Dr. Ofir Haim completed his doctoral studies in the Department of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies at the Hebrew University. In the academic year 2020/21, he was a Fulbright postdoctoral fellow at Princeton University. His research concerns the social, intellectual, and linguistic interactions between different religious and ethnic groups in the pre-modern Iranian world. His current project is dedicated to a rich and multi-lingual corpus which was dubbed the “Afghan Geniza.” This textual corpus sheds light on “voiceless” groups that are virtually absent from known sources, particularly the Jewish minority, the rural population and the urban landowners. Through a meticulous reading and translation of the corpus documents, Dr. Haim delves into the everyday experiences of the Jews of eastern Iran and their relationship with the Muslim majority, and provides a fresh outlook on center-periphery relations in the region.

Selected publications:

Haim, Ofir. “The Islamic East.” In The Cambridge History of Judaism, Volume 5, The Middle Ages: The Islamic World, edited by P. Ackerman-Lieberman. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (forthcoming in 2021).

Haim, Ofir. “The Early Judeo-Persian Manuscripts in the British Library and in the National Library of Russia: A Unified Textual Corpus?” Intellectual History of the Islamicate World 9/1-2, 2020. pp. 29-61.

Haim, Ofir. “Acknowledgment deeds (iqrārs) in Early New Persian from the Area of Bāmiyān (395-430 AH/1005-1039 CE).” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 29/3, 2019. pp. 415-446.

Haim, Ofir. “What is the ‘Afghan Genizah’? A Short Guide to the Collection of the Afghan Manuscripts in the National Library of Israel, with the Edition of Two Documents.” Afghanistan 2/1, 2019. pp. 70-90.

Haim, Ofir. “Jews, Landlords and Peasants in the Ghaznavid Bamiyan Hinterland: A Private Archive from the Eleventh Century (Bamiyan Papers/Afghan Genizah).” Atiqot: Publication of the Israel Antiquities Authority 112 (2023): 201-224.

Forthcoming. Haim, Ofir. “The Indian Frontier in the Samanid Period Based on a New Source.” Journal of the American Oriental Society.

Forthcoming. Haim, Ofir. “The Afghan Genizah.” In The New Hebrew Encyclopedia, edited by A. Kasher. Schocken Publishers. [in Hebrew]

 

In Preparation:

Haim, Ofir. Nabi Saqee and Arezou Azad. Ghurid Society and Administration on the Eve of the Mongol Invasion (tentative title). To be submitted for peer review to Edinburgh University Press.

Haim, Ofir. “Landownership and Landholding Patterns in the Early Ghaznavid State” (tentative title). To be submitted to conference proceedings published by Edinburgh University Press.

Haim, Ofir. “The Status of Arabic and Persian in Pre-Mongol Eastern Iran: Legal Writing as a Case Study” (tentative title). To be submitted for peer review to an edited volume published by Edinburgh University Press.