'Anan Ben David is the founder of the Karaite movement, a form of Judaism that split off from rabbinic Judaism due to its rejection of the oral law.
In the second half of the seventh century and in the whole of the eighth, as a result of the tremendous intellectual commotion produced throughout the Orient by the swift conquests of the Arabs and the collision of Islam with the older religions and cultures of the world, there arose a large number of religious sects, especially in Persia, Babylonia (Iraq), and Syria. Judaism did not escape this general fermentation; the remnants of early religious schisms—the Sadducees and Essenes—picked up new life and flickered once more before their final extinction.
At this time new sects also arose in Judaism; the most important of which were the Isawites (called after their founder Abu Isa), the Yudganites, and the Shadganites (followers of Yudgan and Shadgan). All these groups may have quickly disappeared, or been assimilated by rabbinical Judaism, if not for the actions of Ana Ben David. He succeeded in uniting the heterogeneous anti-rabbinical elements under his leadership, and formed them into a new sect.
When, about the year 760 CE, the Jewish exilarch in Babylon (probably Isaac Iskawi) died, it appears that two brothers among his nearest kin, probably nephews of his, Anan and Josiah (Hassan), were next in order of succession to the exalted office. Eventually the nomination was given to Josiah, who was then elected exilarch by the rabbis of the Babylonian Jewish colleges (the Geonim) and by the notables of the chief Jewish congregations; and the choice was confirmed by the calif of Baghdad.
Ana Ben David opposed this move, and along with his followers he proclaimed himself the antiexilarch. This step was construed by the Muslim authorities as rebellion against the authority of the calif, who had formally invested Josiah with the position. Such an act on the part of a dhimmi (follower of a religion tolerated by Islam) in a Muslim state was a capital offense.
When Anan's proclamation of himself as exilarch became known, he was arrested by the authorities one Sunday in 767, and thrown into prison, to be executed on the ensuing Friday, as guilty of high treason. Luckily for Anan, he met in jail a prominent fellow-prisoner, the founder of the Muslim casuistic school of the Hanifites, al-Nu'man ibn Thabit, surnamed Abu Ḥanifah. He gave Ana Ben David advice which saved his life: He should set himself to expound all ambiguous precepts of the Torah in a fashion opposed to the traditional interpretation, and make this principle the foundation of a new religious sect. He must next get his partizans to secure the presence of the calif himself at the trial — his presence not being an unusual thing at the more important prosecutions. Anan was to declare that his religion was quite a different one from that of his brother and of the rabbinical Jews, and that his followers entirely coincided with him in matters of religious doctrine; which was an easy matter for Anan to say, because the majority of them were opposed to the rabbis.
Ben David and his friends complied with this advice, and in the presence of the calif Almansur (754-775) Anan defended himself. Moreover, Anan won for himself the favor of the calif by his deep veneration for Muhammed as the prophet of the Arab peoples, and by the declaration that his new religion, in many ways was similar to Islam.
Anan now devoted himself to the development of his new religion and its new code. His Sefer ha-Mitzvot ("The Book of the Precepts") was published about 770, and is considered by many to be the origin of Karaism.
Anan Ben David adopted many principles and opinions of other anti-rabbinic forms of Judaism that had previously existed. He took much from the old Sadducees and Essenes, whose remnants still survived, and whose writings—or at least writings ascribed to them—were still in circulation. Thus, for example, these older sects prohibited the burning of any lights and the leaving of one's dwelling on the Sabbath; they also enjoined the actual observation of the new moon for the appointment of festivals, and the holding of the Pentecost festival always on a Sunday.
From the Isawites and the Yudganites immediately preceding this epoch, he borrowed the recognition and justification of Jesus as the prophet for the followers of Christianity, and of Muhammed for those of Islam; in this way ingratiating himself with professors of those creeds. From them, too, came his prohibition of all meat, with the exception of the flesh of the deer and the dove, in token of mourning for the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem.
Although Anan was opposed in certain points to traditional Judaism, he evidently could not, as long as he laid claim to an office dependent upon the Babylonian rabbinical academies, have possibly devised so radical a project as that of completely overturning the thousand-year-old edifice of rabbinical Judaism. It could only have been such circumstances as those which made the creation of a new sect a matter of life or death for him, and that fateful meeting with Abu Ḥanifah, which could have induced him to apply to Judaism the maxim of the celebrated Mohammedan theologian just quoted.
Abu Ḥanifah was accustomed in certain cases to take the words of the Quran not in their literal, but in a symbolical sense (Ta'awil); and Anan adopted the same method with the Hebrew text of the Bible. Illustrations of this method are not infrequently, indeed, afforded by the Talmud itself. Thus he interpreted the prohibition of plowing on Sabbath (Ex. xxxiv. 21) as applying to marital intercourse; the word "brothers" (aḥim, Deut. xxv. 5) in connection with the levirate marriage he interpreted as "relatives," etc. But Anan's indebtedness to Abu Ḥanifah's system was most suggestively demonstrated in the following. Abu Ḥanifah's chief importance in the range of Mohammedan theology consists mainly in that to the three accepted sources of law in Islam—the Koran, the Sunnah (tradition), and the Ijma' (agreement among Moslems)—he added a fourth; namely, Rai (the speculative, individual view), claiming that in cases not provided for in the first three sources of law, it is permitted to the teacher of religion and to the judge to make his own decision with his own speculative reason in accordance with analogy (Ki'as; Hebrew heḳesh or mah maẓinu) with the cases actually provided.
