This article offers a contribution to the study of polemics between Muslims and Jews in the Middle Ages. It presents an annotated translation of the extant fragments of a reply by an unknown Jew to the polemical tract Ifḥām al-Yahūd in which the mathematician Samawʾal al-Maghribī (d. 570/1175), who converted to Islam in 558/1163, virulently attacks his former religion. Samawʾal'stract had a significant impact both on later Muslim polemicists and on Jewish thinkers, who defended their religion against his strictures. The unique manuscript of the anonymous refutation, written in Judaeo-Arabic, is part of the Firkovitch collection kept at the National Library of Russia in St. Petersburg. It is included in a codex that also contains an incomplete version, in the same hand, of Samawʾal al-Maghribī's tract. While the codex can be tentatively dated to the fourteenth century and was presumably written in Egypt, we cannot know with any degree of certainty when and where the refutation itself was composed, nor whether the unknown author had access to a complete copy of Samawʾal's work. Although at times the author quotes Ifḥām al-Yahūd verbatim, paraphrases and indirect references to Samawʾal's arguments are more common. In order to contextualize the unknown author's counterarguments, we provide a running commentary, including quotations of the passages from Ifḥām al-Yahūd that are being refuted.

MS Riyadh, Maktabat Malik Fahd al-Waṭaniyya 748 is a multitext volume copied by al-Ḥasan b. Muḥammad b. Aḥmad b. ʿAlī Ibn Abī l-ʿAshīra in 552/1157 in Ṣaʿda. It consists of doctrinal texts by Zaydī and Muʿtazilī authors, invariably Iranian. The codex is the only known extant witness of all but two of the tracts it includes (the exceptions being Ismāʿīl b. ʿAlī b. Ismāʿīl al-Farrazādhī’s K. Taʿlīq al-Tabṣira and Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad b. al-Ḥasan al-Dāʿī al-Ḥasanī’s K. Ḥaqāʾiq al-aʿrāḍ wa-aḥwālihā wa-sharḥihā), and two of its tracts, K. al-Nasīm fī l-uṣūl by one Abū Jaʿfar and K. Muhaj al-ʿulūm by Muʿādh b. Abī l-Khayr al-Hamadhānī, are not even attested in the relevant biobibliographical sources. This study includes critical editions of the doctrinal tracts included in the majmūʿa as well as an additional tract preserved in a related codex that was apparently also copied by Ibn Abī l-ʿAshīra (MS Milan, Ambrosiana, ar. E 462). The edited tracts include Abū l-Faḍl al-ʿAbbās Ibn Sharwīn’s K. al-Wujūh allatī taʿẓumu ʿalayhā l-ṭāʿāt ʿinda llāh, his K. al-Yāqūta, and his Ḥaqāʾiq al-ashyāʾ, ʿAbd al-Jabbār al-Hamadhānī’s Ḥudūd al-alfāẓ, Ibn al-Dāʿī’s K. Ḥaqāʾiq al-aʿrāḍ wa-aḥwālihā wa-sharḥihā, the extant part of the K. al-Nasīm fī l-uṣūl, K. Muhaj al-ʿulūm, by Muʿādh b. Abī l-Khayr al-Hamadhānī, fragments of two theological summae by unidentified Zaydī scholars, and collections of doctrinal definitions of uncertain authorship.

Rapid, widespread adoption of the latest large language models has sparked both excitement and concern about advanced artificial intelligence (AI). In response, many are looking to the field of AI safety for answers. Major AI companies are purportedly investing heavily in this young research program, even as they cut “trust and safety” teams addressing harms from current systems. Governments are taking notice too. The United Kingdom just invested £100 million in a new “Foundation Model Taskforce” and plans an AI safety summit this year. And yet, as research priorities are being set, it is already clear that the prevailing technical agenda for AI safety is inadequate to address critical questions. Only a sociotechnical approach can truly limit current and potential dangers of advanced AI.

Among the responsa collections by al-Sharīf al-Murtaḍā that still remain to be edited are the Jawābāt al-masāʾil al-Sallāriyya, which consist of responsa to eight questions most of which revolve around issues related to the subtleties of kalām. On the basis of the two earliest witnesses of this text, MS Berlin, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Petermann II [Pm.] 169 and MS Mashhad, Āstān-i quds 1448, an edition has been prepared.

