Bustanai, Ben-Chaninai

(c. 618–70)

   Babylonian exilarch. Many legends surround Bustanai’s birth and his appointment as exilarch by the Moslem Arab conquerors of Babylonia.

   Bustanai’s marriage to a captive Persian princess had halachic repercussions in later gaonic literature, where the descendants of Bustanai’s Jewish wives wished to assert their precedence over those of the Persian wife. It was later accepted that Bustanai, prior to his marriage to the princess, had first freed her and converted her to Judaism.