Now with Anan, too, it is found that the greater number of his innovations are based upon analogy. But he distinguished himself from his Mohammedan model in that he built mainly, not upon analogy of subject as Abu Ḥanifah did, but upon analogy of expressions, of words (the rabbinical gezerah shawah), indeed even upon analogy of single letters; a system which can hardly be considered a step in advance. The earliest sources tell also of another doctrine borrowed by Anan from the Mohammedans; namely, the belief in the transmigration of the soul (metempsy-chosis). This doctrine, represented in Greek antiquity especially by Empedocles and the Pythagoreans, had always been wide-spread in India, and was encountered there by a Mohammedan sect called the Rawendites, adopted by them, and in the middle of the eighth century was carried to Babylonia (Irak). This, too, was annexed by the Karaite schismatic, and he is said to have written a special work in its defense.
Minute Prescriptions.
In regard to general characteristics, this founder of Karaism, it must be confessed, was anything but a reformer in the modern sense of the word; for instead of lightening the load of traditional law, he increased the severity of religious praxis, as will appear from the following. Anan rejected all the admeasurements instituted by the rabbis (shi'urim); and instead of any permissible minimum for prohibited things—which the Talmud admits, as for instance shishim, one part in sixty, or ke-zait, "the size of an olive," etc.—he insisted that even the smallest atom of anything prohibited, mingling with an infinitely large quantity of a thing permitted, was sufficient to render the whole of the latter prohibited. In his law-book he maintains that as long as Israel is in exile the flesh of domestic animals, with the exception of the deer, is prohibited. The Talmud relates that after the destruction of the Second Temple, certain ascetics (perushim) sought to prohibit meat and wine because they had been employed in the Temple ritual, and that Rabbi Joshua ben Hananiah repressed the movement. The schismatic Abu Isa, just before Anan's time, had succeeded in imposing this piece of asceticism upon his followers as a law. His example was now followed by Anan, who in addition prohibited the flesh of poultry and of all birds with the exception of the pigeon and turtle-dove.
Rules for Slaughtering.
The additional abolition by him of the injunction against eating meat and milk together (basar be-ḥalab) was thus rendered almost gratuitous. To this limitation of the eating of meat must also be added his regulation concerning the personality of the individual who slays creatures for food; Anan rejected the broad precept of the Talmud that "slaughtering is permissible to anybody," demanded a certain dignity for the act, and required from the slaughterer a complete profession of faith. From this dates the Karaite custom of reciting the articles of the creed preparatory to slaughtering. Finally, not satisfied with the Talmudic dictum that in the act of slaughtering it is sufficient to cut through two ducts—gullet and windpipe—Anan required that in addition two more—arteries or veins—should be severed. In addition to the legal fast-days appointed by the Bible, Anan, by means of word-analogies and peculiar misinterpretation, instituted the following: The seventh day of every month; the 14th and 15th of Adar instead of the rabbinical fast of the 13th, including thus the Purim festival; also a seventy-days' fast from the 13th of Nisan to the 23d of Siwan; including Passover and Pentecost as times of fasting when neither food nor drink could be partaken of by day.
Circumcision of children, according to Anan, must be performed with the scissors only; any other instrument was strictly forbidden under penalty of death. Other regulations concerning the same ceremony were of a like stringent character, and only he upon whom the operation had been performed accurately and with full observance of all these requirements was allowed to act in the capacity of mohel (circumciser). The omission of any single detail rendered the operation insufficient and vain, necessitating its reperformance. An adult (that is, a proselyte) might be circumcised only on the eleventh day of the month.
Rules for Sabbath.
It was forbidden to go outside of one's dwelling on the Sabbath except for purposes of prayer or necessity. Anything that is ordinarily carried on the shoulders, owing to its size or weight, might not be carried around even in a room. Anan's law-book insists that the Sabbath evening (Friday) must be passed in darkness: lights kindled in the daytime on Friday must be extinguished at nightfall, for it is forbidden to pass the Sabbath in a place artificially illuminated. Cooking and baking must be done on Friday, not only for Friday and Saturday, but also for Saturday night, to forestall any impatient longing for the close of the Sabbath. Viands already prepared must not be kept warm, but eaten cold. Unleavened bread (Maẓẓah) must be made exclusively of barley-meal, and he that prepares it out of wheaten meal incurs the punishment appointed for those that eat actual leaven (ḥameẓ). Nor may this unleavened bread be baked in an oven, but, like the paschal lamb, it must be roasted on the coals. In spite of his pretendedly tolerant utterances concerning the founders of Christianity and Islam, Anan amplified very considerably the traditional injunctions designed to keep the Jews distinct from other nations, particularly in the matter of the dietary laws.
That the founder of Karaism had small respect for science is often shown in his law-book. He forbids the use of medicines and of medical aid in general, for it is written, he says, "I, God, am thy physician" (Ex. xv. 26); this is held to prohibit drugs and doctors.His opposition to the astronomical determination of the festivals, of which he boasted to the calif, led him to declare astronomy as a branch of the astrology and divination forbidden in the Bible, thus undermining the very foundation of the rabbinical calendar.
