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Egyptian Karaism Karaite Marriage Contract Egypt has claimed a continuous Karaite community from the Genizah records of the eleventh century until the present day. Throughout the Middle Ages, under the Ayyubids (1171-1250) and the Mamluks (1250-1517), Cairo was a magnet for Karaites from other parts of the Jewish world. For most of the Ottoman period (1517-1882), the Karaites of Egypt were only sporadically in contact with those of Constantinople, the Crimea, and elsewhere; the exception was the Jerusalem community, with which the Egyptian Karaites remained in constant communication. Today, an estimated thirty thousand Karaites in Europe, the U.S., and Israel descend from the Egyptian Karaite community. |
