A guided journey - 3-4 minutes

Jewish life across Islamic worlds

Nine stops, in order. Follow Jewish learning, law and commerce as it moves west - from Babylonia and Persia to al-Andalus and the Maghreb - closing on a Cairo market day and a living Djerba address.

1. 1 The Portable Homeland: The Babylonian Talmud Completed The Babylonian Talmud opens with a homeland made portable through argument rather than a single capital.
2. 2 Answers by Caravan Geonic questions and answers show learning travelling outward by writing.
3. 3 The Jews of Persia under the caliphate Persian Jewish authority supplies the Abbasid setting without becoming the empire's ornament.
4. 4 The Radhanites: merchants of the whole world The Radhanites widen the frame from academy to road and commerce.
5. 5 A Yemeni Torah Case A silver Torah case carries the route into craft: Yemeni silversmiths turned devotion into a trade passed hand to hand, ordinary work alongside extraordinary learning.
6. 6 Cordoba and the courtier Hasdai ibn Shaprut The route now travels westward to Cordoba, then Fez, rather than following a strict chronology. Hasdai ibn Shaprut brings learning, letters and political power together in al-Andalus.
7. 7 Fez and the Jews of the Maghreb Fez brings the westward movement into a Maghrebi centre shaped by scholarship and trade.
8. 8 A Geniza Shopping List The Cairo shopping list is daily-market evidence: markets, errands and household provisioning.
9. 9 The El Ghriba Synagogue, Djerba Djerba returns the route from wide networks to a living community-held address.