ABU ʿIMRĀN AL-TIFLĪSĪ

ABU ʿIMRĀN AL-TIFLĪSĪ (Abu ʿImram Mūsā al-Ẓafārānī), founder of a Jewish religious sect in the ninth century. He emigrated from Iraq to tiflis , in Georgia, hence the designation al-Tiflīsī. Information about him is to be found in the writings of his Karaite opponents, among them, al-Kirkisānī. Al-Tiflīsī developed his own halakhah. While agreeing with accepted Karaite views, such as the Karaite dating of the Feast of Weeks and the prohibitions of the marriage of first cousins and eating the tail fat of sheep, he devised his own method of determining the occurrence of Rosh Ḥodesh ("New Moon"). According to japheth b. ali ha-levi , a tenth-century Karaite, al-Tiflīsī rejected the doctrine of resurrection. This, however, is doubtful, for his other opponents would have attacked al-Tiflīsī for such a deviation. The sect of Tiflisites survived several generations after the death of its founder, as evidenced by Judah Hadassi's 12th-century Eshkol ha-Kofer. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: Nemoy, in: HUCA, 7 (1930), 389; S. Pinsker, Likkutei Kadmoniyyot, 1 (1860), 26; Z. Ankori, Karaites in Byzantium (1959), 369–71. (Eliyahu Ashtor)