Karaites קראים
The movement that accepted the Written Torah alone and rejected the Oral—the great internal dispute of the Geonic age.
"Bnei mikra", sons of Scripture: the Karaites read the Torah without the Talmud, and so their law parted from the rabbinic in everything—from the calendar to Sabbath lights, which the Karaite Sabbath does not know. Tradition ties the movement's start to Anan ben David, passed over for exilarch; scholars see in Karaism the merging of several anti-Talmudic currents.
The dispute with the Karaites forced the rabbinic world to explain itself anew: Saadia Gaon wrote against them all his life, and his polemic largely created Jewish philosophy. Karaite communities of Egypt, Crimea and Lithuania lived a thousand years; today most Karaites live in Israel.
On the timeline
Related
Sources
Rishonim
- Epistle of Rav Sherira Gaon — the Geonic age and the disputes over tradition
- Rambam, Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Mamrim 3:3 — on those raised among deniers of the Oral Torah: “like a child taken captive”
Basis: Talmud and midrash.