Journal of persianate studies 7 (2014) 1-21

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Bankers and Politics: The Network of Shi‘i

Moneychangers in Eighth-Ninth Century Kufa
and their Role in the Shi‘i Community
Mushegh Asatryan
The Institute of Ismaili Studies, London

Abstract

The article studies the network of moneychangers in the Shi‘i community of Kufa dur-
ing the eighth-ninth centuries. It argues that apart from exchanging currencies, some
of these moneychangers acted as financial agents for the imams, collecting funds from
their following, receiving donations on their behalf, and with the collected money
regulating the internal affairs of the Kufan Shi‘i community. By looking at the history
of the Shi‘i community and, still broader, of the region as a whole, the article seeks to
explain why the group of moneychangers became important among the Kufan Shi‘is,
especially during Ja‘far al-Sadeq’s time and later, while being virtually insignificant at
earlier periods. The article combines a quantitative study of biographical dictionaries
with evidence found in literary accounts.

Keywords

moneychangers – sayrafi – quantitative study – biographical dictionaries – Shi‘ism,

Kufa

* I am immensely grateful to Michael Bates, Gagan Sood, and Matthew Melvin-Koushki, who
read the entire earlier draft of this article, making a number of invaluable comments and
suggestions. An earlier version of the article was presented at the Annual Meeting of the
Middle East Studies Association in 2011, and I am much indebted to Louise Marlow, Hugh
Kennedy, and Maxim Romanov for their stimulating remarks and questions during my pre-
sentation. I am also grateful to Stephen Burge for his advice during the writing of the article,
and to Nuha Al-Sha‘ar for her help in procuring research materials. Finally, I would like to
thank the anonymous reader of the Journal of Persianate Studies for his/her careful reading
and thoughtful comments.

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Introduction

The sixth Shi‘i Imam Ja‘far al-Sādeq (d. 765) was once approached by some of
his followers who complained to him that a certain Mofazzal b. ‘Omar Jo‘fi was
mixing with thugs and wine drinkers, and urged the imam to stop him. Known
by the nickname ‘Sayrafi’, i.e. moneychanger, Mofazzal was well known among
the Kufan Shi‘is and much appreciated by Ja‘far and by his son Imam Musā
Kāzem (d. 799). Upon hearing the accusers, Ja‘far wrote a letter, sealed it, and
asked them to deliver it to him. They brought the letter to Mofazzal, and when
he opened the seal and read it, instead of the imam’s rebuke he found a request
to purchase for the imam several things. When Mofazzal showed the accusers
the imam’s request, they told him that what he was asking for was too much for
them to pay. Mofazzal then summoned his friends, who in no time collected
the needed sum (Kashshi, 326-27).
The protagonist of this hadith is but one of the numerous people with
the occupational name ‘Sayrafi’ (i.e. moneychanger, pl. sayārefa) that appear
in biographical dictionaries, both Shi‘i and Sunni. Exchanging money was
among the many trades practiced in Kufa, and along with ‘Sayrafi’, biographi-
cal dictionaries abound in names such as ‘Khayyāt’ (tailor), ‘Hazzā’’ (cobbler),
‘Sammān’ (seller of oil), ‘Khashshāb’ (seller of wood), etc. (Najāshi I: 130, I: 143,
et passim; Schatzmiller 1994, 101 ff.).1 Moneychangers were an integral part of
the economy of the town, making profit by exchanging high value currency for
petty coins, gold for silver and vice versa, but also lending money and provid-
ing other financial services (Heidemann, 650; Kolayni, V: 244-52; Tusi 1401/1981,
VII: 99-117; Ebn Bābuya III: 183-86).2 As was the case with other professions, the
sayārefa had their own neighborhood that was situated in the southwestern
part of the town, in the quarter of Banu Jazima (Djaït 1986, 276-77; Massignon
III: 49; Balāzori, 285).
In the forthcoming pages I will argue that apart from being a mere episode
from Shi‘i communal life of the eighth century, the above anecdote provides a
window into the inner workings of the imams’ collection and management of
their finances through a network of moneychangers that emerged in Kufa dur-
ing the Imamate of Ja‘far al-Sādeq, and continued under subsequent imams.
I will demonstrate that apart from exchanging currencies, these money-
changers acted as the imams’ financial agents, whose function was to collect

1 For a list of the crafts practiced in the Middle East in the first centuries of Islam by converts
to Islam, see Judah, 167-69.
2 Cf. also Duri, 192; Lindsay, 113; for the functions and practices of moneychangers who lived in
Egypt and North Africa, see Goitein I:234 ff.

