I direct a research team based at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, working on the reconstruction, transcription and translation of the Judeo-Arabic Book of Gardens and Parks (Kitāb al-Riyāḍ wa-l-Ḥadāʾiq) by the tenth-century Baghdadi Karaite scholar Yaʿqūb al-Qirqisānī. This research project, funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, is titled “Independence and diversity: Unknown Karaite Bible commentaries in Judeo-Arabic from the early classical age” and I co-direct it together with my colleague Prof. Dr. Ronny Vollandt of the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich.
Al-Qirqisānī’s exegetical composition is a complex and creative product of the cosmopolitan interreligious metropolis in which he lived. In his interpretation of Scripture, al-Qirqisānī makes use of the tools afforded him by the intricate theological and philosophical discussions taking place in Arabic during his time, and makes use of a wide array of compositions available in Arabic in a variety of fields, from natural science to philosophy.
For an example of the edition that my team and I are creating, click here to see our edition of Al-Qirqisānī’s Pentateuch commentary.
To create our edition, we are using the wonderful technology Classical Text Editor OEAW, in order to track and render important manuscript variants.
For a view of the “nuts and bolts” of working with this technology, click here to see a page from our edition of parashat Noah in Genesis.
Team Members
|
|
|
|
| Noya Zandberg |
