International Copto-Arabic Historiography Project (ICAHP)

The Arabic text of the “History of the Patriarchs of Alexandria” is characterized by a complex textual transmission.  Preserved in two recensions, it is considered a historiographical tradition rather than a coherent work, since many authors were involved in its composition: the first part of the corpus consists in a translation of earlier Coptic sources, while the second part was written directly in Arabic from the 11th century onwards. Despite the obvious relevance of the so-called “primitive” recension, which is the more ancient and closer to the Coptic sources than the later, more widely read “Vulgate” version, the former is still not available in a critical edition. The aim of the current project, then, is to provide, for the first time, a critical edition of a significant part of this text (Lives 17 to 26), based on the primitive recension and accompanied by its English translation, with linguistic and historiographical commentaries. This study, begun in October 2009, is carried out in the framework of an international project for the edition of the entire corpus (hence the name ICAHP), co-ordinated at the Centre d’études orientales – Institut orientaliste de Louvain (CIOL), one of the research centres of the Institut des civilisations, arts et lettres (INCAL) of the Université catholique de Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium..
The project implies several approaches. First, the philological and linguistic approach concerns the critical edition itself. This will be done by adapting the traditional edition methods to new technology. This new edition remains the most fundamental aspect of the project: with its translation, it will be an indispensable tool for numerous research domains (philology and linguistics, history, science of religions, archaeology, etc.).
In the context of the edition, but simultaneously at an analytical level, particular attention will also be paid to the question of the linguistic phenomenon of  “Middle Arabic”. The main other aspect of the analysis will be historiographical and will address the contents of the text, which narrates various kinds of events within the biographical framework (ecclesiastical, political and social history), by comparing it with other contemporary historiographical sources.
    For the various parts of the edition and connnected studies, the text has been divided into a sequence of parts that correspond to the successive series of Lives of patriarchs and hence to specific periods of time. Several of these contributions are prepared as doctoral dissertations. Thus far, the following series have been assigned:

Recent publications linked to ICAHP:

• J. den Heijer, « Les Patriarches coptes d’origine syrienne », in R.[Y.] Ebied & H. Teule , eds, Studies on the Christian Arabic Heritage in Honour of Father Prof. Dr. Samir Khalil Samir S.I. at the Occasion of his Sixty-Fifth Birthday, Leuven – Paris – Dudley, 2004, p. 45-63.
• J. den Heijer, « La rébellion de l’émir Al-Awḥad (477/1084)  : étude comparative des sources historiques » in J.-Y. Empereur & Chr. Décobert , ed., Alexandrie Médiévale 3 (Études Alexandrines, 16), Le Caire, 2008, p. 171-181.
• J. den Heijer, « Remarques sur le langage de quelques textes copto-arabes médiévaux », in J. Grand’Henry & J. Lentin, eds, Actes du premier colloque international sur le moyen arabe et les variétés mixtes de l’arabe, Louvain-la-Neuve, mai 2004, Louvain-la-Neuve, 2008, p. 109-119.
• J. den Heijer, « Wādī al-Naṭrūn and the History of the Patriarchs of Alexandria », in M.A.S. Mikhail & M. Moussa, eds, Christianity and Monasticism in Wadi al-Natrun. Essays from the 2002 International Symposium of the Saint Mark Foundation and the Saint Shenouda the Archimandrite Coptic Society, Cairo – New York, 2009, p. 24-42 (= den Heijer 2003, nouvelle impression).
• J. den Heijer  & P. Pilette, « Murqus Simaika (1864 – 1944) et l’historiographie copto-arabe : à propos du  manuscrit Musée Copte, Hist. 1 », in P. Buzi & A. Camplani, eds, Christianity in Egypt: literary production and intellectual trends in late antiquity. Studies in honor of Tito Orlandi (Studia Ephemeridis Augustinianum 125), Rome, 2011, p. 227-250..
• J. den Heijer & P. Pilette, « Transmission et diffusion de l’historiographie copto-arabe : nouvelles remarques sur les recensions primitive et vulgate de l’Histoire des Patriarches d’Alexandrie », in J.P. Monferrer Sala & S. Torallas Tovar, eds, Cultures in Contact. Transfer of  Knowledge in the Mediterranean Context. Selected Papers, Córdoba, 2013, p. 93-140.