אבלי ציון הקראים בתקופת הגאונים והשיעה: הדומה והשונה בפירוש כתבי הקודש

Throughout the Gaonic period, the Karaite movement was exposed to Shīʽite influences in both Iraq and Persia as well as in the Land of Israel. Furthermore, Shīʽites (in their various sects) and Karaites were both influenced by the Enoch-circle literature of antiquity. The same literature influenced the Qumran sect and, as we know, the Karaites used literature from the Qumran scrolls that came to light.
In this article, we discuss the interplay that took place in Scriptural interpretation between the Karaites and the Imāmi Shīʽite movement, and between the Karaites and the Ismāʽīlī-Fāṭimid movement that ruled the Land of Israel from 970 CE onward. For example, the Karaite Mourners of Zion in Jerusalem, inspired by the Qumran scrolls, expected the Teacher of Righteousness to appear and then to interpret the Bible with divine inspiration and resolve all halakhic disputes. As long as the Teacher of Righteousness did not appear, the Karaites interpreted the Bible by using methods of reasoning that they had adopted from the Muʽtazila – a Muslim theological circle that interpreted the Qurʼān using an elaborate method of reasoning. In its early days, the Imāmiyya gave exclusive authority to interpret the Qurʼān to the imams who headed their movement. Being part of the family of the Prophet, the imams invoked divine inspiration to interpret all of the Qurʼān’s hidden meanings. The Imāmiyya came out strongly against the muʽtazili method of interpretation. However, when the Twelfth Imam disappeared in the year 941, the Imāmiyya gradually began to adopt Muʽtazili theological values, as did the Karaite Mourners of Zion.
With respect to the Fāṭimids, their state was headed by the Caliphs, who considered themselves descendants of ʽAlī and therefore, following the ancient Shīʽ’a tradition, opposed the Muʽtazila method of interpretation. For them, the exclusive authority to interpret the Qurʼān, in both its exoteric and esoteric meanings, belonged solely to the descendants of ʽAlī. Therefore, the Fāṭimid method of interpretation was closer to that used in the Qumran scrolls, known as pesher, than it was to the interpretative method of the Karaites. They, like the Imāmiyya, beginning in 941, were still expecting their divinely inspired interpreter ‒ the Teacher of Righteousness ‒ to come. The Fāṭimids engaged in interpretation of the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament to establish their messianic teachings. One cannot, therefore, rule out the possibility that the Fāṭimids also employed Qumranic texts that were discovered at that time.