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Based on the close examination of 32 manuscripts produced in Kairouan between the 9th and the 11th centuries, this article reassesses the content and function of their paratext and interrogates some diagnostic features of their scripts and page layout. In the first part, we demonstrate that some dated notes can refer to auditions and readings that occurred decades before the production of the manuscripts on which they appear, and therefore cannot be used as termini ante quem for dating them. In the second part, we discuss some key palaeographic parameters for a better understanding of Ifrīqī scripts, their origin, and their development, with a view to establishing a set of reliable criteria for a more accurate dating and contextualisation of this little-known material. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Middle Arabic is conventionally defined as existing on a spectrum between colloquial Arabic on the low end and Classical Arabic on the high end. Differences between Middle Arabic and Classical Arabic that are not attested in a modern dialect are typically treated, historically at least, as due to pseudo-correction. This is especially true of non-Classical manifestations of nominal case. In this paper, I tag all instances of alif al-tanwīn – which in Qurʾānic and Classical Arabic marks the accusative on triptotic nouns that do not end in tāʾ marbūṭa – from representative portions of the manuscripts, both vocalized and unvocalized, of 15 Christian translations of the gospels into Arabic dating from the 9th to 15th centuries CE. The data demonstrate, contrary to previous descriptions, that the majority of case inflection is written in line with Classical Arabic norms. Further, the syntactic contexts in which non-Classical case markings occur follow regular patterns, which recur with remarkable consistency across time and manuscript. Instead of originating in pseudo-corrections, I propose the differences from Classical Arabic originated in attempts by Christian scribes to represent a variety of Arabic in which a vowel merger before tanwīn resulting in a single morpheme erased the vocalic distinctions between case vowels. These syntactic contexts include nominative, genitive, and accusative ones. Since Christian Arabic differed from the varieties for which the Arabic script and subsequent vocalizations were developed to write, scribes originally varied in the degree to which they adhered to the writing conventions, with some closely adhering and others taking greater liberties in order to represent the underlying variety with greater nuance. Over time, this led to several scribal traditions for writing tanwīn in Christian manuscripts, each of which is attested among the vocalized manuscripts included in this study and discussed in detail. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Ifrīqiyan cum Cairene Sufi Aḥmad al-Būnī (d. ca 622/1225 or 630/1232-1233) is a key figure in the history of the Islamicate occult sciences, particularly with regard to the "science of letters and names" ('ilm al-ḥurūf wa-l-asmā'). Drawing on textual and manuscript evidence, this paper examines the role of esotericism-religious secrecy and exclusivity-in al-Būnī's thought and in the promulgation and early circulation of his works in Egypt and environs. It is argued that al-Būnī intended his works only for elite Sufi initiates, and that, in the century or so after his death, they indeed circulated primarily in "esotericist reading communities," groups of learned Sufis who guarded their contents from those outside their own circles. This tendency toward esotericism, and the eventual exposure of al-Būnī's texts to a wider readership, are contextualized in relation to broader developments in late-medieval Mediterranean culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]