Reconstructing the Past and Conceptualizing the Jewish “Other”: How the Babylonian Geonim Contributed to the Creation of the Founding Myth of Karaism

Abstract

The purpose of the article is threefold. First, it explores whom the term “Karaites” initially denoted. The suggested answer is that as late as toward the middle of the tenth century, it designated representatives of a cross-sectoral (or trans-sectarian) phenomenon within Judaism of an antitraditionalist opposition (akin to ahl [or aṣḥāb] al-raʾy who opposed ahl [or aṣḥāb] al-ḥadīth in Islam), rather than members of any specific religious group. Second, the article revisits the question of what the early Karaites’ attitude was toward the ʻAnanites. It demonstrates that although the Karaites appreciated ʻAnan ben David as a rebellious innovator and courageous trailblazer, as well as were acquainted with and studied his Code, as late as toward the middle of the tenth century, they were still not associated with the ʻAnanites, forming two separate religious movements. Third, the article reappraises the issue of provenance of ʻAnan’s life story and its emergence among the Karaites as the founding narrative of the movement, by investigating how, why, when, and by whom the myth of ʻAnan as the father of Karaism was created, as well as when and why it became popular among the Karaites. The article focuses on the history of Karaism as preserved in rabbinic Jewish sources from the ninth through the eleventh centuries. It also scrutinizes contemporary Karaite texts and Muslim heresiographic literature that address the subject. The extensive comparisons help to trace the origins of this myth back to the Babylonian geonim and reconstruct the way in which the Karaites appropriated, developed, and transformed it.