❧ Description
Volume of 396 in-folio leaves copied in Maghrebi Arabic script by Sa'adya bar Levi, a Moroccan Jewish scribe ("of Morocco" according to Neubauer), between Tishri and Tevet 5405 = 1644-1645. Transcribed at the request of Jacobus Golius (1596-1667), professor of Arabic and mathematics at the University of Leiden, who had traveled to Morocco in 1622-1624. The commission to a Jewish copyist illustrates the relay role of the Moroccan Jewish community between Oriental scholarship and learned Europe. The content (an Arabic treatise) remains to be identified (partial OCR from Neubauer).
Provenance: 1 Transcription by Sa'adya bar Levi at the commission of Prof. Jacobus Golius (Leiden) 2 Made 1644-1645 3 Final poem with the copyist's acrostic 4 Narcissus Marsh collection (1638-1713), bequeathed to the Bodleian in 1714
Codicological note — origin Morocco (likely Salé or Fez); copyist: Sa'adya bar Levi [surname uncertain]; script: Maghrebi; leaves: 396 folios; dimensions: in-folio; early catalogues: Neubauer Catalogue 1886 · 1240; editorial status: to be confirmed.
— Source: Mémoires des Manuscrits Juifs du Moyen-Âge Maghrébin (MMJMM / Collectif GMPL), https://mmjmm.org/corpus/catalogue/bodleian-marsh-186; manuscript held at the Bodleian Library (Oxford). Notice published under licence CC BY-SA 4.0.
