Non-Iranian sources agree that Muḥammad Beg (d. 1674), the grand vizier of Shah ʿAbbās II (r. 1642-1666), was largely responsible for the persecutions that culminated in the forced conversion of most of Iran’s Jews between 1656 and 1662. His baleful influence and the free hand he was given to oppress Jews and Armenian Christians are described in the Judeo-Persian chronicle Kitāb-i Anusī (The Book of a Forced Convert) by Bābāī b. Luṭf, the Armenian chronicle of Aṛakʿel of Tabriz, and the Chronicle of the Carmelites in Persia. The same events are recounted with a highly positive spin in Abbās …