277 Martin Heimgartner, Die Briefe 42–58 Des Ostsyrischen Patriarchen

Martin Heimgartner, Die Briefe 42–58 des ostsyrischen Patriarchen Timotheos I, CSCO 644 (Textedition) and 645 (Einleitung, Über- setzung und Anmerkungen) / Syr. 248–9 (Leuven: Peeters, 2012). Pp. xxx + 144 and xciv + 137; €60 and €75.

J. F. COAKLEY, SCHOOL OF ORIENTAL AND AFRICAN STUDIES, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON This fine edition completes (almost) the publication of the 59 letters of the East Syriac patriarch Timothy I (in office 780–823) in the CSCO.1 Letters 1–39 were published with a Latin translation by O. Braun in 1914–15, but his project got no further. Perhaps it is as well. The letters benefit from—indeed, require—a modern- language translation and the kind of commentary that the old CSCO did not run to but that we now definitively have in the work of Martin Heimgartner. Any editor of Timothy’s letters and specifically of letters 42–58 has first to elucidate their contents.2 The long letter 42, concerned with problems in the interpretation of Aristotle, requires a good deal of technical commentary. The present reviewer can only admire the thoroughness with which Heimgartner has provided this. The shorter letters present different problems, being occa- sional and alluding to circumstances that have to be deduced. For example, letters 45, 51–3, 55, 56 taken together give a picture of the province of Elam and in particular the difficulty that faced Timothy and his metropolitan Sergius of filling vacant sees there. All this too is carefully worked out by Heimgartner. Letter 47, describing how Timothy arranged the copying of the Hexapla, is not so clear in its details as a modern scholar would like, and so we have useful notes

1 Letter 59, the dialogue with the Caliph al-Mahdi, was edited by Heimgartner in 2010 (CSCO 631–2 / Syr. 244–5). Letters 40 and 41 have to be sought in separate editions: letter 40 by Mar Thoma Darmo (Trichur 1982), and letter 41 by R. Bidawid (Rome 1956). A complete publication history of the letters is given by Heimgartner in the present translation volume, pp. xi–xvii. 2 A more concise survey of these letters than in the Introduction here can be found in Heimgartner’s article “Zur Edition der Briefe 42–58 des ostsyrischen Patriarchen Timotheos (780–823),” in R. Voigt, ed., Akten des 5. Symposiums zur Sprache, Geschichte, Theologie und Gegenwartslage der syrischen Kirchen, Berlin 2006 (Aachen: Shaker, 2010), 59–74. 277 278 Book Reviews about for example whether in 47.2 ,8( refers to vellum, or might be a very early reference to paper. In his Introduction the editor refers only in passing (p. xix) to the difficulty of translating Timothĳ y’s Syriac, specifically his dense clauses introduced by ... (which may or may not have any- thing to do with a fondness for Aristotelian syllogisms). But it deserves mention here that Timothy’s elevated style often challenges translation in other places, as anyone will know who has read his letters with students. I wonder if his own correspondents were always quite sure of his meaning. Heimgartner succeeds admi- rably, I think, with the hard passages, and points out the more extreme difficulties in footnotes. The text of most of the letters is that of the “base manuscript” Baghdad Chaldean Monastery 509 (“B”, dated 1299). It is laid out line for line, although punctuated by the page-breaks for all the secondary manuscripts. This seems over-fussy, although once used to it, I found the shorter lines actually made for easier reading. If, however, the editor has decided to reproduce the text of a base manuscript exactly, then I think all emendations need to be sig- nalled somehow. It is not quite logical that some readings are indeed marked with < > while others appear in the text unmarked and the reader has to notice the words “Konjektur Heimgartner” in the apparatus or go to the translation where they are explained. The other issue raised by a strict transcription of the base manuscript is that of diacritical points. The manuscript B, we are told (edition volume, p. xiv), has no vowels, only these points; and they should be regarded as importantĳ enough to elicit a correction if wrong. I noticed in 58.1 .ˍ “that superfluous matter” which should be .ˍŃ “it is a superfluous matter.” The translation assumes the correction, but the reader who is trying to puzzle out thisĳ obscure sentence needs to be helped. The difference between “on the one hand” and Ń “from” is also crucial; likewise ˍŃ (enclitic) and ˍń (hu, not enclitic); and in several places where the sense of these words seemed wrong I would have liked to be sure that the pointing was sic in the manuscript. Otherwise, in such a carefully edited text it is a little disappointing to find any errors at all, but such things as 3 for 3 (44.1) and 88 for ˍ8 (53.4) are at least easily spotted by the reader. Volumes of the CSCO typeset by Peeters use a fine legible estrangela font, which however has developed a fault in recent years. Book Reviews 279

The letters 8 too often touch adjacent letters and points. One of the two seyame points on for example is obscured. The letters ˉ ˘ have spurious white space around them, so that words like *, and F) stop the eye while the brain deter- mines that they are one word and not two. These technical issues, all involving kerning pairs, ought not to be difficult to correct, and the look of the Syriac text would be much improved. None of these remarks is meant to cast any doubt on the high quality of Martin Heimgartner’s work in editing and making accessible these important letters.

Anna M. Silvas, Basil of Caesarea. Questions of the Brothers: Syriac Text and English Translation, Texts and Studies in Eastern Christ- ianity 3 (Leiden: Brill, 2014). Pp. xi + 365; €114.

