‘Anan ben David

Very little is known of the life of ‘Anan ben David other than that he lived in Abbasid Baghdad. According to some medieval accounts, he held, or sought to hold, the position of exilarch (resh galuta). ‘Anan composed a legal handbook in Aramaic, the Book of the Commandments (Sefer ha-mitsvot), in which he presented his own teachings on religious law and practice, which inclined to asceticism. Early Karaites differentiated themselves from ‘Anan’s followers, the Ananites, but after the twelfth century, Karaites came to consider him the founder of their movement. Later, some Karaites, led by Daniel ben Moses al-Qumisī in the late ninth century, repudiated ‘Anan’s views as insufficiently “enlightened.” The Ananites were eventually absorbed into the Karaites, and ‘Anan’s works were lost, surviving only in quotations from later writers.