In the strict observance of the Sabbath, Anan far outstripped the Talmud. He pronounced it unlawful to administer any medicines on the Sabbath, even in the case of dangerous illness, or to perform the operation of circumcision, or to leave the house in those cities where the Jews did not live separate from the non-Jewish population; he did not allow any warm food to be eaten, nor even a light or fire to be kindled on the eve of the Sabbath by the Jews themselves, or by others for their use. Anan introduced the custom among the Karaites of spending the Sabbath-eve in entire darkness. All these alterations and many others he pretended to deduce from the letter of the Bible. He made the laws relating to food severe beyond all measure, and he extended the prohibition of marriage to relatives who, according to the Talmud, were allowed to intermarry, so that the marriage of uncle and niece and of step-brothers and sisters, who were absolutely unrelated to one another, was regarded by him as incest. Compared with this exaggerated severity, of what importance was the abolition of the phylacteries (Tephillin), of the festal plants at the Feast of Tabernacles, and of the festival of Dedication, instituted in remembrance of the time of the Hasmoneans, and of other trifles? As his opponents rightly affirmed, he set up a new and much stricter Talmud. Religious life was thus invested by Anan with a gloomy and unpoetical character. The forms of prayer, which had been employed during many centuries, some of which had been in use in the Temple, were forbidden by the founder of this sect to be used in the synagogue, and they were banished, together with the prayers of the _poetanim_. Instead of them, only Biblical selections, made without taste, were to be read out in the manner of a litany in the Karaite synagogues. As the Jews of the Islamic empire were possessed of their own jurisdiction, Anan's innovations dealt also with points of civil law. In opposition to the text of the Bible, he placed the female heirs on an equal footing with the males with reference to property inherited from parents, while on the other hand he denied to the husband the right of succeeding to the property of his deceased wife.