Dating Issues
The dating of Abu Isa's career has been disputed since the Middle Ages. The two main sources for information of him are Qirqisani, a Karaite historian; and Shahrastani, who wrote an extensive guide to Jewish sects over the ages. Qirqisani places the events in the reign of the Umayyad Caliph Abd al-Malik (685 - 705 CE) while Shahrastani says it began under the reign of Marwan II (744 - 750) on through to al-Mansur (d. 775). Qirqisani's dates place Abu Isa's uprising during Umayyad clashes with the Byzantines which would coincide with Messianic stories of the battle between Gog and Magog and place it early enough to influence Karaism; Shahrastani's would put the revolt at the end of the Umayyad Dynasty and thus at a pivotal point of upheaval in the Muslim world. Both are plausible and there is no direct Isawite documentation.
The Turkish scholar Halil Ibrahim Bulut in 2004 has shown that Shahrastani's 'Abbasid date is more likely.
Read more about this topic: Abu Isa
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