304 A History of Judaism
rejection of rabbinic teachings parallels the rejection of Sunni teachings
by Persian Shiites in the Islam of his time, and Anan’s descendants were
revered by his followers just as the sons of Ali were revered by Shia
Muslims.^23
Anan appears to have taught between 762 and 767. His immediate
followers were never numerous, and few Jews identified themselves as
Ananites by the tenth century, but he came to be seen by the Rabbanites
as the single founding figure of Karaism. Karaites in later generations
attributed their origins both to Anan and to another Persian teacher,
Benjamin b. Moses al- Nahawandi who, according to al- Kirkisani, had
in the ninth century also been steeped in rabbinic learning before eluci-
dating a distinctive theology and adopting the name Kara’i, which
probably referred to his distinctive emphasis on mikra (scripture). In the
conclusion to his Book of Rules, which was written not in Aramaic (like
the Talmud) or Arabic (like most later Karaite teachings) but in Hebrew,
Benjamin’s attitude to those aspects of Judaism for which no scriptural
injunction can be identified is relaxed:
Let there be abundant peace to all the Exiled [that is, Jews outside the land
of Israel], from me, Benjamin son of Moses – may his memory be blessed
together with that of all the righteous. I, who am dust and ashes beneath
the soles of your feet, have written this Book of Rules for you Karaites, so
that you might pass judgments according to it upon your brethren and
friends. For every rule I have indicated the pertinent verse of Scripture. As
for other rules, which are observed and recorded by the Rabbanites and
for which I could find no pertinent biblical verse, I have written them
down also, so that you might observe them likewise if you so desire.Emphasis on the authority of scripture rendered Benjamin’s teachings,
like those of Anan, suitable for their later reputation as the founders of
Karaism, but in other respects the doctrines of both were either dropped
or rejected. Benjamin espoused a distinctive notion of the divine as
unsullied by intervention in the world, advocating a theology similar to
the Logos theory propounded 800 years earlier by Philo of Alexandria,
according to which the world had been made by an angel as inter-
mediary between the divine and created worlds. Whether Benjamin was
directly influenced by Philo through a translation of Philo’s work in
Arabic is unknown.^24
In any case such notions were vigorously denied by later Karaites,
including, at the end of the ninth century, in Jerusalem, by the strongest
influence on later Karaite doctrine, Daniel b. Moses al- Kumisi, who by