Abou Issa

Abou Issa (also known under the names of Ovadia , Ishaq ibn Ya' qoub Al-Isfahani or Issac ibn Jacob Al-Isfahani ) was a autoproclamé Jewish Prophète . He lived in the neighborhoods of the 8th century in Perse.

He is the initiator of the known first sect Jewish since the destruction of the Second Temple of Jerusalem, leader of a revolt and first of a line of Jewish Prétendants to the messianity in the Persia of the 8th century.

Problems of dating

The precise dating of the life and the facts of Abou Issa is prone to debate. The two independent sources of information on him are Yaaqov Al-Qirqissani (10th century), a historian Karaïte, and Shahrastani (12th century), author of a rather complete guide on the sects Jewish during the ages.

Qirqisani locates it at the time of the Caliph Omeyyade Abd Al-Malik (685 - 705) while according to Sharastani, he would have rebelled during the reign of Marwan II (744 - 750).

Qirqissani has as an argument that in order to seem the Messiah, Abou Issa had to be raised at the time of great political disturbances being able to evoke the battle of Gog and Magog, which would coincide with the confrontations of Omeyyades with the Byzantine ; in addition, it places it rather early to influence the Karaïsme or at least the Ananisme. Indeed, Annan Ben David, founder of the second movement and federator of the first, would have taken again some of its ordinances.

As for Shahrastani, if it locates it at the end of the reign of Omeyyades, it is because it is about one crucial moment of the Histoire of Islam.

The two assumptions being plausible, and in the absence of documentation issawite (as its faithful were called), the question is not solved.

Though it was, Abou Issa having defied the caliph, this one dispatched an army. At the time of the final battle with Rai, Abou Issa was killed (although one of its disciples claims that it hid in a cave) and its disciples were demolished. At the time of Al-Qirqissani (in the neighborhoods of 930), the sect survived only Damas, hardly counting more than 20 followers called Issuniens.

Beliefs and observances

According to the two sources referred to above, Abou Issa believed that it was the last of the five heralds of God announcing the imminent arrival of the Messiah in order to deliver the Jews of the Nice ones, undoubtedly in reference to PS. 119:164

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