The Book of Lights and Watchtowers: On Eating Milk with Meat

In this passage from his comprehensive code of Karaite law, The Book of Lights and Watchtowers (Kitāb al-anwār wa-’l-marāqib), al-Qirqisānī addresses the thrice-repeated biblical prohibition of cooking a kid in its mother’s milk. Rabbinic tradition had gone beyond the literal meaning of this verse to posit that the Torah prohibits the consumption of any animal meat with any kind of milk (the inclusion of animals that do not produce milk, like chickens, was a rabbinic prohibition). Al-Qirqisānī first reviews the competing approaches among his Karaite brethren (his “coreligionists,” as he calls them, excluding Rabbanites) and then rejects most of their conclusions. Al-Qirqisānī’s discussion speaks to his larger approach in biblical interpretation and the various ways that Karaites navigated their commitment to a “literal” reading of scripture.