rabbis in the east (70 to 1000 ce) 271
rabbinic scholarship sprang up elsewhere, founded on this work. Within
the Islamic world from the mid- seventh century, Jews could and did
travel extensively, and outstanding scholars from Babylonia had settled
in Kairouan in Tunisia by the eighth century. By the tenth century, the
Kairouan academy was in close contact with scholars also in Egypt,
Italy and Palestine. We know little about the academy in Lucena men-
tioned by Natronai, Gaon of Sura in the ninth century, but in the tenth
century Moses b. Hanokh, who came originally from southern Italy,
was appointed rabbi of Cordoba in Spain. Under the patronage of a
Jewish politician, Hisdai ibn Shaprut, who had much influence over the
Umayyad caliph, Moses b. Hanokh helped to break the dependence of
Spanish scholars too on the authority of Babylonian teachers.
Two centuries later the Spanish philosopher Abraham ibn Daud pre-
served in his Sefer haKabbalah, which related the chain of rabbinic
tradition from the biblical Moses to his own time, a legend in which
Moses b. Hanokh featured as one of four rabbis who had sailed from
Bari in Italy during the tenth century, been captured by Muslims and
been ransomed by the Jewish communities in which they established
great academies:
The commander of a fleet, whose name was Ibn Rumahis, left Cordova,
having been sent by the Muslim king of Spain ... This commander of a
mighty fleet set out to capture the ships of the Christians and the towns
that were close to the coast. They sailed as far as the coast of Palestine and
swung about to the Greek sea and the islands therein. [Here] they encoun-
tered a ship carrying four great scholars, who were travelling from the city
of Bari to a city called Sefastin, and who were on their way to a Kallah
convention. Ibn Rumahis captured the ship and took the sages prisoner ...
These sages did not tell a soul about themselves or their wisdom. The com-
mander sold R. Shemariah in Alexandria of Egypt; [R. Shemariah]
proceeded to Fustat where he became head [of the academy]. Then he sold
R. Hushiel on the coast of Ifriqiya. From there the latter proceeded to the
city of Qairawan, which at that time was the mightiest of all Muslim cities
in the land of the Maghreb, where he became the head [of the academy]
and where he begot his son Rabbenu Hananel. Then the commander
arrived at Cordova where he sold R. Moses along with R. Hanok.The legend is a fiction, but its invention reflects the need of Jews in later
centuries to explain the increasing importance of the academies in
Africa and Spain as the authority of the Babylonian centres declined.^12
The authority of academies in Palestine as centres of rabbinic