RELIGIOUS COMMUNITIESperiod that the leadership of the Rabbinic community devolved on the
heads of the schools.
Although the heads of the schools had begun the effective creation
of the position of gaon in the early seventh century, it has generally
been assumed that the gaonate was established at Sura and formally
recognized by the Islamic state in about 658 during the reign of 'AII.96
The problem with this assumption is that it is based on the account
of Sherira that when 'Ali conquered Firuz Shapur (Anbar), Mar Yi?:-
haq and ninety thousand Jews went out to meet him. They gave him
a friendly reception and 'Ali received them in a friendly way.97 Apart
from the importance of maintaining good relations with the people in
the region around Kufa, this event probably had no more to do with
the establishment of official relationships or recognition than a similar
occasion when the people of Hira went out to greet Khalid upon his
return from a raid. On these occasions contemporary social and po-
litical etiquette was merely being observed. Even if Mar Yi?:haq was
the head of a school at Anbar, as it is sometimes assumed, this account
says nothing about the establishment of the gaonate at Sura. According
to Ibn Da'iid, when 'Ali came to Babylonia in 660, R. Yi?:haq, the
head of the school, went out to greet him and 'Ali honored him and
revered him.^98
The single most important factor in the rise of the gaonate in the
early Islamic period was the absence of state support for the religious
authority of the exilarch over the Jewish community. After the inter-
regnum at the end of the Sasanian period, exilarchs were never able
to reassert themselves because in the interval the heads of the schools
had effectively acquired that authority for themselves. The rabbis took
advantage of the lack of intervention by the Muslim government in
their quarrel with the exilarch to institutionalize religious authority
for themselves in the gaonate and proceeded to adjust the life of the
community to the changed conditions through new gaonic decrees that
abrogated and transcended Talmudic laws. The most instructive ex-
ample is the joint decree by Mar Rabba at Pumbaditha and Mar Huna
at Sura after 660, stating that a disobedient wife should be divorced
at once (without losing her marriage settlement or waiting a year to
seek a reconciliation). This not only shows the freedom of the rabbis
to adjust the law on their own authority, but since the purpose of the
decree was to make it unnecessary for Jewish women to get the Muslim
96 Baron, Social and Religious History, V, 14; Graetz, History of the Jews, Ill, 90.
97 Neusner, History, p. 130.
98 Ibn Daud, Book of Tradition, pp. 44-45.