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funds from the following of the imams, to receive donations on their behalf,
and with the collected money to regulate the internal affairs of the Kufan
Shi‘is as the imams’ representatives.3 After discussing the role of these money-
changers, I will seek to explain why they became important among the Kufan
Shi‘is, especially during Ja‘far’s time and later, while being virtually insignifi-
cant during earlier periods.
The sources documenting the activities of the Kufan Shi‘i sayārefa are of
two main types. Along with several brief reports in historical works, one finds a
number of hadith in Shi‘i compilations describing events from individual mon-
eychangers’ lives. An unexpectedly rich material is found in Shi‘i biographi-
cal dictionaries, rejāl works.4 Although these often supply a bare minimum
of information about the individuals under scrutiny, they provide an invalu-
able window into the distribution of men with the name ‘Sayrafi’ over time
and space. This, combined with literary accounts about the lives of individual
moneychangers, reveals much valuable insight into the time and place of their
activities, and about their relation to the imams. (For reasons outlined below,
I contend that when a person was called ‘Sayrafi’ in a biographical dictionary,
he most likely was one.)
In the historiography of the Islamic Middle East the use of biographical
dictionaries in what is called ‘quantitative history’ has long been established.
Described briefly, it is based on analyzing a large number of entries on indi-
viduals found in one or more such dictionaries, and on deriving conclusions
from broad patterns emerging from such analysis. While these entries mostly
contain hardly enough information to pin down an individual’s place of birth,
occupation, and date of death, the study of a large enough number of them
may yield patterns that are highly suggestive of the religious, social, and eco-
nomic processes in the region and period covered by the dictionary. And when
tested against other types of evidence, such as literary sources, the results of
this form of research may be truly impressive.
This method has afforded scholars what conventional analyses of medieval
literary sources do not usually allow: to discern broad patterns of continuity
and change over time and space. Naturally, it has been extensively used dur-
ing the last several decades to study a variety of subjects, such as the secular

3 Louis Massignon (49-50) has briefly noted this role of Kufan moneychangers during Jaʿfar’s
time, calling them “secret bankers” and “receivers of funds.”
4 For a brief note on Shi‘i biographical dictionaries, see al-Qadi 1995, 109-11; see also Amoretti;
Bottini. For Sunni books of rejāl, see, e.g. Juynboll 1983, chapters 4 and 5; id. “Ridjāl”; al-Qadi
2006, 23-75.

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occupations of Muslim scholars, conversion to Islam, economy and labor, and

the geographic distribution of Muslim jurists in the medieval Middle East.5
Naturally, too, it has had its critics. One of the major shortcomings that has
been pointed out is that the biographical dictionaries used in such studies are
necessarily limited to certain segments of the population, and extrapolating
their evidence to entire regions is fraught with the danger of over-generalizing
(Lapidus 1981; Bulliet 1996; Morony 1998; Humphreys, 282-83).6 The second
caveat has been the use of occupational and geographic names as determi-
nants of the real occupations and locations (or birthplaces) of individuals
under study. It has been argued that when someone is called ‘Baghdādi’ or
‘Sammān’, he need not have been from Baghdad or made a living selling oil,
but could have inherited these names from his father (Bulliet 1979, 3; Cohen,
23-25). Given these limitations of the quantitative method, then, when left
untested against other (e.g. literary) evidence, its findings are bound to remain
highly hypothetical; and even when additionally tested, failure to situate these
findings in a broader historical context may leave the emerging patterns of
change and continuity largely unexplained.7
Apart from being a study in the history of Shi‘ism in the eighth-ninth cen-
turies, then, this paper is an attempt to test the validity of the quantitative
method without falling into the above pitfalls. A detailed discussion of how I
have tried to avoid these hazards will follow in the next section. Briefly stated,
this has in large part been achieved, first, due to the very nature of the sources
I have used and due to the narrow focus of this paper. Further, I have tried to
avoid the second pitfall by relying, in my argumentation, on literary sources
almost as heavily as on the patterns of the distribution of ‘Sayrafis’. Finally, in
an attempt to make the picture more complete, I have concluded the paper by
trying to situate those moneychangers in the broader context of the history of
Shi‘ism and extending it to the entire region.

Quantitative Evidence

Let us first look at the evidence supplied by biographical dictionaries. The

examination of all of the early Shi‘i books of rejāl, namely, Tusi’s Rejāl, Najāshi’s

5 Some of the best known works using the quantitative method are Cohen; Bulliet 1979; Bulliet
2009; Bernards and Nawas; Shatzmiller 1991; for a critical survey of several other works that
use this method, see Humphreys, 205-08.
6 Bulliet himself warns of a sectarian bias in his sources (1979, 13).
7 As in Bernards and Nawas.

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bankers and politics 5

Rejāl, Barqi’s Tabaqāt, Kashshi’s Ekhtiyār, and Ebn al-Ghazā’eri’s Rejāl,8 shows
that there was a disproportionately large distribution of people with the nick-
name ‘Sayrafi’ during the lifetime of the sixth Shi‘i Imam Ja‘far al-Sādeq (with
several names overlapping with the lifetimes of his predecessor and his succes-
sor). Before Ja‘far’s time there are almost none, while a number of moneychang-
ers are mentioned among the followers of imams who lived after Ja‘far.
The vast majority of these sayārefa are explicitly or implicitly said to have lived
in Kufa.
As shown in the table below, out the of the seventy four persons whose
name in any of the mentioned biographical dictionaries contains the element
‘Sayrafi’, sixty one lived during the lifetime of, and had personal contact with,
Ja‘far al-Sādeq; just two are said to have lived under imamates prior to that of
Ja‘far, and eleven during those of Ja‘far’s successors.

The number of moneychangers who personally knew the imams

(according to early Shi‘i biographical dictionaries)

Imam Number of his contemporary

sayārefa (out of 74)

The five imams before Ja‘far 2

Ja‘far al-Sādeq (alone or together with another 61
imam)
The five imams after Ja‘far 11

The pitfalls of using quantitative data from biographical dictionaries have

been briefly addressed above. One is their necessarily limited scope, i.e. there
is no guarantee that a biographical dictionary, however comprehensive, would
include all the people of a category it claims to represent. The second pitfall is
the reliance on occupational epithets as a source of information about the
actual occupation of a person. Let me dwell on these two problems in more
detail, and show why I think the evidence thus collected is nevertheless valid
for the forgoing analysis.

