Hasun ben Mashiach

Hasun ben Mashiach was a Karaite scholar who flourished in Egypt (or Babylonia) in the first half of the tenth century. According to Steinschneider, "Hasun" is a corrupted form of the Arabic name "Hussain," the ו being easily confounded in manuscript with the י Hasun, or, as he is generally quoted by the Karaite authorities, ben Mashiah, was a younger contemporary of Saadia Gaon, whom, according to Sahl ben Matzliah in his Tokahat Megullah, he once challenged to a religious controversy. Hasun was the author of a polemical work, written probably in Arabic, in which he refuted one of Saadia's unpublished anti-Karaite writings, which came into his possession after the death of the author. Owing to a misunderstanding of a passage (§ 258) in the Eshkol ha-Kofer of Hadassi, Ḥasun was erroneously credited with the authorship of the anonymous chapter on theodicy, entitled Sha'ar Tzedek (St. Petersburg, Firkovich MSS. Nos. 683, 685), in the religio-philosophical work "Zikron ha-Datot," and of Quppat ha-Rokelim. Simḥah Isaac Luzki attributes to Ḥasun also a work on the precepts (Sefer ha-Mitzvot). Abraham ibn Ezra, in his introduction to the commentary on the Pentateuch, quotes a Karaite scholar named Ben Mashiah, who is probably identical with Hasun.