Christians. In addition, while Byzantine Christians had to adapt to a second-
class status after having been the dominant religious group since the fourth
century, Jews were already prepared for a subordinate role. For Jews, the
Islamic conquest entailed largely a change in overlords. In the case of the
Byzantine Jews, this meant a significant improvement.
The Muslim conquest of Persia and Byzantium united most of world
Jewry under a single rule for the first time in over a millennium. The center
of this united Jewish world was naturally the capital of the Islamic world.
Under the Umayyad dynasty, this meant Damascus. Following the Abbasid
conquest of the Umayyads in 750, the capital moved to Baghdad. The prox-
imity of the new capital to Sura and Pumbedita, the intellectual centers of
Babylonian Jewry, significantly enhanced the prestige and authority of the
Jews of Babylonia. Coupled with the decline of the rabbinate in the Land of
Israel, the proximity of the new capital to Sura and Pombedita, the intellec-
tual centers of Babylonian Jewry, significantly enhanced the prestige and
authority of the Jews of Babylonian Jewry. The Jews of Baghdad, in particu-
lar, would soon become the undisputed leadership of world Jewry.
The leadership of Babylonian Jewry lay in the hands of three groups: the
exilarch, a coterie of leading Jewish families, and the Gaonate. The exilarch
was the liaison between the Jews and the Muslim caliph. As a scion of the
Davidic dynasty, he was treated as royalty. While nominally tagged with
dhimmistatus, he was allowed a royal entourage and had unimpeded access to
the court of the caliph. His stature was buttressed by the support of leading
Jewish families in Baghdad. The installation of the exilarch took place in the
magnificent home of one of these families.
Gaon (the plural is “geonim”), the title given to the heads of the rabbinic
academies in Sura and Pumbedita, was a shortened version of Rosh Yeshiva
Ga’on Bet Ya’akov(Head of the Academy and Sage of the House of Jacob).
Each gaon regarded himself as an heir of the Amoraic scholars who had par-
ticipated in the deliberation of the Gemara via the Savoraim, a transitional
group of scholars who lived and adjudicated immediately after Sof Hora’a(lit-
erally, the end of instruction), the rabbinic epithet that placed the
interpretive authority of the Amoraim on a superior footing even to that of
their immediate successors following the redaction of the Babylonian Talmud
- that is, from the mid-sixth through the mid-eighth century. The geonim,
while acknowledging their inferior authority vis-à-vis the Amoraim,
regarded themselves as the authoritative voices of their age. In particular, this
meant elevating the Babylonian Gaonate over the rabbis of the leading acad-
emy in the Land of Israel, located mainly in Tiberius, despite the latter’s
similar pedigree. By the end of the ninth century, the geonim had managed
the arduous task of extending Rabbinic Judaism and imposing rabbinic
authority through much of the Jewish world. As H. L. Ginsburg noted, “The
Amoraim of Babylonia wrote a Talmud; the Geonim made it the Talmud.”
64 The Jews of Islam