Le Livre Décisif sur les Religions et les Sectes d' Ibn Hazm entre l' histoire du texte et la critique textuelle

Ibn Hazm, an Andalusian polygraph (XI century), is the author of an important critical history of religions and sects called al-Fasl. In the first chapter, the author draws a critical review of modern research on this item. In the second chapter, he establishes a biography of Ibn Hazm studying the circumstances that influenced the author. In the third chapter he focuses on issues related to the history of the text of al-Fasl, its textual criticism, its internal structure and its sources. The pitiful state of the printed text clearly appears from the collation of the text of 19 printed editions with 15 manuscripts. These fifteen manuscripts form two groups. The manuscripts of the first group retain a first version of al-Fasl in which coexist two families. The manuscripts of the second group form a fully revised second version. Since this version of the book is the definitive state of the text, it is a priority to establish the text conveyed by these manuscripts. As an example of his method, the author provides a critical edition of the chapter of "the contradictions existing in the Pentateuch" according to its second, fully revised and final version.