Dositheos (Samaritan) - Arabic Sources

Arabic Sources

In Egypt the Arabic writers may have become acquainted with the Dositheans, though some may have survived also in Syria and Palestine, as is evident from the rabbinical sources. Mas'udi, of the tenth century, says that the Samaritans were divided into two sects—that of the Kushan, or ordinary Samaritans (="Kuthim"), and that of the Dostan (Dositheans; compare Δοσϑήν). Al-Shahrastani calls them "Kusaniyyah" and "Dusitaniyyah." Abu al-Fatḥ says of the Dostan—i.e., the Samaritan Dositheans—that they abolished the festivals instituted by the Mosaic law, as well as the astronomical tables, counting thirty days in every month, without variation. This reminds one of the Sadducees, and is a further proof that the Dositheans were their spiritual descendants. The statement that the festivals were abolished, probably means that the Dositheans celebrated them on other days than the Jews; but as, according to a trustworthy statement of Epiphanius, the Dositheans celebrated the festivals together with the Pharisaic Jews, an approximation may well be assumed toward the Karaites, a sect with which the Samaritans had much in common in later times. The determination of the months by means of the testimony of witnesses may also have been a Karaite custom, although that practise may go back to a time before the opposite view of the Pharisees existed.

Under the Abbassid califs the Samaritans persecuted the Dositheans, although they themselves had to suffer much. Under Ibrahim (218-227 of the Hegira) the synagogue of the Samaritans and Dositheans at Nablus was burned by heretics, but it was subsequently rebuilt. Yusuf ibn Dasi, governor of Palestine, entirely forbade the worship of the Dositheans; and the sect may in consequence have been absorbed by the Samaritans.