8 Tusi’s Fehrest and Ebn Shahrāshub’s Ma‘ālem al-‘olamā’ have not turned up any names of
moneychangers that are not also found in the four mentioned works.

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Firstly, I consider this evidence valid because one of the major ‘shortcom-
ings’ of biographical dictionaries—their necessarily limited scope―, turns out
to be an advantage in the case of my analysis. True, they do list only Shi‘is,
almost exclusively ones who were in the environments of the imams and per-
sonally knew them, and mostly those who lived in Kufa.9 But this paper is like-
wise concerned only with Shi‘is, only ones from the imams’ environment, and
only those who lived in Kufa. This concentration of the material in the area
with which the paper is concerned (not just geographically and temporally,
but also socially), allows us to avoid undue generalizations.
The sectarian identity of the individuals listed, their place, and their rela-
tion to the contemporary imams, is easy to establish. All of them can safely
be assumed to have been Shi‘i since the aforementioned rejāl works recorded
exclusively the names of Shi‘is.10 Furthermore, most of the people bear the
geographical name ‘Kufi’ (i.e. Kufan), or are said to have lived in that town. And
while the value of geographic names as accurate indicators of a person’s loca-
tion or birthplace has been doubted, literary accounts do confirm that many of
these individuals were Kufan. Finally, personal acquaintance with an imam is
even more easily verifiable. In some cases this is stated directly, for instance by
saying that such and such narrated hadith from (rawā ‘an) one of the imams,
as Najāshi often does in his rejāl. In others it becomes apparent in a situation
where both that person and the imam are present, as in Kashshi’s Ekhtiyār
(408-9). Finally, it is alluded to or implied by the very structure of the diction-
ary, as in Tusi’s and Barqi’s works.11
One more argument in favor of the acceptability of the data provided by
biographical dictionaries should be made. While these works are likely to con-
tain only a small sample of the people from the environment of the imams,
let alone the Shi‘i population of Kufa in general, still, there is no reason why
the disproportionately large number of sayārefa listed among Ja‘far al-Sādeq’s
followers—and to a lesser extent among the followers of later imams—should
not be suggestive of the real ratio of moneychangers in their circles. This is
because from the point of view of one’s economic occupation, the sampling of
names in all the examined works is random; i.e., in compiling a dictionary, the

9 This is precisely why the sayārefa mentioned in Cohen, 32-33, 36-37 are not relevant for
this study despite that he lists many more people with this occupational name.
10 Save for some characters from early Islamic times, such as Salmān Fāresi or Jāber b. ‘Abd
Allāh Ansāri (Kashshi, 6 ff., 40 ff.); but even they made it into these works because they
were highly regarded by Shi‘is. On some of the principles of inclusion in Shi‘i biographical
works, see Qadi 1995, 110-11; Bottini.
11 Tusi also states this directly in the introduction to his Rejāl (Tusi 1381/1961, 2).

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compiler was not guided by the people’s occupation but by their acquaintance
with the imam (and perhaps by their position among the Shi‘is), recording
people’s names regardless of their occupation. True, there may not have neces-
sarily been more moneychangers among Kufan Shi‘is during Ja‘far’s time than
during the time of earlier imams. However, if inclusion in the biographical dic-
tionaries was based on the criterion of the person narrating hadith from the
imam, the disproportionately larger number of moneychangers among the fol-
lowers of Ja‘far does indicate that there were more of them in his environment
than among the followers of earlier imams.
The same logic does not, however, apply to followers of later imams. In
this case, the disparity between numbers of sayārefa among Ja‘far’s follow-
ers as opposed to followers of later imams (more than fivefold) can simply
be explained through the overall number of the names of followers listed for
each imam. The sources from which the names of moneychangers are culled
contain more names of Ja‘far’s contemporaries than of any other imam—and
more than the contemporaries of all other imams taken together. The most
telling in this respect is Tusi’s Fehrest,12 which lists more names than each of
the other two. Here, the section about Ja‘far’s narrators contains more than
three times the number of names found in sections about the remaining five
imams—Ja‘far’s narrators are 3213, while those of the subsequent imams only
943. This could indicate that the larger distribution of moneychangers among
Ja‘far’s narrators, as opposed to narrators of later imams, is simply a matter
of ratio: i.e. the moneychangers among his followers are more numerous only
because the overall number of his listed followers is bigger. Barqi’s Tabaqāt pro-
vides a slightly different ratio but nevertheless upholds the trend; more names,
more ‘Sayrafis’ among them. Here, Ja‘far’s narrators are more than twice more
numerous than the narrators of his successors, 790 as opposed to 359.
In the same vein, one might argue that the prevalence of moneychangers
among Ja‘far’s contemporaries does not reflect their distribution in time, but is
simply the result of a larger number of followers recorded for Ja‘far than for any
other imam. However, while the prevalence of sayārefa among Ja‘far’s follow-
ers as opposed to followers of later imams is a matter of ratio (more names―
more moneychangers), their virtual absence among earlier imams’ followers is
not; the number of their overall followers is not only no smaller than that of the

12 This work has not only supplied most of the names of sayārefa, but is the most
comprehensive of the early Shi‘i rejāl works in general. ‘Abd al-Hosayn Shabestari has
collected a comprehensive list of people who personally met, or narrated from, Ja‘far,
where their number is 3759, more than Tusi’s only by 500, which indicates that Tusi’s Rejāl
contains most of the names found in other sources.

