Birth of Ananism


 * Birth of Ananism
 * by Jonathan I. Edelstein
 * 3 October 2001

Jews, history of ... Curiously, it was among the B'nei Mikra, rather than in their own country, that the Sajdians were to have their most enduring influence. The roots of the B'nei Mikra movement, also known as the Ananites or the Karaim, actually predate the Arab Awakening; the first expressions of dissent against the growing power of the rabbinate occurred as early as the late third century BSE. The encounter between the two, however -- like so much else -- would occur in the early years of the new age...

... Little is known of the origin of Anan ben David, and much of that is intertwined with legend. It is known that he was a Babylonian Jew and that he was born sometime around 50 BSE [722 CE], but his parentage cannot be determined with certainty. It is widely believed that he was the eldest son of the secular leader of the Jewish community of Babylon who turned against orthodox Judaism after being passed over for the succession, but this may be a calumny spread by later rabbinic historians. His claimed membership in the House of David also cannot be proven...

The definitive break between Anan ben David's followers and rabbinic Judaism is generally measured from the publication of his Aniyah -- "mourning" -- in 5 BSE [767 CE]. This short work consisted of a refutation of the Talmud and a denial of both the Oral Law and the authority of the rabbinate. The book drew its title from the state of perpetual mourning that Anan believed was proper for Jews after the destruction of the Beit haMikdash, and the commandments within evince an asceticism suitable to such a state. The B'nei Mikra were forbidden heat or light on the Sabbath day, multiplied the five fasts of the traditional Jewish calendar to almost twenty, and were prohibited from drinking wine. Many scholars consider these commandments to be evidence of Arabian influence in Anan ben David's thought, and this cannot be disproven; however, he is not known to have had direct contact with Arab philosophers and he is more likely to have drawn from ascetic traditions indigenous to Judaism.

The pages of Aniyah reveal a lucid and inquiring mind possessed by an evidently charismatic theologian, and Anan's sect gathered followers among the disaffected throughout Babylonia and even in certain Levantine cities. It seems likely, however, that the B'nei Mikra would have remained a relatively small dissident movement if it had not encountered the doctrines of Sajda...

This meeting appears to have occurred during the time of the third Gaon, Natronai (SE 22-46) [794–818 CE], because it is then that the B'nei Mikra scriptures begin to change. It is not true, as some rabbis have charged, that the B'nei Mikra became dualist; even the most extreme Ananite branches never became "a religion of God and Goddess." However, it is clear that women -- who had surprisingly high status among the B'nei Mikra even in Anan's time and were allowed to preach from the earliest days of the movement -- became steadily more influential, and the feminine aspect of God was increasingly emphasized. The Shekhinah was not venerated as a separate godhead, but it became the vehicle through which female worshipers and teachers understood and approached the deity.

The Sajdian encounter also reinforced the Ananites' tendency toward personal spirituality. Where orthodox Judaism had become legalistic and increasingly hierarchical, the B'nei Mikra emphasized the independence of each worshiper, who was free to arrive at his (or her) own interpretation of the Torah. Anan himself repeatedly warned that his opinion was not authoritative, and famously said that he could not lead anyone else to God. Under his successors Judah and Natronai, this doctrine was honored more in the breach than the observance, but by the time of the fourth Gaon, Solomon (SE 46-60) [818-832 CE], this incipient slide toward hierarchy had been reversed. In his proclamation of SE 56 [828 CE], Solomon declared that there would be no more Gaonim after him and that there would be no religious rank higher than that of teacher. The B'nei Mikra would have charismatic leaders aplenty in subsequent years, but they would never again recognize a supreme arbiter in matters of faith.

The greatest transformation of the Ananites, however, was their adoption of the Arabs' proselytizing zeal. For the first time since the rise of Christianity, there were Jewish missionaries who worked not only among Jews but among gentiles. To the west, the Christian kingdoms angrily rejected the Ananites' attempt to sway them from their faith; the appearance of B'nei Mikra preachers often sparked riots that did not distinguish between Ananites and rabbinic Jews in their violent reprisal. Not surprisingly, the Jewish communities of the Levant and Egypt declared the B'nei Mikra anathema; by SE 65 [837 CE], it was generally recognized that Jews and B'nei Mikra were separate religions.

In their homeland, as well, the Ananites' efforts at proselytizing often ended in martyrdom. To the north, however, they found more fertile ground in the kingdom of the Kuzari, where the ruling class had converted to Judaism during the first century BSE. The adoption of the B'nei Mikra doctrine by the Khazar king in SE 58 [830 CE] -- perhaps to free himself from the influence of foreign scholars who claimed authority over him in matters of religion -- signaled another conversion as complete as the first. Before another generation had passed, Khazar merchants and soldiers had begun to carry Ananite doctrines into central Asia and Russia.

It is unclear when the first B'nei Mikra missionaries arrived in northern India, but fragmentary records from the early second century SE indicate that some were already there...