A SUPPLEMENTARY LIST OF JUDAEO-PERSIAN MANUSCRIPTS VERA BASCH MOREEN

T H E field of Judaeo-Persian studies is still underdeveloped, as most Judaeo-Persian texts continue to lie buried in uncatalogued collections of manuscripts scattered throughout the world. Although their importance was already recognized at the end of the nineteenth century,^ and despite the fact that they constitute one of the largest untapped groups of Jewish vernacular texts in Hebrew characters, Judaeo-Persian texts continue to be little known and studied. Significant numbers of Judaeo-Persian manuscripts can be found in major European libraries, such as the British Library (formerly the British Museum Library), the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris, and the library of the Institute of Oriental Studies and the Russian National Library (formerly the Saltykov-Shchedrin Library), both at St Petersburg. The largest collections are those of the Jewish National and University Library and the library of the Ben Zvi Institute, both in Jerusalem, the library of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, New York, and the Klau Library of Hebrew Union College, Cincinnati. It is also known that many Judaeo-Persian manuscripts are still privately owned in and outside Iran; some of these continue to trickle into the libraries just mentioned.^ The British Library's manuscripts in Judaeo-Persian, or containing some text in this language, acquired from various sources, were first described in several catalogues and studies by G. Margoliouth and others at the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth. Special mention must be made of the Judaeo-Persian fragment, a mercantile document, discovered at the turn of the century by Sir Aurel Stein at Dandan-Uilik, in East Turkestan, in the region of Khotan (Sinkiang). This fragment. Or. MS. 8212, has been the subject of some scholarly attention; dated by D. S. Margoliouth as circa A. D. 718, it is the earliest Judaeo-Persian manuscript in existence. A few more Judaeo-Persian manuscripts were added to the Museum's collection in the first decades of the century, including a very early manuscript. Or. MS. 8659, perhaps from the twelfth century or earlier, acquired in 1920 from the orientalist A. S. Yahuda. Some Judaeo-Persian Genizah fragments. Or. MS. 5557(z), of much later date, were also acquired by the Museum early in the century. The holdings of JudaeoPersian were considerably enriched in 1925 by the addition of no less than twenty manuscripts from the collection of Moses Gaster. In 1966, the late curator of Hebrew manuscripts, Dr Joseph Rosenwasser, published a short but comprehensive catalogue, 71

jfudaeo-Persian Manuscripts in the British Museum, providing brief descriptive notes on torty-five items containing more than seventy-five different texts, previously inaccessible in a single bibliographic tool.^ On a recent visit to the British Library, I had occasion to examine ten manuscripts not described by Rosenwasser, acquired after his time, and to prepare the following supplement to his compilation.* As can be seen, most of these manuscripts are of late date, from the eighteenth to the early twentieth centuries. Pride of place among them belongs to Or. MS. 13704, a fine illuminated copy of 'Imranl's epic, Fath-namah, or 'The Book of Conquest'. Formerly a Sassoon manuscript, it is one of the loveliest examples of Judaeo-Persian manuscript illumination. The contents of most of the other manuscripts, some of them donated by the Valmadonna Trust in London, can be found in many other copies. It may be noted that two of the manuscripts. Or. MSS. 13189 and i4595> are on blue and greenish paper, respectively, such as is often to be encountered in Judaeo-Persian manuscripts, especially from Bukhara.^ It remains only to mention two other British Library manuscripts, not listed below, to which attention has otherwise not yet been drawn in the context of Judaeo-Persian.^ The first is a Hebrew manuscript in which a single Judaeo-Persian gloss has been identified: the famous manuscript of the Hebrew Bible, perhaps the most ancient of the early codices. Or. MS. 4445. Although the manuscript itself is said to be of the early tenth century, the gloss in Judaeo-Persian, written in the space between Exodus 7:22 and 8:1, is in a later hand.^ The second item, not related directly to the subject of Judaeo-Persian, but of some marginal interest on account of its script, is a leather fragment containing Pahlavi text in Aramaic characters. Or. MS. 8115. It is the only Pahlavi text in Aramaic script preserved in the collections of the British Library.^ SUPPLEMENTARY LIST OF JUDAEO-PERSIAN MSS. •0-

Or. 13189

Ma'asiyot ['tales'] in Judaeo-Persian prose.^ The manuscript is imperfect, lacking the beginning, and many pages are stained and damaged. Blue paper. Probably XlXth century. 209 f. 17.4 x 10.3 cm.