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followers of the later imams, but in some works is even larger. In Tusi’s Rejāl,
the number of the companions of the imams who preceded Ja‘far is almost
one and a half times the number of those of his successors (1379 vs. 943); while
in Barqi’s Tabaqāt it is almost equal (345 vs. 359). Still, the number of mon-
eychangers among the former is more than five times smaller than among the
latter (and truly insignificant compared to Ja‘far’s and the later imams’ taken
together, 72 vs. 2). This is an indication that their number peaked under Ja‘far
al-Sadeq, and probably remained substantial during subsequent imamates.
Literary evidence confirms this, providing further details about what their
actual role might have been in Ja‘far’s regime.
The second methodological caveat, the unreliability of naming patterns, has
been offset by the following considerations. While a person bearing an occu-
pational name could have inherited it from his father or grandfather without
himself engaging in the trade, this still likely reflects the economic background
of his family (Bulliet 2009, 3; Cohen, 24). Secondly, even if some of the sayārefa
from an imam’s environment did not themselves engage in the trade but inher-
ited their names from their fathers or grandfathers, this still means that there
were many of them around in his time, even if removed by a generation or
two, which but little disturbs the temporal pattern of their distribution. Most
importantly, however, that many of the people with the occupational name
‘Sayrafi’ did in fact deal with money is well documented in literary accounts.
To sum up, the biographical dictionaries provide the following picture:
moneychangers did not play any particular role in the Kufan Shi‘i community
before the Imamate of Ja‘far al-Sādeq, but during his time they became very
important for reasons outlined below. Moreover, during the time of subse-
quent imams, their importance probably persisted (although we have thinner
evidence to demonstrate this). Why the sayārefa became important, especially
from Ja‘far’s time on, will be discussed in the final section of the paper. Now let
us turn to the role of individual moneychangers in Kufa.

Literary Evidence

The main source of information about the lives of individual moneychangers

is Shi‘i hadith.13 And although its use as a historical source is not without
problems—forgery for political and sectarian reasons being one of the most

13 Some of the Sunni biographical works have entries on several moneychangers mentioned
in the Shi‘i sources, but they do not add anything new (e.g. ‘Asqalāni I: 408, II: 66, IV: 17-18,
et passim).

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bankers and politics 9

common sources of its unreliability14—I contend that the details it furnishes

about the activities of sayārefa are not forged and can largely be trusted. The
reason is that there was no apparent advantage in forging such details, either
from the perspective of a person’s enemies, or his friends, as these details had
no bearing on his image as a good or bad person (or Muslim).15 (In contrast,
when there is a tradition where the imam curses someone, there is every rea-
son to think that it is the creation of his enemies.) Secondly, when such a
detail persists throughout numerous stories, it is more likely to be historically
reliable.
The best known moneychanger in Ja‘far al-Sādeq’s and Musā al-Kāzem’s
regime was Mofazzal b. ‘Omar Jo‘fi, the alleged author of a number of apoc-
ryphal treatises.16 His biography, reconstructed from Shi‘i traditions, provides
the best illustration of the functions of the Kufan moneychangers, the services
they rendered the imams of the time and the role they played among the Shi‘is
of Kufa. The sources portray him as someone who could raise large sums of
money for the imams in case of need, who received donations on their behalf,
and who used these funds to regulate relations within the Shi‘i community of
Kufa. Furthermore there are indications that he was not alone in his activities,
but was part of a group of moneychangers and operated with their help.
Let us look at the sayārefa in Mofazzal’s environment. Several mon-
eychangers appear in the sources as his partners or friends. Perhaps the most
famous among them was Shi‘i theologian Abu Ja‘far Mohammad b. ‘Ali Ahwal,
known as Mo’men al-Tāq in Shi‘i sources, and Shaytān al-Tāq in Sunni ones
(Modarressi 2003, I: 338-9). In one report, Ja‘far orders Mofazzal not to speak.17
Kashshi mentions a certain Abu Ja‘far Mohammad b. al-Fozayl b. Kathir Azraq
Azdi/Thaqafi Sayrafi Kufi.18 In Tusi’s Ketāb al-ghayba, Mofazzal appears in the

14 The literature arguing for or against the reliability of hadith as a historical source, or
offering methods of extracting historical information from it, is too vast to be listed here.
Suffice to mention one of the latest and most comprehensive surveys of hadith studies by
Reinhart (2010).
15 Although exchanging money could entail interest and thus become reprehensible from
the point of view of different schools of Islamic law, including the Shi‘is, this does not
automatically mean that calling someone a moneychanger would imply condemning
him, as exchanging money itself was not a vice, cf. Zysow; Saleh, 21, 24.
16 None of the works attributed to him had anything to do with money, so for this discussion
they are irrelevant; on Mofazzal Jo‘fi’s life and on the tradition attributed to him, see
Modarressi 2003, I: 333-37; Asatryan, 2011.
17 Perhaps because of his quarrelsome character (Kashshi, 248-249).
18 Quoted by Heinz Halm from Ahmad Husayni’s edition of Kashshi’s work, printed in
Karbala (Halm 1978, 228); he lived during Jaʿfar’s, Musā’s, and ‘Ali Rezā’s lifetimes (Najāshi,
II, 272; Barqi, 155; Tusi 1381/1961, 297; Tusi, 1380/1960, 312).

