been marked with the scribe’s name, and it is incomplete: it contains no more than five chapters that the author composed as an introduction to the surah, together with the opening discussion of the Almighty’s words, “All praise belongs to Allah, Lord of the worlds” ⦗1:2⦘. Written on the fly-leaf is the note:

“I copied this manuscript from a copy that was rescued from the fire when Tamerlane burned Damascus. Part of it had been destroyed, so we transcribed whatever we were able to recover.”

At the very end one finds the statement:

“What remains of the discussion will follow, if Allah wills.”

The first remark indicates that portions of the treatise were missing altogether, while the second implies that other portions did survive but were not copied into this manuscript!

I also noticed many blank spaces scattered throughout the text. It seems—Allah knows best—that these blanks correspond to sections that had been burned. Thus the scribe’s intention in saying, “so we transcribed whatever we were able to recover,” was apparently to state that he copied only what had not been destroyed from the middle of the book. As for the end of the treatise, it appears he postponed copying it to another occasion, as his final note suggests. We therefore ask Allah, exalted is He, to grant us success in uncovering what will complete this work, just as He enabled us to locate its beginning. He alone is the Protector and All-Powerful.