Between Late Antiquity and Mamluk Historians: al-Makīn Ibn al-ʿAmīd and his Universal History

Thursday, 01/23/2025, at 5:00 p.m. ET –

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. Join us on Thursday, January 23, 2025, from 5:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. ET.

Speaker:
Martino Diez, associate professor of Arabic Language and Literature at the Catholic University of Milan

For more information visit the event website.