Beschreibung:

One of about nine copies of the second, expanded edition of a highly important halakhic lexicon.
Rabbi Tanhum ben Joseph ha-Yerushalmi, who passed away in Fustat (Old Cairo) in 1291, is best known on account of his rationally inclined Judeo-Arabic commentaries on the books of the Hebrew Bible, as well as the present lexicographical work. Al-murshid al-kafi (The Sufficient Guide) is so named, according to the introduction, because “it is sufficient vis-à-vis that which was intentionally included herein, and it is a guide for that which was accidentally elided.” It was composed in Judeo-Arabic for the benefit of those students of Maimonides’ Mishneh torah whose Mishnaic Hebrew was not fluent enough to easily understand Maimonides’ text or that of Rabbi Nathan ben Jehiel of Rome’s Talmudic-midrashic dictionary, Sefer he-arukh (see next lot). (Copies of the latter work were also apparently hard to come by in R. Tanhum’s environs and could be difficult to navigate.) 
Al-murshid al-kafi demonstrates R. Tanhum’s wide-ranging knowledge of fields as diverse as musicology, astronomy, physics, engineering, and zoology, as well as his deep familiarity with Semitic philology and grammar. Its utility earned Al-murshid al-kafi great popularity among the Arabic-speaking communities of the East, and it was copied, reworked, and epitomized in numerous manuscripts that have come down to us. Toward the end of his life, R. Tanhum himself apparently prepared a second edition of the book, including corrections, expansions, and reformulations of the original, that has also survived, albeit in far fewer exemplars.
The present lot comprises a portion of an early copy of Al-murshid al-kafi that was originally divided into three parts: Part I covering the letters alef through yod, Part II the letters kaf through ayin, and Part III the letters pe through tav. The manuscript as it stands today contains fragments of all three parts (Part I: pp. 1-156; Part II: pp. 157-160; Part III: pp. 161-200). Due to its “highly faithful” readings, this manuscript was frequently consulted by scholar Hadassa Shy for her edition of Al-murshid al-kafi, the first to print the book in full. It came into David Solomon Sassoon’s possession in January 1929, having been presented to him as a gift by his dear friend Elkan Nathan Adler, who had apparently acquired it from the bookseller David Fränkel in Vienna.
Remarkably, another portion of this very same manuscript, comprising the vast majority of quires 16-19 of Part II, was bought by David Solomon Sassoon from Rabbi Isaac I. Dayan of Aleppo years earlier, in 1913, along with several other books. Sassoon gave it the shelf mark 410, and it was subsequently sold twice by Sotheby’s, in 1984 (lot 86) and 1996 (lot 42), eventually entering the Schøyen Collection as MS 2195 (from which it was recently sold).
Contentspp. 1-7: bet;pp. 8-65: gimel;pp. 66-72: dalet;pp. 73-87: heh;pp. 88-94: vav;pp. 95-132: het;pp. 133-156: tet;pp. 157-158: mem;pp. 159-160: nun;pp. 161-172: kof;pp. 173-198: shin;pp. 199-200: tav.
Physical Description200 pages (approx. 7 3/4 x 5 1/4 in.; approx. 198 x 135 mm) (possible original collation: [Part I:] [i-ix lacking], x7 [x1-3 lacking], xi-xii10, xiii9 [xiii10 lacking], [xiv-xv lacking], xvi10, xvii1 [xvii2-10 lacking], [xviii lacking], xix6 [xix1-2,9-10 lacking], [xx-xxi lacking], xxii9 [xxii10 lacking], xxiii4 [xxiii3-8 lacking], xxiv4 [xxiv1-2,5-6,9-10 lacking], xxv8 [xxv1,10 lacking], [xxvi lacking]; [Part II:] [i-vi lacking], vii1 [vii1-9 lacking], [viii-ix lacking], x1 [x1-6,8-10 lacking], [xi-xxi lacking]; [Part III:] [i-xi lacking], xii6 [xii1-2,9-10 lacking], [xiii-xviii lacking], xix4 [xix1,4-7,10 lacking], xx1 [xx1-9 lacking], xxi8 [xxi9-10 lacking], [xxii-xxiii lacking], xxiv1 [xxiv2-10 lacking]) on paper; modern pagination in pencil in Arabic numerals in or near upper-outer corners; first page of each quire signed in pen at head in Hebrew characters (sometimes damaged or obscured; see pp. 15, 35, 55, 73, 93, 107, 125, 199); midpoints of quires generally marked in the lower-right and/or upper-left corners of the middle opening; written in elegant Eastern square (headings and lemmata) and semi-cursive (text body) scripts in black ink; single-column text of eighteen lines per page; ruled with a mastara (ruling board); justification of lines via dilation or contraction of final letters and slanted inscription of final words; horizontal catchword in lower margin on last page of each quire; corrections in hand of primary scribe. Sections end with tapering text (pp. 7, 65, 87); diagrams on pp. 39, 123. Probably lacking; scattered staining and dampstaining; gutters periodically strengthened; worming throughout, more intense on pp. 1-2, 69-72, 95-98, 131-134, 141-142, 173-174, 181-187, 195-198, sometimes taped, at other times not; water? damage to text on pp. 56-57, 73, 103, 107-109, 125, 158, 175, 178-180. Modern red buckram; paper ticket with title affixed to top of spine; shelf mark lettered in gilt at base of spine; modern paper flyleaves and pastedowns. Annexed Hebrew gift note by Elkan N. Adler.
LiteratureJoseph Dana, “Sefer ‘ha-madrikh ha-maspik’ (al-murshid al-kafi) le-r. tanhum ha-yerushalmi: sekirat mishpehot 18 kitvei-yad be-ot tav,” Leshonenu 36,1 (October 1971): 14-27; 36,2-3 (January-April 1972): 156-166.
David Solomon Sassoon, Ohel Dawid: Descriptive Catalogue of the Hebrew and Samaritan Manuscripts in the Sassoon Library, London, vol. 2 ([Oxford]: Oxford University Press; London: Humphrey Milford, 1932), 1038 (no. 1048).
Hadassa Shy, “Al-murshid al-kafi le-r. tanhum ha-yerushalmi (mavo va-arakhim le-dugmah me-ot tav),” Leshonenu 33,2-3 (January-April 1969): 196-207; 33,4 (July 1969): 280-296.
Tanhum ben Joseph ha-Yerushalmi, Sefer al-murshid al-kafi [ha-madrikh ha-maspik], ed. and trans. Baruch Toledano, vol. 1 (Tel Aviv, 1961).
Tanhum ben Joseph ha-Yerushalmi, Al-murshid al-kafi [ha-madrikh ha-maspik]: millono shel tanhum ha-yerushalmi le-mishneh torah la-rambam, ed. and trans. Hadassa Shy (Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 2005), esp. p. 31.
Yosef Tobi, “Tirgumim u-millonim araviyyim le-‘mishneh torah’ la-rambam,” Sefunot 5 (20) (1991): 203-222.