Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World

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Karaism
(7,177 words)

Karaism (Heb. qaraʾut), the form of Judaism which claims to adhere to a more literal interpretation of the Bible (miqraʾ) than that of the Rabbanites, the exponents of Rabbinic Judaism, and which rejects the institution of Jewish Oral Law as codified in the Mishna and Talmud, had its origins and greatest intellectual accomplishments in the Islamic world. It emerged in Iran, Iraq, and the Land of Israel in the late eighth and ninth…

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Daniel J. Lasker and Joel Beinin, “Karaism”, in: Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World, Executive Editor Norman A. Stillman. Consulted online on 19 March 2024 <http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1878-9781_ejiw_COM_0012630>
First published online: 2010
First print edition: ISBN: 978900417678, 3172



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