RT Article
T1 The Antiquity of the Commandments in the Thought of Yaʿqūb al-Qirqisānī: An Analysis of Kitāb al-Anwār w-al-Marāqib 4:52–58
JF Harvard theological review
VO 117
IS 4
SP 744
OP 769
A1 Ravitsky, Aviram
LA English
YR 2024
UL https://ixtheo.de/Record/1915665019
AB The question of whether the divine commandments were observed prior to the revelation at Sinai has vast theological and hermeneutical implications. The first known systematic account that has reached us on the question of the antiquity of the commandments is found in the tenth-century Karaite scholar Yaʿqūb al-Qirqisānī’s Kitāb al-Anwār w-al-Marāqib. Qirqisānī discusses two theories: according to the first, the divine commandments were given already to Adam; and according to the second, God’s law was given in an accumulative process, the Torah being developed in accordance with the historical circumstances. This article analyzes the two theories and demonstrates that they are rooted in a Muslim-Jewish debate, conducted in the first half of the ninth century, about the Muslim principle of abrogation (naskh), and that the historical context of the argument on the subject probably was that of the interreligious debates that took place in Qirqisānī’s time.
K1 Karaites
K1 Qirqisānī
K1 abrogation of law
K1 al-Naẓẓām
K1 antiquity of law
DO 10.1017/S0017816024000324