A Manual of Zaydī Muʿtazilī Dogmatic Texts from Early Sixth/Twelfth-Century Iran

MS Riyadh, Maktabat Malik ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz 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 one of the tracts it includes (the exception being Ismāʿīl b. ʿAlī b. Ismāʿīl al-Farrazādhī’s K. Taʿlīq al-Tabṣira), and two of its tracts, K. al-Nasīm fī l-uṣūl by one Abī 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 four tracts included in the majmūʿa as well as an additional tract preserved in a related codex that was also copied by Ibn Abī l-ʿAshīra (MS Milan, Ambrosiana, ar. E 462). The edited tracts are Abū l-Faḍl al-ʿAbbās Ibn Sharwīn’s K. al-Wujūh allatī taʿẓumu ʿalayhā l-ṭāʿāt ʿinda llāh and his K. al-Yāqūta, ʿAbd al-Jabbār al-Hamadhānī’s Ḥudūd al-alfāẓ, and a collection of doctrinal and juridical definitions of uncertain authorship.