al-Uṣūl al-Muhaḏḏabiyya
Abstract Ms. St. Petersburg, Russian National Library, Evr Arab I 3951 has 14 leaves, which consist of three fragments: 1) Fols. 1–10, include part of al-Uṣūl al-Muhaḏḏabiyya, the subject of the present paper. 2–3) Fragments of a responsum on forbidden marriages and a theological work. al-Uṣūl al-Muhaḏḏabiyya was written as a concise compendium of Muʿtazili theology, written by a Karaite scholar Sahl b. al-Faḍl al-Tustarī, who was active in Jerusalem (and perhaps later in Egypt) at the end of the 10th century, at the request of al-Qaḍī al-Muhaḏḏab Saniyy al-Dawla, (apparently) a dignitary in the service of the Fāṭimid government. No person with this, or a similar name could be identified in historical or biographic sources as fitting the role of instigator of such an inter-confessional project. On the basis of a comparison between a quotation of a statement on the definition of prophecy by al-Sahl b. al-Faḍl al-Tustarī at an inter-confessional debate, which took place on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem ca. 1095 (quoted in Ibn al-ʿArabī’s Qānūn al-taʾwīl) and a similar statement on prophecy found in the fragment of al-Uṣūl al-Muhaḏḏabiyya, it is quite safe to conclude that the same person is the author of the compendium, and also of the important work Kitāb al-Īmāʾ.