Acknowledgements
It is a pleasure to thank Jacob Djmal, an earlier owner of the unique manuscript which is the basis of this publication, for making quality images available on the website of National Library in Jerusalem. These are the images that I used from my first explorations into the manuscript right through the present publication. I thank as well Arthur Kiron, who was instrumental in securing the manuscript for the University of Pennsylvania and its library, where it is now safely housed. Special thanks are extended to the Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies-Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania for awarding me a fellowship in Jewish Manuscript Studies and the David Ruderman Distinguished Fellowship in the summer of 2015, which afforded me an opportunity to examine the actual manuscript and to make use of the wonderful resources of the university and its library for research. I acknowledge with gratitude the comments of several scholars to a very early draft of this project that I posted for discussion on academia.edu., and to others who replied to queries in the course of my research. Finally, I thank the two readers for Brill, especially “reader 1”, whose exertions went far beyond the call of duty. I have done my best to incorporate the corrections and improvements suggested by the readers; any remaining failings are to be laid solely at my doorstep.