AḤA OF IRAK:

By: Paul Wendland

A Babylonian, who is alleged to have invented the Assyrian or Babylonian (superlinear) system of vowel-points and accents (). He is known only from Karaite sources, which are somewhat unreliable. Pinsker ("LiḲḲuṭe ḳadmoniyot") thinks Aḥa is identical with Nissi ben Noah, the contemporary of Anan; and Graetz partly follows that opinion. But later investigators have proved that Nissi (if he existed at all) must have lived in the thirteenth century; his identity with Aḥa is, therefore, out of the question. Fürst places Aḥa in the first half of the sixth century, and thinks he may be identical with the Saborean Aḥa bar Abbuhu, who died in 511.

P. Wi.