The Martyrdom of BifÄm Ibn BaqÅ«ra al-á¹¢awwÄf by MawhÅ«b ibn Manṣūr ibn Mufarrij and Its Fatimid Background
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This paper discusses the primary Copto-Arabic literary source for the history of Fatimid Egypt, and indeed, for much of the history of Egypt in general: known as the History of the Patriarchs of Alexandria, it was compiled in Arabic in the late eleventh century ce on the basis of earlier, mostly Coptic sources, by the Alexandrian notable MawhÅ«b ibn Manṣūr ibn Mufarrij, who added original Arabic materials of his own. Later continuations were added by others, from late Fatimid times up to the twentieth century. The first part of the paper is an outline of the textual history of the History of the Patriarchs of Alexandria, its existing editions and their shortcomings, and the new critical edition that is now being prepared. This part also discusses the fundamentals of a meticulous method of textual criticism, close reading, and contextualization which should help to elucidate numerous problems of historic interpretation. In the subsequent sections of the paper, this same method is applied to a short text sample with an aim of, wherever possible, reconstructing MawhÅ«bâs original Arabic text, but also with the objective of illustrating how this late eleventh-century text may have been read by later generations. Finally, the freshly coined concept of âinternal intertextualityâ is employed to point to parallels with episodes that occur in the earlier parts of the Arabic History of the Patriarchs of Alexandria, based on older Coptic sources. At the level of content, several new historical interpretations and corrections to older interpretations are offered. The text sample in question concerns the martyrdom of a young Copt, BifÄm ibn BaqÅ«ra al-á¹¢awwÄf, during the imamate-caliphate of al-Mustaná¹£ir BillÄh (427/1036â487/1094). Throughout the paper, it is argued that narratives such as this, together with accounts of events belonging to the early Islamic period or even to pre-Islamic (Roman, Byzantine) history, are to be seen as emanating from the specific socio-cultural environment of the Coptic urban elite of the mid-Fatimid period.
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6
Johannes den Heijer, âHistory of the Patriarchs of Alexandria,â in The Coptic Encyclopedia, 4:1238â1242.
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Den Heijer, MawhÅ«b, 155; Samuel Rubenson, âTranslating the Tradition: Some Remarks on the Arabization of the Patristic Heritage in Egypt,â Medieval Encounters 2 (1996), 4â14; Mark N. Swanson, The Coptic Papacy in Islamic Egypt (641â1517), The Popes of Egypt 2 (Cairo and New York: The American University in Cairo Press, 2010), 61â66.
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Den Heijer, MawhÅ«b, 157â220. Further research should address the more far-reaching question as to how this specific case of rewriting relates to the formative phase of Christian Arabic literature in general, with its introduction of new nuances, concepts, and categories, as discussed by Sidney Griffith, on various occasions, for example in Sidney Griffith, The Church in the Shadow of the Mosque. Christians and Muslims in the World of Islam (Princeton, nj and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2008), 45â74. The present author owes this reflection to a question raised by the anonymous colleague who kindly reviewed this issue for Medieval Encounters. Other substantial feedback by the same reviewer has been elaborated with gratitude in footnotes 49, 57, and 64, and several of her or his corrections have improved the overall presentation of this article.
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Anouar Louca, âLe moment inaugurateur en histoire: Analyse dâun texte dâIbn âAbd al-Ḥakam (187â257 H./803â871) sur la conquête musulmane de lâÃgypte,â in Proceedings of the Ninth Congress of the Union européenne des arabisants et islamisants: Amsterdam, 1st to 7th september 1978, ed. R. Peters (Leiden: Brill, 1981), 181â192.
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Maryann Shenoda, âDisplacing DhimmÄ«, Maintaining Hope: Unthinkable Coptic Representations of Fatimid Egypt,â International Journal of Middle East Studies 39 (2007): 587â606. Maryann Shenoda has further elaborated this approach in her unpublished Harvard 2010 dissertation, Lamenting Islam, Imagining Persecution: Copto-Arabic Oppposition to Islamization and Arabization in Fatimid Egypt (969â1171), and in various publications based on it.
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Theofried Baumeister, âMartyrology,â in Coptic Encyclopedia, 5:1549â1550; Aziz S. Atiya, âMartyrs, Coptic,â in Coptic Encyclopedia, 5:1550â1559.
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See Joseph Schacht, âḤiyal,â in Encyclopaedia of Islam, New Edition, iii, ed. Charles Bosworth et al. (Leiden: Brill, 1971), 510â513.
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The Martyrdom of BifÄm Ibn BaqÅ«ra al-á¹¢awwÄf by MawhÅ«b ibn Manṣūr ibn Mufarrij and Its Fatimid Background
In: Medieval EncountersSearch for other papers by Johannes den Heijer in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
This paper discusses the primary Copto-Arabic literary source for the history of Fatimid Egypt, and indeed, for much of the history of Egypt in general: known as the History of the Patriarchs of Alexandria, it was compiled in Arabic in the late eleventh century ce on the basis of earlier, mostly Coptic sources, by the Alexandrian notable MawhÅ«b ibn Manṣūr ibn Mufarrij, who added original Arabic materials of his own. Later continuations were added by others, from late Fatimid times up to the twentieth century. The first part of the paper is an outline of the textual history of the History of the Patriarchs of Alexandria, its existing editions and their shortcomings, and the new critical edition that is now being prepared. This part also discusses the fundamentals of a meticulous method of textual criticism, close reading, and contextualization which should help to elucidate numerous problems of historic interpretation. In the subsequent sections of the paper, this same method is applied to a short text sample with an aim of, wherever possible, reconstructing MawhÅ«bâs original Arabic text, but also with the objective of illustrating how this late eleventh-century text may have been read by later generations. Finally, the freshly coined concept of âinternal intertextualityâ is employed to point to parallels with episodes that occur in the earlier parts of the Arabic History of the Patriarchs of Alexandria, based on older Coptic sources. At the level of content, several new historical interpretations and corrections to older interpretations are offered. The text sample in question concerns the martyrdom of a young Copt, BifÄm ibn BaqÅ«ra al-á¹¢awwÄf, during the imamate-caliphate of al-Mustaná¹£ir BillÄh (427/1036â487/1094). Throughout the paper, it is argued that narratives such as this, together with accounts of events belonging to the early Islamic period or even to pre-Islamic (Roman, Byzantine) history, are to be seen as emanating from the specific socio-cultural environment of the Coptic urban elite of the mid-Fatimid period.
| All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 436 | 29 | 5 |
| Full Text Views | 212 | 2 | 1 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 102 | 7 | 2 |
