Lecture — "Between Late Antiquity and Mamluk Historians: al-Makīn Ibn al-ʿAmīd and his Universal History"
Jan 23, 2025 5:00 PM | About the Talk
The chronography of al-Makīn Ibn al-ʿAmīd (1206–1293) is a major work in the Copto-Arabic historiographical tradition. Its importance is twofold: on the one hand, its author, a high-ranking official, drew from different sources, some of them still close to late antiquity, to present an orderly picture of the events from Creation to his time. On the other hand, his compendium attracted the interest of various readerships. It enjoyed widespread popularity among Oriental Christians, in Arabic-speaking communities but also in Ethiopia. It was consulted and quoted by several Mamluk historians, including Ibn Khaldūn and al-Maqrīzī; and finally, it was translated into Latin in 1625 by the Dutch Arabist Erpenius, providing early modern Europe with the first clear exposé of Islamic history. Thus, Ibn al-ʿAmīd’s chronography proved influential upon different audiences in various epochs; at the same time, it also constituted a major instance of Christian-Muslim intellectual interaction in the pre-modern era.About the Speaker
Martino Diez is associate professor of Arabic Language and Literature at the Catholic University of Milan. He is also scientific director of the Oasis International Foundation. From January to July 2019 he was visiting member at the Institute for Advanced Study Princeton, School of Historical Studies. He is a member of the Scientific Board of the IISMM (Institut d’études de l’Islam et des sociétés du monde musulman) at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) in Paris and the journals MIDEO, published by the Institut Dominicain d'Études Orientales in Cairo, and Islamochristiana, published by the Pontifical Institute for Arabic and Islamic Studies. Since January 2020 he has been consultor of the Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue. He has recently published al-Makīn Ǧirǧis ibn al-'Amīd, Universal History—The Vulgate recension. From Adam to the End of the Achaemenids (Leiden: Brill, 2023).
Originally published at medieval.nd.edu.