Or. 13190

A section of the fourteenth-century epic by Shahm of ShTraz, based on the Pentateuch.^** Containing the story of Joseph and the wife of Potiphar, this section is based on the weekly reading [parashah]' Va-yeshev\ and can often be found copied separately in Judaeo-Persian manuscripts" bearing the title Yilsuf 0 Zulaykhd, the title of Muslim epics on this theme.^^ (Cf Rosenwasser, Or. 10773.) Colophon on f io8r: copied by Babaib. ha-MuUa Rahamim...LarI,^^ on 7 Tevet 5672 [1912].^'* io8 f 21 x 17cm.

Or. 13191

(i) Shdhzddah 0 5«/r['The Prince and the Mystic'], by Elisha b. Samuel (nom de plume 'Raghib'), written in the second half of the seventeenth century. This work is based on Abraham b. Hasdai's Ben ha-melekh ve-hanazir, a thirteenth-century Hebrew version of the Barlaam and Josaphat 72

(ff. ir-6iv). (Cf. Rosenwasser, Or. MSS. 4731, 4732, 4744, 10196, 10711.) Imperfect. (2) An incomplete text of Hikdyat-i an seh Yahudiydn-i tdjir ['The story of Solomon and the Three Merchants']^^ (ff. 62r-62v). (Cf. Rosenwasser, Or. MSS. 4731, 4744, 10196, 10711). Embossed leather binding with clasps. Probably late XVIIIth or early XlXth century. 62 f. 21 X 17.4 cm.

Or. 13704 Fath-ndmah ['The Book of Conquest'] by the Judaeo-Persian poet 'ImranT (d. after 1536), a poetic rendering of the books of Joshua, Judges, Ruth, . Samuel I and part of Samuel IL One of the most beautiful illuminated Judaeo-Persian manuscripts known, it contains seven large illuminated pages and numerous smaller page designs. Fine calligraphy throughout; the hands of several copyists are discernible. Ff. 145V, i46r, 159V list names of various owners. There is no colophon, but the owner on f. 159V notes that he received the manuscript on i Nisan 5499, corresponding to 9 March 1739. (Cf. Rosenwasser, Or. MSS. 2453, 4731, 10774.) First two leaves badly damaged; restored and bound by the British Library. [Isfahan], probably from the end of the XVIIth or beginning of the XVIIIth century. 334 f. 28.8 X 20 cm. (see plate II). This manuscript was acquired by the British Library from the Sassoon collection, at the Sotheby's sale in Zurich, November 1975. See D. S. Sassoon, Ohel David (Ohel Dawid): Descriptive Catalogue of the Hebrew and Samaritan Manuscripts in the Sassoon Library, London (Oxford, 1932), vol. i, pp. 473-6, no. 614 [Kitab Shahin]; the catalogue of the Sotheby's sale prepared by Ch. Abramsky, Catalogue of Thirty-eight Highly Important Hebrew and Samaritan Manuscripts from the collection formed by the late David Solomon Sassoon (Zurich, 1975), lot no. 34; [David Goldstein], Hebrew Manuscripts from the Sassoon Collection [British Library exhibition notes] (London, 1982), no. 8 (with reproduction off. 31V). The manuscript and its illuminations are discussed in V. B. Moreen, Miniature Paintings in Judaeo-Persian Manuscripts (Cincinnati, 1985), pp. 49-50;-^' see also M. I. Waley, Supplementary Catalogue of Persian Miniatures (in preparation). Or. 13872 (i) Sefer ha-Agron by Moses b. Aaron b. She'erith of Shirwan, a HebrewPersian dictionary covering the Hebrew and Aramaic vocabulary of the Bible, compiled in 1459^^ (ff. 1-269V). (Cf. Rosenwasser, Or. 10482, which may be an autograph.) Colophon on f. 269V: copied by Samuel b. Isaac b. Nisan b. Abraham b. Joseph at Merv (Central Asia) in 1784 according to the Seleucid date [A. D. 1473]. (2) Miscellaneous fragments of Hebrew texts (ff. 269V-272V). 272 f. (missing one leaf after f. 266). 17 x 13 cm. This manuscript was acquired by the British Library from the Sassoon collection, at the Sotheby's sale in Zurich, November 1978. See D. S. Sassoon, Ohel David, vol. i, p. 500, no. 710; the catalogue of the Sotheby's 73

sale prepared by Ch. Abramsky, Catalogue of [A Further] Thirty-three Highly Important Hebrew and Samaritan Manuscripts from the collection formed by the late David Solomon Sassoon (Zurich, 1978), lot no. 30; and [David Goldstein], Hebrew Manuscripts from the Sassoon Collection [exhibition notes], no. 16. 13913

