Page 213 - GQ 12

18* Bruno Chiesa and Miriam Goldstein

‫)בכתאבתהא אשורי‬, and Moses accomplished the transmission of the message
(balāġat al-risālah), handing over the complete Book and explaining it, in
its exact wording and meaning (lafẓan wa-ma‘nan). The other messengers and
prophets, sent by God to His people after Moses, followed Moses’ Law, and
introduced no innovation.

The faṣl – ‘in which we have briefly dealt with the confirmation (ithbāt)
of the Sender and the Messenger’ – ends with a brief discussion of Karaite
principles (‘aqīdat al-maḏhab) including a list of topics to be discussed
in order to properly derive the law, such as the pairings ḥaqīqah – maǧāz
(literal and non-literal usage) and ‘āmm – khāṣṣ (general and specific usage).
One who is not familiar with these principles and with the ensuing use of
independent individual judgment (iǧtihād), should take it upon himself to
follow an authority (taqlīd) who possesses this familiarity.

The second faṣl (f. 2r–8v) is devoted to the premises (muqaddimāt)
required in order to explain the meaning of Scriptural texts (istiḫrāǧ
ma‘ānī al-nuṣūs)̣ .16 What follows is a relatively faithful abridged copy of
Ya‘qūb al-Qirqisānī’s (first half of the 10th c.) Thirty-Seven Principles, a
guide to biblical interpretation that al-Qirqisānī included as the opening
section of his Tafsīr Berē’šīth (ante 927 C.E.), and later on of the unabridged
version of his Kitāb al-riyāḍ, his theological-philosophical commentary on
the Pentateuch.17 In this way Yefet provides a significant and previously
unknown witness to al-Qirqisānī’s Thirty-seven Principles. 18

position of Rav, as cited in the Tosefta to Sanhedrin, namely that the Torah
was given first in square ‘Assyrian’ script, following which – in Rav’s view
– it was transformed into ro‘etz due to Israel’s sins, and then restored to
square script in the time of Ezra (Tosefta Sanhedrin 4).
16 Part of this and of the following chapters are to be found also in the St.
Petersburg Firkovitch ms. Y.-A. 1.553, ff. 1.2–7. 8–17 (two additional and
very stained folios of this last ms. are to be found under the shelfmarks Y.-A.
1.2588 and Y.-A. 2.389). The same copyist likely copied the two fragments
of Ibn Kammūna’s treatise on the differences between the Rabbanites and
the Karaites now preserved under the shelfmarks Y.-A. 1.913 and 914.
17 On this chronology, see B. Chiesa, “A new fragment of al-Qirqisānī’s Kitāb
al-riyāḍ,” Jewish Quarterly Review 78 (1988): 175.
18 Bruno Chiesa was planning a full collation of this previously unknown