When interpreting the Tanakh, Karaites strive to adhere to the plain or most obvious meaning (" peshat ") of the text ; this is not necessarily the literal meaning, but rather the meaning that would have been naturally understood by the ancient Israelites when the books of the Tanakh were first written.

), are Ghayyat ( in Spanish Gayet ), Ibn Danan and Ibn al-Dayyal, Al-Haruni (" the Aaronide ", the same as Cohen ), Ibn, Ibn Zabara and Ibn Zimra, ( applied to Karaites who had performed the pilgrimage to Jerusalem ), ( equivalent to John or Judah ).

Some Jews did not accept the written codification of the oral law at all ; known as Karaites, they comprised a significant portion of the world Jewish population in the 10th and 11th Centuries CE, and remain extant, though they currently number in the thousands.

Karaites accept only the Tanakh as divinely inspired, not recognizing the authority the Talmud and the Midrashim.

This assertion was historically challenged by the Karaites, a movement that flourished in the medieval period, which retains several thousand followers today and maintains that only the Written Torah was revealed.

In Islam, only the Turkic Karaites observe Passover traditions in the evening following the last day of Tashriq ( the evening after the 13th of Dhu al-Hijjah ).

There are about 80 Karaites living in Istanbul, Turkey, where the only Karaite synagogue in Turkey, the Kahal haKadosh Bene Mikra, is still functional in the Hasköy neighborhood in the European part of the city.

They hasten to add that this opinion is not intended to insult the Karaites, but only to give individual Karaites the option of integrating into mainstream Judaism by way of conversion.

For Karaites, in sum, the rabbinic interpretations above, as codified in oral law, are only one form of interpretation.

Some Karaites strive to adhere only to the p ' shat ( plain meaning ) of the text.

The name " Crimean Karaites " or " Krymkaraylar " pertains only to several hundred members of the clerical families currently living in the Crimea and is a misnomer in reference to all other branches of the Karaims and Karaylar who have long been established in other parts of Europe, Crimea being only one such location.

A second Karaite, Moses b. Elijah ha-Levi, has left a similar account of the year 1654 ; but it contains only a few points of special interest to the Karaites ( ib ).

The quarter includes the " Karaites ' street " ( Hebrew: רחוב הקראים, Rhehov Ha ' karaim ), on which the old Anan ben David Kenesa is located.

In a work written in Arabic, and entitled Kitab al-Ḥujjah wal-Dalil fi Nuṣr al-Din al-Dhalil, كتاب الحجة و الدليل في نصرة الدين الذليل, ( known in the Hebrew translation of Judah ibn Tibbon by the title Sefer ha-Kuzari ), Judah ha-Levi expounded his views upon the teachings of Judaism, which he defended against the attacks of non-Jewish philosophers, against the Karaites, and against those he viewed as " heretics ".

Abraham Geiger posited a connection between the Karaites as a remnant of the Sadducees, the 1st-century Jewish sect that followed the Hebrew Bible literally and rejected the Pharisees ' notion of an Oral Torah even before it was written.

From such, Karaites have come to consider the most logical understanding of the Hebrew word " Mamzer " to actually speak of a nation people.

Karaites, however, argue that since other passages in the Bible with similar language are read metaphorically, the verses from which the Rabbis derive the law of teffilin should also be read metaphorically.

The interest which his commentaries present lies chiefly in the accumulation of material for the history of the differences between traditional Judaism and the Karaites ; for he enters into lengthy disputes with traditional rabbis, especially with Saadia, from whose commentaries on the Bible and polemical works, including some no longer in existence, he gives many extracts.

:" If you get acquainted with the religion of the Karaites, we can see that their Bible was considered the Pentateuch, that they recognized Jesus Christ a prophet, but a prophet considered equally and Mohammed, they believe in reincarnation, that their holidays are on the lunar calendar, the status of women and before and after marriage, based on the teachings of Muhammad that kenasy built as a mosque, " fountain ", and was a special room for washing by type Mohammedan, when logging in kenasy remove your shoes, like the Mohammedans.

While there have been Jewish groups whose beliefs were claimed to be based on the written text of the Torah alone ( e. g., the Sadducees, and the Karaites ), most Jews believed in what they call the oral law.

The readiness with which vows were made and the facility with which they were annulled by the scribes gave the Karaites an opportunity to attack rabbinic Jews.

Rejecting Talmud and Rabbinic tradition, Karaites took liberty to reinterpret Tanach as they saw fit.

