'Rumors that Ahmadinejad has Jewish roots false'

According to the Guardian, Iranian president's previous surname not common among Persian Jews, reason it was changed has to do with class struggle in Iran

The Guardian on Monday dismissed a recent report by another British newspaper claiming Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's family converted to Islam from Judaism after his birth.

One of the Daily Telegraph's key arguments was that Ahmadinejad's previous surname was Sabourjian which "derives from weaver of the sabour, the name for the Jewish tallit shawl in Persia".

However, The Guardian quoted Professor David Yeroshalmi, an expert on Iranian Jewish communities, as saying that "there is no such meaning for the word 'sabour' in any of the Persian Jewish dialects, nor does it mean Jewish prayer shawl in Persian. Also, the name Sabourjian is not a well-known Jewish name."

Yeroshalmi, a scholar at Tel Aviv University's Center for Iranian Studies, also disputed the Telegraph article's findings that the "-jian" ending to the name specifically showed the family had been practicing Jews.

"This ending is in no way sufficient to judge whether someone has a Jewish background. Many Muslim surnames have the same ending," he was quoted by The Guardian as saying.

'Carpet-making conjures up images of sweatshops'

Guardian correspondent Robert Tait, who travelled to Ahmadinejad's native village in 2005, said the name "derives from thread painter – sabor in Farsi – a once common and humble occupation in the carpet industry in Semnan province, where Aradan is situated". This claim is confirmed by Kasra Naji, who also wrote a biography of Ahmadinejad and met his family in his native village. Carpet weaving or coloring carpet threads are not professions associated with Jews in Iran, the Guardian report said.

The Guardian report said that according to both Naji and Tait, Ahmadinejad's father Ahmad was in fact a religious Shia, who taught the Quran before and after Ahmadinejad's birth and their move to Tehran.

According to the Guardian report, Ahmadinejad's mother is a Seyyede, a title given to women whose family is believed to be direct bloodline descendants of Prophet Muhammad.

The experts said the reason that Ahmadinejad's father changed his surname has more to do with the class struggle in Iran. When it became mandatory to adopt surnames, many people from rural areas chose names that represented their professions or that of their ancestors, they said, adding that this made them easily identifiable as townfolk.

In many cases they changed their surnames upon moving to Tehran, in order to avoid snobbery and discrimination from residents of the capital.

According to the experts, the Sabourjians were one of many such families. "Their surname was related to carpet-making, an industry that conjures up images of sweatshops. They changed it to Ahmadinejad in order to help them fit in. The new name was also chosen because it means from the race of Ahmad, one of the names given to Muhammad," the report said.

"According to Ahmadinejad's relatives the new name emphasized the family's piety and their dedication to their religion and its founder. This is something that the president and his relatives in Tehran and Aradan have maintained to the present day. Not because they are trying to deny their past, but because they are proud of it."

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3785932,00.html