Notes on an Arabic translation of the Pentateuch in the library of the Twelver Shīʿī scholar Raḍī al-Dīn ʿAlī b. Mūsā Ibn Ṭāwūs (d. 664/1266)

The seventh/thirteenth-century Imami scholar Raḍī al-Dīn ʿAlī b. Mūsā Ibn Ṭāwūs (d. 664/1266) is well known for his rich personal library. He compiled a catalogue of its holdings, al-Ibāna fī maʿrifat (asmāʾ) kutub al-khizāna, which is lost, as well as a supplement to the catalogue, Saʿd al-suʿūd li-l-nufūs manḍūd min kutub waqf ʿAlī b. Mūsā b. Ṭāwūs, which is partly preserved and was perhaps never completed. In the latter work, Ibn Ṭāwūs provided detailed information on selected books in his possession, together with extensive quotations. Here, he describes in detail an Arabic translation of the Pentateuch. The paper discusses Ibn Ṭāwūs’s description of the Pentateuch manuscript and offers tentative conclusions as to its provenance.