RELIGIOUS COMMUNITIEStury A.D. that survived into the Sasanian and Islamic periods in reduced
numbers,13 and there were Jews in the subdistricts of Qardo and Ba-
zabda.I4
In absolute terms, the size of the Jewish population of Iraq was
growing in the Parthian and early Sasanian periods, reached its peak
in about the early fifth century and then began to decline. Neusner
estimates that there were about half a million Jews in the third cen-
tury.15 But their numbers were still increasing through conversion. In
the second quarter of the fourth century there is a reference to a woman
convert whose brothers remained pagan, and Rabbi Judah (ca. 500)
was a former Hindu convert.^16 The Jews of Mahoza were largely
descended from converts; the population of Nehardea was mixed with
many converts and former slaves; all of the inhabitants at Bekube near
Pumbaditha were former slaves; and the Jews of Maysan were con-
sidered to be of largely mixed descentY Consequently, Grayzel's es-
timate of a maximum of two million Jews in IraqIS may have been
approached by about 500.
Conversion to Judaism among the native population of Iraq appears
to have declined from the fifth century on, although additions through
the 'conversion of slaves continued through the late Sasanian period
and well into the Islamic period. Losses through conversion to Chris-
tianity began in the late Parthian period but increased at the end of
the Sasanian period, when they were probably a factor in the absolute
decline in the number of Jews. In the late sixth century, Jews were
converted to Christianity at Nineveh and Haditha and possibly at
Sinjar.^19
However, the decrease in numbers which began in the late Sasanian
period was slight and occurred mainly among the Jewish population
outside of or opposed to the Rabbinic community that had formed in
central Iraq. The estimate of one and one-half million non-Muslim
Aramaeans in the Sawad of Kufa in the mid-seventh century refers to
J3 Berliner, Geographie, pp. 53-54; Obermeyer, Landschaft Babylonien, p. 129; Rod-
kinson, Talmud, XV, "Sanhedrin," 100; idem, XVIII, "Abuda Zara," 67; Voobus,
"School of Nisibis." p. 139.
14 Obermeyer, Landschaft Babylonien, p. 133.
15 Neusner, Talmudic Judaism, p. 95.
16 Newman, Agricultural Life, pp. 68, 121.
17 Berliner, Geographie, pp. 17,27,41,47-51; Neubauer, Geographie, p. 357.
18 S. Grayzel, A History of the Jews (Philadelphia, 1968), p. 227.
19 Corluy, "Abdu'l Masich," p. 46; Budge, Rabban Hormizd, 1,172; H, 261; Scher,
"Histoire nestorienne," H(2), 473.