He argued that throughout this history the Masorites did not invent the vowel points and accents, but that they were delivered to Moses by God at Sinai, citing Karaite authorities Mordechai ben Nisan Kukizov ( 1699 ) and his associates, who stated that " all our wise men with one mouth affirm and profess that the whole law was pointed and accented, as it came out of the hands of Moses, the man of God ," The argument of the Karaites shows that some copies have always been pointed and some copies were not pointed with the vowels, especially those copies in Synagogues which Gill talks about.

However, the claim has been made that Karaites were already living in Egypt in the first half of the 7th century, the evidence consisting of a legal document that the Karaite community in Egypt had in its possession until the end of the 19th century, which document was said to be stamped by the palm of ˁAmr Ibn al-ˁAṣ, the first Islamic governor of Egypt, in which he ordered the leaders of the Rabbanite community not to interfere in the way of life of the Karaites nor with the way they celebrate their holidays.

Karaites live primarily in and around Warsaw, Wrocław and Tricity, they are linguistically assimilated.

However, at the same time Maimonides holds ( Hilkhot Mamrim 3: 3 ) that most of the Karaites and others who claim to deny the " oral teachings " are not to be held accountable for their errors in the law because they are led into error by their parents and are similar to a tinoq shenishbah ( a captive baby ), or to one who was forced.

Rabbinic scholars have traditionally held that, because the Karaites do not observe the rabbinic law on divorce, there is a strong presumption that they are mamzerim ( adulterine bastards ), so that marriage with them is forbidden even if they return to Rabbinic Judaism.

They are dark-skinned ... and one could not tell whether they keep the teaching of the Karaites, or of the Rabbis, for some of their practices resemble the Karaite teaching ... but in other things they appear to follow the instruction of the Rabbis ; and they say they are related to the tribe of Dan.

Lacking the philosophic training common among the Spanish Jews – although he was acquainted with Ibn Ezra, Saadia, some of the Karaites, and perhaps Maimonides – Judah did not reduce his mystic-theosophical theories to a system, and they are therefore difficult to survey.

In America, Karaites are represented by the Karaite Jews of America, and in Israel they are represented by Universal Karaite Judaism.

Karaites had a wide following between the 9th and 12th centuries ( they claim that at one time they numbered perhaps 10 percent of Jewry ), but over the centuries their numbers have dwindled drastically.

Today they are a small group, living mostly in Israel ; estimates of the number of Israeli Karaites range from as low as 10, 000 to as high as 40, 000.

Most scholars and some Karaites maintain that it was founded at least in part by Anan ben David, whereas other Karaites believe that they are not the historical disciples of Anan ben David at all, and point out that many of their later sages ( such as Ya ' acov Al-Kirkisani ) argued that most of Anan's teachings were " derived from Rabbanite Lore ".

Under this view, the Karaites would not have been significantly distinct from any other form of Judaism until the formation of the Pharisees far after the return of the exiles in Babylon.

In deciding practical questions he adopted the more rigorous view, following the letter of the Talmud with the purpose of upholding and emphasizing its authority against the attacks of the Karaites.

8 ), in view of the fact that works circulated among the earlier Karaites named after Zadok and containing Sadducee opinions.

In the Crimea, Crimean Karaites did not wear payot, and the Crimean Tatars consequently referred to them as zulufsız çufutlar, meaning Jews without payot, to distinguish them from the Krymchaks, referred to as zuluflı çufutlar, meaning Jews with payot.

13-15, 37 ); A. Geiger in his Jüdische Zeitschrift ( 1865, p. 166 ), Schorr in He-Ḥaluẓ, and A. Neubauer in the Journal Asiatique ( 1862 – 63 ) and in his Aus der Petersburger Bibliothek ( Leipsic, 1866 ) have challenged the correctness of the facts and the theories based upon them which Jost, Julius Fürst, and Heinrich Grätz, in their writings on the Karaites, took from Pinsker's Liḳḳuṭe Ḳadmoniyyot, in which the data furnished by Firkovich were unhesitatingly accepted.

Some European Karaites do not see themselves as part of the Jewish community at all, although most do.

His followers were called Ananites and, like modern Karaites, do not believe the Rabbinic Jewish oral law ( such as the Mishnah ) to be divinely inspired.

Karaites, nonetheless, do keep the Shabbat according to their own traditions and interpretations, as described in the section above.

Contrary to some claims, Karaites do not hang tzitzit on their walls.

23: 40, as do the Karaites.

Unlike Talmudic Jews, Karaites do not make their tzitzit ( fringes or tassels ) out of shatnez.