Northern Africa, too, which had enjoyed a brief efflorescence under Isaac Israeli, Dunash ben Tamim, and the alien R. Chushiel, produced its last set of great men in the latter part of the eleventh century, and then sank into oblivion. Its two great authorities were Chananel, the son of Chushiel, the immigrant, and Nissim bar Jacob Ibn-Shahin (1015-1055). They lived in the same place, and are usually named together, but they do not appear to have been on friendly terms with each other. On the contrary, there appears to have been the same rivalry between them as there had been between Chanoch and Ibn-Abitur, Nissim, like the latter, being a native, and Chananel, like the former, the son of an alien. We are not even certain which of the two was the official rabbi of Kairuan; both of them, however, presided over the school. Chananel, in addition, had a large business; whilst Nissim was so poor that he had to be supported by the Jewish minister in Granada. They, however, showed remarkable similarity in their ideas; they pursued the same studies, and wrote works on the same subjects, but Chananel made use of the Hebrew language, and Nissim of Arabic. A new element in the study of the Talmud, which established it on a firmer basis than that on which the Geonim had been able to place it, was added by the labors of these two men. The Jerusalem Talmud, although more ancient than the Babylonian, had suffered considerably by the fate to which books as well as men are exposed. Whilst the Babylonian Talmud was known and studied in the East to the boundaries of Khorasan and India, and in the West to the end of the ancient world, its companion remained for a long time unknown outside of its birthplace. The former had commentators, who explained and expounded it thoroughly; the latter was for a long time neglected. In consequence of the connection of northern Africa with Palestine, brought about through its conquest by the Fatimide Caliphs, the Jewish teachers of the two lands came into contact with each other, and the Talmud of the Holy Land (as it was called) became known in Kairuan. The two great Talmudists, Chananel and Nissim, were the first in Talmudic circles to busy themselves with it. In their Talmudical writings, which consisted partly of commentaries, explanations of separate words and the subject-matter, and partly of practical decisions, they gave prominence to the Jerusalem Talmud. Both wrote commentaries to the Pentateuch, in which they followed the path marked out by Saadiah for rational exposition of difficult passages in the Pentateuch.