ʻAlī ibn Sulaymān

Born in Jerusalem, Abū ’l-Ḥasan ‘Alī ibn Sulaymān al-Muqaddasī was a scholar active in the thriving Karaite academy there, where he was a student of leading Karaites. He primarily composed works of biblical exegesis and grammar. He left the city before the Crusaders arrived in 1099. Many of ‘Alī’s surviving works are abridgments of earlier Karaite biblical commentaries. His Treatise Refuting the View That the Jews Have Altered the Torah defended Jews from the Muslim criticism of taḥrīf, the assertion that Ezra or other biblical-period figures had altered the written record of divine revelation, namely, the Hebrew Bible. ‘Alī also composed a dictionary called al-Agron (The Collection), based on the Kitāb jāmi‘ al-alfāẓ (The Book of Collection of Words) by David ben Abraham al-Fāsī (tenth century), and a commentary on Genesis.