JEWSits synagogues, schools, and court system, with its exilarch and its
Rabbinate. Jews outside of or opposed to Rabbinic authority tended
to form their own sectarian communities in the early Islamic period.
The major changes in the Jewish community in Iraq in the seventh
century were the rise of the gaonate, the reduction of the exilarch's
position, and the outbreak of Messianic, syncretistic reform move-
ments. Each, in turn, was the consequence of the establishment of the
scholarly authority of the rabbis, the suppression of the exilarchate in
the late Sasanian period, and the encouragement given to Messianic
hopes by the Islamic conquest.