Or. 13914

(i) Alfa Beta de-Ben Sira ['The Alphabet of Ben Sira'] in Judaeo-Persian prose (ff. ir-2ov). (Cf. Rosenwasser, Or. 4731.) Imperfect at beginning but complete at end. Colophon on f. 2ov: copied by Jacob Kohen Sa*ir Joseph...on Friday, 23 Tevet 5649 [1889]. (2) Parashat ' Va-yeshev' by Shahin of Shiraz (ff. 2ir-94r). (Cf Or. 13190, above.) In the same hand as the previous text in this manuscript. Colophon indicates 1889 as the year of the copy. (3) Shdhzddah 0 Suflhy Elisha b. Samuel (ff. 96r~i68v). (Cf Or. 13191, above.) In excellent condition up to f 164V; ff. i65r-i68v damaged but still legible, restored. Colophon on f i68v: copied by Jacob b. Mulla Bakhshi Sa'ir Joseph for Babai b. ha-MuUa Imam LarT, on Tuesday, in the month of Sivan 5648 [1888]. (3^) An owner's statement {}), or a colophon (?), beginning 'Kitab Rahamim Hayim Shim*on', and dated 1892; seemingly misbound (?), possibly prior to acquisition of the manuscript by the British Library.^** (4) Kitab Haidar Beg (ff. I7ir-i9ov). Imperfect at end. Copied by Rahamim Jacob Kohen, possibly in Allahabad, in 1888-9. 168 f. (ff. 95r-95v blank). 19 x 15 cm.

(i) Mundjdt-ndmah Jumjumah ['Book of Devotions', on Jumjumah], i.e. the story of Jumjumah in Judaeo-Persian verse^^ (ff. ir-9v). (2) Mundjdt-ndmah Musah ['Book of Devotions', on Moses], in Judaeo-Persian verse by 'Attar"^ (ff. 9v-i5r). (3) Tafstr in Judaeo-Persian of verse beginning ''Dodi yarad [le-ganoY (ff. I5v-24r). Colophon on f 24r: copied by Rahamim Jacob on 25 Adar 5661 [1901]. (4) Text in Malay {}) in Hebrew diaracters (f 24V). (5) Continuation of tafstr that began on f 15V (ff. 25r-28r). (6) Wedding poems in Judaeo-Persian (ff. 29v-32v).^^ Copyist: Rahamim Jacob Kohen. (7) Persian-Malay vocabulary (list of numbers: satu, du'ah, tigah, hampah, nimah, etc.) in Hebrew characters (ff, 33r-48r). This is the only known text in Malay in Hebrew characters.^^ On f 39V, in English: 'Rahamim Yacoob Cohen Esqr. Finish Dressing. Closed all Sterday [sic]. Address Near Peer Mussa Miyasaheb's House No. 3189, Ahmedabad'. On f. 4or a shopkeeper's advertisement for tailoring and women's hat-making in Gujarati, and at bottom of the leaf the two words Tstrt topt {y^ovatTih ha in Gujarati in Hebrew characters.^^ It must be said that this manuscript is a remarkable linguistic melange, containing text in five languages and in three scripts, including Judaeo-Persian, Malay in Hebrew characters, Hebrew, English, and Gujarati. ^^ 48 f. Very small bloc-notes format, 13.9 X 8.4 cm. 74

h^'iTsjjirV

^

l^af fi-nm

-Arahir

Finlnlat nl-H/V

PLATE II

Scene of Joshua, on a white horse, fighting before the walls of Jericho, from the Judaeo-Persian epic by 'ImranT, Fath-ndmah, copied circa 1700. Or. MS. 13704, f.

Or. 14594

(i) Hebrew poem by Moses b. Isaac, beginning *'Masveh natan ^al panav ...^^ (ff. 4r-ior). (2) Bakashah (poem) with alternating Hebrew and JudaeoPersian strophes (ff. 11V-25V). (3) A bakashah in Hebrew (ff. 26r-37v). (4) A piyyut in Aramaic (ff. 38r-39v). (5) Bakashot in Hebrew (ff. 4ov-5or). (6) Judaeo-Persian poems by Joseph b. Siman Zarganl^^ (ff. 5iv-7or). (7) Kitab-i Antiokhus ['The Book of Antiochus']. Apparently a copy of" the Judaeo-Persian version of the Hasmonean story, better known as Antiokhusnamah, by the eighteenth-century poet Joseph b. Isaac b. Musa^^ (ff. 77v-ii5r). (8) Piyyut in honour of Purim in alternating Hebrew and Judaeo-Persian strophes (ff. i i6r-i32r). Colophon on f. i32r pertains to the last two items: copied by Raphael Melamed ha-Kohen for Elijah b. haMulla 'Usa [.>], on 22 Nisan 5663 [1903]. 132 f (ff. ir-3v, iov-iir, 4or, 5ov-5ir, and -joy-j^v all blanks). Very small bloc-notes format, 8.9 x 11 cm.

