The textual transmission among the Moriscos: two copies of the abbreviated tafsīr of Ibn Abī Zamanīn

Abstract

Among the Arabic and Aljamiado manuscripts found in Almonacid de la Sierra (nowadays in the TNT library of the CCHS-CSIC in Madrid), there are two copies of the translation into Aljamia of the muḥtaṣar-tafsīr of Ibn Abī Zamanīn of the first quarter of the Qur’ān. The present paper is a first time presentation of the manuscript RESC/52.1 which contains a copy of the text defective of its beginning and its end but highly interesting because it belongs to the same textual tradition as RESC/51. The latter has been written by another scribe than that of RESC/52.1, but the two copyists were neverthe-less working in close relationship, transcribing probably from the same original, in the same place and at the same time. Both handwritten witnesses provide important clues about the textual transmission among the Moriscos as well as about the importance given to Qur’ānic exegesis in the second half of the 16th century, especially to Ibn Abī Zamanīn’s work.