Maimonides, Rabbi Moses ben Maimon (acronym Rambam) was the foremost figure in Judaism from the Middle Ages onwards. No other spiritual leader exercised such an influence in his own and subsequent generations. A Rabbi, philosopher, astronomer and physician, Maimonides was born in 1135 Cordova, Muslim Spain, under the Almoravid rule. In 1148, he had to flee, as a result of the Almohad invasion and Jewish persecutions. After many years of tribulations, he and his family settled in Fez in 1160 and several years later, in Fustat in Egypt, where he was appointed head of the Jewish community in 1177 and as one of the physicians to the Vizier of Egypt in 1185. It was during these busy years that Maimonides not only wrote his two monumental works, Mishneh Torah (compiled 1178) and the Guide to the Perplexed (completed 1190 or 1200), upon which his fame mainly rests, but also corresponded with many other Jewish communities, leaving us written traces of his answers and opinions on various subjects, such as with the famous Iggeret Teiman (1172), an epistle to the communities of Yemen, urging them not to accept forced conversions. He is also the author of a Treatise on the Art of Logic (1160s) and eleven medical works influenced by Galen and Avicenna, whose majority have been translated into Hebrew and Latin (Zonta, pp. 35-61).
‎ The Guide to the Perplexed was written in Judeo-Arabic under the title Dalalat al-Ha’irin circa 1190 or 1200 and was translated twice into Hebrew shortly after, as Moreh Nevukhim (Zonta, p. 28). The first and literal translation was made by Samuel ben Judah Ibn Tibbon (1150-1230) in 1204 (Ed. Prin. Italy, 1473-74) and a second, freer translation was made by the poet Judah al-Ḥarizi between 1205 and 1213 (Schlossberg). Our manuscript described here, Ms A IV 37, is a copy of the translation by Samuel ben Judah Ibn Tibbon, as stated in the first words of the introduction folio 5v, line 16: Rabbi Samuel ben Tibbon copied may his memory be blessed ( ‎רבי שמואל בן תבון המעתוק ז''ל‎). Although there are numerous extant manuscripts of the Hebrew translations of this work, either by Ibn Tibbon or al- Ḥarizi, housed in various public and private libraries around the world, there are only a handful of manuscripts of the work in Judeo-Arabic; the earliest extant complete copy, having been copied in Yemen in 1380. It is now part of the Hebrew manuscript collection in the British Library (Tahan), under the shelfmark Ms Or. 2423 (On the extant manuscripts, editions and textual transmission of the Moreh Nevukhim, see Friedländer, pp.16-26).
‎ Whilst the Mishneh Torah is a halakhic work, systematizing the material in the Talmud and intended as an aid for anyone wanting to live a life according to traditional Jewish praxis, the Guide to the Perplexed is considered the leading work of Jewish medieval philosophy. It attempts to reconciliate traditional Jewish theology and Aristotelian rationalism, which was very influential in Maimonides’ time. Furthermore, the Guide was addressed to a select and erudite readership, able to understand ideas deliberately concealed from the masses. The guide is divided into three books and mainly focuses on the philosophic interpretation of Scripture (Robinson, pp. 460-462 and notes), discussing a number of subjects relative to: divine attributes, anthropomorphism, existence and unity of God, Creation, structure of the universe, prophecy, the nature of evil, divine Providence, the nature of Man, moral virtue and the 613 laws (mitsvot) contained in the five Books of Moses (Encyclopedia Judaica, pp. 771-775). In addition to profoundly influencing the course of medieval Jewish philosophy, the Guide had a strong impact on Christian scholastic thought. Among the scholastics are Albertus Magnus, Thomas Aquinas, Meister Eckhart and Duns Scottus, who either quote Maimonides by name or cite him anonymously in their works. Later on, 16th century Christian Hebraists, such as Agostinus Justinianus, published the first Latin translation of the Guide, based on al-Harizi’s Hebrew translation, under the title Rabbi Mossei Aegyptii Dux seu Director Dubitantium aut perplexorum (Paris: 1520), followed by a second translation by Johann Buxtorf ‘The Younger’ (1599-1664) who based himself on Ibn Tibbon’s version of the Guide and entitled it Doctoris Perplexorum (Basel:1629). Furthermore, the particular importance of this copy of the Guide, is not only that it was owned by Johann Buxtorf ‘The Younger’, as attested by the latter’s note and signature on the pastedown at the beginning of the volume, but it was also used as the base for his Latin edition of the Doctoris Perplexorum.
