Benjamin Nahawandi בנימין הנהאונדי
the Karaite jurist of Persia whom his own placed above Anan
His name is from the town of Nahawand in Persia. The Karaite historian Salmon ben Jeroham placed him above Anan himself. Almost none of his books survive: they are known from excerpts in later Karaite writers. He wrote mostly in Arabic: commentaries on the Torah, Isaiah, Daniel, Ecclesiastes and the Song of Songs, a Sefer Mitzvot and a Sefer Dinim, also called Mas'at Binyamin, printed in Hebrew at Kozlov in 1834.
What matters in him for the history of the schism. First, he brought back into use part of the rabbinic ordinances the Ananites had thrown out—but left each man to decide for himself whether to accept them. Second, he held that an error reached by honest inquiry is no sin, and that a student may differ from his teacher if the argument requires it.
That is the parting of the ways. Rabbinic Judaism is built on received transmission; here the foundation is made personal inquiry—and a movement with no common tradition begins to divide within itself, as it duly did.
In speculation he followed the Mu'tazilite course: the world was created, and speech is addressed to men not directly but through an intermediary angel.
On the timeline
Related
Sources
Rishonim
- Sefer Dinim (Mas'at Binyamin) — the code the Ananites had not had before him
Scholarship
- Excerpts in later Karaite writers — almost all that survives of him; Salmon ben Jeroham's estimate
Basis: documents and evidence.