The India Office manuscript of Maimonides's Guide: the earliest complete copy in the Judaeo-Arabic original

Abstract

• AMONG the rich holdings of the India Office Library there exists but a single manuscript in Hebrew characters, I.O.M. MS. 3679. However, this manuscript, a beautifully executed copy of Moses Maimonides's Dalalat al-Ha'irin (Guide of the Perplexed), is both aesthetically remarkable and of no little scholarly interest. It is the earliest complete copy of Maimonides's Guide in the Judaeo-Arabic original. In the following paragraphs we shall describe the manuscript in some detail and offer as well some observations on its place within Maimonidean scholarship.