The cultural theorist and novelist Albert Murray once remarked that the mandate of the black intellectual was to provide “technology” to the black community. By technology, Murray didn't mean mechanics, new media, or the Internet. Rather, he defined it as those novel analytic approaches he believed necessary to understanding black life “on a higher level of abstraction.” For Murray, this process was one of distillation and complication. He advocated theories of African American existence that, like a blueprint, would be sufficiently robust to reveal the larger patterns of society and do justice to its intricacies and complexities. By Murray's definition, the artist Laylah Ali is a technologist of the highest order. In spite of their striking clarity, her gouache images reflect the contradictions of the human condition. Ali's work explores the tragic lives of the Greenheads, her hypercephalic, thin-limbed, brown-skinned creations. Using a limited palette, she composes provocative visual fields noticeably lacking in scenery, save the humanoid figures that inhabit them. A master at sleight of hand, she uses bright comic-strip colors in a way that recalls the Sunday funnies; but these images have more in common with sardonic political cartoons, for the figures she depicts inflict all manner of insult and injury on one other. Although Ali provides no script for her images, their despair and anger is unmistakable. But there is no violent haste in her brush stroke; the images are controlled—eerily exact. As befits the work of a technician, these tortured lives are rendered with the sharpest precision.

This paper revolves around a hitherto unknown heresiography from northern Iran, Asās al-maqālāt fī qamʿ al-jahālāt, which is preserved in a unique manuscript contained in a majmūʿa (Ms. Tehran, Majlis 10727). In the introduction, we describe the multitext codex, one of the few extant codices testifying to the continuous presence of Zaydism in northern Iran beyond the sixth/twelfth century. Additionally, we discuss two alternative tentative identifications of the author of Asās al-maqālāt, Abū Muḍar Shurayḥ b. al-Muʾayyad al-Muʾayyadī al-Shurayḥī and Muḥammad b. al-Ḥasan al-Shurayḥī al-Muʾayyadī. While the latter is entirely unknown, Abū Muḍar is renowned for his Asrār al-Ziyādāt, and we attempt to situate him more precisely in the chronology of Zaydī scholarship. Finally, we provide an editio princeps of Asās al-maqālāt fī qamʿ al-jahālāt.

