Copto-Arabic Universal Chronography. Between Antiquity, Judaism, Christianity and Islam. The K. al-Tawārīkh of N. al-Khilāfa Abū Shākir Ibn al-Rāhib (655 Heg. / 973 Mart. / 1257 Chr. / 1569 Alex. / 6750 AM)

Abstract

The historical work by the polymath and encyclopaedist from the golden age of Coptic Arabic literature, of which Dr. Samuel Moawad (Munster) is preparing an edition, represents in fact a collection of three treatises artificially divided into 51 sequential chapters. The chronological core is preceded by a long treatise of 47 chapters on astronomical and ecclesiastical reckoning and the historical eras and calendars of different nations. The historical part itself (ch. 48-50), of which the so-called Chronicon orientale is but a reworking, deals successively with universal history, Islamic dynasties and the Coptic Patriarchs. A survey of the first seven/eight Church Councils (ch. 51) ends the entire compilation. The well known historian al-Makīn Ibn al-‛Amīd makes large use of his contemporary’s work and, apparently through him, the great Muslim historians Ibn Khaldūn, Maqrīzī and Qalqashandī made constant mention of Ibn al-Rāhib. Later in the sixteenth century the K. al-Tawārīkh was translated into Ethiopian and had a significant impact on the historical and computational literature of the Ethiopians.