J. EDWARD WALTERS, PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY In the third volume of Brill’s impressive new series “Texts and Studies in Eastern Christianity,” Anna M. Silvas continues her scholarly exploration of Basil of Caesarea, turning now to the Syriac tradition of one of Basil’s texts. The text in question is known in the Greek and Latin traditions as Basil’s Small Asketikon—an early version of Basil’s later full Asketikon—but it circulated in Syriac under the title 3 % – Questions of the Brothers.1 Unfortunately, the Greek text of the Small Asketikon does not survive (with the exception of a few fragments); thus, the Syriac text (along with the Latin version) provides an important witness. According to Silvas, Jean Gribomont prepared a collation of the text but did not publish it (2); thus, Silvas’ volume represents the first published edition and translation of the Syriac text of QF. In the Introduction to the volume, Silvas provides a wealth of information that will be of interest to scholars of Syriac manuscripts, Greek-to-Syriac translation technique, and historical Syriac orthography. But scholars who would like a more detailed introduction to the content of the text itself will have to look elsewhere. First, Silvas gives a detailed overview of the five manuscripts used in the creation of this critical edition, including important biblio- graphic details on the manuscripts that are often overlooked in such introductions. The five manuscripts used in the edition are: Brit. Lib. Oriental Collection Add. 14,544 A 5th/6th c. Brit. Lib. Oriental Collection Add. 14,545 B 6th c. Vatican Library, Sir. 122 C 769 CE Vatican Library, Sir. 126.II D 1226 CE Milano Biblioteca Ambrosiana S/P. 126, E 8th/9th c. No. 38 (fragmentary) Following this overview of the manuscripts, Silvas discusses various aspects of the textual history of QF as displayed by these manuscripts, including the identification of two text families and copious observations on the orthographic features exhibited in the

1 Silvas refers to the text as QF, an abbreviation of the Latin title Quaestiones Fratrum, so I have adopted this abbreviation for this review. 280 Book Reviews 281 manuscripts. The critical edition of the text presented in this volume is a diplomatic text, though manuscript A (Brit. Lib. Oriental Add. 14,544) is given prominence in assessing the text because of its antiquity (late 5th/early 6th c.). Silvas also includes a detailed explanation of her approach to creating the critical apparatus, including the orthographic variations that are omitted. The author’s overview of translation technique in the Syriac QF (pp. 21-37) is an important contribution to the growing scholarship on Greek-to-Syriac translation technique. Thus, this detailed overview deserves consideration among an audience broader than those interested in Basil, the QF, or Syriac monasticism. Indeed, Silvas’ introduction contains information that will be instructive for scholars of various aspects of Syriac studies. In its level of detail and appeal to a broader audience, Silvas’ introduction is exemplary for critical editions and translations. There is one issue in the Introduction, though, that some readers my find less than convincing. Silvas spends several pages describing the “character” of the translator as discerned from the translator’s additions to the text. Following this, Silvas attempts to identify the translator by combining historical circumstance with this character sketch. Based on the evidence provided, Silvas tenta- tively proposes that Eusebius of Samosata could have been responsible for the Syriac translation of QF. To reach this conclusion, the author considers the epistolary contact between Basil and Eusebius and compares various elements of that exchange with the “character” of the translator as reconstructed from the textual emendations evident in the Syriac text. It is entirely plausible that Eusebius of Samosata was responsible for the translation of Basil’s Small Asketikon into Syriac, but the methodology that is employed to reach this conclusion is suspect. Granted, Silvas emphasizes the tentative nature of the conclusion, but it seems that a great deal of effort was expended to reach a tentative conclusion based on questionable methodology, especially given that the point in no way affects the status or condition of this text. The author could simply have suggested Eusebius of Samosata as a potential translator without attempting to prove this case through appeals to verbal and conceptual echoes in the Basil- Eusebius epistolary exchange. The conclusion would have been no more or less tentative without this excursus.

282 Book Reviews

The presentation of the text, translation, and critical apparatus is excellent. In the footnotes, Silvas provides a good balance of important information—including comparisons with the Latin and Greek traditions—without overwhelming the reader with unnecessary notes. The translation style is lucid and consistent, and Silvas strikes an excellent balance in the translation between faithfulness to the Syriac text and smooth rendering into English. The result is a translated text that is a pleasure to read—not an easy task to accomplish. For scholars interested specifically in the text of QF and the other traditions of the Asketikon, Silvas includes two appendices that will be of some interest. The first provides text, translation, and brief analysis of three additional questions and answers found in manuscript D (Vatican Library, Sir. 126.II) that are not preserved in the other Syriac witnesses to the QF. The second appendix provides a comparative table of the questions included in each recension of the QF/Small Asketikon. Finally, Silvas concludes the volume with a helpful index of scriptural citations and allusions. Aside from the very minor quibble regarding an issue in the Introduction (discussed above), this is an excellent volume. Primarily, this book will be useful and interesting for scholars working on asceticism and monasticism in the Syriac tradition, and particularly for the task of tracing the ways that Greek texts in translation influenced (and were influenced by) the Syriac monastic milieu. Moreover, this text will also be of relevance to patristic scholars more broadly, particularly those who focus on Basil and the Cappadocians. Finally, as detailed above, the wealth of information found in the volume’s introduction will also be of interest to scholars of Syriac manuscripts, historical orthography, and Greek-to-Syriac translation technique.

Book Reviews 283

Arietta Papaconstantinou with Muriel Debié and Hugh Kennedy, eds., Writing ‘True Stories’: Historians and Hagiographers in the Late Antique and Medieval Near East, Cultural Encounters in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages 9 (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2010). Pp. xi + 230; €70.