This paper describes a collaborative project designed to meet the needs of communities interested in Gə'əz language texts – and other under-resourced manuscript traditions – by developing an easy-to-use open-source tool that converts images of manuscript pages into a transcription using optical character recognition (OCR). Our computational tool incorporates a custom data curation process to address the language-specific facets of Gə'əz coupled with a Convolutional Recurrent Neural Network to perform the transcription. An open-source OCR transcription tool for digitized Gə'əz manuscripts can be used by students and scholars of Ethiopian manuscripts to create a substantial and computer-searchable corpus of transcribed and digitized Gə'əz texts, opening access to vital resources for sustaining the history and living culture of Ethiopia and its people. With suitable ground-truth, our opensource OCR transcription tool can also be retrained to read other under-resourced scripts. The tool we developed can be run without a graphics processing unit (GPU), meaning that it requires much less computing power than most other modern AI systems. It can be run offline from a personal computer, or accessed via a web client and potentially in the web browser of a smartphone. The paper describes our team’s collaborative development of this first open-source tool for Gə'əz manuscript transcription that is both highly accurate and accessible to communities interested in Gə'əz books and the texts they contain. ጥልቅ እውቀትን ለረቂቅ ጽሁፎች ስለመጠቀም ሳሙኤል ግሪግስ፡ ኖተርዳም ዩኒቨርሲቲ፤ ጀሲካ ሎክሀርት፡ቶሮንቶ ዩኒቨርሲቲ፤ አሌክሳንደራ አትያ፡ ቶሮንቶ ዩኒቨርሲቲ፤ ገሊላ ጥላሁን፡ ቶሮንቶ ዩኒቨርሲቲ፤ ሱዛን ኮንክሊን አክባሪ፡ አድቫንስድ ጥናት ኢንስቲትዩት፡ ፕሪንስተን ኒው ጀርሲ፤ ኢዮብ ደሪሎ ሶ.አ.ስ. ለንደን ዩኒቨርሲቲ፤ ጃሮድ ጃኮብስ፡ ዋርነር ፓሲፊክ ኮሌጅ፤ ክሪስቲን ኮን፡ ኖተርዳም ዩኒቨርሲቲ፤ ሚካኤል ጀርቨርስ፡ ቶሮንቶ ዩኒቨርሲቲ፤ ስቲቭ ደላማርተር፡ ጆርጅ ፎክስ ዩኒቨርሲቲ፤ አሌክሳንድራ ግለስፒ፡ ቶሮንቶ ዩኒቨርሲቲ፤ ዋልተር ሸሪር፡ ኖተርዳም ዩኒቨርሲቲ። መግለጫ ይህ ጥናት የሚገልፀው የግዕዝ ቋንቋ ፅሁፍን እና ሌሎች መሰል ትኩረት ያልተሰጣቸውን፣ ባህላዊና እና ጥንታዊ ሥሁፎችን ለመማር ወይም ለጥናት የሚፈልጉ ማህበረሰቦችን ፍላጎት ለማርካት የጥምር የጥናት ቡድናችን ስለቀረፀው ቀላል እና ሁሉም ሊጠቀምበት ስለሚችል መሣሪያ(ዘዴ) ነው።፡ይህ መሣሪያ የብራና ፅሁፍን የመሰሉ ረቂቅ ፅሁፎች የተፃፉባቸውን ገፆች ምሥል በማንሳት እና ፊደላትን ለይቶ በሚገነዘብ ጨረር (optical character recognition (OCR)) በመጠቀም ምሥሉን ወደ መደበኛ ወይም ሁለተኛ ፅሁፍነት የመቀየር ችሎታ ያለው ነው። ይህ ኮምፒዩተር ላይ የተመሰረተ ዘዴ ወይም መሣሪያ የግዕዝ ቋንቋን ልዩ ባህርዮች ለይቶ እንዲያውቅ ሲባል ስለቋንቋው ያገኘውን መረጃ ወይም ዳታ የመንከባከብ እና የማከም ሂደቶችን አልፎ እንደ አንጎል ነርቮች መረብ እሽክርክሪት የሚመስል ኮንቮሉሽናል ሪከረንት ነውራል ኔትዎርክ (Convolutional Recurrent Neural Network) በመያዙ ገጽታዎችን እና ምሥሎችን ወደ ፅሁፍ ይቀይራል። ይህ ለሁሉም ተጠቃሚዎች ክፍት የሆነው ጽሁፍ ለተማሪዎች እንዲሁም ለኢትዮጵያ ጽሁፍ ጥናት ተመራማሪዎች የሚጠቅም ብቃት ያለው እና በቀላሉ በኮምፒዩተር ተፈልጎ ሊገኝ የሚችል ከመሆኑም በተጨማሪ የግዕዝ ጽሁፎቹ የኢትዮጵያን እና የኢትዮጵያን ህዝብ ታሪክና ባህል ግዕዝን በዲጂታል/በኮምፑተር ቀርፆ በማስቀመጥ በቀጣይነት እንዲኖር ያስችላል። አመቺ የሆነ ተጨባጭ ሁኔታ ሲኖር ደግሞ ይህ ለሁሉም ክፍት የሆነ የ OCR የግዕዝን ምስልን ወደ ፅሁፍ የሚቀይር መሣሪያ ወይም ዘዴ ሌሎች ትኩረት ያላገኙ ረቂቅ ፅሁፎችንም እንዲያነብ ተደርጎ ሊሰለጥን ወይም ዲዛይን ሊደረግ ይችላል። ይህ የፈጠርነው መሣሪያ/ዘዴ የተለመደውን ግራፊክስ ፕሮሰሲንግ ዩኒት (GPU) የተባለውን በኮምፕዩተር ምሥሎችን የማንበቢያ እና ማሳለጫ ዘዴ መጠቀም አያስፈልገውም። በዚህም ምክንያት ከሌሎች ዘመናዊ የአርቲፊሻል ኢንተሊጀንስ (AI systems ) ዘዴዎች አንፃር ሲታይ ሃይለኛ የኮምፒዩተር አቅም አይፈልግም። ይህንን መሣሪያ/ዘዴ ያለ ኢንተርኔት ወይም በይነ- መረብ ከግል ኮምፒዩተር፣ በኢንተርኔት እንዲሁም ወደፊት ኢንተርኔት ባለው የእጅ ሥልክን በመጠቀም ማስኬድ ይቻላል። ይህ ጥናት የሚገልጸው በአይነቱ የመጀመሪያ የሆነው እና ለሁሉም ክፍት የሆነ እንዲሁም በተገቢ ሁኔታ ጥራቱን ጠብቆ በጥምር ተመራማሪዎቻችን የበለፀገው መሣሪያ/ዘዴ ለማናቸውም በግዕዝ መጽሀፍቶች እና ውስጣቸው በያዙት ፅሁፎች ላይ ጥናት ለማድረግ ለሚፈልጉ ግለሰቦችም ሆኑ ማህበረሰቦች ሁሉ ጠቃሚ መሆኑን ለማስገንዘብ ነው።