Or. 14595

(i) Zemirot (poems/songs) of Israel Najara(?)^^ in Judaeo-Persian (ff. ir-2v). (2) Tafstr (translation/commentary) of Solomon Ibn Gabirol's azharah, 'Shemor libi...'^^ (ff. 2v-iiv). (3) Tafsir-i azharot by Benjamin b.

Misha'el (nom de plume AmTna), a Judaeo-Persian translation/commentary based on Solomon Ibn Gabirol's azharah, 'Shemor libi...' (ff. I2v-i5r). Calligraphy changes on f 13V. (4) ' Reshut azharot' of R. David b. Eleazar Bakudah, a poem in Hebrew; Azharot of Solomon Ibn Gabirol, Hebrew strophes alternating with Judaeo-Persian (ff. i5r-25v). 'Mitsvot 'aseh' (f. 26r), and 'Tafsir-i mitsvot lo ta'aseh'^'^ (ff. 26v-4rv). (Cf Rosenwasser, Or. 4729.) Imperfect, damaged at end, and lacking colophon. Greenish paper. XVIIIth or XlXth century. 41 f 17.4 x 13 cm. Or. 14596

(i) Tafsir, in Judaeo-Persian prose, of anonymous authorship, of ''Dodi yarad le-gano\ a mystical messianic dialogue between God and Israel based on the Song of Songs (ff. ir-ior). (Cf Or. 13914, above.) (2) Two JudaeoPersian quatrains (unclear whether original, or Judaeo-Persian copies of Persian quatrains), of unknown authorship (f ior). (3) Tafsir oVYigdaV (ff. iov-riv). (4) Judaeo-Persian translation of a poem, from Zemirot Yisra'el by Israel Najara (ff. iiv-i2r). (5) Mundjdt-ndmah ['Book of Prayers'], containing a famous mukhammas by Amlna^^ (ff. I2r-i8r). (6) Another Mundjdt-ndmah in Judaeo-Persian (of unknown authorship?) (ff. i8r-2ir). (7) More poems from Zemirot Yisra'*el by Israel Najara, some in JudaeoPersian and some in Hebrew (ff. 2iv-26v). (8) Judaeo-Persian poems of 'Tufayl' (?) with messianic themes. Very damaged at the edges; incomplete (ff. 26V-29V). XVIIIth or early XlXth century. 29 f Bloc-notes format, 10 X 15 cm.

, Persische Studien, Abhandlungen der Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften, xxxi, (Gottingen, 1884); Wilhelm Bacher, 'Ein hebra-

75

isch-persisches Worterbuch aus dem 15. Jahrhundert', Zeitschrift fur die alt testament lie he Wissenschaft, xvi (1896), pp. 201-47, xvii (1897),

pp. 199-203, and his numerous subsequent pubhcations on the subject; and the pioneering bibliographic survey by the English bibliophile E. N. Adler, Ginze Paras u-Madai: The Persian Jews, Their Liturgy and Ritual (London, 1899 [offprinted from Jewish Quarterly Review, \]), reflecting the contents of Adler's private collection, which passed to the library of the Jewish Theological Seminary, New York. The body of research on Judaeo-Persian language and literature has grown considerably in this century. For general surveys and bibliographies, see W. Bacher's entries on 'JudaeoPersian' and 'Judaeo-Persian Literature' in The Jewish Encyclopedia, vol. vii (New York and London, 1904), pp. 313-24 (based in large part on the Adler collection), and more recently W. J. Fischel,' Israel in Iran (A Survey of JudeoPersian Literature)', in L. Finkelstein (ed.). The Jews: Their History, Culture, and Religion (New York, 1949), pp. 1149-90; idem, 'Judeo-Persian Literature', Encyclopaedia Judaica, vol. x (Jerusalem, 1972), cols. 432-9 (the bibliography lists, inter alia, catalogues recording Judaeo-Persian manuscripts); and idem, 'Judaeo-PersianLiterature', in Encyclopaedia of Islam, vol. iv (1974), pp. 308-13. A classified bibliography of secondary literature on Judaeo-Persian remains a desideratum. 2 There is still no detailed union catalogue of Judaeo-Persian manuscripts. Manuscripts in this language have usually been recorded together with Hebrew manuscripts in the catalogues of Hebrew libraries or collections, and are often found scattered, sometimes virtually hidden, within these catalogues. There is, however, a separate section on 'Judaeo-Persian', bringing together brief records for manuscripts in this language held in libraries around the world, in the Collective Catalogue of Hebrew Manuscripts (Paris, 1989, on microfiche). The Collective Catalogue records the extensive, if still incomplete, holdings of the Institute of Microfilmed Hebrew Manuscripts at the Jewish National and University Library (JNUL), Jerusalem. The most important recent single-library catalogues of Judaeo-Persian manuscripts per se are those by E. Spicehandler, 'A Descriptive List of Judeo-Persian Manuscripts at the Klau Library of the Hebrew Union College', Studies in Bibliography and Booklore, viii (Cincinnati, 1968), pp. 114-36; J. Rosenwasser, Judaeo-