KRISTIAN S. HEAL, BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY The authors of this important, wide-ranging collection probe the liminal space between event and narrative in order to explore genre, authorial method, and the use of stories to establish, expose and negotiate community boundaries. In particular, since their project challenges the genre distinction between history and hagiography, the volume explores “the all too neglected relation between [these genres],” considering them together as “the two main narrative modes of representing the past in the late antique and medieval Near East” (p. ix). This question is all the more interesting in the chapters dealing with Syriac sources (the focus of this review), because the same technical terminology was sometimes used by both historians and hagiographers to refer to their compositions (as discussed by Walker on p. 40 and Debié on p. 43).1 Joel Walker eloquently contributes to this discussion by show- ing how Babai the Great (d. 628) utilized the genre of hagiography not just for the presentation of exemplary lives, but also for ecclesiastical boundary maintenance in the fraught political land- scape of late Sasanian Persia. Babai mobilized “hagiography as a vehicle for the writing of recent history” precisely because “the providence of God was most clearly observable in the authenti- cated stories of holy men recorded by contemporary observers” (p. 39). By adopting this genre, recent saints and martyrs became allies and spokesmen for Babai in his quest to unify the Church of the East “at a time when, in actuality, serious and growing sectarian divisions threatened that unity” (p. 38). Yes, hagiography was “a form of spiritual exercise” (p. 36), but is was also a “powerful and supple tool to build…alliances” (p. 37) in a time when Babai knew that “his success in holding the church together…hinged on

1 For the table of contents of the volume, see the publisher’s website http://www.brepols.net/Pages/ShowProduct.aspx?prod_id=IS- 9782503527864-1. 284 Book Reviews his ability to retain the support of key allies not only in Ctesiphon, but also throughout the western Sasanian provinces” (p.34). The “creative freedom implicit in” the hagiographical genre gave Babai “considerable latitude” to, for example, incorporate “dramatic dialogues, staged in both public and private settings,” giving the audience the chance to hear “not only [the martyr’s] words, but also his thoughts” (p. 38). This dynamic, dramatic potentiality, unconstrained by the “somewhat rigid chronological framework of the chronicle tradition and also the documentary demands of the church history genre” (p. 40), allowed Babai to ventriloquize the martyrs, making them inspired defenders of “the orthodox (East Syrian) doctrine that Babai was fighting hard to establish” (p. 41). As Muriel Debié observes, within a few decades of Babai’s productive hagiographical enterprise there is an important shift in genre preferences among Syrian Orthodox and East Syriac writers. The Syrian Orthodox effectively stopped writing the lives of saints and instead “chose another way of writing [their] history, namely the universal chronicle divided into two sections, one ecclesiastical and the other civil” (p. 53). The Church of the East similarly turned to history, but primarily “monastic histories” (p. 56), which “rely on biographies” as their primary organizing structure (p. 58), and thus blur genre lines by falling “somewhere between hagiography and history” (p. 50). The difference is one of focus: “Monastic biographical histories…[provide] a spiritual portrait of individual ascetics, whereas in the ecclesiastical histories we are merely presented with key items of biographical data, often short, and usually related to contemporary historical events of individuals” (p. 50). Debié’s discussion of this interesting genre is an important contribution to the volume’s theme. The rich historiography of the Church of the East is far from well known, and the heart of Debié’s impressive chapter is an expert survey of what she calls “the visible islands of a much larger continent which has been swallowed up either by the neglect of later generations…or by the accidental loss of manuscripts” (p. 55). One of the largest of these visible islands is the Book of Governors by Thomas of Marga (fl. 9th cent.). Thomas gives a particularly “clear idea of what it was to write history and hagiography in the early Middle Ages” because he “speaks willingly about…his aims and his methods” (p. 64). Thomas took as his model the work of Palladius, Book Reviews 285 and counted among his sources numerous lives (now lost) that constituted the “literary celebration” of the “new centre of monasticism developed in Bet ʿAbe” (p. 65). But Thomas intended “to write history and not hagiography” (p. 65). Thus he rejected the extravagance of metrical lives, arranged his narratives in chronological order as best he could, teased out “rare fragments of dated information to be found in those texts or what he knew from other sources about the succession of abbots” (p. 65), and eschewed “vain imaginations of [his] own” in favor of reliable literary sources (p. 66). Moreover, he made “a critical examination” of his sources, sometimes using “several for the same Life” (p. 67). Debié also explores Thomas’s work as a hagiographer, providing an interesting counterpoint to what we learn of him as an historian. In the introduction to his Life of Cyprian, appended to the Book of Governors, Thomas describes his visit to the monastery where Cyprian had lived in order to examine all the surviving texts relevant to his life. What he was shown was material “written in a simple manner” which formed the basis of his own “spiritual treatise” (p. 67). Thus, as Debié notes, “we have here a unique record both of the existence of raw material for hagiographical writing in the monasteries, and of the method of the hagiographer—who searched, even hunted, for such sources on the spot and then reworked them in order to produce an account in a higher literary style” (p. 67). Thus even when Thomas did utilize his own imagination, he did so based on the available sources. In the fascinating chapter by André Binggeli we move from the Syrian Orthodox and East Syrians to the Melkites, where we find that the turn to history was not universal in the early Islamic period. On the contrary, in the Melkite community “hagiography continued to be a very productive literary genre throughout the Umayyad period and the first century of the ʿAbbāsid period,” though “full- scale martyrologies” survive only in Greek, Arabic, and Georgian (p. 77–78). Binggeli explores this “striking dissymmetry between the hagiographical production in the Melkite and Jacobite communities” (p. 78) by examining the story of Anthony, an eighth-century Christian convert from Islam, as it survives “in Syriac [Syrian Orthodox] historiography and in Melkite hagiography composed in Arabic” (p. 79). The story of Anthony and other similar accounts illustrate the difficulties experienced by Christians living under the caliphate, as 286 Book Reviews do events of a similar nature such as the “destruction of churches or accounts of harassment and persecution” (p. 88). The Melkite hagiographical sources are, in contrast, deliberately protreptic and exemplary: “The story of Anthony is intended to serve as an example for anyone who wishes to convert from Islam to Christi- anity” (p. 91). Ultimately, however, these sources served to main- tain the boundaries between the Melkite community and an increasingly dominant and persistent Islamic caliphate. Thus, this and other Melkite hagiographical texts join the emerging genre of polemical literature “as a means of countering the threat of apos- tasy and Islamization” (p. 92). The authors of this significant volume move beyond the poetics of historiography to explore the work that history and hagiography are doing in the late ancient and early Islamic periods. The three chapters that focus on Syriac sources make important contributions to the overall project of the book, while also materi- ally advancing our understanding of the Syriac sources. In this respect the volume is exemplary. The addition of a cumulative bibliography and an index could, perhaps, have improved the utility of the book. Book Reviews 287