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company of yet another moneychanger, Sadir Sayrafi (Tusi 1385/1968, 105; Tusi
1381/1961, 91, 125, 217; Barqi 1428/2007, 127, 145). Qāsem Sayrafi appears in sev-
eral sources as “Mofazzal’s partner” (sharik Mofazzal; Kolayni II: 24, 25, VIII:
231-32, 374; Tusi 1381/1961, 274; Barqi n.d., 285; Barqi 1428/2007, 189). Finally,
at least two moneychangers narrate hadith on Mofazzal’s authority. Eshāq b.
‘Ammār Sayrafi narrates in Kolayni’s Kāfi, together with Mofazzal, a tradition
about the poor Shi‘is (Kolayni II: 265),19 and in Kashshi’s Rejāl, recounts their
meeting with Mofazzal and their travel to the grave of Hosayn (Kashshi, 320).
Finally, ‘Ali Sayrafi narrates on the authority of Mofazzal in Tusi’s Estebsār
(III: 104).
Not much is known about the activities of each of the individual mon-
eychangers mentioned in Mofazzal Jo‘fi’s circle. What we do know indicates
that they were loved by Ja‘far al-Sādeq, such as Mo’men al-Tāq and Sadir Sayrafi
(Kashshi, 135, 191, 210, 239-240),20 or close to Mofazzal himself, such as Qāsem
Sayrafi, who is explicitly called the latter’s partner, and Mo’men al-Tāq, who in
the several stories recorded by Kashshi appears to have been on friendly terms
with Mofazzal (Kashshi, 248). His financial activities are illustrated in a note
that describes Abu Hanifa asking him to lend him a dinar (Najāshi II: 203-4).
One of Mofazzal’s acquaintances is Eshāq b. ‘Ammār Sayrafi, whose deal-
ings with money and social position as a member of the community of
moneychangers are well documented. He was wealthy (Kashshi, 408-9) and
a member of a large clan of moneychangers, Banu Hayyān, many of whom
narrated hadith from Ja‘far al-Sādeq and Musā al-Kāzem (Najāshi I: 193; Tusi
1381/1961, 149; Barqi 1428/2007, 218; ‘Asqalāni II: 66).21 Together with his brother
Esmā‘il he lent money for interest, and Ja‘far gave them advice on how to do
so without loss (Kashshi, 408). His occupation explains why he is frequently
listed as the narrator of hadith on issues of currency exchange (Tusi 1401/1981,
VII: 102-3, 105, 107, 110, 113-14; Ebn Bābuya III: 184-86).
Mofazzal b. ‘Omar’s life provides the richest documentation of the activities
of moneychangers in Kufa during Imam Ja‘far’s time. Stories about him show
that he was part of a group of people who not only exchanged money but could
raise money for the Imam. Mofazzal is portrayed as receiving donations on

19 In the isnād he refers to them as “Eshāq b. ‘Ammār wa Mofazzal b. ‘Omar, qālā . . .” “Ishāq b.
‘Ammār and Mofazzal b. ‘Omar [the two of them] said.”
20 He could also have had shared religious views with Mofazzal Jo‘fi, for ‘Asqalāni says he
exaggerated in his Shi‘i beliefs, an accusation which was also leveled against Mofazzal
(Asatryan 2011).
21 Another clan of moneychangers was the Banu Zobayr Sayārefa (Kashshi, 570).

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the Imam’s behalf, and regulating inner-Shi‘i affairs with the Imam’s money.
The following story, paraphrased in the beginning of this article, provides a
good example:

Some Kufans wrote to Sādeq, saying: “Mofazzal mixes with unruly youths
(shottār),22 pigeon fanciers (ashāb al-hamām),23 and people who drink
wine. You should write to him and tell him not to mix with them.” [Jaʻfar
al-Sādeq] wrote a letter to Mofazzal, sealed it, gave it to them, and ordered
them to hand it to Mofazzal. They brought the letter to Mofazzal. Among
them were Zorāra [b. A‘yan], ‘Abd Allāh b. Bokayr, Mohammad b. Moslem,
Abu Basir, and Hojr b. Zā’eda. They gave the letter to Mofazzal, he opened
it and read it. Written in it was the following: “In the name of God, the
merciful, the compassionate; purchase this, this, and this.” He [Ja‘far] did
not mention [in the letter] either much or little about what they had said
about him [Mofazzal]. When he read the letter, he gave it to Zorāra,
Zorāra gave it to Mohammad b. Moslem, until it circulated among all of
them. Then Mofazzal asked them: “What do you say?” They replied: “This
is a lot of money for us to look for, to collect, and to bring to you. We never
knew of this [amount of money] until we saw you look at it [the letter].”
They wanted to leave but Mofazzal said: “You have to stay with me till
morning.” He locked them up till morning and summoned his friends
who had been slandered. They came, and he read to them the letter of
Abu ‘Abd Allāh [Ja‘far]. They left him, and he locked up those men so that
they would have breakfast with him [later]. The young men came back,
each of them carrying, in accordance with their income, one or two thou-
sand [dirhams], [some] a bit more [some] a bit less; so [when all of them]
had arrived, they had brought with them 2,000 dinars and 10,000 dirhams
before those would finish their breakfast. Mofazzal then asked them:

22 The term shottār (sg. shāter), which literally means dexterous, has been used to refer to
members of the so-called futuwwa groups, semi-military organizations of young men that
existed in the cities of the medieval Middle East, who had their own codes of conduct and
sometimes functioned as a police or military force. However, they were largely
independent of the government and often acted on their own, see Cahen, 33 ff.; Zakeri,
“Javānmardi.” Whether Zurāra’s and his associates’ use of the term means that Mufazzal
and his company were part of futuwwa groups is unclear, but most probably it doesn’t, for
in the numerous hadith featuring Mofazzal, there is no mention that he had been part of
such a group. It is probably just used to refer to the unruly nature of the people with
whom he mixed.
23 On playing with pigeons (le‘b al-hamām) as a vile occupation, see Halm 1978, 231, n. 81.

