Babylonia
THE JEWISH ENCYCLOPEDIA
Bacau
414
with reverence
Al-Harizi sings of Ezekiel's grave in his 53d ma-
who
kama; Niebuhr saw the grave in 1765, and was asmany hundred Jews annually visited it (Ritter, I.e. x. 264). Benjamin went to Kufa, where seven thousand Jews dwelt, and visited also the academic cities, Sura and Pumbedita; in ruined Nehardea, Pethahiah found a congregation, and in the celebrated Nisibis there were then eight hundred Jews. He relates that the "nasi "of Damascus received his ordination from the academic head of Babylonia, so that this country was still predominant in the minds of the Jews of the Moslem world. The gaon of Bagdad, Samuel b. Ali ha-Levi, did not hesTwo hundred itate to oppose Maimonides publicly. years later, about 1880, there lived in Babylonia a prince, David b. Hodayah, who took up the oause of a German rabbi, Samuel Schlettstadt; this prince traced his descent, not from Bostanai, but from the Palestinian patriarchs (Coronel, " Oommentarii Quinque," p. 110, Vienna, 1864). There was likewise an exilarchate in Syria under the Egyptian sultan in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, with its seat at Damascus the exilarch Yisha of Damascus (1288) joined hands with the exilarch David of Mosul and
"by the Jews in all parts. Elclad, in the ninth century traveled extensively from
Africa, notes that the Jews of Abyssinia placed "the sages of Babylon " first in their prayers for their
brethren of the diaspora (Zemah Gaon, in Epstein, "Elclad ha-Dani," p. 8); and a siraiMiddle lar prayer, ]p-|Q D1p although it has Ages. quite lost its application, is extant today in many congregations. R. Paltiel of Cairo contributed one thousand gold pieces to the schools of Babylonia ("Medieval Jewish Chrou." ii. 128), in accordance, no doubt, with a custom prevalent in all places where Jews dwelt. In 1139 Abraham ibn Ezra was in Bagdad, and the exilarchate had possibly been restored at that time (see his comxii. 7). Toward the end of the twelfth century, both Benjamin of Tudela and Pethahiah of Regensburg gave a description of Babylon; Judah al-Harizi's journey was somewhat later. Benjamin found seven thousand Jews in Mosul on the Tigris opposite ancient Nineveh, and at their head was R. Zakkai, of Davidic descent; he found also R. Joseph Burj al-Fulk, court astronomer of the Seljuk sultan Saifeddin. Pethahiah ("Travels," London, 1856) found there two " nesi'im " (princes) of the house of David. Other inhabitants paid a gold dinar to the government, but the Jews paid one-half to the government and the other to the two princes. In another passage (I.e. p. 20) Pethahiah says that every Jew in Babylonia paid a poll-tax of one gold piece to the head of the academy (of Bagdad?) for the king (calif) demanded no taxes. The Jews in Babylonia lived in peace. Passing through many places which counted two thousand, ten thousand, and even fifteen thousand Jewish inhabitants, Benjamin reached Bagdad, the residence of the calif. At. this time the calif (Emir al-Mumemin) was considered only as the spiritual head of the state the functions of government proper were exercised by "Thecalif," says the Seljuk princes. Benjamin Benjamin, "is kindly disposed toward of Tudela. Israel, and reads and speaks our holy tongue." In Bagdad there resided about a thousand Jews, and there were ten colleges, which he enumerates, all under a president of their own. At the head of all stood the exilarch Daniel This shows that the exilarchate must b. Hisdai.
mentary on Zech.
have been restored, and, to judge from Benjamin's further description, it had lost but little of its former Pethahiah mentions only one academy in splendor. Bagdad and but a single presiding officer he knows nothing of an exilarch. The inroad of the Mongolians seems to have wrought havoc in Bagdad and
the only large
congregation
known
to Al-Harizi
(Makama 12, 18, 24, 46) was that of Mosul. Passing through the city of Babylon, Benjamin reached a place inhabited by twenty thousand Jews, where the house of the prophet Daniel was shown. Both travelers recount many legends and popular traditions concerning Daniel's grave in Susa (see Cambridge Bible, Daniel, p. xxi.), Ezekiel's synagogue, and the graves of individual Talmudists— traditions which survive to-day in great measure there, but which evidence considerable superstition on the part of the Babylonian Jews, a failing they share, however, with their Mohammedan neighbors.
sured that even then
—
the rabbinical authorities of Babylonia that is, Bagdad in opposing the anti-Maimonists ("Hemdah Genuzah," p. 21ft; " Kerem Hemed," iii. 170). Temporary commotion was caused in the life of the Jews of the califate by the appearance of David
—
Ai-hoy,
who
called himself in his Messianic capacity
by the name of Menahem b. Solomon. The califate hastened to its end before the rising power of the Mongolians. These heathen tribes knew no distinction, as Bar Hebrseus remarks, between heathens, Jews, and Christians; and their grand mogul Cubalai showed himself just toward the Jews who served in his army (Marco Polo, book ch. vi.). Hulagu, the destroyer of the califate (1258) and the conqueror of Palestine (1260), was tolerant toward both Jews and Christians; but there
ii.,
can be no doubt that in those days of terrible warfare the Jews must have suffered much with others.
Under the Mongolian rulers, the priests of all religions were exempt from the Period. poll-tax and it is not true when Mohammedan writers deny that the Jews possessed the same privilege (Vambery, "Gesch. Buchara's," i. 156, Stuttgart, 1872). Hulagu 's second son, Ahmed, embraced Islam, but his successor, Argun (1284-91), hated the Moslems and was friendly to Jews and Christians; his chief counselor was a Jew, Sa'ad al-Daulah, a physician of Bagdad
Mongolian
(D'Ohsson, "Histoire des Mongoles," book iii., ch. ii., p. 31; Weil, "Gesch. der Islarnitiscb.cn Vijlker," After the death of the great khan and the p. 881).
murder of his Jewish favorite, the Mohammedans fell upon the Jews, and Bagdad witnessed a regular battle between them. Ghaikatu also had a Jewish minister of finance, Reshid al-Daulah (Bar Hebrseus, 682).
The khan Gazan
also
i.
became a Mohammedan,
so-called Omar Law (see above) to sway. The Egyptian sultan Nasr, who also ruled over Irak, reestablished the same law in 1330, and saddled it with new limitations (Weil, I.e. pp. 19, 398). Mongolian fury once again devastated the localities inhabited by Jews, when, in 1393, Timur
and restored the full