David Bertaina, Christian and Muslim Dialogues: The Religious Uses of a Literary Form in the Early Islamic Middle East, Gorgias Eastern Christian Studies 29 (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2011). Pp. xii + 285; paperback, $37.50.

KRISZTINA SZILÁGYI, TRINITY COLLEGE, UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE Severus b. al-Muqaffaʿ, the tenth-century debater-luminary of the Copts, was in the company of the chief judge on a Friday, when a dog walked past. The Muslim asked: “What do you think about this dog, Severus? Is it Christian or Muslim?” Severus suggested a test: on Fridays Christians eat no meat, but drink wine, while Muslims eat meat, but drink no wine. “Put meat and wine before the dog. If it eats the meat, it is Muslim. If it does not eat the meat, but drinks the wine, it is Christian.” The narrator, being a Christian, depicts Severus as masterfully turning the taunt against his host and making the dog, a reviled animal in the Middle East, appear to be Muslim.1 Impromptu exchanges between Christians and Muslims like this must have been a feature of everyday life in the medieval Islamic world. Within the walls of palaces, however, a more struc- tured sort of questioning also took place: caliphs, emirs, and viziers occasionally educated and entertained themselves with sessions of religious debates. For such debates the dignitaries sometimes invited, according to a dismayed Muslim observer, not only Muslims of various stripes, but infidels too: Jews, Christians, Zoroastrians, Manichaeans, and materialists.2 Both organized and spontaneous encounters left manifold traces in the literary record, often as texts claiming to be straight- forward accounts of them. It is such accounts that David Bertaina takes on in his book, the first monograph on Christian-Muslim religious debates from the medieval Islamic world. He discusses twenty texts, nine of Christian and eleven of Muslim provenance, most set between the seventh and the ninth century. Five of the

1 See the History of the Patriarchs of the Egyptian Church, Known as the History of the Holy Church, ed. and trans. Aziz Suryal Atiya, Yassā ʿAbd al- Masī, and O. H. E. Burmester, vol. 2/2, Publications de la Société d’archéologie copte (Cairo, 1948), 93 (Arabic text). For an English version of the full story, see ibid., 138. 2 See Michael Cook, “Ibn Saʿdī on Truth-Blindness,” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 33 (2007), 169–178 (here p. 170). 288 Book Reviews

Christian debates were written by East- or West-Syrian authors. The remaining four were composed in Arabic by Melkites; at least two of these reached readers in churches of Syriac heritage as well. The book is introduced with a brief theoretical overview of religious debates in the modern and the medieval context. The opening two chapters further prepare the ground: the first by discussing the history of dialogues from the Sumerians to late antiquity, with special attention to dialogues in the Bible, the second by examining the Qurʾān as a repository of debates with Christians. In the third chapter Bertaina discusses Christian and Muslim encounters set soon after the Arab conquests. From the fourth to the seventh chapter he turns to groups of debates he regards as competing historiographies, tools of theological educa- tion, hagiographies, or reinterpretations of scriptures, respectively. In lieu of conclusion, the book ends with a chapter entitled “The End of Dialogue?” which surveys the typical topics and the proba- ble uses of Christian and Muslim dialogues. Throughout, Bertaina correctly emphasizes the reciprocal relationship between literary debates and lived experience: authors drew inspiration from historical debates and wrote, among other reasons, in order to prepare their audiences to participate in them. Bertaina provides valuable service by drawing attention to several debates barely known even to scholars. Unfortunately he never clarifies the criteria for selecting his sources. Eight Shīʿite texts feature among the eleven-strong Muslim sample. Is the Shīʿite preponderance accidental or were Shīʿite authors more likely than their Sunnī counterparts to write about their encounters with Christians? We look in vain for answers in the book. It is also a shame that Bertaina never defines what he means by debate, dialogue, and disputation. Several Muslim texts discussed in the book hardly fit any of the categories: some describe an encounter during which a single question is answered, while others recount the solution of a riddle posed by a Christian. However selected, it is instructive to consider both Christian and Muslim accounts of Christian-Muslim debates within the same cover. Bertaina focuses on the similarities, the shared purposes and topics, but it is worth reflecting on the differences too. The power relations of real life, for example, are vividly illustrated: none of the Muslim debaters converts to Christianity in the Christian texts, but most Muslim texts end with the Christian debater’s conversion to Book Reviews 289

