so that, in many passages, the reader is left perplexed, unable to determine the correct meaning.
A new edition was issued recently, prepared by Shaykh Salim al-Hilali and published by al-Kharrāz Bookstore in Jeddah and Dar Ibn Hazm in Beirut in 1419 AH. In producing it he relied on the Berlin manuscript (described below) together with the first printed edition mentioned earlier. In that printing he restored the final chapter, which the previous editions had omitted, and he adopted some corrections from the manuscript. Yet—following the habit of many who work on classical texts—he devoted the greater part of his effort to documenting the hadiths and reports, providing biographical notes, and reproducing lengthy quotations from the author’s other books. As a result, including the author’s biography, annotations, and indexes, the volume swelled to more than three hundred pages, whereas the manuscript in question comprises only thirteen folios. With regard to the main text, he was unable in many places to establish and vocalize it accurately. It suffices for the reader to compare his edition with the present one, in the final chapter and elsewhere, to perceive the difference between the two. I have no wish to enter into listing the mistakes, alterations, and examples thereof.
The sources relied upon for this edition:
As far as I know, ten manuscript copies of this epistle exist. I was able to obtain six of them, described as follows:
- The State Library copy in Berlin, number [2089] (folios 100b–113a), written in naskh script, with neither date of copying nor name of the scribe.