Mizrahi (Eastern) Jews are the Jewish communities that remained in or near the ancient Near East and North Africa — Iraq, Iran, Syria, Yemen, Egypt, and across the Islamic world. Their traditions descend directly from the Babylonian Jewish community and the Gaonic academies. Mizrahi Jews maintained the Babylonian liturgical tradition and the rulings of the Geonim (the heads of the Babylonian academies, 589–1038 AD). They are distinct from both Sephardic Jews (whose tradition was shaped by the Iberian synthesis of Babylonian and Palestinian elements under Islam) and Ashkenazi Jews (whose tradition developed in Christian Europe). Today Mizrahi Jews are the largest single component of Israeli Jewry.