Islam. The length and the transmission of the debates also differ: the Muslim ones are much shorter than their Christian counterparts (the longest Muslim debate, of Wāil of Damascus in the Byzantine court, is barely longer than the shortest Christian one, John Sedra’s encounter with the Muslim emir) and, with one exception, the Muslim texts have only been transmitted as parts of longer works, while the Christian ones all survive as independent compositions. One possible reason for these differences is that Christian-Muslim debates loomed far larger in the collective memory of Christian communities than in that of Muslims. For the former, recollections of successful debates provided much-needed reassurance of the truth of their religion, but the dominant position of the latter rendered memories of won debates less consequential. Theodore Abū Qurra, an important Christian character in the book, was for the Melkites who Severus b. al-Muqaffaʿ was for the Copts: bishop, master-debater, and prolific author, among the first in his community to pen original writings in Arabic. Muslims also took notice of him: a contemporary wrote a refutation of his work and two later authors mention him.3 Abū Qurra features twice in Bertaina’s book, in connection with two Christian texts: his debate in the court of the caliph al-Maʾmūn (reg. 813–833) and a collection of unpublished shorter exchanges (pp. 182–190 and pp. 212–228). Or does he in fact feature twice more? Halfway through we find two Shīʿite texts in which John (Yūannā) Abū Qurra and a certain Ibn Qurra discuss Christianity with ʿAlī l-RiÃā (pp. 159– 165). Bertaina does not speculate about Ibn Qurra, but proposes that John Abū Qurra belonged to the Church of the East, because of an East-Syrian presence in the two cities, Merv and Baghdad, where al-RiÃā is known to have stayed. Assuming that the debates did take place, I doubt that Merv and Baghdad are the only possible locations—al-RiÃā surely traveled elsewhere too. More importantly, it seems plausible to me that John Abū Qurra and Ibn Qurra are none other than distant echoes of Theodore Abū Qurra’s activity as an apologist for Christianity in Shīʿite literature. Qurra is a rare part of a name and therefore likely to be remembered, John is common enough to stand in for a forgotten Christian ism, and abū can easily be mistaken for ibn even in a tidily

3 See John C. Lamoreaux, Theodore Abu Qurra, Library of the Christian East 1 (Provo, UT: Brigham Young University Press, 2005), xvii. 290 Book Reviews written manuscript. If this is so, thanks to Bertaina we now have two very different literary portrayals of Theodore Abū Qurra as a debater, one from his own Christian and another from his opponents’ perspective. But despite its important subject matter and fascinating collection of sources, it is hard to be enthusiastic about this book. Its stated audience includes non-specialists (p. ix), but consideration for them barely goes beyond omitting diacritics from Arabic names. The editing leaves much to be desired, to the extent that the argument of a chapter is hidden in a footnote (p. 47, n. 93). It is obvious already from the opening pages that clarity of language is not a forte of the book. Some formulations are simply confusing. For example, the title of the third chapter, “Dialogue as Conquest and Conversion,” is surely not the same as “dialogue in response to conquest and conversion” which it stands for according to its contents. Venturing further, it becomes clear that the lack of precision sometimes goes beyond language. For example, Karl Vollers never edited the Disputation of the Monk Abraham of Tiberias (p. 17, n. 25; he only translated it into German), none of the recensions of the Christian Legend of Sergius Baīrā call Muhammad’s monk-teacher Sergius-Baīrā (pp. 124–125; they call him either Sergius or Baīrā), and the Legend of Sergius Baīrā was never translated into Armenian and Hebrew (p. 125; the Hebrew and Armenian Baīrā legends are distant relations of the Christian Arabic and Syriac texts),4 etc. Worst of all, Bertaina’s grasp of Arabic seems tenuous. His citations are as good as the translations he uses. When discussing the Disputation of the Monk Abraham of Tiberias (pp. 199–212), for example, Bertaina claims to translate from Giacinto Būlus Marcuzzo’s edition of recension alpha, yet sometimes clearly follows N. A. Newman’s English version instead. Newman, however, was unaware of Marcuzzo’s edition and rendered Karl Vollers’ German translation of recension beta into English. In one passage, Bertaina describes Manẓūr b. Ghaafān al-ʿAbsī, one of the Muslim debaters, as a ‘lawyer’ (p. 205). This does not come from Marcuzzo’s edition—there Manẓūr is said to be simply ‘a

4 Although the Latin Legend of Sergius Baīrā is closer to the Syriac recensions than either the Hebrew or the Armenian stories, it is incorrect to describe even that as a translation—it is a paraphrase at best. Book Reviews 291 man’ (rajul).5 Bertaina anglicizes Newman’s (and Vollers’) ‘faqih’ here,6 yet refers to Newman only at the beginning of the chapter and solely to Marcuzzo throughout the detailed description of the debate, including twice on p. 205.7 It is the summaries of the Muslim debates that suffer most. Six out of the eleven Muslim texts that Bertaina discusses have never been translated into English and in these cases he works from the Arabic originals. He distorts all of them. In summarizing and translating the debate of ʿAlī and the Byzantine monk (pp. 95–98), for example, Bertaina commits more than thirty mistakes:8

