The publication of this volume is an event that calls for celebration. The result of academic, inter-national and inter-generational collaboration at its best, it crosses modern disciplinary boundaries. Identifying and reconstructing fragments of major, lost works, written in Arabic by Jews as well as by Muslims, and preserved in either Hebrew or in Arabic characters, it offers a thrilling contribution to closing the gaping holes in our mu’tazilite library. The retrieval of these lost treasures from the common medieval culture is a major contribution that may eventually enable us to rethink this chapter of the intellectual history of the Islamicate world.
Sarah Stroumsa
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Camilla Adang, Bruno Chiesa, Omar Hamdan, Wilferd Madelung, Sabine Schmidtke and Jan Thiele