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al-Makīn Ǧirǧis Ibn al-ʿAmīd: Universal History
The Vulgate Recension. From Adam to the End of the Achaemenids
Series: - Arabic Christianity, Volume: 6/1
Author:
When the 13th-century Coptic official al-MakÄ«n Ibn al-Ê¿AmÄ«d was thrown into prison by Sultan Baybars, he set out to compile a summary of Biblical, Graeco-Roman, and Islamic history for his own consolation. His work, which drew from a vast array of sources, enjoyed enduring success among various readerships: Oriental Christians, in Arabic-speaking communities but also in Ethiopia; Mamluk historians, including Ibn ḪaldÅ«n and al-MaqrÄ«zÄ«; and early modern Europe. A major instance of Christian-Muslim interaction in the pre-modern era, Ibn al-Ê¿AmÄ«dâs chronography is still unpublished in its pre-Islamic part. This volume edits, analyzes, and translates the section from Adam to the Achaemenids.
Martino Diez, Ph.D. (2007), is Associate Professor of Arabic Language and Literature at the Catholic University of Milan. He is scientific director of the Oasis International Foundation. In 2019 he was a visiting member to the School of Historical Studies at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton. He has mainly published on Abbasid literature (al-Mutanabbī and al-Maʿarrī) and Christian-Muslim relations.
"Martino Diez has rendered a great service in making the first 91 chapters of al-MakÄ«n Ǧirǧis Ibn al-Ê¿AmÄ«dâs Universal History more accessible than ever. Students, researchers, and casually interested audiences can profitably use this significant historical resource. It gives a firm and reliable foundation for using Ibn al-Ê¿AmÄ«d to contribute to research in historical, cultural, and religious studies, such as into how Muslim historians appropriated Ibn al-Ê¿AmÄ«dâs Universal History, illuminating a concrete example of Christian-Muslim literary cross-pollination." - Simon Luke Robinson Burke, in: Islamochristiana 50, pp. 328-329
"We can conclude by saying that we hope and expect that this edition of Ibn al-Ê¿AmÄ«dâs KT will also attract the attention of those working in fields beyond Christian Arabic and Islamic historiography. Standing at a crossroads of different transmission lines that go back to Late Antiquity and reach early Modern Europe, this work has finally found the edition it deserved, which will make it accessible to anyone interested in the cultural history of the Mediterranean world." - Jonathan Stutz, Theologische Fakultät, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, in: Journal of Eastern Christian Studies 76, pp. 139-142
"Grâce à ce travail éditorial méticuleux et bien documenté, lâHistoire universelle dâIbn al-Ê¿AmÄ«d a enfin trouvé lâédition quâelle méritait, ce qui la rendra accessible à quiconque sâintéresse à lâhistoire politique et culturelle du monde méditerranéen." - Jonathan Stutz, in: MIDÃO [Online], 40 (2025) [http://journals.openedition.org/mideo/10642, accessed 17 April 2025]
"Martino Diez has undertaken a formidable task and has acquitted himself superbly. The original Arabic text is accompanied by a fluent English translation and abundant notes. In the introduction Diez reconstructs the life of al-Makīn, and examines his sources, his style, and the manuscript history of the text. A detailed analysis of the various surviving codices is also provided." - Alastair Hamilton, Warburg Institute, London, in: JAOS 145.2 (2025), pp. 445-446
"We can conclude by saying that we hope and expect that this edition of Ibn al-Ê¿AmÄ«dâs KT will also attract the attention of those working in fields beyond Christian Arabic and Islamic historiography. Standing at a crossroads of different transmission lines that go back to Late Antiquity and reach early Modern Europe, this work has finally found the edition it deserved, which will make it accessible to anyone interested in the cultural history of the Mediterranean world." - Jonathan Stutz, Theologische Fakultät, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, in: Journal of Eastern Christian Studies 76, pp. 139-142
"Grâce à ce travail éditorial méticuleux et bien documenté, lâHistoire universelle dâIbn al-Ê¿AmÄ«d a enfin trouvé lâédition quâelle méritait, ce qui la rendra accessible à quiconque sâintéresse à lâhistoire politique et culturelle du monde méditerranéen." - Jonathan Stutz, in: MIDÃO [Online], 40 (2025) [http://journals.openedition.org/mideo/10642, accessed 17 April 2025]
"Martino Diez has undertaken a formidable task and has acquitted himself superbly. The original Arabic text is accompanied by a fluent English translation and abundant notes. In the introduction Diez reconstructs the life of al-Makīn, and examines his sources, his style, and the manuscript history of the text. A detailed analysis of the various surviving codices is also provided." - Alastair Hamilton, Warburg Institute, London, in: JAOS 145.2 (2025), pp. 445-446
This volume is addressed to scholars of Christian-Arabic literature, Islamic-Christian relations, Ayyubid and Mamluk studies, the Arabic Bible, Arabic Hermetica, Judaism in the Arabic world, as well as historians of the Middle East and early modern Europe, Byzantinists, Ethiopicists, and Coptologists. It can also be used as a training text for graduate students working on Middle Arabic and the translation of Greek and Syriac materials into Arabic. The Arabic edition is fully annotated. As a self-standing text, it could be of interest to Arabic-speaking Coptic cultural institutions in Egypt outside the usual academic circle.