5 See Giacinto Būlus Marcuzzo, Le Dialogue d’Abraham de Tibériade avec ʿAbd al-Ramān al-Hāšimī à Jérusalem vers 820, Textes et études sur l’Orient chrétien 3 (Rome, 1986), 339 (vv. 144–145). 6 See N. A. Newman, The Early Christian-Muslim Dialogue: A Collection of Documents from the First Three Islamic Centuries (632 – 900 A.D.) (Hatfield, PA: Interdisciplinary Biblical Research Institute, 1993), 294 and Karl Vollers, “Das Religionsgespräch von Jerusalem (um 800 AD),” ZKG 29 (1908), 29–71 and 197–221 (here p. 49). 7 For another, longer example, compare Bertaina, Dialogues, 211; Marcuzzo, Dialogue, 505 (v. 516); and Newman, Dialogue, 334. 8 Bertaina’s and my own version of the story should be read together with the Arabic text and my notes in the second table. I used different fonts in order to distinguish between the free summary and the translation in Bertaina’s version. The underlining signals his deviations from the Ara- bic original. The Arabic text below is taken from the edition referred to by Bertaina: al-abrisī, al-Itijāj (Najaf: Dār al-Nuʿmān, 1966), vol. 1, 307– 308. Bertaina, like many other scholars, reads the author’s name as al-a- barsī; in vocalizing it as al-abrisī, I follow Etan Kohlberg’s entries on the two Shīʿite scholars with this name in the Enc. of Islam (2nd ed.). To al- abrisī’s text I added notes indicating significant variants in al-Majlisī’s version in his Biār al-anwār (Tehran: Dār al-kutub al-islāmiyya, 1957– 1985), vol. 10, 52–54. In my translation I left the pronouns as ambiguous as they are in Arabic; it should be possible to understand their referents from the context. In general, I tried to follow the Arabic text as closely as possible without compromising intelligibility in English. The dictionaries cited below are Edward William Lane, An Arabic-English Lexicon (London and Edinburgh: Williams and Norgate, 1863–1893); Hans Wehr, A Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic (Arabic-English), ed. J. Milton Cowan (Urbana, IL: Spoken Language Services, 1979); and Ibn Manẓūr’s Lisān al- ʿarab. The latter has been printed several times in the Arab world and is freely accessible online at www.alwaraq.net. 292 Book Reviews

Bertaina’s version My translation In the dialogue between ʿAli 1 It has been related that a and the Byzantine monk, the deputation came to Medina story begins with a from the land of the Romans Byzantine delegation visiting in the reign of Abū Bakr, Medina to meet Abu Bakr. A among them a Christian Christian monk is part of the monk. He came to the entourage, and he goes to Mosque of the Messenger of the mosque where Muhammad was buried, God, may God bless him and bringing with him gold and his Family, with a camel laden silver. with gold and silver. Abū Bakr was present and a group of Emigrants and Helpers with him. After meeting Abu Bakr and 2 He entered, greeted them, the Medinans and the examined their faces, and Meccans in his party, the then said: “Which one of you monk asks him: is the successor of the “Are you the successor of your Messenger of God and the prophet the messenger of God, one entrusted with your and representative of your religion?” religion?” Abu Bakr replies by asking 3 They pointed to Abū Bakr. for the monk’s name, He himself approached him, and said: “Sheikh, what is your name?” to which he answers that it is 4 He said: “ʿAtīq.” ʿAtiq — which means “old man” in Arabic. 5 He said: “Then what?” 6 He said: “iddīq.” When Abu Bakr asks him 7 He said: “Then what?” why he had such a name, he replies that he is so old 8 He said: “I know of no other that he knows no other name for me.” name by which he is called. Book Reviews 293

9 He said: “You are not my master.” At this point, Abu Bakr asks 10 He said: “And what do you him what he wants to want?” debate, signifying the special place of the court for theological discussion. The monk replies with a test 11 He said: “I am from the land for his Islamic audience: of the Romans. I came from “I am from Byzantine territory. there with a camel laden with I came from it with a gold and silver in order to ask respectable amount of gold and the one entrusted with this silver. Therefore I would like to community a question. If he ask the representative of this correctly answers it, I will community a question. If he convert to Islam, obey him in answers me regarding it, then I everything he commands me, will convert to Islam. Whatever and distribute this money he commands me, I will agree among you. But if he is to, and I will split this money unable to answer, I will go between you. But if he is back with what is with me unable to answer it, I will and do not convert to Islam.” return home with what I have and I will not convert to Islam.” Upon hearing this challenge, 12 Abū Bakr said to him: “Ask Abu Bakr asks him to initiate whatever you deem fit.” the debate. However, the monk refuses 13 The monk said: “By God, I to begin the discussion, will not start speaking until since he argues that they you guarantee that I am safe would not believe him on from your and your account of their pride and companions’ attack.” their numerical strength. 294 Book Reviews

Following the protocol of 14 Abū Bakr said: “You are Christian-Muslim dialogue, safe—you will see no harm. both parties agree that no Say whatever you want.” physical action will take place against the weaker member. When Abu Bakr gives the monk a guarantee that he is safe and no harm will come upon him, the monk offers his riddle: 15 The monk said: “Tell me “Tell me about something that something that God does not God does not have, and is not have, that does not come from God, and God does not from God, and that God know of it.” does not know.” According to the dialogue, 16 Abū Bakr trembled and did the caliph Abu Bakr trembles not answer. After a while he and does not offer an said to one of his answer to the Christian companions: “Bring Abū monk. After a time of af ʿUmar to me.” silence, Abu Bakr calls for ʿUmar to enter the debate, who was an important figure and the second caliph after Abu Bakr’s death. 17 He brought him. He sat down with him. Then he said: “Monk, ask him.” When he too is unable to 18 He himself approached respond, ʿUmar and said to him what he said to Abū Bakr, but he did not answer. ʿUthman (the future third 19 Then he brought in ʿUthmān. caliph) is brought in and the What had taken place same thing happens again. between the monk and Abū Bakr and ʿUmar took place also between the monk and ʿUthmān: he did not answer. Book Reviews 295

