Jirjis al-Makin Ibn al-'Amid
Jirjis al-Makīn(Arabic:جرجس المكين;1206–after 1280, maybe 1293), known by hisnisbaIbn al-ʿAmīd(Arabic:ابن العميد), was aCoptic Christianhistorian who wrote inArabic.His name is sometimes anglicised asGeorge Elmacin(Latin:Georgius Elmacinus).
Life
[edit]Several details about his ancestors and some biographical elements are provided in his own history. He is also mentioned in the biographical dictionary ofIbn al-Ṣuqāʿī(d. 1325) and in a polemical tract byIbn al-Wāsiṭī(d. 1312). He was born inCairoinAyyubid Egypton February 18, 1206. His full name in Arabic was Ğirğis (George) ibnal-ʿAmīdAbī l-Yāsir ibn Abī l-Makārim ibn Abī l-Ṭayyib al-Makīn ( "the Powerful One" ).[1]His great-grandfather was a merchant fromTikritin Iraq who settled in Egypt.[2]
He was aCoptic Christian,and held high office in the military (dīwān al-ğayš) in Damascus. Such a position carried risks. He was twice imprisoned, possibly because of links to the unrest in Syria at the time of theMongol invasion;in one case for over a decade.[3]While in prison, he began to write his chronicle.[4]
He died in Damascus: the date given by his biographerIbn al-Ṣuqāʿīis 1273, but this is likely to be a mistake for 1293 (respectively, 672 and 692 of theHijri calendar:7 and 9 are often confused in Arabic manuscripts).[5]
Works
[edit]He is the author of a world chronicle in two parts. It is traditionally known asal-Majmu` al-Mubarak(The blessed collection), but in fact its real title is simplyKitāb al-Taʾrīḫ(Book of History/of Chronology). The first portion runs from Adam down to the 11th year ofHeracliusand consists of a series of 166 numbered biographies, in some manuscripts ending with a list of the Patriarchs of the Church ofAlexandria.The second half is devoted to Islamic history, from the time ofMuḥammadto the accession of the Mamluk SultanBaybarsin 1260. This second half is mainly derived fromal-Ṭabarī,as the author tells us, throughIbn Wāṣil.
TheKitāb al-Taʾrīḫis essentially a learned compilation of earlier sources: theBiblefirst and foremost, the world chronology ofIbn al-Rahib,but also the works of the Melkite authors Ibn Biṭrīq (Eutychius of Alexandria) andAgapius(al-Manbiǧī), theJosippon,hermeticsources, and a mysterious Rūzbihān, who is credited with a history of pre-Islamic Persia. The book proved influential among different readerships: Eastern Christians, Muslim historians, and early modern Arabists. It is preserved in more than 40 manuscripts in different recensions. In particular, it was used by the 14-15th century Mamluk historiansIbn Khaldūn,al-Qalqashandī,andal-Maqrīzī.[6]
The second half of theKitāb al-Taʾrīḫwas published inArabicwithLatintranslation inLeidenin 1625. It was the fact ofThomas Erpenius,although it was completed and published posthumously by his discipleGolius.TheHistoria Saracenica,asErpeniusentitled it, was a breakthrough in European knowledge of Islamic history and it was soon translated intoFrenchbyPierre VattierasL'Histoire mahometane(Paris,1657).[7]An abbreviated English translation was also made from the Latin bySamuel Purchasas early as 1626. The edition and translation byErpeniuswas one of the first ever made of an Arabic text in early modern Europe and suffers accordingly from the lack of lexica. It has been only partially emended by a new Egyptian edition by ʿAlī Bakr Ḥasan (Cairo, 2010, unfortunately on the same two manuscripts that were used byErpenius).[8]
The work is still partly unedited. In 2023 Martino Diez published a critical edition with English translation of the first quarter, from Adam to the end of the Achaemenids, which is expected to be followed by a second volume from Alexander the Great to Heraclius. The last part, from the author's birth to the end of the work, was edited by Claude Cahen[9]and translated into French by Anne-Marie Eddé and Françoise Micheau.[10]
An Ethiopic translation of the whole work also exists. From the manuscript British Library, Oriental 814,E. Wallis Budgetranslated the chapter on Alexander the Great, which contains verbatim extracts from the old Arabic Hermetic workal-Isṭimākhīs.[11]
Muffaḍḍal ibn Abī l-Faḍāʾil,who may have been the author's great-nephew, wrote a continuation of the chronicle to the death ofal-Nāṣir Muḥammad ibn Qalāwūnin 1341. This appendix mainly covers secular history, with only limited references to events in the Coptic community. The continuation was apparently written for personal use and has been edited and translated in European languages: from the beginning to 1317 by Edgar Blochet, in French; from 1317 to the end by Samira Kortantamer, in German.[12]
References
[edit]Citations
[edit]- ^Graf,Geschichtevol. 2, p. 348; Witakowski p. 293, n. 53
- ^Seleznyov, Nikolai N., "Koptskij istorik" - potomok vyhodtsa iz Tikrita: al-Makin ibn al-ʿAmid i ego "Istorija", in: Tochki/Punkta 1-2/10 (2011), pp. 45-53.
