Cook Family
Genealogy Pages

Home Page  |  What's New  |  Photos  |  Histories  |  Headstones  |  Reports  |  Surnames
Search
First Name:


Last Name:



Bustanai, Exilarch at Babylon

Male 610 - 665  (55 years)

Personal Information    |    PDF

  • Name Bustanai  
    Suffix Exilarch at Babylon 
    Birth 610  Babylon Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Gender Male 
    Death 665 
    Notes 
    • «b»http://www.rpi.edu/~holmes/Hobbies/Genealogy/ps22/ps22_396.htm«/b»

      Bustanai (d. 660/5) was the first Exilarch to be recognized by Arab rule. His birth and much of his life is surrounded by legend. As a token of appreciation, Caliph Ali gave him the daughter of the Persian king Yazdeger (Yazadagird III of Parthia) for a slave. Eventually Bustanai married her.

      In 641 the Muslims conquered Mesopotamia with the help of Babylonian Jewry who had been suffering from Masdakite religious fanaticism. Such great help was given to the Muslims by the Jews that when the Muslims conquered Persia the two daughters of the Shah were taken by the Caliph Omar, who married one and gave the other in marriage to the Exilarch Bustanai.

      His father was killed in 589, before he was born

      event
      ·His name, Bustenai, is from bustan, which means "orchard."

      event
      0657.
      ·married King Yazdigird III's daughter Dara in a marriage arranged by the establisher of Islam, Ali, Mohammeds son-in-law, the first Imam and the establisher of Islam

      event
      ·The last Persian king [Chosroes II is the last great Persian king], inimical to the Jews, decided to extinguish the royal house of David, no one being left of that house but a young woman whose husband had been killed shortly after his marriage [the Exilarch Haninai's widow]. Then the king dreamed he was in a garden ( "bostan" ) , where he uprooted the trees and broke the branches, and, as he was lifting up his ax against a little root, an old man snatched the ax away from him and gave him a severe blow that almost killed him, saying: "Are you not satisfied with having destroyed all the beautiful trees of my garden, that you now try to destroy also the last root? Truly you deserve that your memory perish from the earth." The king thereupon promised to guard the last plant of the garden very carefully. No one but an old Jewish sage was able to interpret the dream, and he said: "The garden represents the house of David, all of whose descendants you have destroyed except a young woman with her unborn baby. The old man you saw was David, to whom you promised that his house should be renewed by this boy." The Jewish sage, who was the father of the young woman, brought her to the king, and she was assigned rooms fitted up with princely splendor, where she gave birth to a boy, who received the name "Bostanai" from the garden ("bostan") which the king had seen in his dream. (1,2)

      event
      ABT 0640.
      ·recognised the heads of the two principal academies of Babylonian Jewry, and through him by the Muslim caliphate, as final arbiters of Jewish law and the religious heads of all Jewish communities under Muslim rule (1)

      event
      0642.
      ·recognized as Exilarch, leader of the Jews, in return for the valuable assistance of the Babylonian Jews in Caliph Omar's campaigns against Persia (1) was Jewish and her name is unknown.


      «b»http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bustanai«/b»
    Person ID I60508  Glenn Cook Family
    Last Modified 19 Jun 2013 

    Father Haninai ben Hofnai ha-David, Exilarch at Babylon,   b. 560, Babylon Find all individuals with events at this locationd. 589 (Age 29 years) 
    Family ID F551616955  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

    Family Izdundad Sassanid, Princess of Iran   d. Yes, date unknown 
    Children 
     1. Hisdai Shahrijar ha-David   d. Yes, date unknown
     2. Hanini Bar'Adoi David   d. Yes, date unknown
    Family ID F551616954  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
    Last Modified 19 Jun 2013