ALI IBN SULEIMAN

ALI IBN SULEIMAN (c. 1200), Karaite exegete and philosopher. It is conjectured that he was a member of the Karaite academy in Jerusalem. Ali's literary activity was mainly confined to publishing older Karaite works in abridged form. These include (1) an Arabic commentary on the Torah (parts on Num. and Deut., preserved in manuscript in the British Museum and in Leningrad); (2) a compilation in Arabic of the compendium of abu al-faraj harun on he Torah (Ms. Sulzberger, in the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York; another part in the second Firkowitsch Collection in Leningrad); (3) the Agron, a dictionary of Hebrew rootwords in Arabic, based on the work of david alfasi , but incorporating several Hebrew roots and derivatives omitted by Alfasi, and explaining biblical terms by reference to the Mishnah, Talmud, and Targums (Ms. Leningrad); and (4) a philosophical treatise (manuscript in British Museum). -BIBLIOGRAPHY: S. Pinsker, Likkute Kadmoniyyot, 1 (1860), 175–216; Steinschneider, Arab Lit. (1902), no. 180; S. Poznański, Karaite Literary Opponents of Saadiah Gaon (1908), 54; S.L. Skoss, The Arabic Commentary of ʿAli ben Suleiman the Karaite on the Book of Genesis (1928); idem, in: Tarbiz, 2 (1930/31), 510–13; Mann, Texts, 2 (1935), 41–42, 98; L. Nemoy, Karaite Anthology (1952), 235, 377.