Coptic Language and Identity in Ayyūbid Egypt 1
2013; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 25; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/09503110.2013.799953
ISSN1473-348X
Autores Tópico(s)Archaeology and Historical Studies
ResumoAbstractIn the late Fāṭimid and Ayyūbid periods of Egyptian history, Coptic Christians finally addressed the reality that most of their community no longer understood the Coptic language but were, in fact, losing their communal identity and “figures of memory” to Arabisation and even Islamisation. A Coptic-Arabic “Renaissance” ensued whereby Coptic liturgy, theology and history were translated into Arabic, the lingua franca by this time of the Coptic populace. This creative energy extended into the artistic realm – such as iconography and painting – and ultimately strengthened the identity of the Coptic community as their situation became increasingly more restricted.Keywords: Religious lifeCopts, Christians in Egypt – Coptic languageEgypt – Christian communitiesEgypt – societyFātimid caliphateAyyūbid dynastyConversion, religious – from Christianity to IslamSociolinguistics – Coptic Notes1 My sincere gratitude is extended to Johannes Pahlitzsch for his many helpful suggestions, as well to the anonymous reviewer, whose insights have resulted in a much improved article. Early versions of this article were presented in Berlin and Southampton in 2011.2 Arabisation and Islamisation in many cases did occur simultaneously, but, as in the case of Melkites in Palestine and Syrian Christians in Baghdad, not necessarily so. See Milka Rubin, “Arabization versus Islamization in the Palestinian Melkite Community during the Early Muslim Period”, in Sharing the Sacred: Religious Contacts and Conflicts in the Holy Land, ed. Arieh Kofsky and Guy G. Stroumsa (Jerusalem: Yad Izhak Ben Zvi, 1998), pp. 149–62; Sydney H. Griffith, “The Monks of Palestine and the Growth of Christian Literature in Arabic”, The Muslim World 78 (1988): 1–28; Samir Khalil Samir, “The Role of Christians in the Abbasid Renaissance in Iraq and in Syria (750–1050)”, in Christianity: A History in the Middle East, ed. Habib Badr (Beirut: Middle East Council of Churches, 2005), pp. 496–529. On these two processes specifically in the Coptic context, see Samuel Rubinson, “Translating the Tradition: Some Remarks on the Arabization of the Patristic Heritage in Egypt”, Medieval Encounters 2 (1996): 4–14; Leslie S.B. MacCoull, “The Strange Death of Coptic Culture”, Coptic Church Review 10 (1989): 35–45; idem, “Three Cultures under Arabic Rule: The Fate of Coptic”, Bulletin de la Société d'Archéologie Copte 27 (1985): 61–70; Shaun O'Sullivan, “Coptic Conversion and the Islamization of Egypt”, Mamlūk Studies Review 10 (2006): 65–80; Michael Brett, “The Islamisation of Egypt and North Africa”. The First Annual Levtzion Lecture, delivered 12 January 2005 (Jerusalem: The Nehemia Levtzion Center for Islamic Studies, 2006), available at: http://www.hum.huji.ac.il/upload/(FILE)1228661697.pdf (accessed 15 August 2012), pp. 1–28; Ira M. Lapidus, “The Conversion of Egypt to Islam”, Israel Oriental Studies, 2 (1972): 248–62.3 The Copts were at least a large minority through the Ayyūbid period. Michael Brett has thoughtfully argued that the medieval Egyptian population was always small and that the native population was gradually replaced by Arab immigration, in particular. Tamar el-Leithy argues most interestingly for the prolongation of Coptic majority status until the mid-eighth/-fourteenth century, although O'Sullivan is unconvinced. See Brett, “Islamisation of Egypt and North Africa”, 10–14; Tamer el-Leithy, “Coptic Culture and Conversion in Medieval Cairo, 1293–1524 A.D.”, PhD Thesis, Princeton University, 2005, pp. 19–20, 25–6; O'Sullivan, “Coptic Conversion”, 70ff. Cf. Michael Brett, The Rise of the Fāṭimids (Leiden: Brill, 2001), pp. 269–70.4 Adel Sidarus, “La Renaissance copte arabe du moyen âge”, in The Syriac Renaissance, ed. Herman