Persian Manuscripts in the British Museum, oifprinted (with additional indexes of persons and titles) from G. M. Meredith-Owens, Handlist of Persian Manuscripts, i8g5-ig66 (London, 1968), pp. 38-44; and A. Netzer, Otsar kitve ha-yad shel yehude paras be-makhon Ben Tsevi [Manuscripts of the Jews of Persia in the Ben Zvi Institute] Jerusalem, 1985). (In the present supplementary list that follows here, these three standard catalogues are cited as Spicehandler, Rosenwasser, and Netzer.) Dr E. Wust is currently preparing a catalogue of the Judaeo-Persian manuscripts held in the JNUL itself, and the present writer has been engaged to catalogue those housed at the library of the Jewish Theological Seminary, New York. The core of this latter collection, to which other manuscripts have been added over the years, consists of those purchased by E. N. Adler; see Adler's Catalogue of Hebrew Manuscripts in the Collection of Elk an Nathan Adler (Cambridge, 1921), as well as his earlier Ginze Paras. 3 Eight manuscripts containing Judaeo-Persian text, acquired from the antiquarian Shapira, were first listed briefly by H. Derenbourg in 'Les Manuscrits judaiques entres au British Museum de 1867 a 1890 [nos. Or. 11 to Or. 4117]', Revue des e'tudes juives, xxiii (Paris, 1891), pp. 279-80 (Judaeo-Persian MSS. Or. 24512456, 2459—2460). These manuscripts were also included in the catalogue by G. Margoliouth, Descriptive List of the Hebrew and Samaritan Manuscripts in the British Museum "fLondon, 1893), pp. II, 21, 42, 69, 72, and 85. A further eight manuscripts acquired from S. A. J. Churchill, a diplomat in Teheran, were described by the same Margoliouth in 'Persian Hebrew Manuscripts in the British Museum', Jewish Quarterly Review, vii (1894/5), pp. 119-20 (Or. MSS. 4729-4732 and 4742-4745). Two of these. Or. 4743 and Or. 4745, being Hebrew-character transcriptions of Muslim works, were included by C. Rieu in his Supplement to the Catalogue of the Persian Manuscripts in the British Museum (London, 1895; reprinted 1977), p. 156, no. 230, and pp. 179-80, no. 272 (cf also the preface, p. vi). One of the Churchill manuscripts. Or. 4742, and a later acquisition. Or. 5446, were described in some detail by M. Seligsohn in the first instalment of his 'The Hebrew Persian Manu-

scripts of the British Museum', J^BJI^A Quarterly Review, xv (1903), pp. 278-301. On the ancient fragment Or. 8212, see D. S. Margoliouth, 'An Early Judaeo-Persian Document from Khotan, in the Stein Collection, with other early Persian Documents', with an introductory note by M. A. Stein, and communications from W. Bacher, A. E. Cowley, and J. Wiesner, iu Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (1903), pp. 735~6o; K. Salemann, 'Po povodu yevreisko-persidskago otrivka iz Khotana', Zapiski vostochnago otdeleniia, xvi (St Petersburg, 1904-5), pp. 046-057; M. A. Stein, 'A JudaeoPersian Document', in his Ancient Khotan: Detailed Report of Archaeological Explorations in Ghinese Turkestan (Oxford, 1907), vol. i, pp. 306-9, and in the same volume a reprint of Margoliouth's article, here entitled ' The JudaeoPersian Document from Dandan-Uilik', pp. 570-4, and a facsimile of the fragment in vol. ii, plate cxix; B. Utas, 'The Jewish-Persian Fragment from Dandan-Uilik \ Orientalia Suecana, xvii (1968), pp. 123-6 (with reference also to further publications by W. B. Henning and M. Kashgari); and most recently G. Lazard, 'Remarques sur le fragment judeo-persan de DandanUiliq', Acta Iranica, xxviii (Leiden, 1988), pp. 205-9. D- S. Margoliouth's dating of A.D. 7r8 is no longer accepted, but it is agreed that the fragment is eighth-century. A reproduction of the fragment also appears in the Encyclopaedia Judaica (Jerusalem, 1972), vol. xi, col. 905. All of the Judaeo-Persian manuscripts acquired by the British Museum during the first third of the present century, with the exception of those in the Gaster Collection, were described in much greater detail by G. Margoliouth in the Gatalogue of the Hebrew and Samaritan Manuscripts in the British Museum (London, 18991935; reprinted 1965-77), with indexes and 'Supplementary List of Manuscripts' by J. Leveen in vol. iv, esp. pp. 119-20 under 'Liturgy: Yemenite and Persian Rites', and p. 133 under 'Poetry: Persian (in the Hebrew character)'; see Leveen's introduction in the same volume, p. ix, and supplementary nos. Or. 8695 and Or. 9804. On the palaeography of four of the Judaeo-Persian manuscripts, with facsimile plates, see the two volumes of S. Birnbaum, The Hebrew Scripts (London and Leiden, 1954-71), nos. 208 (Add. 7701), 211 (Or. 8212), 212 (Or. 5446), and 214 (Or. 4729).