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“Do you order me to dismiss these?” [Then he turned to the slanderers

and said:] “Do you think God needs your prayers and your fasting?!”
(Kashshi, 326-27).

During the last quarter of the eighth century 2,000 dinars and 10,000 dirhams
were huge sums. For a comparison, in the second half of that century, wheat
prices in Iraq ranged from 0.112 to 0.51 dinars for 100 kg of wheat, and a soldier’s
wage during Saffāh’s reign (d. 754) was 6.5 dinars per month. (Campopiano, 47,
49; cf. also Ashtor, 1976, 93; Ashtor, 1969, 68, 70). We do not know whether
Mofazzal’s companions’ financial capabilities could match this amount of
money, and an element of exaggeration is certainly a possibility. Still, it does
indicate that he operated as part of a network of men who wielded financial
power, and who could raise money upon the imams’ call.24
A cautious remark about the relations between the sayārefa and two of the
most famous of Mofazzal’s accusers, Zorāra b. A‘yan and Abu Basir, could be
made here. Zorāra, who was a member of the powerful Kufan clan of A‘yan and
a well-known theologian,25 is reported to have been in conflict with a Kufan
moneychanger from Ja‘far’s milieu, ‘Ozāfer b. ‘Isā Khozā‘i Sayrafi (Tusi 1381/1961,
264; Barqi 1428/2007, 335),26 who dealt with Ja‘far’s money and practiced the

24 Furthermore, if viewed in the larger context of Mofazzal’s image and his relations with
the Imams as portrayed in Shi‘i hadith, this and other reports showing Mufazzal’s
closeness with the Imams can be trusted. The reason is that while the later Imami
tradition portrays him as a heretic and an “extremist,” in most of the hadith where he
appears, he is described as Ja‘far al-Sadeq’s and Musā al-Kazem’s close person who was
much loved by them, and there are virtually none stating the contrary. If we bear in mind
that most of the collectors who recorded hadith about him were Twelver Shi‘is of the
orthodox camp (such as Kolayni or Tusi), it becomes apparent that should they have
found a single hadith showing Mofazzal’s bad relations with the Imams, they would have
surely recorded it. The absence of such, then, indicates that Mofazzal was indeed close to
his contemporary Imams (Asatryan 2012, 47-58). In this context, the Imam’s call for
financial help to a close associate who happened to be a moneychanger contains no
logical contradictions, and the hadith should hence be trusted as historical.
25 On Zorāra b. A‘yan and his clan, see Zorāri; Modarressi 2003, 404; van Ess I: 325-26; Najāshi
I: 397; Kashshi, 133-160. The other people who accused Mofazzal were also prominent
members of the Kufan Shi‘i community, see Modarressi 2003, 272-73, 395-96; Najāshi
I: 347, II: 23, II: 199-200; Kashshi, 170.
26 In the year 786, ‘Ozāfer took part in the battle between the supporters of ‘Alid rebel
Hosayn b. ‘Ali and the ‘Abbasid forces at Fakhkh, near Mecca, was taken prisoner,
beheaded and crucified on one of the gates of Baghdad; incidentally, executed with him
was ‘Ali b. Sābeq Fallās who, judging by his name—derived from the word for a copper

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bankers and politics 13

craft as a family business.27 ‘Ozāfer’s dislike for Zorāra is apparent in a tradition

in which he tells that he heard Ja‘far al-Sādeq curse him thrice (Kashshi, 149-
50). Whether the hadith is forged or not, (and given Zorāra’s powerful position
in Kufa it most probably is), it illustrates ‘Ozāfer’s dislike for Zorāra. On the
other hand, the other accuser of Mofazzal, the famous narrator of hadith Abu
Basir, appears in a similar situation, where Hasan b. Qayāmā Sayrafi claims
that Imam ‘Ali Rezā (d. 203-818) called Abu Basir a liar in front of him (Kashshi,
476; on Abu Basir see Modarressi 2003, 395). While the evidence is too scant
to make a definitive argument, these two episodes, together with the afore-
mentioned hadith, might indicate that the grudge held by Zorāra, Abu Basir,
and their comrades, against Mofazzal, reflected a more deeply seated conflict
between them and the moneychangers of Ja‘far’s environment in general.
There are several more traditions illustrating Mofazzal’s dealings with the
imams’ finances. For example, he is portrayed as receiving donations on behalf
of Musa al-Kāzem:

Musa b. Bakr28 [narrates], “I was in the service of Abu’l-Hasan [Musā

al-Kāzem], and I saw that he receives nothing except through Mofazzal b.
‘Omar.29 Often I saw people bringing something to him [i.e. the imam],
while he refused to take [those things] and told them to give them to
Mofazzal” (Kashshi, 328).