Teule and Carmen Fotescu Tauwinkl, et al. (Louvain: Peeters, 2010), pp. 311–40; idem, “Essai sur l'âge d'or de la littérature copte arabe (XIIIe-XIVe siècles)”, in The Acts of the Fifth International Congress of Coptic Studies, ed. David Johnson and Tito Orlandi, volumes I–II (Rome: C.I.M., 1993), I: 443–62, esp. 444; Mark N. Swanson, The Coptic Papacy in Islamic Egypt (641-1517) (Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 2010), pp. 59–82.5 Although attributed to the Caliph ‘Umar, this pact dated to a later period and developed over time. See Mark R. Cohen, “What Was the Pact of ‘Umar? A Literary-Historical Study“, Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 23 (1999): 100–57; Antoine Fattal, Le Statut légal des non-Musulmans en pays d'islam (Beirut, 1958), pp. 71–84; E. Strauss, “The Social Isolation of the Ahl adh-Dhimma”, in Etudes Orientales à la mémoire de Paul Hirschler, ed. O. Komlos (Budapest, 1950), pp. 73–94; Bat Ye'or, The Decline of Eastern Christianity under Islam: From Jihad to Dhimmitude (Madison, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1996); cf. Kurt J. Werthmuller, Coptic Identity and Ayyubid Politics in Egypt, 1218–1250 (Cairo: American University of Cairo Press, 2010), pp. 9–21; Sidney H. Griffith, The Church in the Shadow of the Mosque: Christians and Muslims in the World of Islam (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008), pp. 14–20.6 Charles E. Bosworth, “The ‘Protected Peoples’ (Christians and Jews) in Medieval Egypt and Syria”, Bulletin of the John Rylands University 62 (1979–1980): 11–36, pp. 15–18, reprint in C.E. Bosworth, The Arabs, Byzantium, and Iran (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1996), VII; Norman A. Stillman, “Dhimma”, in Medieval Islamic Civilization: An Encyclopedia, ed. Josef W. Meri, volumes I–II (New York: Routledge, 2006), I: 205–7; Aziz S. Atiya, “Ahl al-Dhimmah”, in The Coptic Encyclopedia [henceforth C.E.], ed. Aziz S. Atiya, volumes I-VIII (New York: Macmillan, 1991), I: 72–3; Terry G. Wilfong, “The Non-Muslim Communities: Christian Communities”, in The Cambridge History of Egypt, ed. Carl F. Petry and M.W. Daly, volumes I-II (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), I: 175–97, esp. 183; Arietta Papaconstantinou, “Between umma and dhimma: the Christians of the Middle East under the Umayyads”, Annales islamologiques 42 (2008): 127–56; Nabil Malek, “The Copts: From an Ethnic Majority to a Religious Minority”, in The Acts of the Fifth International Congress of Coptic Studies, ed. David W. Johnson and Tito Orlandi, volumes I-II (Rome: C.I.M., 1993), II: 299–311, p. 303.7 Michael Brett, “Al-Karāza al-Marqusīya: The Coptic Church in the Fāṭimid Empire”, in Egypt and Syria in the Fāṭimid, Ayyubid, and Mamluk Eras—IV, ed. U. Vermeulen and J. Van Steenbergen (Leuven: Peeters, 2005), pp. 33–60, pp. 36–8; idem, Rise of the Fāṭimids, 385; Hanna Jeryis and Vivian Fouad, “The Copts in the Faṭimīd Era”, in Christianity: A History in the Middle East, ed. Habib Badr (Beirut: Middle East Council of Churches, 2005), pp. 531–48, at 538ff.; Yaacov Lev, State and Society in Fāṭimid Egypt (Leiden: Brill, 1991), pp. 179–96. Cf. Maryann M. Shenoda, “Displacing Dhimmī, Maintaining Hope: Unthinkable Coptic Representations of Fāṭimid Egypt”, Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 39 (2007): 587–606.8 On Coptic patriarchal relations with the Fāṭimid court and the official adoption of Arabic, see Arietta Papaconstantinou, “‘They Shall Speak the Arabic Language and Take Pride in It’: Reconsidering the Fate of Coptic after the Arab Conquest”, Le Muséon 120 (2007): 273–99, pp. 289–92.9 Assmann defines the “figures of memory” as the fixed points of cultural memory that are “maintained through cultural formation (texts, rites, monuments) and institutional communication (recitation, practice, observance)”. See Jan Assmann, “Memory and Cultural Identity”, trans. John Czaplicka, New German Critique 65 (1995): 