In response to their 20 The monk said: “Noble incapacity to answer him, sheikhs, tongue-tied for the monk asks: Islam.” Then he stood up to “Are the noble shaykhs leave. speechless for Islam?” and when he gets up in order to leave, Abu Bakr exclaims, 21 Abū Bakr said: “Enemy of “Enemy of God, were it not for God! Were it not for the the promise, then the earth pledge of safety, I would dye would be colored with your the earth with your blood.” blood!” […] The dialogue presumes that 22 Salmān the Persian, may God a number of other prominent be pleased with him, got up, Muslims were present for came to ʿAlī b. Abī ālib, this important event, peace be on him, who was including Salman the sitting in the courtyard of his Persian, an important house with asan and transmitter of oral traditions usayn, peace be on them, for Shiʿites. In the story, he goes to ʿAli b. Abi Talib who and told him what happened. was sitting outside with his sons Hasan and Husayn. Then ʿAli enters the mosque 23 ʿAlī, peace be on him, got up, where the discussion is went out together with asan taking place, and usayn, peace be on them, and came to the mosque. When the people saw ʿAlī, peace be on him, they glorified and praised God. They all stood up for him. ʿAlī, peace be on him, entered and sat down. 24 Abū Bakr said: “Monk, ask him, for he is your master and the object of your desire.” 296 Book Reviews and the monk asks for his 25 The monk himself name. approached ʿAlī, peace be on him, and said: “Young man, what is your name?” Foreshadowing his special 26 He said: “The Jews address knowledge and charisma, me as Elijah, the Christians as ʿAli replies: Elias, my father as ʿAlī, and “My name among the Jews is my mother as Lion.” Elijah, and among the Christians Elias, and among my children ʿAli, and among my community Lion (Haydara).” 27 He said: “What is your relationship to your Prophet?” When the monk learns of his 28 He said: “My foster-brother, relationship to the Prophet, my father-in-law, and my cousin on my father’s side.” he tells him his companion is 29 The monk said: “By the Lord Jesus, and then asks the of Jesus, you are my master! same riddle. Tell me something that God does not have, that is not from God, and that God does not know.” Unlike the others, however, 30 He, peace be on him, said: ʿAli demonstrates “You have come across knowledge and authority in someone who is his response — immediately knowledgeable. As for your effecting the conversion of words ‘what God does not the Christian monk: have’—God, may He be ʿAli replied: “You made an exalted, is one and has neither error concerning the Knowing companion nor child. As for One. As for your statement your words ‘and what does ‘what God does not have’, God not come from God’— is one and he has no companion injustice never comes from and no child. As for your God to anyone. As for your statement ‘it is not from God’, words ‘God does not know there is nothing of God’s it’—God knows no one Book Reviews 297 oneness that is unjust. As for sharing with him in his your statement ‘God does not kingship.” know it’, he does not know any partners he has in the kingdom.’” Then the monk got up and cut 31 The monk stood up, cut his off his belt and grabbed his belt, grabbed his head, kissed head, and his eyes him on his forehead, and acknowledged what [ʿAli] had said: “I testify that there is no clarified. He said, “I testify that God except for God and that there is no god but God and I Muhammad is the Messenger testify that Muhammad is the of God. I testify that you are messenger of God, and I testify that you are the successor and the successor and the one the leader of this community, entrusted with this and the treasure trove and community, quarry of religion wisdom of religion, and the and wisdom, and preeminent source of proof, fountainhead of the proof. for I recited your name in the 32 “I have read your name in the Torah as Elijah, and in the Torah as Elijah, in the Gospel as Elias, and in the Gospel as Elias, in the Qurʾan as ʿAli, and in the Qurʾān as ʿAlī, and in the books of the forefathers as earlier books as Lion. I found Lion, and I found you as regent you legatee of the Prophet after the prophet, and the authoritative emir, and I and the true ruler. You have proclaim the truth to this more right to this assembly gathering of others. Tell me, than anyone else. Tell me: what do you and the people What is the matter with you want? and the people?” Following the monk’s 33 He replied him something. conversion, The monk got up and gave him all the money. he fulfils his promise to 34 ʿAlī, peace be on him, did not distribute his possessions move from his place until he among the poor and needy distributed it among the poor in Medina, never returning to and needy of the people of Byzantine lands. Medina. The monk departed to his people as a Muslim.

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al-Tabriī, al-Itijāj Notes It is anachronistic to refer to the 1 وروي ٔانه وفد وفد من بلاد الروم Mosque of the Prophet as the إلى المدينة على عهد ٔابي بكر place where Muhammad was buried in a narrative set in the وفيهم راهب من رهبان النصارى –reign of Abū Bakr (reg. 632 فأتى مسجد رسول الله صلى الله 634). Muhammad was buried in ,the house of his wife, ʿĀʾisha عليه وآله ومعه بختي موقر ذهبا and the mosque incorporated وفضة وكان ٔابو بكر حاضرا وعنده his tomb only after its -expansion in the reign of al جماعة من المهاجرين والأنصار Walīd b. ʿAbd al-Malik (reg. 705–715). The ‘land of the Romans’ (bilād al-rūm) here of course refers to Byzantium, as Bertaina renders it in his summary. The monk addresses not only 2 فدخل عليهم وحياهم ورحب بهم Abū Bakr, but all the Muslims وتصفح وجوههم ثم قال ٔايكم present, as the use of the plural interrogative particle ayyukum خليفة رسول الله1 ٔوامين دينكم which one of you?’) makes it‘) [1 المجلسي يزيد نبيكم] clear. The phrase ‘your prophet’ is missing from the version of al- Tabriī, but that of al-Majlisī’s Biār al-anwār has it. In the translation of amīn it is perhaps better to follow Lane’s Lexicon and Claude Cahen’s entry in the Enc. of Islam (2nd ed.): ‘he to whom something is entrusted.’ Bertaina’s ‘representative’ implies too limited authority in this context.