‎ Almost immediately after their completion, toward the end of the 12th century, the Mishneh Torah and Moreh Nevukhim, with their subsequent Hebrew translations, were not received without contention by most medieval rabbinical authorities. Indeed, especially between the 13th and early 14th centuries, the debate known as “the Maimonidean Controversy” raged in several phases among Jewish scholars of Franco-Germany, Provence and Spain (see Dobbs-Weinstein, Grossman, Nahon, Silver). In 1232, a ban was placed upon both these works as well as the study of philosophy (Woolf, p. 432) by Provençal rabbis [involving among others, David Kimḥi (Radak, 1160-1235) and Solomon b. Abraham of Montpellier (Shlomo Min ha-Har,1st half 13th c.]. Furthermore in 1305, as the cultural war between the proponents and the opponents of philosophy had been going on in Jewish Europe for over a hundred years, Rabbi Solomon Ben Adret (Rashba, 1235-1310), an important rabbinical authority in Spain, was persuaded to also prohibit the studying of philosophy and science, but only to those under the age of twenty-five. Although his ban was only destined to his own community of Barcelona, Adret’s enormous influence led many others to accept it. Consequently, one can observe that the main focus of the controversy changed during the successive phases, going from the rejection of Maimonides’ views and the content of both his works to the general ban on the study of philosophy and science themselves; ending with a shift to the age under which it was forbidden to study these subjects.
‎ ‎ Finally, with the expulsion of the Jews from the Kingdom of France in 1306, the heat of the controversy abated, however, leaving the question about the possibility or impossibility to combine Jewish tradition and science/philosophy unresolved. Punctual contentious flares were reignited in the 16th and 18th centuries, but opposing Maimonides generally became more and more questionable in the following centuries, until today, when Maimonides is universally considered one of the greatest rabbinical authorities in Jewish tradition.
‎ The Basel Moreh Nevukhim, Universitätsbibliothek, Ms A IV 37:‎ The Basel manuscript of the Moreh Nevukhim was copied in two periods of time, both of which can be suggested thanks to palaeographical criteria: the first and largest part of the work, extending from folio 13r to 196v was copied by a scribe in a bookhand Ashkenazi script dated to the 2nd half of the 14th century and the second later scribe, copied several missing folios at the beginning (ff. 1r-12v, 1st quire) and the end of the manuscript (ff. 197r/v), equally in a bookhand Ashkenazi script, but from the 2nd half of the 15th century. It is noteworthy to mention that the second scribe managed, thanks to choosing the appropriate module of his bookhand script, to finish copying his page (f. 12v) exactly at the spot where the older copy starts at the beginning of a new quire on folio 13r.‎
Lastly, this copy of the work not only includes Samuel ben Judah Ibn Tibbon’s introduction to his translation (ff. 1r-5v) (see folio 5v, line 16: ‎רבי שמואל בן תבון המעתוק ז''ל‎) but also the introduction from a commentary to the Guide by Shem Tov ben Joseph ben Shem Tov (ff. 5v-7v) (see folio 5v, line 18, beginning with ‎אמר שם טוב בן לאדוני החכם הרב רבי יוסף בן כבוד החכם השלם החסיד רבי שם טוב‎), a 15th century Spanish rabbi, philosopher and preacher who became a vigorous defender of Aristotelian and Maimonidean philosophy. He wrote several Hebrew works on philosophical subjects, but it is for his commentary on the Guide of the Perplexed that Shem Tov is generally known and which is printed in most Hebrew editions of the Guide.‎

• The beginning and ending of the work, copied in the second half of the 14th century, are lacunary (ff. 1r-12v and 197r/v), but were completed by another hand on another parchment during the 2nd half of the 15th century.
• ff. 1r-5v : Introduction to the work by the Hebrew translator Samuel ben Judah Ibn Tibbon (1150-1230) (see end of text, folio 5v, line 16: ‎רבי שמואל בן תבון המעתוק ז''ל‎).
• ff. 5v- 7v : Introduction to the work by Shem Tov ben Joseph ben Shem Tov (15th century) (see folio 5v, line 18, beginning with ‎אמר שם טוב בן לאדוני החכם הרב רבי יוסף בן כבוד החכם השלם החסיד רבי שם טוב‎). ‎
• ff. 8r-80r : Part I, chapters 1 to 76.
• ff. 80v-132r : Part II, chapters 1 to 48.
• ff. 132v-197v : Part III, chapters 1 to 54 (numbered 2 to 55 in the text).