Bustanai

Origins and early life

Bustanai ben Haninai lived in Babylonia in the seventh century, in the years when the Sasanian empire fell and the armies of Islam took its place — a son of the house of the exilarchs, the princes of the Davidic line who had led the Jews of Babylonia for centuries.

Work and career

His historical importance is beyond dispute: he was the first exilarch confirmed in office by the new Arab authorities after the Muslim conquest of Persia, and by that confirmation he carried Jewish self-government intact across one of the great ruptures of history, from the Persian order into the Islamic one; every exilarch who followed for the next centuries descended from him. This fiche says plainly what the sources say — that the man is also wrapped in legend.

The famous tale of the Persian princess Izdundad, given to him by the caliph Umar, and of the question whether she had been freed and converted before their children were born, generated centuries of halakhic controversy over the status of his descendants, and the reference works treat that story as a later accretion around a real office and a real man; the details of his life, beyond the outline, are not securely known. He died around 670.