Abu ʾl-Ḥasan ‘Alī "Eli" ibn Sulaymān al-Muqaddasī (Qara'im)

‘Alī ibn Sulaymān, whose full Arabic name is attested as Abu ʾl-Ḥasan ‘Alī ibn Sulaymān al-Muqaddasī—or, as otherwise attested in Hebrew (cf. Skoss, Commentary, p. 34; Mann, p. 41; Ibn al-Hītī, p. 435, l. 21), ‘Eli ben Shelomo (i.e., Eli ben Solomon)—was a Karaite grammarian-lexicographer and Bible exegete who flourished toward the end of the eleventh century and the beginning of the twelfth. As suggested by his nisba, he was a native of Jerusalem, but he clearly must have departed before the Crusader destruction of the Jewish community there in 1099. According to Mann (pp. 41–42), ‘Alī left Jerusalem just after the Seljuk conquest and “probably” settled in Fustat, where he made the acquaintance of the Karaite Sahl ibn Faḍl (Yashar ben Ḥesed) al-Tustarī, whom ‘Alī quotes in a philosophical abridgement (Ar. talkhīṣ) he prepared between 1072 and 1073. Yet the evidence thus adduced by Mann regarding the date and destination of ‘Alī’s relocation must now be regarded as inconclusive, not only because the Seljuq conquest of Jerusalem took place in the summer of 1073 and not, as previously thought, in 1071 (so Gil, p. 410 [%C2%A7603]), but also because it is now known that Sahl ibn Faḍl was in Jerusalem even during the last decade of the eleventh century (ibid., p. 820 [%C2%A7940 ad fin.]). Sahl, it may also be noted, left a responsum to a question put to him by ‘Alī on September 30, 1091 (see Ms. RNL Yevr.-Arab. I 1789, fol. 4r). That ‘Alī was still active at the beginning of the twelfth century is evident from the Seleucid era date 1415 (= 1103 c.e.) he gives at the beginning of his autograph exegetical compilation on the Pentateuch (see below). ‘Alī was most likely a student of Jeshua ben Judah (Abū ʾl-Faraj Furqān ibn Asad), with whose writings much of Ali's biblical tarājim (Arabic translations) have a striking affinity (Polliack, p. 54). ‘Alī had at least one brother who died around 1096 while their father was still alive (see below, no. 7).

‘Alī’s extant works, almost all of which are compendiums of previous Karaite works, include:

(1) An Arabic digest (Ar. intizā’) drawn from Abū ʾl-Faraj Hārūn’s abridgment of Joseph Ibn Nūḥ’s commentary (Ar. tafsīr) on the Pentateuch. An autograph of this work, at some point divided in two, is extant in Mss. RNL Yevr.-Arab. I 4423 and JTSA 9334, of which the portion on Genesis has been edited by Skoss, Commentary. Portions of this work also containing Arabic translation of the biblical text (designated in its entirety by the term tafsīr), compiled from both the tafsīr of al-ra’īs Abū Sa‘īd (David ben Boaz) as well as Abū ʾl-Faraj Hārūn’s talkhīṣ of Joseph ibn Nūḥ’s tafsīr on the Pentateuch, are extant in Mss. British Library Or. 2563 (Margoliouth no. 309), fols. 1–89; RNL Yevr.-Arab. I 4418, and RNL Yevr.-Arab. I 4419. Nine additional Mss. of ‘Alī’s work, indexed in the JNUL database simply under the description “ commentary on the Pentateuch,” are also extant in Mss. RNL Yevr.-Arab. I 1457, Yevr.-Arab. I 2016, Yevr.-Arab. I 2029, Yevr.-Arab. I 2953, Yevr.-Arab. I 4197, Yevr.-Arab. I 4235, Yevr.-Arab. I 4404, Yevr.-Arab. I 4408, U. Pennsylvania HB 10, and, with tentative attribution, RNL Yevr.-Arab. I 4405.

(2) Four leaves of a commentary on Isaiah, in Ms. RNL Yevr.-Arab. I 3417.

(3) Three leaves of a commentary on Jeremiah, in Ms. RNL Yevr.-Arab. I 3418.

(4) Nine leaves of a tafsīr, denoting both commentary and Arabic translation, on the Psalms, abridged (Ar. mukhtaṣar) from the tafāsīr of David b. Boaz and Abū ʾl-Ṭayyib al-Tinnīsī (Ms. RNL Yevr.-Arab. I 3675; identified by Mann, p. 41).

(5) al-Agrōn, constituting an abridgement (ikhtiṣār) of Levi (Abū Sa‘īd) ben Japheth’s abridgement (ikhtiṣār) of the “longer version” (Skoss, Dictionary, pp. xciv–cxx) of the Hebrew lexicon (Kitāb Jāmi‘ al-Alfāẓ) of David Ben Abraham Alfasi (extant in Ms. RNL Yevr. I 605). The entire introduction along with selected entries and Hebrew translation was published by Pinsker, vol. 1, pp. 183–216. Excerpts of selected entries were also published by Neubauer, cols. 773–808 (under the siglum “A”). It was for this work that ‘Alī was apparently best known, as evinced by Ibn al-Hītī’s description of him as ṣāḥib al-agrōn (loc. cit.). Another fragment of this work is possibly extant in Ms. RNL Yevr.-Arab. I 4420.

