Al-Barāhąn al-ʣāhira al-jaliyya alā anna l-wujŅd zāid alā l-māhiyya by Ĕusām al-Dīn Abū Muĕammad al-Ĕasan b. Muĕammad al-Raııāı * Hassan Ansari In the following, an editio princeps is presented of a text by the Zaydī Muʿtazilī au- thor Ĕusām al-Dīn al-Ĕasan b. Muĕammad al-Raııāı (546/1151-52–584/1188). The treatise is entitled al-Barāhąn al-ʣāhira al-jaliyya alā anna l-wujŅd zāid alā l- māhiyya and it deals with the question of whether the existence of a created being is additional to its essence or is identical with it. The tract is preserved in a single manuscript that is incomplete at the end. It is part of a collective manuscript, completed on 24 İafar 620/28 March 1223, which also contains an autograph of the Kitāb Manāhij al-anʣār al-āṣima by the Zaydī scholar Ĕumayd b. Aĕmad al- Muĕallī al-Hamdānī (d. 652/1254-55). Since al-Raııāı’s treatise is written by the same hand, al-Muĕallī must be its copyist. Today the codex belongs to the private library of Muĕammad al-Manıūr in İanʿāʾ. The author of the text, Ĕusām al-Dīn Abū Muĕammad al-Ĕasan b. Muĕam- mad b. al-Ĕasan b. Muĕammad b. Abī Bakr al-Raııāı, was a student and succes- sor of al-Qāḍī Jaʿfar b. Aĕmad b. ʿAbd al-Salām b. Abī Yaĕyā (d. 573/1177). The latter had studied Muʿtazilī kalām during his travels in Iraq and Iran (particularly Rayy) and, upon returning to Yemen, had brought with him numerous Muʿtazilī writings that were subsequently spread among the Yemeni Zaydīs. 1 Like his teacher, al-Raııāı was a faithful follower of the Bahshamī strand of Muʿtazilism, named thus after its founder Abū Hāshim al-Jubbāʾī (d. 321/933). He composed numerous writings dealing with the “subtleties of theology” (daqāiq al-kalām), such as issues related to “physics”, i.e., substances, accidents and bodies. In the field of legal methodology, he authored a work entitled Kitāb al-Fāiq, 2 and he is said to have written a work dealing with the contradictions of the logicians, which is no longer extant. 3 Among his surviving theological writings, none of which has * I should like to thank Professor Wilferd Madelung for his help in editing the text, and Pro- fessor Sabine Schmidtke for translating and revising my Arabic introduction. 1 See Wilferd Madelung, Der Imam al-Qāsim ibn Ibrāhąm und die Glaubenslehre der Zaiditen, Berlin 1965, p. 216; ʿAbd Allāh Muĕammad al-Ĕibshī, Maṣādir al-fikr al-arabą al-islāmą fą l-Yaman, İanʿāʾ n.d., pp. 96-98. 2 For detailed descriptions of al-Raııāı’s works on theology and legal methodology, together with a detailed list of extant manuscripts and further references, see Gregor Schwarb, Sa- bine Schmidtke, and David Sklare (eds.). Handbook of Mutazilite Works and Manuscripts (Handbuch der Orientalistik series). Leiden: Brill (Forthcoming), # 345. See also my article on the Raııāı-family at http://ansari.kateban.com/?entry=853 [consulted 11.05.2007]. 3 K. fą Munāqaḍāt ahl al-manṭiq.