Epistle of the Eloquent Clarification Concerning the Refutation of Ibn Qutayba by Al-Qāḍī al-Nuʿmān b. Muḥammad (d. 363/974)

Avraham Hakim, Ph.D. (2003), University of Tel-Aviv, is lecturer on Islam and professor of Arabic at the School for Overseas Students, Tel-Aviv University. He has published extensively on the early Muslim caliphate, especially on 'Umar b. al-Khattab.

• Introduction1. The manuscripts1a. MS 1255 – The Zāhid ʿAlī collection1b. The Fyzee Manuscript2. The epistle3. The motivation for the epistle’s composition 4. The date of the epistle’s composition 5. Partial translation into English and analysis of the epistle’s introduction5.1 fol. 2a: The tutor and the Fatimid caliph's sons5.2 Fols 2a – 2b: Al-Qāḍī al-Nuʿmān's intervention5.3 Fols. 2b – 3b Ibn Qutayba's legal formulas5.4 Fols. 3b – 4b Al-Qāḍī al-Nuʿmān's arguments against his opponent 5.5 Fols. 4b – 7a: The importance of the Jurists' dissertations5.6 Fols. 7a – 8b: The refutation of contemporary Mālikite scholars6. Conclusion: The total refutation of Ibn Qutayba and his Adab al-Kātib7. Editing the textAbbreviations and Bibliography for the introduction

"The edition [...] is very useful for the scholar of Ismāʿīlī fiqh and for the knowledge of the author's thought and personality."Rosanna Budelli in Islamochristiana 38 (2012).