125–33, p. 129.10 Al-Maqrīzī, Kitāb al-Sulūk li-maʿrifat duwal al-mulūk, ed. M. Muṣṭafā Ziyāda and Saʿīd ʿAbd al-Fattāḥ ʿAshūr, volumes I-IV (Cairo: Maṭba'at Dār al-Kutub, 1934–1973), II.iii: 927. See the discussion in Donald P. Little, “Coptic Conversion to Islam under the Baḥrī Mamlūks, 602–755/1293–1354”, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 39 (1976): 552–69, p. 569; el-Leithy, “Coptic Culture and Conversion”, 19–20 and 25–6.11 For this transitional period, see Yaacov Lev, “The Dismemberment of the Fāṭimid States and the Emergence of the New Ayyubid Elite in Egypt”, in Egypt and Syria in the Fāṭimid, Ayyubid and Mamluk Eras-V, ed. U. Vermeulen and K. D'Hulster (Leuven: Peeters, 2007), pp. 129–52.12 Anne-Marie Eddé, Saladin, trans. Jane Marie Todd (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011), pp. 397–417; Farah Firzli, “Christians in the Ayyūbid Era”, in Christianity: A History in the Middle East, ed. Habib Badr (Beirut: Middle East Council of Churches, 2005), pp. 581–96; Bosworth, “‘Protected Peoples’”, 11-36; Wilfong, “Non-Muslim Communities”, 175-97.13 Arietta Papaconstantinou, “'What Remains Behind': Hellenism and Romanitas in Christian Egypt after the Arab Conquest”, in From Hellenism to Islam: Cultural and Linguistic Change in the Roman Near East, ed. H. Cotton et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), pp. 447–66; Aziz S. Atiya, A History of Eastern Christianity (South Bend, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1968), pp. 69–86; Stanley H. Skreslet, “The Greeks in Medieval Islamic Egypt: A Melkite Dhimmī Community under the Patriarch of Alexandria (640–1095)”, PhD Thesis, Yale University, 1987. Relations with other Christian confessions helped to define their self-image according to what they had in common and – with the Melkites – by “what they were not”. The late-twelfth-century compilation known asThe Churches and Monasteries of Egypt and Some Neighbouring Countries relates that at the time of transition to Ayyūbid rule, the Melkites were greatly abused by the Kurds and their Turkish Ghuzz allies “on account of [their] weakness and small numbers” (The Churches and Monasteries of Egypt and Some Neighbouring Countries Attributed to Abū Sālih the Armenian, ed. and trans. B.T.A. Evetts [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1895], pp. 96–7). Like the Copts, the Melkites, too, suffered from apostasy and the loss of their properties. Even though individual bishops might do their duty and try to protect their flock, the Melkites were still at a disadvantage “on account of the weakness of the sect, and their small numbers, and the remissness of their head, and his neglect of the supervision of this place and others” (Churches and Monasteries of Egypt, ed. Evetts, p. 129). Melkite patriarchs of Alexandria were often absent for long periods in Constantinople and, despite hierarchical conflict, we do read about the intermingling of Melkite and Coptic laity, which perhaps occurred more frequently than we can know. For example, we are told that at one point the Melkite bishop of Miṣr began to visit a certain monastery annually during Lent “together with a great number of Melkites and Copts who assemble to hear the Lenten charge, and the instructions which are given them as to what must be done during that season” (Churches and Monasteries of Egypt, ed. Evetts, p. 129). Melkite churches and monasteries are included generally objectively in the History of the Churches and Monasteries of Egypt and Some Neighbouring Countries. (In particular, see pp. 96–7 on Melkite churches in Cairo destroyed by the Kurds and Ghuzz; pp. 128–30 on the Monastery of St John the Baptist and the small numbers of Melkites in Egypt; pp. 145–52 on the Melkite Monastery of al-Kusair). The laity, sharing similar joys and challenges, perhaps left the more intricate details to the church hierarchy. An example of this hostility appears in the History of the Patriarchs, when the Coptic