Several other traditions further indicate that he could use the imams’ finances
as he saw fit in order to regulate inner-Shi‘i affairs. In one, Mofazzal reconciles
two people arguing over inheritance by giving them four hundred dirhams,
which toward the end of the eighth century was a considerable sum (cf.
Campopiano, 43, 49). This money, he then told them, was given to him by Ja‘far
al-Sādeq so that he would be able to reconcile those Shi‘is who happened to

coin, fals—also dealt with money in one way or another (Tabari III: 560, 563; on the
rebellion of Hosayn b. ‘Ali and the battle at Fakhkh, see Vaglieri).
27 His brother ‘Omar b. ‘Isā and his two sons Fazl and Mohammad are also called ‘Sayrafi’. On
‘Omar b. ‘Isā, see Tusi 1381/1961, 253, on ‘Ozāfer’s sons, see ibid., 270, 297, 322; Tusi 1380/1960,
301; Barqi 1428/2007, 158, 357; Najāshi II: 260-62. Of course, in the case of ‘Ozāfer’s sons it
is uncertain whether they did practice their father’s craft or just inherited his occupational
name. On ʿOzāfer’s dealings with Ja‘far’s money, see below.
28 He was Musa Kāzem’s companion and probably a wāqefi (Tusi 1381/1961, 359; Najāshi II:
339).
29 The Arabic reads “nothing except from the direction of Mofazzal (ellā men nāhiyat
al-Mofazzal),” but the context indicates that those things did not just reach the imam from
Mofazzal but through him, i.e. he served as a kind of intermediary.

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argue over something. In another hadith, Ja‘far tells Mofazzal that if he sees
two people from among his followers arguing, he should use his, i.e. the imam’s,
money to make peace between them (Kolayni II: 209). Mofazzal also uses the
imam’s money by sending Safwān Jammāl (lit. ‘cameleer’) to buy a camel (Barqi
n.d., 638).30
Another story showcasing Mofazzal’s connection to money portrays Ja‘far
picking a forged coin from a handful of coins in front of him. This particu-
lar coin was made of two layers of silver, a layer of copper, and another layer
of silver, so he told Mofazzal to break it and never to use it (Tusi 1401/1981,
VII: 109).31
Finally, the abovementioned ‘Ozāfer Sayrafi is said to have received from
Ja‘far seven hundred dinars, making one hundred off for himself (Ebn Bābuya,
III: 96). The story does not specify how exactly ‘Ozāfer made the profit; what
is important is the imam’s personal involvement in ‘Ozāfer’s financial transac-
tion, which suggests personal interest on the part of the imam.
Lastly, Ja‘far al-Sādeq’s positive attitude toward the sayārefa is reflected in
a hadith in which he repudiates Hasan Basri’s alleged condemnation of mon-
eychangers by stating that “the People of the Cave were also moneychangers”
(Ebn Bābuya III: 96-97; Kolayni V: 113-114), referring to the Qur’ānic ‘Ashāb al-
Kahf’. Of course, in both sources which quote the hadith, its narrator is Sadir
Sayrafi, himself a moneychanger, which makes the historicity of the account
dubious. However, given what was said about the sayārefa above, this report
quite logically fits into the narrative of their importance for the imams and of
the role they played among Kufan Shi‘is.
To sum up, the preponderance of moneychangers during the imamate of
Ja‘far al-Sādeq and later imams, which we find in biographical dictionaries, is
affirmed, and their role is illustrated through literary accounts describing the
activities of individual sayārefa. Apart from exchanging currencies, they lent
money, collected funds, and accepted donations on the imams’ behalf; and
at least one of them had the authority to use those funds to regulate affairs
among the Shi‘is.

30 Another moneychanger, the abovementioned Sadir Sayrafi, reports that Jaʻfar sent him on
some busyness to Medina (Qommi, 116).
31 The term used for the forged coin, sattuq, appears in a story about Mo’men al-Tāq, one of
the moneychangers mentioned above: when the people complain to him about a coin,
probably suspecting it is forged, he looks at it and says, “sattuq,” and this shrewdness of
his, according to Kashshi, was the reason people called him Shaytān (Devil) (Kashshi, 185;
see also Ebn Shahrāshub, 84-85).

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bankers and politics 15

The Kufan Moneychangers in the 8th Century: A Broader

Perspective

Having to some extent clarified the role of moneychangers among the follow-
ers of Ja‘far and later imams, an important question still remains to be
answered; namely, why did the sayārefa become prominent among the Shi‘is
of Kufa, especially from Ja‘far’s time onwards? But first, let us consider why
they were moneychangers, and why in Kufa.
That an imam would use, as his financial agents, changers of money can be
explained by the following consideration: by the very nature of their profession
they dealt with lots of money, and possessed the means and skills to manage it
(and perhaps to store it safely). In fact, there are reports showing that sayārefa
in general (not just the Shi‘i ones) wielded considerable financial power, which
they used to influence politics, or even had money that belonged to the govern-
ment, acting perhaps as some sort of bankers.32 For instance, the first ‘Abbasid
caliph Saffāh’s (d. 754) vizier Abu Salama Khallāl, who had been instrumental
in the establishment of the ‘Abbasid dynasty, was a wealthy moneychanger
from Kufa who used his money “for the establishment of the state of the Banu’l-
‘Abbās” (Zahabi, VIII: 400-1; Agha, 39-53). Moreover, his successor Caliph Abu
Ja‘far Mansur (d. 775) had a spy in Kufa among the moneychangers (Tabari VI,
248). Finally, in a report in Abu’l-Faraj Esfahāni’s Maqātel al-tālebiyin, Kufan
moneychangers are said to have possessed government funds. Thus, when ‘Ali’s
great-great-grandson Yahyā b. ‘Omar b. Hosayn revolted in Kufa in the ninth
century, he “sent [his men] to moneychangers, who were holding governmen-
tal money, and had it confiscated” (Esfahāni, 507).33
Why the majority, if not all, of our sayārefa were from Kufa is also easy to
explain. From almost its very founding this town was an important center of
the pro-‘Alid movement (Modarressi 2003, 39-41), and it is not by chance that
after the Battle of the Camel, in 656, ‘Ali b. Abi Tāleb decided to transfer his
capital from Medina to this town. A year later in the battle of Siffin, ‘Ali’s par-
tisans were mostly Kufans (Djaït 1976, 167; Djaït 2007, 290-98; Wheatley, 46,
89). Later on, Kufa became a hotbed for religious uprisings of the supporters
of ‘Ali’s house. Thus, the last quarter of the seventh century, and most of the
eighth, was punctuated by revolts and movements of pro-‘Alid coloring, with
Kufa as their center (Tucker). No wonder, then, that Jaʻfar al-Sādeq, himself