The arrival of large numbers of Yemeni manuscripts in European libraries towards the end of the nineteenth century and in the early twentieth century was a sensation that was enthusiastically received by the scholarly world. One of the principal reasons for this enthusiastic reception was the upsurge of South Arabian studies in Europe since the first half of the nineteenth century, together with the hope that the new material would fill some of the gaps in the literary sources on the history and geography of southern Arabia, especially during the pre-Islamic period. The most significant such lacuna was the missing volumes 1 through 7 and 9 of al-Hamdānī’s Iklīl. The two most important collections of Yemeni manuscripts that arrived in Europe in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries had been gathered by Eduard Glaser and Giuseppe Caprotti, respectively, and their collections were sold to Berlin, London, and Vienna (Glaser) and to Munich, Milan, and the Vatican (Caprotti). The collections included some new material on South Arabian history (including volumes 1, 2, and 6 of the Iklīl), but they also opened up entirely new vistas and laid the foundation for the new discipline of Zaydi studies. Unlike South Arabian studies, the study of Zaydism had a slow start, with initially only a few scholars being interested in this entirely new field. Moreover, the scholarly exploration of the respective subcollections depended on the availability of catalogues. The early history of the Caprotti collection is intimately linked to Eugenio Griffini. Caprotti had dispatched nearly his entire manuscript collection of some 1,600 codices to Griffini, who kept it in his apartment inMilan until 1909, when the collection was donated to the Ambrosiana Library. Griffini was also the first and, for a long time, the only scholar to study the collection and prepare studies as well as catalogues of it. The process of his engagement with the material can be reconstructed on the basis of the Griffini archive, the whereabouts of which were for decades uncertain. This study outlines the discovery of the Griffini archive in the Biblioteca Comunale Centrale Palazzo Sormani in Milan and provides an initial overview of its contents, including Griffini’s epistolary exchanges with some ninety-nine correspondents, his descriptions of some of the Ethiopic manuscripts of the Ambrosiana, and, most importantly, his schedario, containing his extensive notes on all manuscripts of series A of the Caprotti collection. The large corpus of so far unexplored material promises to provide new insights into the network of Islamicists and Arabists at the turn of the twentieth century and the nascent phase of Zaydi studies in Europe.

The arrival of large numbers of Yemeni manuscripts in European libraries towards the end of the nineteenth century and in the early twentieth century was a sensation that was enthusiastically received by the scholarly world. One of the principal reasons for this enthusiastic reception was the upsurge of South Arabian studies in Europe since the first half of the nineteenth century, together with the hope that the new material would fill some of the gaps in the literary sources on the history and geography of southern Arabia, especially during the pre-Islamic period. The most significant such lacuna was the missing volumes 1 through 7 and 9 of al-Hamdānī’s Iklīl. The two most important collections of Yemeni manuscripts that arrived in Europe in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries had been gathered by Eduard Glaser and Giuseppe Caprotti, respectively, and their collections were sold to Berlin, London, and Vienna (Glaser) and to Munich, Milan, and the Vatican (Caprotti). The collections included some new material on South Arabian history (including volumes 1, 2, and 6 of the Iklīl), but they also opened up entirely new vistas and laid the foundation for the new discipline of Zaydi studies. Unlike South Arabian studies, the study of Zaydism had a slow start, with initially only a few scholars being interested in this entirely new field. Moreover, the scholarly exploration of the respective subcollections depended on the availability of catalogues. The early history of the Caprotti collection is intimately linked to Eugenio Griffini. Caprotti had dispatched nearly his entire manuscript collection of some 1,600 codices to Griffini, who kept it in his apartment in Milan until 1909, when the collection was donated to the Ambrosiana Library. Griffini was also the first and, for a long time, the only scholar to study the collection and prepare studies as well as catalogues of it. The process of his engagement with the material can be reconstructed on the basis of the Griffini archive, the whereabouts of which were for decades uncertain. This study outlines the discovery of the Griffini archive in the Biblioteca Comunale Centrale Palazzo Sormani in Milan and provides an initial overview of its contents, including Griffini’s epistolary exchanges with some ninety-nine correspondents, his descriptions of some of the Ethiopic manuscripts of the Ambrosiana, and, most importantly, his schedario, containing his extensive notes on all manuscripts of series A of the Caprotti collection. The large corpus of so far unexplored material promises to provide new insights into the network of Islamicists and Arabists at the turn of the twentieth century and the nascent phase of Zaydi studies in Europe.