patriarch refuses to appoint a certain priest as the Abūna (metropolitan) of the Church in Ethiopia on grounds that the latter is sympathetic to the Greeks and thus would make the Ethiopians “heretics” as well. See History of the Patriarchs of the Egyptian Church (History of the Holy Church), attributed to Severus [or Sawirus] ibn al-Muqaffaʿ, ed. and trans. Antoine Khater, O.H.E. Khs-Burmester et al., volumes I-IV (Cairo: Société d'Archéologie Copte, 1943–1976), III.ii: 207. For more on this text, see Johannes den Heijer, “Coptic Historiography in the Fātimid, Ayyūbid and Early Mamlūk Periods”, Medieval Encounters 2 (1996): 67–98, pp. 77–81.14 In the fifth/eleventh century, 90 per cent of Jews lived within Dār al-Islām. See Menahem Ben-Sasson, “Varieties of Inter-communal Relations in the Geonic Period”, in The Jews of Medieval Islam, ed. Daniel Frank (Leiden: Brill, 1995), pp. 17–32, esp. 17. The Fāṭimid caliphs and viziers did, however, encourage religious debates at court between Jews and Christians (e.g. at the ʿAbbāsid court), such as an occasion with Severus ibn al-Muqaffaʿ. See Sidney Griffith, “The Kitāb Miṣbāḥ al-ʿAql of Severus ibn Al-Muqaffa: A Profile of the Christian Creed in Arabic in Tenth-Century Egypt”, Medieval Encounters 2 (1996): 15–42, pp. 18, 24.15 The Nubians and Ethiopians were subject to the authority of the Coptic pope. On these relations, see Otto F.A. Meinardus, Christian Egypt: Faith and Life (Cairo: American University In Cairo Press, 1970), pp. 398–435.16 A shared Confession of Faith was made in 472/1080 by Coptic and Armenian representatives (but including Syrian Orthodox, Nubians, and Ethiopians) during the visit of the Armenian Catholicos Gregory II to Egypt. See Churches and Monasteries of Egypt, ed. Evetts, 28 n. 2. There were minor points of conflict in the Fāṭimid period between Copts and Armenians, usually over church possession and due to the latter's large number and privileged position during this period. The Copts and Syrian Orthodox are ethnic branches of the same church. Their rare conflict occurred during the reign of Coptic Patriarch Cyril III Ibn Laqlaq (r. 632–640/1235–1243), when he consecrated a Coptic archbishop for Jerusalem despite this being the jurisdiction of the Syrian Orthodox. See History of the Patriarchs, IV.i: viii; Bar Hebraeus, Chronicon Ecclesiasticum, volumes I–III, ed. and trans. Joannes Baptista Abbeloos and Thomas Josephus Lamy (Paris: Apud Maisonneuve, 1872–1877), II:654–64; Richard B. Rose, “The Native Christians of Jerusalem, 1187–1260”, in The Horns of Hattin, ed. Benjamin Z. Kedar (Jerusalem: Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi, 1992), pp. 239–49, p. 245.17 For example, during the persecution of Caliph al-Ḥākim (r. 386–412/996–1021). See Sadik A. Assaad, The Reign of al-Hakim bi Amr Allah (386/996–411/1021): A Political Study (Beirut: Arab Institute for Research and Publishing, 1974), pp. 40–4, 93–107; Marius Canard, “al-Ḥākim Bi-Amr Allāh” in Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition, volumes I–XII (Leiden: Brill, 1971), III:76–82.18 Brett, “Al-Karāza al-Marqusīya”, 38–41.19 On the Armenian viziers, see Seta B. Dadoyan, The Fāṭimid Armenians (Leiden: Brill, 1997), pp.106–78; Marius Canard, “Un Vizir chrétien à l'époque fâtimite, l'Arménien Bahrâm”, Annales de l'Institute d'Études Orientales 12 (1954): 84–113, reprint Miscellanea Orientalia (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1986), VI. The collapse of the Fāṭimid state and the imminent rise of the Ayyūbids resulted in the end of the Armenian period in Fāṭimid Egypt (466–558/1074–1163) and the immediate decline of the Armenian population. The Armenians had immigrated in large numbers during the Fāṭimid period and – uniquely in the Islamic world – played a significant military role. The initial wave of immigrants – many of whom were Muslim – numbered about 30,000, whilst it is estimated that there were around 100,000 (majority Christian) Armenians