[3] With the settlement and growing prosperity of jews in the city as the Aghlabids slowly declined while the Fatimid Caliphate grew in power and extended its influence in North Africa through the Zirid dynasty, a need grew for contact with other jewish communities, apart from the other north african yeshivot in Fez, in Gabès, in Sijilmassa, and Tlemcen.
[4] The religious leaders of Kairouan kept correspondence with communities from Spain, Provence, the Ashkenaz to Babylonia,[2] helped by its geographic location, including with leading Torah authorities such as Rav Sherira Gaon, Rav Hai Gaon, and Shmuel Hanaggid.
Rabbi Yaakov ben Nissim led the Kairouan yeshiva the end of the 10th century.
[6] At the peak of the yeshiva's prestige, Egyptian communities in Cairo and Alexandria would turn to the scholars of Kairouan, even though they were subject to the authority of the academies in the Land of Israel.
[7] After the Banu Hilal invasion in 1057[3] and conquest of the Zirid dynasty, vassals of the Fatimids, the community's economic power began to decline.