32 The word ‘banker’ can be anachronistic here, but I use it conventionally, following earlier
practice (Fischel, 571; Ehrenkreutz 1978, 39).
33 On later periods, see Fischel, 571.

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based in Medina (Gleaves), had many prominent followers in Kufa, and that
the network of moneychangers that he used was based in this town.
It is interesting to note that around one third of the moneychangers listed
in the mentioned rejāl books have the epithet mawlā, i.e. a Muslim convert of
non-Arab origin. While their ethnic identity is difficult to ascertain, one may
assume that many of them were Iranians. During Sasanian times Iranians were
a significant minority in Iraq, while after the Arab conquest their numbers in
garrison cities like Kufa grew due to captivity, defection, and clientage (Morony
2005, 181-213).
As I discussed above, the disproportionate prevalence of sayārefa in the ref-
erenced Shi‘i works during Ja‘far’s, and later imams’ time does not mean there
were none in Kufa, or in Iraq, before or after that period. In fact there were
plenty, and they even had their own quarter in Kufa (Duri, 192-95; Cohen, 32-33,
36-37; Zahabi VIII: 60-61, 285, et passim), but only those of them who appear
in these Shi‘i works can be counted as people who either had close relations
with the imams or were part of their following. This is because the Shi‘i rejāl
works do not just indicate their diffusion over time and space, but their distri-
bution among the followers of the individual imams as well.34 Why is it, then,
that they figure so prominently, primarily among the followers of Ja‘far and the
later imams, but not the earlier ones?
The clue is the economic position of Ja‘far al-Sādeq and subsequent imams. It
was during Ja‘far’s imamate that the collection of funds from the community of
followers in the form of gifts began (as in the above hadith, where Ja‘far accepts
gifts through Mofazzal). Under Musā al-Kāzem and his successor imams, the
collection became more institutionalized, as funds now flowed through a well-
organized network of agents who possessed considerable wealth (Modarressi
1993, 12-17; Arjomand, 498; Dakake, 244-45; Abdulsater, 308; Buyukkara, 86 ff.;
Hussain, 38). These agents, or at least some of them, were presumably mon-
eychangers. This explains why their names figure so prominently in biographi-
cal dictionaries among the followers of Ja‘far and the subsequent imams, as
opposed to the earlier ones.
In order to situate this network for the appropriation and redistribution of
funds35 among the Kufan Shi‘is in a broader historical context, I will suggest
two interconnected, if speculative, explanations as to why it emerged espe-
cially in the second half of the eighth century. One possible reason could be
that it is precisely in this period, i.e. during the imamate of Ja‘far al-Sādeq,
that the Shi‘is emerged as a community with clearly defined boundaries

34 See my earlier discussion on this.

35 To use Dakake’s terms (245-46).

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bankers and politics 17

(cf. Hodgson, 9-10; Modarressi 1993, 4; Haider 2011, 190 ff.; Haider 2009, 153 ff.;
Halm 1991, 28-29; Buckley 1998, 180-82). This communal identity no doubt
implied closer relations between its members on the one hand, and between
the members and the leadership (i.e. the imams) on the other. In turn, this
would require a more involved leadership, one that would be able to effectively
regulate internal affairs and solve disputes. A network of appropriation, then,
served precisely this purpose by helping the imams to raise funds and to use
them to regulate the affairs of their flock.
Viewed more broadly, the rise to prominence of the Shi‘i sayārefa of Kufa
roughly coincided with the emergence and proliferation of Islamic coinage
in the eighth century. The introduction of Islamic coins by the Caliph ‘Abd
al-Malek (685-705) at the end of the seventh and beginning of the eighth
century led to an increased production and circulation of Islamic currency
in the Caliphate during the subsequent hundred years (Ehrenkreutz 1978,
38-39; Ehrenkreutz 1992, 92-97; Lombard, 105-11; Ashtor 1971, 84-89; cf. also
Shatzmiller 2011, 146-49; Shatzmiller 2013; Grierson, 241-64). Furthermore, the
last fifteen years of Jaʿfar’s life—presumably the years of his prime as a leader
of the Shi‘i community—coincided with Kufa and Basra being the main silver
mints of the Caliphate (Heidemann, 657). While a causal relationship between
the increased circulation of currency in the region and the rise to prominence
of Shi‘i moneychangers is difficult to prove, the correspondence seems all too
suggestive.

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