in Egypt at the end of the Fāṭimid period. See Seta B. Dadoyan, “The Phenomenon of the Fāṭimid Armenians”, Medieval Encounters 2 (1996): 193–213, pp. 204, 212; idem, Fāṭimid Armenians, 86–7; Johannes den Heijer, “Considérations sur les communautés chrétiennes en Égypte fatimide: l'État et l'Église sous le vizirat de Badr al-Jamali (1074–1094)”, in L'Égypte fatimide, son art et son histoire: Actes du colloque organisé à Paris le 28, 29 et 30 mai 1998, ed. Marianne Barrucand (Paris: Presses de l'Université de Paris-Sorbonne, 1999), pp. 569–78. During the fifth/eleventh and sixth/twelfth centuries, some seven viziers were Armenian, and although only one was Christian (the rest converts to Islam), all were sympathetic to Copts, their former co-religionists, who benefited greatly. The constitutional theorist al-Mawardi (363–449/974–1058) even ruled that a dhimmī could hold the vizierate provided he was executing the orders of the ruler and not ruling himself (Stillman, “Dhimma”, 206). Dadoyan notes a similar decision, ca. 524/1130 (Dadoyan, Fāṭimid Armenians, 95). Indeed, these viziers re-enforced a more liberal social-political and cultural society, seeking to strengthen the Fāṭimid state, whose preservation was in their own interest (Dadoyan, Fāṭimid Armenians, 174–5.) Nearly immediately upon the accession of Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn as ruler of Egypt, however, the Armenian position rapidly deteriorated, with churches closed, land appropriated, and the Armenian patriarch fleeing to Jerusalem (Churches and Monasteries of Egypt, ed. Evetts, 5).20 Andre Ferré, “Fāṭimids and the Copts”, in C.E., IV: 1097-1100. In 559/1164, the monk Bashnuna of the Monastery of St. Macarius was executed upon refusing to convert to Islam. See History of the Patriarchs, III.ii: 88; Otto F.A. Meinardus, “Notes on New Saints in the Coptic Church”, Coptic Church Review 25 (2004): 2-26, at 11.21 Yehoshu‘a Frenkel, “Political and Social Aspects of Islamic Religious Endowments (awqaf): Saladin in Cairo (1169–1173) and Jerusalem (1187–1193)”, BSOAS 62 (1999): 1–20; Eddé, Saladin, 400–4. Cf. Bahāʾ al-Dīn Ibn Shaddād, The Rare and Excellent History of Saladin, trans. D.S. Richards (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2001), pp. 28–9; Gary Leiser, “The Madrasa and the Islamization of the Middle East: The Case of Egypt”, Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt 22 (1985): 29–47, p. 36; Stillman, “Dhimma”, 206; Yaacov Lev, Saladin in Egypt (Leiden: Brill, 1999), pp. 187–93; Bosworth, “Protected Peoples”, 26–7. It should be noted that the four schools of Islamic jurisprudence were not uniform and differed in their opinions regarding dhimmīs, though as a rule they became stricter.22 History of the Patriarchs, III.ii: 106ff. Indeed, a reference in the early seventh/thirteenth-century Martyrdom of John of Phanijōit to a village where Coptic converts to Islam who wished to return to their faith fled to (under protection of its governor) would strongly suggest that apostasy was a problem in the early seventh/thirteenth century. On the other hand, the fact that these Coptic “reverts” were protected by the governor is also quite striking. See Jason R. Zaborowski, The Coptic Martyrdom of John of Phanijōit (Leiden: Brill, 2005), pp. 62, 32.23 History of the Patriarchs, III.ii: 106–7; Lev, Saladin in Egypt, 188–9.24 History of the Patriarchs, III.ii: 106–7. In time, however, Christians were restored to these positions, although the highest levels usually required conversion to Islam.25 Al-Batīt was Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn's emissary to the Frankish rulers, and was also his agent to the Melkites of Jerusalem during the Sultan's siege in 1187. See History of the Patriarchs, III.ii: 132–3. The latter attribution could, of course, have been Coptic slander against their Christian rivals. See Eddé, Saladin, 409–10, who calls the emissary Joseph al-Datīt; on Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn's treatment of Christians and Jews in general, see ibid., 397–417. On an earlier occasion, Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn utilised an indigenous Christian to spy on a Frankish envoy. See Ibn al-Athir, The Chronicle of Ibn al-Athir for the Crusading Period from al-Kamil fi'l-Taʾrikh, Part 2: The Years 541–589/1146–1193: The Age of Nur al-Din and Saladin, trans. D.S. Richards (Farnham: Ashgate, 2007), pp. 218–19.26 Cited in Malek, “Copts: From an Ethnic Majority”, 305, quoting Atiyah Mustafa Musharrafa, Nuẓum al-ḥukm fī ʿaṣr al-Fāṭimiyyīn [The System of Government in the Time of the Fāṭimids] (Cairo: Dār al-Fikr al-ʿArabī, 1948), pp. 239–40.27 History of the Patriarchs, III.ii: 164–5; Lev, Saladin in Egypt, 187–93. On the rise of Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn, see Ibn Shaddād, Rare and Excellent History of Saladin, 41–8.28 Lev, Saladin in Egypt, 187–8, 192.29 History of the Patriarchs, III.ii: 164.30 Atiya, History of Eastern Christianity, 94–5; on the expedition into Nubia, also see Lev, Saladin in Egypt, 99–100.31 Lev, Saladin in Egypt, 191.32 History of the Patriarchs, III.ii: 164–5.33 Ibid., 165.34 Likewise, the Armenian community was permanently weakened. See Lev, Saladin in Egypt, 191–2; Eddé, Saladin, 406–7.35 History of the Patriarchs, III.ii: 115–6.36 Al-ʿĀdil and al-Kāmil had overlapping jurisdictions for a time as both sultan and governor. On al-Kāmil's relationship (in particular) with his Coptic subjects, see Werthmuller, Coptic Identity, 57–8, 84–96, 121–6. Cf: Franz-Josef Dahlmanns, “al-Malik Al-ʿĀdil : Ägypten und der Vordere Orient in den Jahren 589/1193 bis 615/1218, ein Beitrag zur Ayyūbidischen Geschichte”, PhD Thesis, Universität Giessen, 1975; Hans Ludwig Gottschalk, Al-Malik al-Kāmil von Egypten und seine Zeit: eine Studie zur Geschichte Vorderasiens und Egyptens in der ersten Hälfte des 7./13. Jahrhunderts (Wiesbaden: O. Harrassowitz, 1958).37 History of the Patriarchs, III.ii: 200-1. Modern Cairo consisted of three cities in the later Middle Ages: Fāṭimid-era al-Qahīra, ʿUmayyad-era al-Fusṭāṭ, and Roman-era Miṣr or Babylon (Old or Coptic Cairo).38 History of the Patriarchs, III.ii: 206.39 Girolamo Golubovich, Biblioteca Bio-Bibliografica della Terra Santa e Dell'Oriente Francescano, volumes I–V (Quaracchi, 1906), I: 8–14; Thomas C. Van Cleve, “The Fifth Crusade”, in A History of the Crusades, ed. Kenneth M. Setton, Robert Lee Wolff and Harry W. Hazard (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1962), II: 377–428, p. 427.40 Werthmuller, Coptic Identity, 92-3.41 Severus wrote numerous polemical writings against Melkites (the Patriarch Eutychius [263–328/877–940] in particular), as well as against Muslims. See Brett, Rise of the Fāṭimids, 386–7.42 Graf lists Severus as the first Copt writing in Arabic (Georg Graf, Geschichte der Christlichen Arabischen Literatur, volumes I-V [Vatican City: Biblioteca apostolica vaticana, 1947[, II: 300–18). The first Copt writing in Arabic in the sixth/twelfth century was the Patriarch Gabriel II ibn Tarīk (r. 1131–1145; ibid., 324). In between Severus and Gabriel are only six authors (ibid., pp. 318–24); thus Coptic-Arabic literature really only begins on a large-scale in the sixth/twelfth century and takes off in the seventh/thirteenth century. See Graf, II: 300–24. On Gabriel, see Swanson, Coptic Papacy, 67–76.43 Trans. in Griffith, “Kitāb Miṣbāḥ al-ʿAql”, 29.44 Malek, “Copts: From an Ethnic Majority”, 303; Marlis J. Saleh, “Copts”, in Medieval Islamic Civilization: An Encyclopedia, ed. Josef W. Meri, volumes I-II (New York: Routledge, 2006), I: 173–5, p. 174.45 Brett, Rise of the Fāṭimids, 279.46 Wilfong, “Non-Muslim Communities”, 185.47 Griffith, “Kitāb Miṣbāḥ al-ʿAql”, 22–3. Despite Severus’ adamant tone, his justification for embracing Arabic may have been rhetorical and an attempt to introduce Christian arguments into Muslim theological discourse. See Tonio Sebastian