This remarkable achievement was facilitated by the general mobility in
the Abassid Empire, which allowed the gaonic leaders to send emissaries
throughout the Jewish world. The task of these emissaries was further aided
by the Radhanite merchants, a coterie of international Jewish merchants who
traveled and traded from the Far East to Spain. By the end of the ninth cen-
tury, the families of the Radhanites and the geonim merged through
intermarriage. Under these favorable conditions, the emissaries collected
donations for the rabbinic academies, and brought religious queries to the
Geonim from Jews throughout the Jewish world. The replies of the geonim
to these queries, eventually published as responsa, expanded the religious
authority of the geonim. Emblematic of the impact of this achievement was
the Seder ‘Amram(Order of Amram), written by Amram Gaon toward the end
of the ninth century in response to a query from the Jews of Spain, which reg-
ularized the order of Jewish prayer into what is, in large part, still the liturgy
used in most traditional communities to this day.
In addition to uniting the Jewish world and facilitating the extension of
Rabbinic Judaism, the Islamic conquest also began a period of Arabization of
Jewish culture. Arabic replaced Greek and Aramaic as the language of Jewish
high culture at the moment when the Arabic world discovered the wisdom of
the Greeks, and when Arabic became the language of science. This led to the
emergence of a new image of the ideal rabbinic scholar. Previously, the ideal
scholar had been a master of biblical, Tannaitic, Amoraic, and gaonic litera-
ture. By the ninth century, knowledge of the Kalam – the Arabic translation
and interpretation of Greek philosophy – and the ability to interpret biblical
and rabbinic teachings philosophically as well as exetegically was an essential
element of the ideal Jewish scholar.
A towering example of this new scholarly ideal, and the leading figure of
ninth- and tenth-century Baghdad Jewry, was Sa’adia Gaon (882–942). His
life and career embodies not only the intellectual achievements of the age, but
also the conflicts. Sa’adia was born in humble circumstances in Egypt, but his
intellectual prowess propelled him by early adulthood to the upper echelon of
the Jewish intellectual elite. In 910, he was brought to Baghdad to help
mediate a conflict between the exilarchate and the Gaonate, and was rewarded
by being appointed the gaon of Sura. Sura, which had recently been overshad-
owed by Pumbedita, regained its scholarly primacy under Sa’adia Gaon’s
leadership. During his years as gaon of Sura, he authored his major works: the
Tafzir, a commentary on the Hebrew Bible written in Judeo-Arabic; and The
Book of Opinion and Beliefs, a philosophical treatise in Arabic. The latter was
the first to present the laws, beliefs, and principles of Judaism systematically.
In addition, he authored numerous piyyutim(religious hymns) that were
hailed by later Jewish poets for their poetic virtuosity.
The overarching goal of Sa’adia’s philosophical and rabbinic works was to
defend Judaism’s validity by demonstrating its philosophical and rational
The Jews of Islam 65