The Original Format of Abū Ghānim’s Mudawwana: Philological Evidence from a Berber Commentary

This paper deals with a Berber commentary on the Mudawwanah of Abū Ġānim Bišr b. Ġānim al-Ḫurāsānī, which is nowadays known in two redactions, aṣ-Ṣuġrâ (“the smallest one”, MṢ) and al-Kubrâ (“the biggest one”, MK). The period of composition of the Berber commentary remains undetermined, potentially falling within a wide time span that extends from the 10th to the 15th century. In any case, it is certain that it was written several centuries ago, and was based on a Medieval redaction of the Mudawwanah. The Berber text is not a full translation of the Arab text. It consists of a series of “paragraphs”, each of which deals with a string of the original text that may vary in length from a single word to a full sentence. Comparison with the known editions of the Arabic text shows that the order of the paragraphs in the Berber commentary strictly matches the order of occurrence of the corresponding phrases in the Mudawwanah Ṣuġrâ. As a consequence, it may be assumed that the medieval redaction of the Mudawwanah followed the format of the MṢ, although the readings preserved in its current version are not necessarily the original ones and may be of lesser value than the readings preserved in the MK, as analysis of some passages will show. A thorough examination of all the “paragraphs” included in the commentary could help to retrieve a satisfactory philological edition of the text of the Mudawwanah, providing grounds for moving what has been displaced back to its original position, discarding interpolations and restoring what has been modified or lost.