ʿAnan ben David was active in Baghdad during the reign of the city’s founder, the second Abbasid caliph, al-Manṣūr (r. 754–775). Starting in the twelfth century, Karaite historiography held that ʿAnan was an Exilarch and credited him with founding the Karaite movement in IraqIraq/Babylonia and the Karaite community in Jerusalem. Prior to the twelfth century, however, Karaites made a definite distinction between themselves and ‘Anan. They described him as having founded the ʿAnanites (Heb. ʿananiyyim; Ar. al-ʿananiyya), one of the many religious sects in Babylonia and Persia (Iran/…