Richter, “Greek, Coptic and the ‘Language of the Hijra’: The Rise and Decline of the Coptic Language in Late Antique and Medieval Egypt”, in From Hellenism to Islam: Cultural and Linguistic Change in the Roman Near East, ed. Hannah M. Cotton, et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), pp. 401–46, esp. 418.48 Samuel of Qalamūn, “L'apocalypse de Samuel, supérieur de Deir-el-Qalamoun”, ed. and trans. J. Ziadeh, Revue de l'Orient Chrétien 20 (1915–1917): 374–407; Jason R. Zaborowski, “From Coptic to Arabic in Medieval Egypt”, Medieval Encounters 14 (2008): 15–40, p. 36, who argues for a potentially late date of composition; Papaconstantinou, “Reconsidering the Fate of Coptic”, 282–3, 292, who provides a good overview of scholarly debate on the Apocalypse, while tentatively suggesting the early Fāṭimid period for the date of composition; Robert G. Hoyland, Seeing Islam as Others Saw It: A Survey and Evaluation of Christian, Jewish and Zoroastrian Writings on Early Islam (Princeton, NJ: Darwin Press, 1997), pp. 285–7, who argues against the text antedating the fourth/tenth century; Anthony Alcock, “Samu'il of Qalamun, Saint”, in C.E., VII: 2092–3. Jos van Lent argues that this text could have been produced in its final form anytime between about 235/850 and 758/1357, the latter being the oldest dateable manuscript. See Jos M.J.M van Lent, “The Nineteen Muslim Kings in Coptic Apocalypses”, Parole de l'Orient 25 (2000): 643–93, p. 667 n 76.49 See Isaac the Presbyter, The Life of Samuel of Kalamun, ed. and trans. Anthony Alcock (Warminster: Aris and Phillips, 1983).50 Zaborowski, “From Coptic to Arabic”, 23.51 Papaconstantinou, “Reconsidering the Fate of Coptic”, 286.52 Samuel of Qalamūn, “L'apocalypse”, ed. Ziadeh, p. 379, trans. in John Iskander, “Islamization in Medieval Egypt: The Copto-Arabic ‘Apocalypse of Samuel’ as a Source for the Social and Religious History of Medieval Copts”, Medieval Encounters 4 (1998): 219–27, pp. 224–5.53 Arietta Papaconstantinou, “Historiography, Hagiography, and the Making of the Coptic ‘Church of the Martyrs’ in Early Islamic Egypt”, Dumbarton Oaks Papers 60 (2006): 65–86, pp. 81–4; Zaborowski, “From Coptic to Arabic”, 24.54 Trans. in Zaborowski, “From Coptic to Arabic”, 27.55 This consideration of the Coptic language as sacred is itself likely influenced by the Quʾrānic theme of a holy language, as Christianity traditionally emphasised the translatability of the Christian Gospel into any language. See Richter, “Greek, Coptic and the ‘Language of the Hijra’”, 427.56 Papaconstantinou, “Historiography”, 81–2.57 History of the Patriarchs, III.i: 90. On this text, see Johannes den Heijer, “History of the Patriarchs of Alexandria”, in C.E., IV: 1238–1242.58 This sentence continues: “…and he of them who knows the translation of the Coptic translates it to whoever is at his side if he does not know it”. See“Ibn al-‘Assāl's Arabic Version of the Gospels”, ed. and trans. Duncan B. MacDonald, in Homenaje á Francisco Codera en su Jubilación del Profesorado: Estudios de Erudición Oriental, ed. D. Eduardo Saavedra (Saragosa: Mariano Escar, 1904), pp. 375–-92, at 386.59 Zaborowski, “From Coptic to Arabic”, 36.60 Ibid., 39. Although this is plausible, Papaconstantinou argues quite reasonably for the placement of the text's composition in the later fourth/tenth century in the context of the struggle between conservative monasteries and the urban clergy, who moved in Fāṭimid circles in their new capital of Cairo. See Papaconstantinou, “Reconsidering the Fate of Coptic”, 290–2.61 Zaborowski, John of Phanijōit, 8.62 Richter, “Greek, Coptic and the ‘Language of the Hijra’”, 420.63 Zaborowski, John of Phanijōit, 12–13.64 Ibid., 77.65 Ibid., 81, 83.66 Ibid., 71.67 Ibid., 91–5.68 Ibid., 103.69 Ibid., 107.70 Ibid., 6.71 Ibid., 14.72 Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger: An Analysis of the Concepts of Pollution and Taboo (London: Routledge, 1966), p. 54.73 Ibid., 53.74 Zaborowski, John of Phanijōit, 