It runs to 246 folios—492 pages—with nineteen lines to the page in medium format. The handwriting is of average quality; spelling mistakes are numerous, and there are occasional omissions and a few places where the text has been rubbed out.
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The second manuscript, siglum Ṭ: this is a microfilm of a copy kept in the Ẓāhirīyah Library in Damascus under catalogue no. 2982 (General) and no. 86 in the Theology and Kalām section. It, too, is an early witness, written in 781 AH—that is, only fifty-three years after the author’s death—by the hand of Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad al-Yūnīnī al-Ḥanbalī. It comprises 208 folios (416 pages), with nineteen lines per page in medium format. This copy was also collated, and it bears a marked resemblance to the first manuscript (A), which suggests that both were checked against the same exemplar; they frequently share the same slips and lacunae. The second copy (Ṭ), however, is superior to the first (A) in handwriting and orthography; in most other respects they agree.
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The third manuscript, siglum B: I obtained its reproduction from the Manuscripts Department at King Saud University in Riyadh (no. 27). King Saud University had filmed it from a codex preserved in the Saudi Library of the Presidency of Scholarly Research, Fatwa, Daʿwah, and Guidance, catalogue no. 564/86. It was copied in 1223 AH by a scribe named Muṣṭafā, known as al-Shawrānī. The manuscript is clear and well preserved, with some marginal annotations. The script is small. It consists of 216 folios—432 pages—in medium format, with fifteen lines to the page.