. The fierce clash between Qardagh and his father assumes a familiarity with the traditions of Sasanian patriarchy, revealed for instance in Zoroastrian law. The hagiographer understood, and expected his audience to recognize, the normative family structures of the Persian (and “Persianized”) elites of late Sasanian Iraq. Identifying and defining these Sasanian elements clarifies the hagiographer's distinctive rendition of the topos of familial renunciation.

This concluding chapter traces the development of the relationship between the Church of the East and the Iranian Empire, which took shape over the course of two centuries. It details how Christians were the unwavering allies of Iran, even potentially more committed to the Sasanian dynasty than the Iranian aristocrats who had abandoned Yazdgird III, the last king of kings. It also discusses the integration of Christian elites and institutions into the imperial network during the reign of Husraw II; East Syrian elites' participation in Iranian political culture; and how East Syrians were as much the heirs of Iran as were their Zoroastrian peers.

The Quṣayr 'Amra bathing beauty panel was placed right next to the six kings. It now more or less obliges us to suppose that the Umayyads deployed a similar plan in one or more of their grander baths. The Sasanians set an example the Umayyads followed, perhaps in part because the later Sasanian kings' model of perfect beauty had been none other than an Arab girl. Quṣayr 'Amra offers valuable confirmation and illustration of tastes which are also abundantly attested in classical Arabic literature, though the fact that most of these texts reached their present form under the Abbasids often undermines one's confidence in their authenticity as sources for the Umayyad period. It would not have been surprising had Shāh-i Āfrīd's appearance on the wall at Quṣayr 'Amra evoked stories about other princesses too.

The Res Gestae Diυ‎i Saporis (RGDS) is an extraordinary inscriptional document, an account given by the Sasanian king Shāpūr I (240-271) of his empire, its extent and structure, of some of his exploits, mainly his wars against the Romans, and of some honours bestowed on distinguished members of the royal court, both living and dead. The name Res Gestae is therefore far from being an accurate description of the nature of this document, since it is appropriate only for one part of it, which by no means intends to cover the whole extent of the king’s exploits. The inscription was set up in three languages: Middle Persian (now much mutilated), Parthian, and Greek. This chapter examines who the Greek-reading destinees of Sasanian royal propaganda in the district of Stakhr were supposed to be and the implications of the use of the Greek language on a royal monument erected at a spot beyond the range of Greek civilisation.

This chapter deals with the degree to which the earliest phase of Islamic history (seventh and early eighth centuries) exhibits continuity with the patterns of urban and rural life in the preceding centuries (i.e. late antiquity). The first section deals with the earliest archaeological evidence for the new Muslim community in the seventh century, and concentrates upon monumental inscriptions and texts found on portable objects such as coins and papyri. The second section presents a brief survey of the archaeology of late antiquity in the Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia. The final section is concerned with the elite residences (qusur) constructed in Greater Syria during the late seventh and the first half of the eighth century. The distribution and morphology of these structures is considered in relation to the architectural patronage of other Arab groups between the fifth and the early seventh centuries.