Al-Ousta Codex

rdf:langString Al-Ousta Codex

rdf:langString Al-Ousta Codex, also known under its library classification BnF 1314-1315, is a 14th-century illuminated Bible codex (2 volumes) containing the 24 canonical books of the Hebrew Bible, written in Sephardi square script with the Tiberian sublinear vocalisation, minuscule trope symbols, and the Masorah Magna and Parva. Others place the writing of the codex in the 15th century. The manuscript was purchased by ethnographer Jacob Sapir in San'a, Yemen in 1859, who carried it with him to France. Today, the manuscript is housed at the Bibliotheque Nationale de Paris. Although purchased in Yemen, the manuscript is not of Yemenite Jewish provenance, as it shows no signs of the ancient Yemenite Jewish tradition of orthography, but of the Sephardic Jewish tradition of orthography. Prior to its debut in Yemen, the manuscript was in Egypt, where it was purchased by Aharon haCohen Iraqi (al-'Usṭā), the visiting minister from Yemen and minter of the king's coins. Based on its colophon, one whose name was Sar-Shalom the nasi, the presumed head of the Sephardic Jewish community in Egypt and who lived in Cairo, had commissioned the manuscript's writing, and who had apparently been ordained and confirmed in his office by his brother, Shelomo Nasi, the exilarch (resh galutha).