32, 62.75 Sidarus, “La Renaissance Copte Arabe”, 311-40; idem., “Essai sur l'age d'or”, 444.76 Assmann, “Memory and Cultural Identity”, 130: “Cultural memory preserves the store of knowledge from which a group derives an awareness of its unity and peculiarity…defined through a kind of identificatory determination in a positive (‘We are this’) or in a negative (‘That's our opposite’) sense”.77 From certain monasteries, especially, and in apocalyptic literature.78 Wilfong, “Non-Muslim Communities”, 190. For a discussion of the reforming movement of this period and contemporary literary activities, see Swanson, Coptic Papacy, 59–82.79 On this matter, they could draw upon earlier Christian Arabic apologetics, such as those of Theodore Abū Qurrah and his contemporaries in the third/ninth and fourth/tenth centuries. See Griffith, Church in the Shadow of the Mosque, 53ff.80 Graf, Geschichte, II: 318–24; den Heijer, “Coptic Historiography”, 67ff.81 Sidarus, “Essai sur l'âge d'or”, 443–62, esp. 444; Swanson, Coptic Papacy, 59–82.82 Sidarus, “Essai sur l'âge d'or”, 445.83 Samir, “Role of Christians in the Abbasid Renaissance”, 495–529; Dimitri Gutas, Greek Thought, Arabic Culture: The Graeco-Arabic Translation Movement in Baghdad and Early ʿAbbāsid Society (2nd– 4th /8th– 10th Centuries) (London: Routledge, 1998).84 Sidarus, “Essai sur l'âge d'or”, 457.85 Ibid., 446, and in greater detail 447–57.86 Johannes den Heijer, ‘Coptic Historiography in the Fāṭimid, Ayyūbid and Early Mamlūk Periods’, Medieval Encounters 2 (1996): 67–98.87 Aziz S. Atiya, “Awlād al-‘Assāl”, in C.E., I: 309–11.88 L.S.B. MacCoull, “A Note on the Career of Gabriel III, Scribe and Patriarch of Alexandria”, Arabica 43 (1996): 357–60.89 Hibatallāh translated a new, critical edition of the Gospels into Arabic. He also composed a Coptic grammar for Arabic and an introduction to the epistles of the Apostle Paul. Al-Muʿtaman contributed particularly in philological studies, with his summa being a lexical compilation of Coptic vocabulary into Arabic. See: Aziz S. Atiya, “Asʿad Abū al-Faraj Hibat Allāh ibn al-ʿAssāl, al-“, in C.E., I: 282; idem., “Muʾtaman Abū Ishāq Ibrāhīm ibn al-ʿAssāl”, in C.E., IV: 1748–9, p. 1748.90 Atiya, “Awlād al-ʿAssāl”, 311. Cf. Graf, Geschichte, II: 387–414.91 Samir Khalil Samir, “Safī ibn al-Assāl, al-“, in C.E., VII: 2075-79, p. 2079.92 His Nomocanon, for example, is still used today in the Coptic, Ethiopian and Maronite Churches.93 Samir, “Safī ibn al-Assāl, al-”, 2075-79.94 Ibid., 2075. All told, al-Ṣafī wrote eleven apologetical works in response to Muslim polemical attacks.95 “Ibn al-‘Assāl's Arabic Version of the Gospels”, ed. MacDonald, 389-90.96 Due to ill-advised actions of Patriarch Cyril ibn Laqlaq. See n. 16 above.97 Lucy-Anne Hunt, “Churches of Old Cairo and Mosques of Al-Qāhira: A Case of Christian-Muslim Interchange”, Medieval Encounters 2 (1996): 43–66, pp. 55–6.98 Lucy-Anne Hunt, “Christian-Muslim Relations in Painting in Egypt of the Twelfth to Mid-Thirteenth Centuries: Sources of Wall Painting at Deir Es-Suriani and the Illustration of the New Testament MS Paris, Copte-Arabe 1/Cairo, Bibl. 94”, Cahiers Archéologiques 33 (1985): 111–55, reprinted in idem, Byzantium, Eastern Christendom and Islam: Art at the Crossroads of the Mediterranean, volumes I-II (London: Pindar Press, 1998), I: 205–81; Elizabeth S. Bolman, “Theodore's Program in Context: Egypt and the Mediterranean Region”, in Monastic Visions: Wall Paintings in the Monastery of St Antony at the Red Sea, ed. Elizabeth S. Bolman (London: American Research Center in Egypt, 2002), pp. 91–102, esp. 101; Eva Baer, Ayyubid Metalwork with Christian Images (Leiden: Brill, 1989).99 “While the iconic is part of a broader eastern Christian vocabulary shared with Byzantium, the aniconic is part of a cultural perception shared with Islam, involving the same visual and mental processes”. See Hunt, “Churches of Old Cairo”, 61.
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