- ^Gawdat Gabra,Historical Dictionary of the Coptic Church,Scarecrow Press (2008),ISBN978-0-8108-6097-1.p. 22.
- ^Martino Diez, al-Makīn Ǧirǧis Ibn al-ʿAmīd,Universal History. The Vulgate Recension, Part 1 - Section 1: From Adam to the End of the Achaemenids (Chapters 1–91),Brill: Leiden 2023, p. 23.
- ^Diez 2023, pp. 23-26, based on Awad, “al-Makīn Ǧirǧis ibn al-ʿAmīd wa-tārīḫuhu,” pp. 23–24.
- ^Diez 2023 pp. 143-151.
- ^public domain:Chisholm, Hugh,ed. (1911). "Elmacin, George".Encyclopædia Britannica.Vol. 9 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 296. One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the
- ^Taʾrīḫ al-Makīn: Taʾrīḫ al-muslimīn min Ṣāḥib Šarīʿat al-Islām Abī l-Qāsim Muḥammad ḥattā l-dawla al-atābakiyya,ed. ʿAlī Bakr Ḥasan, al-Qāhira: Dār al-ʿAwāṣim, 2010.
- ^“Claude Cahen," La ‘Chronique des Ayyoubides’ d’al-Makīn b. al-ʿAmīd,” Bulletin d’études orientales,15 (1955–1957), pp. 109–184.
- ^Eddé, Anne-Marie and Françoise Micheau (trans.),Al-Makīn Ibn al-ʿAmīd, Chronique des Ayyoubides (602–658/1205-6-1259-60).Paris: Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, 1994.
- ^Graf,GCALvol. 2, p. 351.
- ^Diez 2023, pp. 28-29.
Bibliography
[edit]Editions and Translations
[edit]- Martino Diez,al-Makīn Ǧirǧis Ibn al-ʿAmīd: Universal History: The Vulgate Recension. From Adam to the End of the Achaemenids,Leiden:Brill(2024),ISBN978-90-04-54998-2.Critical edition with English translation and introduction.
- Thomas Erpenius,Historia Saracenica […], Arabicè olim exarata a Georgio Elmacino fil. Abuljaseri Elamidi f. Abulmacaremi f. Abultibi, et Latinè reddita operâ ac studio Thomae Erpenii[…], Lugduni Batavorum [Leiden]: ex Typographia Erpeniana Linguarum Orientalium, 1625.
- The Saracentical historie... Written in Arabike by George Elmacin... And translated into Latine by Thomas Erpenius... Englished, abridged, and continued to the end of the Chalifa's, by Samuel Purchas...:p. [1009]-1047, incl. special t.p. -- the 4th part ofPvrchas his Pilgrimage...,4th ed (?) London (1626).
- ʿAlī Bakr Ḥasan,Taʾrīḫ al-Makīn: Taʾrīḫ al-muslimīn min Ṣāḥib Šarīʿat al-Islām Abī l-Qāsim Muḥammad ḥattā l-dawla al-atābakiyya,al-Qāhira: Dār al-ʿAwāṣim, 2010.
- Claude Cahen, "La ‘Chronique des Ayyoubides’ d’al-Makīn b. al-ʿAmīd,”Bulletin d’études orientales,15 (1955–1957), pp. 109–184,JSTOR41603260.
- Al-Makin Ibn Al-Amid,Chronique des Ayyoubides (602-658 / 1205/6-1259/60),Tr. Anne-Marie Eddé et Françoise Micheau, Paris: Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, 1994,ISBN2-87754-001-4.148pp. -- French translation of the portion from 1205 to 1259.
Studies
[edit]- Georg Graf,Geschichte der christlichen arabischen Literatur,volume 2. Lists manuscripts of the work.
- M. Th. Houtsma, E. van Donzel,E. J. Brill's First Encyclopaedia of Islam, 1913-1936,p. 173f. AtGoogle books
- Awad, Wadi Abullif, “al-Makīn Ǧirǧis ibn al-ʿAmīd wa-tārīḫuhu. al-Ǧuzʾ al-awwal: al-maṣādir wa-l-marāǧiʿ, wa-l-sīra,” in: Wadi Awad (ed.), Actes de la septième rencontre des Amis du patrimoine arabe-chrétien,Cairo: The Franciscan Centre of Christian Oriental Studies, 1999, pp. 5–24.
- Witold Witakowski,Ethiopic Universal Chronographyin Martin Wallraff,Julius Africanus und die christliche Weltchronistik,deGruyter (2006) pp. 285–301.
- Gawdat Gabra,Historical Dictionary of the Coptic Church,Scarecrow Press (2008),ISBN978-0-8108-6097-1.pp. 22–23.
- Samuel Moawad, “al-Makīn Jirjis ibn al-ʿAmīd (the elder),”Christian Muslim Relations,vol. 4 (2012), pp. 566–571.