Kalīmī

Persian Jewry is among the oldest diaspora communities, its ancestors brought to Iran as Assyrian and Babylonian captives from the eighth century BCE. Cyrus's conquest of Babylon in 538 BCE let the exiles return to Jerusalem, but many remained. After the Arab conquest they lived as dhimmis, paying the jizya yet often prospering as physicians and artisans, their Judeo-Persian dialects written in Hebrew letters.

Mongol rule brought reversals: the Jew Sa'd al-Dawla was raised to the vizierate and murdered in 1291, and after Ghazan's conversion in 1295 the Ilkhan Öljaitü destroyed synagogues and imposed a head mark. Timur's conquests from 1383 scattered the communities further.

The Safavids made Twelver Shi'ism the state religion in 1502 and classed Jews as ritually unclean; Abbas II expelled them from Isfahan in 1656 and forced conversion, permitting return to Judaism only in 1661 under a dress badge, and Qajar rule from 1794 brought renewed persecution.