77

The manuscript acquired from A. S. Yahuda, Or. 8659 (not recorded in Margoliouth-Leveen) - it is one of the earliest Judaeo-Persian manuscripts, apparently older than Or. 5446, the Pentateuch translation dated A.D. 1319-has been edited and studied by D. N. MacKenzie, 'An Early Jewish-Persian Argument', Bulletin of' the School of Oriental and African Studies, xxxi (1968), pp. 249-69; see also J. P. Asmussen, Jewish-Persian Texts: Introduction, Selection, and Glossary (Wiesbaden, 1968), pp. 6-7 (also providing specimens and notes on two other British Library manuscripts. Or. 4742 and Or. 8695)The Gaster manuscripts were described in Gaster's own handlist (nos. 69, 75, 77, 94, 774-82, 936-7, 1081-2, 1084, and 1281), and in the typescript catalogue of the British Library's Gaster Collection prepared by N. Allony and D. S. Loewinger for the Institute of Microfilmed Hebrew Manuscripts, Reshimat tatslume kitve ha-yad ha-ivriyim be-makhon: K.h.y. be-sifriyat ha-Muzey'um ha-briti, osef Gaster Jerusalem, i960) (see under 'Judaeo-Persian' in the 'Index of Languages'). All of the Judaeo-Persian manuscripts in the British Library (formerly British Museum) are recorded in the Institute's Gollective Gatalogue of Hebrew Manuscripts (Paris, 1989), in various sequences ('London, Gaster Collection', 'Judaeo-Persian', etc). RosenwusseT's Judaeo-Persian Manuscripts in the British Museum is the most concise guide to all of these manuscripts, including those in the Gaster collection, up to Or. MS. 12191. 4 I am indebted to Brad Sabin Hill for bringing these manuscripts to my attention and for his assistance in the redaction of this article, and to Mrs Devora Coutts for kindly providing dimensions of these manuscripts for inclusion in the supplementary list. 5 Cf. the colour reproductions of very similar tinted papers of Judaeo-Persian manuscripts held in the National Library of Canada, in B. S. Hill, Incunabula, Hebraica & Judaica (Ottawa, 1981), p. 135, nos. 130 and 150. 6 [EDITOR'S NOTE: One should also mention here two manuscripts once thought to contain JudaeoPersian, which have been excluded from the lists of Judaeo-Persian manuscripts. Or. 10254 (Codex Gaster no. 1400), incorrectly identified by Allony and Loewinger (op. cit., no. 345, and in the 'Index of Languages') as Judaeo-Persian,