(6) A compendium (mukhtaṣar) of Yūsuf al-Baṣīr’s legal work Kitāb al-Istibṣār (Book of Insight), extant in Mss. RNL Yevr.-Arab. I 1776, Yevr.-Arab. I 1795, Yevr.-Arab. I 1807, Yevr.-Arab. I 1809, Yevr.-Arab. I 4446, and Yevr.-Arab. II 2943.

(7) A Book of Consolation (Ar. taʿziya) completed on April 21, 1096, and dedicated to his parents following the death of ‘Alī’s brother (Ms. RNL Yevr.-Arab. I 3950).

(8) A philosophical compendium drawn from two separate works, the first of which ‘Alī “epitomized for himself” (Ar. laḥḥaṣahu . . . li-nafsihi) in 1072–73, and the second, when he also merged it with the first, in 1093 (Ms. British Library Or. 2572 [Margoliouth no. 896], fols. 1–12r).

(9) A short apologetic outline showing how to refute, from the Qur’ān, the Muslim view that “the Jews have altered the Torah” (al-yahūd qad ghayyarat al-tawrāh) (ibid., fol. 12v; published by H. Hirschfeld in Zeitschrift für Assyriologie 26 [1912]: 111–113).

(10) Taʿlīq ‘ishrīn al-ṣūrī (Remark on the “Twenty” of the Tyrian), perhaps referring to a work by the Samaritan writer Abū ʾl-Ḥasan al-Ṣūrī, who flourished ca. 1070 (see Margoliouth, vol. 3, p. 200, note, and Steinschneider, p. 323, §6) (ibid., fol. 13r–v).

(11) A “general account” (Ar. jumal wa-jawāmiʿ), attributed to the early Karaite writer Jacob al-Qirqisānī, “concerning the composition of man and the nature and utility of his organs” (Ar. fī tarkīb al-insān wa-aḥwāl aʿḍā’ihi wa-manāfiʿahi) (ibid., fols. 14r–17v; not mentioned by L. Nemoy in the list of al-Qirqisānī’s works in his Karaite Anthology [New Haven, 1952], p. 45).

Possibly written by ‘Alī are (1) a piyyūṭ containing the acrostic ‘Alī, headed Le-‘oseh gedolot ‘ad en ḥeqer, contained in the “Damascus Diwān” itemized by Pinsker (part 1, p. 176 and part 2, p. 123; Pinsker also tentatively suggests [ibid.] identifying a piyyūṭ containing the acrostic Sulaym(ā)n in this Ms. with ‘Alī’s father), (2) an exegetical digest on the Book of Esther, mainly culled from the commentaries of Japheth ben ‘Eli and Salmon ben Jeroham, contained in Ms. RNL Yevr.-Arab. I 1755, fols. 61r – 64v (see M. G. Wechsler in Hebrew Union College Annual 72 [2001]: 104–105), and (3) a work on Hebrew grammar which is similar in style to his Agrōn (see no. 5 above), in Ms. RNL Yevr.-Arab. I 4421.

Michael G. Wechsler

Bibliography

Gil, Moshe. Ere ṣ Yisra’el ba-Tequfa ha-Muslimit ha-Ri’shona, vol. 1 (Tel Aviv, 1983), rev. as A History of Palestine, 634–1099, trans. E. Broido (Cambridge, 1992).

Mann, Jacob. Texts and Studies in Jewish History and Literature, vol. 2 (Cincinnati, 1931).

Margoliouth, George. Catalogue of the Hebrew and Samaritan Manuscripts in the British Museum, pts. I–III (London, 1899–1915, repr. 1965).

———. “Ibn al-Hītī’s Arabic Chronicle of Karaite Doctors,” Jewish Quarterly Review, o.s. 9 (1897), pp. 429–43.

Neubauer, Adolf (ed.). Kitāb al-Uṣ ūl li-Abiʾl-Walīd Marwān ibn Janā ḥ al-Qur ṭ ubī (The Book of Hebrew Roots by Abu ʾl-Walîd Marwân ibn Janâh, Called Rabbî Jônâh) (Oxford, 1875; repr. Amsterdam, 1968).

Pinsker, Simcha. Liqquṭe Qadmoniyyot (Zur Geschichte des Karaismus und der karäischen Literatur) (Vienna: Adalbert della Torre, 1860).

Polliack, Meira. The Karaite Tradition of Arabic Bible Translation: A Linguistic and Exegetical Study of Karaite Translations of the Pentateuch from the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries C.E. (Leiden: Brill, 1997).

Skoss, Solomon L. (ed.). The Arabic Commentary of ‘Ali ben Suleimān the Karaite on the Book of Genesis (Philadelphia, 1928).

——— (ed.). The Hebrew-Arabic Dictionary of the Bible, known as Kitāb Jāmi‘ al-Alfāẓ (Agrōn), of David ben Abraham al-Fāsī, the Karaite (tenth. cent.), vol. 1 (New Haven, 1936, repr., New York, n.d.).

Cite this page

Michael G. Wechsler. "ʿAlī ibn Sulaymān." Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World. Executive Editor Norman A. Stillman. Brill Online, 2013. <http://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopedia-of-jews-...>