Revisiting Jewish Occupational Choice and Urbanization in Iraq under the Early Abbasids

Abstract

Scholarly consensus currently holds that with the rise of Islam and particularly with the establishment of Abbasid rule, the Jews of Babylonia overwhelmingly shifted from agricultural pursuits to crafts and trade, and that this occupational shift was accompanied by a move to urban environments, particularly to Baghdad. In this article, I challenge this understanding by reviewing and reinterpreting the geonic evidence on which this conjecture is based. I support my view with additional detail both from the geonim themselves and from current research concerning the Abbasid environment in general. I conclude that Jews continued to be involved in agricultural pursuits in rural Iraq well into the Abbasid period. This conclusion may also have implications for those who believe that Jewish urbanization in the seventh and eighth centuries led to a subsequent westward migration from Iraq to the Islamic Mediterranean.