Jacob Qirqisani - Extant Manuscripts

Extant Manuscripts

Most of the "Kitab al-Anwar" and the beginning of the "Al-Riyad wal-Hada'iq" are still extant in manuscript, in the Firkovich collection in the Imperial Library of St. Petersburg (Nos. 1142-1444). The first treatise of the "Kitab al-Anwar," dealing with the Jewish sects, was published by Abraham Harkavy in the memoirs of the Oriental section of the Archeological Society (viii. 1849). Various fragments of seven treatises (ii.-vi., viii., ix.-xii.) are found in the British Museum (Oriental MSS. Nos. 2,524, 2,526, 2,578-2,582). They were analyzed by Samuel Poznanski, who published the text of chapters xvii. and xviii. of the third treatise, dealing with the doctrine of metempsychosis, and chapter xxxv. of the fifth treatise, in which Qirqisani discusses the question whether it is permitted to read on the Sabbath books written in other than Hebrew characters (Kohut Memorial Volume, pp. 435–462; "Steinschneider Festschrift," pp. 195 et seq.). The text of the sixteenth chapter of the third treatise, dealing with the criticism of Christianity, was published by H. Hirschfeld in his chrestomathy. A dissertation on the Decalogue by Qirqisani, and which Steinschneider supposes to be the first chapter of the sixth treatise, beginning with proofs of the existence of God, is found in the Bibliothèque Nationale (No. 755). Both the "Kitab al-Anwar" and the "Al-Riyad wal-Hada'iq" were abridged, the former by a certain Moses ben Solomon ha-Levi. Harkavy deduces from quotations that Qirqisani translated the Bible into Arabic, wrote commentaries on the Book of Job and on Ecclesiastes, and wrote a work on the unity of God("Kitab al-Tauhid").