David ben Hussein (?ass?n, ?asan), Abu Suleiman

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DAVID BEN HUSSEIN (?ass?n, ?asan), ABU SULEIMAN

DAVID BEN HUSSEIN (?ass?n, ?asan), ABU SULEIMAN (second half of the tenth century), Karaite scholar. He is known only from a citation in the Sefer ha-Mitzvot (written c. 1007) of *Levi b. Japheth (sometimes wrongly attributed to his father, Japheth b. Ali). According to this, David compiled a manual of Karaite liturgy, also comprising homiletical, exegetical, and polemical material, and including strictures on certain Rabbanite traditions concerning shi'ur komah ("the measure of the body" of God). Though Pinsker's hypothesis that David's father was *?asan (or Hussein) b. Mashi'a? is possible, there is as yet no factual proof to support it.

bibliography:

S. Pinsker, Likkutei Kadmoniyyot, 1 (1860), 170; 2 (1860), 88–89, 92, 106; Steinschneider, in: jqr, 10 (1897/98), 539.

[Leon Nemoy]

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