Nissi al-Nahrawānī

Nissi ben Berekhiah al-Nahrawānī was a poet whose family may have come originally from a town called Nahrawān in Persia, or possibly in Iraq. He held the position of resh kallah (head of the academy) in the Sura academy (then located in Baghdad), one of the centers of talmudic scholarship during the geonic period (ca. 700 to ca. 1000). According to the Chronicle of Baghdad of Nathan ha-Bavli, Nissi played a role in the appointment of Se‘adya Ga’on as head of Sura. Many of Nissi’s poems survive in the Cairo Geniza.