The Tunisian city of Kairouan (Hebrew: קירואן, Arabic: قيروان Qirwānⓘ), also known as Kirwan or al-Qayrawan was a world center of Talmudic and Halakhic scholarship[1]: 29 for at least three generations.
He enthralled the audience with his fluency in Hebrew, and brought with him a collection of laws he claimed were practiced among the ten lost tribes.
These laws puzzled the Kairouan Jews, and so they sent an enquiry to Rabbi Tzemach Ben Haim of the Sura Academy, who attempted to explain them and reconcile them with halacha.
A third Kairouan Jew of that era, Nathan HaBavli, (950) recorded his impressions of Babylonian Jewry in Seder Olam Zuta.
[3]: 18–19 During the 11th century, the most prominent Jew in Kairouan was Abraham ben Nathan (Abu Ishāq Ibrahim ibn 'Ata),[2] "one of the great Jewish leaders of his day", who in 1015 received the titles Naggid HaGolah (lit.
At the peak of the yeshiva's prestige, Egyptian communities would turn to the scholars of Kairouan, even though they were subject to the Rashut of the Land of Israel.
Rabbenu Nissim died in 1062,[3]: 19 and by the middle of the 11th century, the Kairouan yeshiva had lost its stature as a world center of Torah study.
The conquest of the city of Qayrawan caused a mass migration of the Jewish population from the area of Kairouan while creating an Arab stronghold over the land.
The community disbanded in 1270 when the Hafsids forbade non-Muslims from living in the city; the remaining Jews were forced to convert to Islam or to leave."