— THE JEWISH ENCYCLOPEDIA
Auan ben David
into prison, to Ik- cxfcutcil on Die cnsnins Friday, IJiit luckily for Anim, us !;iiilly of lii.trli treason. he met in jail a very iironiincnl anil shnwil fellow prisoner, no oilier than the founder of the ;rreat iMohaninieilan casuist ie school of the llanitites (whose ritual is doniinanl in Turkey at the present day). ilin Tliabit. surnarned Aliu of the name of al Nu lie j;ave the ludiaiijiy preli'nder to the Hanifah. e.ilarchat<' tlu' followini; very siirewd advice, which
man
saved his life: The pretender should set himself to expound all and)ij;uous and doutitful precepts of the Torah in a fashion exactly opposed to the traditional interpretation, and make this principle the foundation of a new relijrious sect. He must next get his partizans to secure, hy means of presents and hrilies to the hiirhest otlicers of the court, the
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presence of the calif himself at the trial his jjresence not heinj; an unusual Ihin.i; al the more impor-
At the right moment. Anan throw himself at the feet of the calif and exclaim. "O Ruler of the Faithful! didst thou appoint my brother Josiah Line toa position of dignity in one ndigion. of Defense, or in two?" I'ndouhtedly the calif
tant
was
prosecutions.
to
would answer. "Only in one." Thereupon Anan was to declare that his religion was quite a dilTereiit one from tliat nf his hrolher and of the rabbinical .lews, and that his followers entirely coincided with him in mailers of religious doctrine; which was an easy mailer for Anan to say. because the majority of them were opposed to the rabbis. The prelentler and his friends complied with the shrewd couusc I given by Abu Ilanifah. and in the presence of the calif Almaiisur (754-775) Anan de-
Moreover, Anan fended himself most skilfully. won for himself the special favor of the calif liy his protestations of deep veneration for Jlohammed as the i)ro|)hel of the Arab nation and of the world of Islam, and by the declaration that his new religion. many points, entirely coincided with the Mohammedan; instancing the fact that the setting of the festiv;Us was not (h'cided by the astronomical calcuas with the ralibinical .lews lations of a cali'udar but by the actual observalion of the new moon as In this way the pris%vilh the followers of Islam. oner, though he had already been condemned to death, succeeded in gaiidng not only his freedom, but also in winning the favor and the i)rotection of the ruler and of ail the And) authorities— a circumstance which ])rovedof the greatest assistance to this new sect, so strangely founded. Anan was now able to devole himself to the development of his new religion and its new coile. But one thing was essential: it must deviate fnmi traditional Judaism, for thai was the very raison d'etre of his new sect and tlii' justitioation for his release. The fact that the majority 'of his followers were antirabbinical also maile this course acivisahle. His "Sefer liaMizwot " (The Hook of the Precepts), which occupied him for several years, and which in
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His Book of Laws.
was published about 770. sidereil the basis of the
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must beconnewly founil
sect. Il betrays very clearly that its author was anything but an original genius. He simply appropriated interprctational deviations, already existing, and ancient doctrinal differences. An analysis of Anan's code
Ananite
exhibits the following aspects: (1) Anan's relationship to the rabbinical or traditional legislation may be compared to that of a traveler in an unknown region, who. though he desires to separate from his guide, realizes that he is not able to find the w^ay by himself, and is thus compelled to follow his leader, to keep his eyes riveted on his
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footprints, and at the same lime to selecl parallel paths and side lanes in order to maintain the appearance of independence. Thus we tiiid thai allliough this schismatic made the total rejection of Iradilion his watchword, he availed himself of Ihe idenlical rules of iiilerprelalion framed in Ihe Talnuid thu so-called Middol " of H. Ishmael for Ihe eslablishmeiit <if his religious laws. He makes many moditicalions in Ihi'ni. il is true, and forces many exaggerations upon them; and wilh his iini)erfect philological altainmeiits elicits sonii- very curious ideas. He draws freely n|)on those divergent o])inions that are set down in Ihe Talnuid. but that did not attain recognilion as aulhorilative decisions for religious practise llalakah). From rabbinical jurisprudence he adopted some malerial wilh arbilrary moditicalions; other details again heaccepled bodily from the Talmud as true and binding Iradilions; these latter the Karaites ilesignatc as Its Essen- ihe "iidieriled burden" {Ke/jel hatial jieniHliiih). And since Anan designFeatures, edly imitates the language, .style, and fasiiinii of the Talmu<l most accuralely. it is not lo be wonih-red at that a gaon of the ninth eenluiv could say that thi' schismalic promised his followers lo give them a Talmud all for
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themselves, and. in point of fact, did furnish them with a most impious one. (2) It has already been indicated that Ihe founder of the Karaite sect, in order to attach to himself all who had espoused antirabliinicid schisms, adopted many of their principles and opinions in his new religious code. As far as is now known he took much from the old Sadducees and Essenes. whowe remnants still survived, and whose writings or at least writings ascribed to them were still in circulation. Thus, for example, these older sects prohibiled the burniugof any lightsand Ihe leavingof one'sdwelling on the Sabbath; they also enjoined the actual observation of the new moon for the aiiiiointment of festivals, and Ihe holding of Ihe Penlecost festival always on a Sunday. From the heresies of the Isawites and the Yudganiles immediately |ireceding this epoch, he borrowed the recognilion and juslitication of .Icsus as the prophet for the followers of Christianity, and of .'Mohammed for those of Islam; in this way ingratiating himself wilh professors of those creeds. From them. too. came his prohibition of all meat with Ihe cxceplion of the flesh of the deer and Ihe dove in token of mourning for the deslnicli<in of the Temple at .lerusalem. CA) The Mohammedan Iheologian. Abu Hanifah, who gave Anan such successful counsel, seems also to have exerted considerable inlluence upon the latter's religious system. The following ulterance may serve as charaeleristic of Abu Hanifah:
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"ronremlng thiwe things tlmt we have reeeived from God pn)i)het [Mcilmnniied]. we accept Uiein wiih uin-niidiliunal uiHl lotai subiiiissinn. Conceniing those tearlilnu's and opinions that tieionp lo the as.stn'iates and comiianions of the Uutasto proplicl.s [the Aithali], vp select from them tlie t»est. and His
all Ihinirs else, which other teachers regard them as matters left to lis,
that
we were human
who followed them have which came from |(er»oii3
beinjrs like ourselves,"
Although Anan, in common with older schismatics, wasopposed in certain pointsto traditional Judaism, he evidently could not. as hmg as he laid claim to an oflice de])endent upon the Babylonian rabbinical academies, have ])ossibly devised so radical a lirojeet as that of completely overlurning the lliousjindycar-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
and that fateful meeting wilh Abu Hanifah, which could have induced him to apply to Judaism for him.