is entirely in Hebrew. Or. 12352 (Codex Gaster no. 388), comprised of pizmonim or piyutim by *Asahel bar Hanukah of Daghestan, includes on ff. 7r-7v a bilmgual hymn with strophes alternating between Hebrew and a vernacular in Hebrew characters. Although Allony and Loewinger (op. cit., no. 1070, and in the 'Index of Languages') describe the language as 'perhaps Persian(?)' or 'Dagestani' [sic], it has been correctly identified as a Turkic dialect close to Azeri; the first vernacular strophe reads: 'gelun gidakh t daklar usde goz alakh i yollar usde belki gele David bize belki gele Farnas bize.' The manuscript (iof, 22.6 X 18.6 cm.) was probably copied in the eighteenth century somewhere in the Caucasus. Cf. Meredith-Owens's typescript. Temporary Handlist of Turkish MSS. i888~igs8, p. 46 (a single entry under 'Judaeo-Turkish', listing this manuscript). There are a few other instances of Judaeo-Turkic texts, or Turkish in Hebrew characters, among the Hebrew manuscripts in the British Library; see for example Margoliouth, vol. iii, p. 367, no. 1037 (describing Add. i5455i containing two short pieces on the plague in Turkish, and a Hebrew-Turkish vocabulary). In this context, one may call attention to one other British Library manuscript in an Islamic language, Urdu - a language very influenced by Persian - likewise written in Hebrew characters. This is Or. 13287, fully illustrated in Indian style, containing the text of the popular nineteenth-century drama by Agha Hasan Amanat known as Indra Sabha ('The Court of Indra'). The entire manuscript is in Urdu (written in Hebrew characters), except for the abbreviated Hebrew invocation, and the colophon in JudaeoArabic indicating its completion in Calcutta in 1887. (A Hebrew-character lithograph of the Urdu drama, printed in Calcutta in 1880, has survived in two incomplete copies, one held in the Sassoon collection, Jerusalem, and the other in the Valmadonna Trust, London.) A unique instance of another Islamic language, Malay, written in Hebrew characters, is described in the supplementary list of JudaeoPersian manuscripts, under Or. 13914.] 7 On this gloss, see now A. Dotan, 'Reflections towards a critical edition of Pentateuch Codex Or. 4445', in E. Fernandez Tejero and M. T. Ortega Monasterio (eds.), Estudios Masoreticos: X Congreso de la lOMS [en Memoria de Harry M. Orlinsky] (Madrid, 1993) [Textos y estudios

'Cardenal Cisneros' de la Biblia Poliglota Matritense, Iv], pp. 49-50. Margoliouth, vol. i, p. 39, had already remarked that the owner's note in Judaeo-Persian on f. i86v is no longer legible. 8 On this fragment, see A. Cowley, *The Pahlavi document from k\xom^n\ Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (1919), pp. 147-54, ^^^ also Le Monde oriental, xvii (1923), p. 182. The papyrus collection of the British Museum also holds a few Pahlavi fragments in Aramaic script. On the Pahlavi script, deriving from the official Aramaic of the Achaemenian empire, see D. N. MacKenzie, A Concise Pahlavi Dictionary (London, 1971), pp. x-xii. 9 Individual and collected tales are common in Judaeo-Persian manuscript collections. See, for example, Netzer, Otsar, index, under sipurim uma'asiyot, and Spicehandler, 'A Descriptive List', index, under Sefer ma'asiyot. 10 This epic is frequently referred to as Sefer Sharh-i Shahtn 'at ha-Torah ['The Book of Shahin's commentaries on the Torah'], a title bestowed upon it by Simon Hakham, who prepared an uncritical edition of the work published in Jerusalem, 1902-5. 11 Cf. Netzer, Otsar, index, under Yusuf veZulaykhd, and Spicehandler, 'A Descriptive List', index, under Shdhln. 12 The most famous Muslim treatment of this subject is that of the Persian poet 'Abd-urRahman Jam! (d. 1492). 13 Intimating that either he or his family came from the city of Lar, one of the major centres for the copying and transmission of JudaeO-Persian manuscripts; see Fischel, 'Israel in Iran', p. II5914 I am indebted to Gilad Gevaryahu's help for the accurate reading of the dates in this and subsequent colophons. 15 Cf. the edition by A. M. Habermann, Ben hamelekh ve-ha-nazir (Tel Aviv, 1950). There are numerous copies of this epic in all JudaeoPersian manuscript collections; see Netzer, Otsar, index, under Shdhzddah 0 Sufi, and Spicehandler,' A Descriptive List', index, under Shd[h]zdda Sufi [sic]. 16 Explicitly written in the metre of Firdausl's (d. c. 1020-5) Shdh-ndmah, the national epic of Iran. This popular tale can be found in numerous Judaeo-Persian manuscripts. 17 Since the publication of this book another illuminated Fath-ndmah was found at the Ben

Zvi Institute, Jerusalem (see Netzer, Otsar, p. 175, MS. no. 4602, and plates 3-12), which seems to date from the seventeenth century, and appears to be the iconographic precursor of Or. 13704. There exist quite a few copies of Fath-ndmah; see Netzer, Otsar, and Spicehandler, 'A Descriptive List', index, under Fath-ndmah. 18 See Bacher's articles, cited in n. i. According to Sassoon (then followed by Goldstein) the lexical work contained in this manuscript is to be ascribed to Solomon b. Samuel of Urgenj (Central Asia), manuscripts of whose fourteenthcentury Sefer ha-melitsah are also held in the Firkovich and Adler collections. On these two lexicographical works, the Agron and the Sefer ha-melitsah, see Bacher, 'Judaeo-Persian Literature' in The Jewish Encyclopedia, vol. vii (1904), p. 319; Fischel, 'Judisch-Persisch-Literatur', in Encyclopaedia Judaica, vol. ix (Berlin, 1932), cols. 562-3; and idem, 'Israel in Iran', p. 1160. On Solomon b. Samuel, see Fischel's entry in Encyclopaedia Judaica (Jerusalem, 1972), vol. xv, col. 125.

