ABSTRACT
The Karaites, in their literary history, created, structured and produced their literary system with the Migra, the Hebrew Bible, as its foundational matrix. The innovation of medieval Karaites in Biblical studies was the transcription of the Hebrew Bible into Arabic characters. The Arabic speaking Jews in general, and the Karaites in particular, have devised two separate systems of transcription, one for transcribing Arabic into Hebrew characters and the other for transcribing Hebrew into Arabic. The usage of the Arabic shaddah, a sign that indicates the assimilation of identical or non-identical sounds/consonants is attested in the Hebrew text of the some manuscripts that are in Arabic script. The use of the Arabic script in the weekly reading of the Miqra on Sabbath days as indicated by al-Qirqisani4 might indicate that the transcribed text, from which the reading was performed, was consonantal, i.e., without Hebrew diacritical or vowel signs.