Departing from a collective manuscript copied partly in the hand of the renowned Yemenī scholar ʿAbd Allāh b. Zayd al-ʿAnsī (d. 667/1268) and partly in the hand of his nephew, Muḥammad b. Aʿsad, that contains three works concerned with Qurʾānic passages taken to support ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib and the ahl al-bayt and pro-ʿAlid traditions culled from of Sunnī ḥadīth collections, the reception of the Kitāb al-ʿUmda of the Twelver Shīʿī author Ibn al-Biṭrīq al-Ḥillī (d. 600/1203–1204 or 601/1204–1205)—one of three works contained in the codex—among the Zaydīs of Yemen is analyzed in detail. It is shown that this work, together with Ibn al-Maghāzilī’s (d. 483/1090) Manāqib ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib, were the principal available sources for the Zaydīs of Yemen up until the time of the Imām al-Manṣūr bi-llāh (d. 614/1217) for the Sunnī canonical ḥadīth collections.

While non-German biographers of Bismarck have usually kept a healthy distance from their subject, German biographers have often allowed their political and religious views to influence their portraits. Most German historians of the `long nineteenth century' were fascinated by, as Hegel would have called it, the genius of such a `world historical individual'. Their work greatly influenced the images of Bismarck during the time of the Weimar Republic and the Third Reich. Their counterparts in the 1960s and 1970s, however focused critically on the `impersonal' movements of the Bismarckian empire. These, Marxist influenced, analyses did not include any biographies. It was only in the 1980s that three biographers achieved a politically detached evaluation of the chancellor's personality. With the centenary of Bismarck's death in 1998, a return to the pre-1980s views can be noticed in biographies of the chancellor. They threaten to oversimplify Bismarck's personality and government technique again.

By bringing French history and Jewish history into dialogue, this article intervenes in the vast scholarship on the relationship between commerce and toleration in eighteenth-century French thought. It focuses on the place of Jews in Montesquieu’s ideas about doux commerce and explores the legacy of Montesquieu’s views on the debate on Jewish emancipation in the 1770s and 1780s. It traces the survival and adaptation of the medieval trope of the Jewish usurer in a variety of discourses, ranging from irenic images of commercial cosmopolitanism to representations of Jewish moneylending marshaled by radical advocates of Jewish “regeneration.” The article concludes by showing that in 1790–91 the doctrine of doux commerce did not provide a consistent argument in favor of civic and political equality even though commercial practices and policies in the French Southwest had favored the integration of Jews during the Old Regime.

This paper considers the extent to which the geneticization of 'race' and ethnicity is the prevailing outcome of genetic testing for genealogical purposes. The decoding of the human genome precipitated a change of paradigms in genetics research, from an emphasis on genetic similarity to a focus on molecular-level differences among individuals and groups. This shift from lumping to splitting spurred ongoing disagreements among scholars about the significance of 'race' and ethnicity in the genetics era. I characterize these divergent perspectives as 'pragmatism' and 'naturalism'. Drawing upon ethnographic fieldwork and interviews, I argue that neither position fully accounts for how understandings of 'race' and ethnicity are being transformed with genetic genealogy testing. While there is some acquiescence to genetic thinking about ancestry, and by implication, 'race', among African-American and black British consumers of genetic genealogy testing, test-takers also adjudicate between sources of genealogical information and from these construct meaningful biographical narratives. Consumers engage in highly situated 'objective' and 'affiliative' self-fashioning, interpreting genetic test results in the context of their 'genealogical aspirations'. I conclude that issues of site, scale, and subjectification must be attended to if scholars are to understand whether and to what extent social identities are being transformed by recent developments in genetic science.