Studies in Judeo-Persian Literature (Leiden, 1973), PP- 76-87. 22 This munajdt genre, comparable to the Hebrew bakashah, is frequently used by Persian and Judaeo-Persian authors. Cf. Netzer, Otsar, p. 185, MSS. under bet 50, and Spicehandler, 'A Descriptive List', index, under Munajdtndmah. 23 Several such poems are in Spicehandler, 'A Descriptive List', e.g. p. 127, MS. 2171. 24 This unique manuscript, described as 'Malay vocabulary in Hebrew characters', has also been filmed in the series of Microfilms of Alalay Manuscripts from The British Library, Oriental and India Office Collections, presented by the British Council, Brunei Darussalam, 1992, film no. 0 / C Pos. 310/A. 25 I am indebted to Mrs Dipali Ghosh for her assistance in reading the text on this leaf. 26 As such it reflects the very cosmopolitan experience of Jewish merchants in South-East Asia at the turn of this century. On Jews in Malay-speaking territory, see E. Nathan, The History of the Jews in Singapore, i8jo-ig45 19 See Netzer, Otsar, index, under Ben Sir a, (Singapore, 1986), and the review by D. Lomand Spicehandler, 'A Descriptive List', index, bard, with further references, in Archipel, xxxviii under Alfa Beta de-Ben Sira. See also Jes P. (Paris, 1989), pp. 143-4. Asmussen, 'Eine judisch-persische Ubersetzung 27 See other copies of the poem listed in Netzer, des Ben Sira-Alphabets', in J. Bergman et al. Otsar, MS. 1023, ff. 9r-iov; MS. 1049, ff. (eds.), Ex orbe religionum: Studia Geo Widengren 42v-45r; MS. 4550, ff. r2v-i4v; and MS. 4592, ...oblata (Leiden, 1972), vol. i, pp. 144-55. ^^ ff. ir—4r. Or. 4731, see A. E. Cowley and A. Neubauer, 28 For more poems by this poet, see Netzer, Otsar, The Original Hebrew of a Portion of Ecclesiasticus Index of Poets, p. 214, and Spicehandler, 'A {xxxix. 15-xUx. Il) (Oxford, 1897), pp. xv and Descriptive List', p. 124, MS. 2153. xxix. 29 See Netzer, Otsar, MS. 967, ff. ir-i07v; MS. 20 Most curiously, it is followed on f. 170V by a 994, ff. 52v-95r; MS. 1003, ff. 7ir-98v; and 'colour transfer' of a North American Indian Spicehandler,' A Descriptive List', index, under chief in full head-dress (!); this leaf may, too, 'Joseph b. Isaac b. Musa'. have come from the beginning or end of (part of) 30 Najara's poems were particularly loved by the volume. Iranian Jewry. All manuscript collections 21 This is another tale frequently found in Judaeoabound in Hebrew texts of the poems and Persian manuscripts and is to be attributed, Judaeo-Persian translations/commentaries. It according to Jes P. Asmussen, to the great may well be that these manuscripts contain Persian poet Farldudin *At:tar (d. 1220). See hitherto unknown poems by Najara. See Netzer, Netzer, Otsar, p. 194, manuscript listed under Otsar, and Spicehandler, 'A Descriptive List', nun 3, and Spicehandler, 'A Descriptive List', index, under ' Najara \ index, under [Hikdyat-i] Sultdn Jumjume. A 31 This is a much loved poem among Iranian Jews; short fragment of the tale is transliterated by cf. the numerous manuscripts of it listed in Asmussen in his Jewish-Persian Texts (WiesNetzer, Otsar, p. 213, shin, 20. baden, 1968), pp. 27-8. He translates the entire 32 Cf Netzer, Otsar, p. 201, alef 49. text, basing his translations on manuscripts 33 Cf. above, n. 22. Some of the best Judaeoadditional to those mentioned above, in his Persian poets, such as 'ImranT and Benjamin b.

79

Misha'el('Amm5')(d. mid-eighteenth century) have written similar books of devotion. See A.

yahudiydn-i Iran ['An Anthology of Persian Poetry of the Jews of Iran'] (Tehran, 1973). PP-

Netzer, Montahhab-i ash'dr-i fdrisf az dsdr-i

44 and 50, and also his Otsar, p. 32.

80