Some Judaeo-Arabic Karaite Fragments In The British Museum Collection

Abstract

This volume of Arabic and Judaeo-Arabic fragments was acquired from M. Shapira in July 1882 along with many Karaite MSS, but unlike them has not been catalogued. From the ‘Descriptive list of acquisitions’ (in MS) at the Department of Oriental Printed Books and Manuscripts, it may be gathered that MSS Or. 2581–2 constituted, when acquired, two volumes, while at a later date 2581 had been divided into two volumes (A and B, described in Margoliouth's Catalogue Nos. 329–30), which fact apparently caused Or. 2582 to be overlooked. However, 10 folios of the MS had already been described by S. Poznański (Festschrift Steinschneider, Leipzig, 1896, 207–8) as being part of maqāla iv of al-Qirqisāni's al-Anwār. This identification was subsequently copied by M. Steinschneider, Die arabische Literatur der Juden, Frankfurt a. M., 1902, 79, and also in the index to Margoliouth's Catalogue of the Hebrew and Samaritan MSS in the BM.