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It is actually the monk who asks 3 فأومي إلى ٔابي بكر فأقبل إليه Abū Bakr’s name, as the بوجهه ثم قال ٔايها الشيخ ما responses below make it clear. اسمك ’The word ʿatīq does mean ‘old 4 قال عتيق in Arabic, but it is the name of Abū Bakr, not the monk. On Abū Bakr’s names, see W. Montgomery Watt’s entry in the Enc. of Islam (2nd ed.) or, from a Shīʿite perspective, that of Hadi Alemzadeh in the Enc. Islamica. Abū Bakr was probably in his sixties when he assumed power. 5 قال ثم ماذا This response is yet another 6 قال صديق clue that the discussion concerns Abū Bakr’s names: he is known to Sunnīs as Abū Bakr al-iddīq (‘Abū Bakr the Truthful’). It is not clear to me where 7 قال ثم ماذا Bertaina finds the basis for his translation of this question. Abū Bakr indeed denies having 8 قال لا ٔاعرف لنفسي اسما غيره other names here, yet it is unclear where Bertaina finds ‘he is so old’ in this passage. 9 فقال لست بصاحبي Here or later during the 10 فقال له وما حاجتك conversation, Abū Bakr makes no reference whatsoever to debating.

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The expression Bertaina renders 11 قال ٔانا من بلاد الروم جئت منها with a respectable amount of‘ ببختي موقر ذهبا وفضة لأسأل gold and silver’ should be translated ‘with a camel laden ٔامين هذه الأمة من2 مسألة إن -with gold and silver’ (bi ٔاجابني عنها ٔاسلمت وبما ٔامرني bukhtiyyin mūqarin dhahaban wa- .(fi¢¢atan ٔاطعت وهذا المال بينكم فرقت Therefore I would like to ask’ is‘ وإن عجز عنها رجعت إلى الوراء -not a precise translation for li بما معي ولم ٔاسلم asʾala—the monk came ‘in .’order to ask [2 المجلسي: عن] For ‘the land of the Romans’ and ‘representative’, see above, pars. 1 and 2. 12 فقال له ٔابو بكر سل عما بدا لك The monk’s worry here is not 13 فقال الراهب والله لا ٔافتح الكلام whether the Muslims will believe ما لم تؤمني من سطوتك وسطوة him—he asks Abū Bakr to guarantee his safety. The verb ٔاصحابك āmana means both ‘to believe’ and ‘to guarantee safety’, but the reference to the ‘attack, assault, impetuosity’ (sawa) and the response of Abū Bakr makes it clear that the discussion concerns safety. Furthermore, the subject of tuʾminnī cannot be the Muslims, as the form is in the singular. Bertaina must have found the meanings ‘pride’ and ‘strength’ for sawa in Wehr’s dictionary of modern Arabic. These meanings are unattested in dictionaries of premodern Arabic (see the entries for s--w in Lane and the Lisān al- ʿarab) which in itself makes his choice questionable. Book Reviews 301

In an encounter between a 14 فقال ٔابو بكر ٔانت آمن وليس -Muslim dignitary and a non عليك بأس قل ما شئت Muslim, it is the Muslim, the only party with power, who guarantees the non-Muslim’s safety—as it indeed happens here. 15 فقال الراهب ٔاخبرني عن شئ ليس لله ولا من عند الله ولا يعلمه الله 16 فارتعش ٔابو بكر ولم يحر جوابا فلما كان بعد هنيئة قال لبعض ٔاصحابه ائتني بأبي حفص عمر3 [3 المجلسي: بأبي حفص] 17 فجاء به فجلس عنده ثم قال ٔايها الراهب سله 18 فأقبل بوجهه إلى عمر وقال له مثل ما قال لأبي بكر فما يحر جوابا 19 ثم ٔاتى بعثمان فجرى بين الراهب وعثمان مثل ما جرى بينه وبين ٔابي بكر وعمر فلم يحر جوابا The sentence is not 20 فقال الراهب ٔاشياخ كرام ذووا —interrogative, but declarative فجاج4 ٕلاسلام ثم نهض ليخرج the alif of ashyākh is part of the plural, not an interrogative [4 المجلسي: رتاج] particle. Also, the phrase ashyākh kirām (‘noble sheikhs’) has no definite article. The word fijāj or fujāj poses real difficulty. If the word is plural, as it must be in the context, its 302 Book Reviews

singular is fajj which means ‘a wide road between two mountains’ (see Lane and the Lisān al-ʿarab). This would make no sense here. However, the version of the story given by al- Majlisī corrects the word to ritāj. In his gloss, al-Majlisī connects the word to the verb rataja and explains it in various ways. The interpretation that fits best here is ‘to be impeded in speech, unable to speak, tongue-tied’. Bertaina, therefore, is correct in rendering the word as ‘speechless’, but he never refers to al-Majlisī or indeed explains why he does not follow al- abriī’s text. The verb of the last sentence 21 فقال ٔابو بكر يا عدو الله لولا can be translated both in active العهد لخضبت الأرض بدمك and passive voice: la-kha¢abtu (‘I dyed’) and la-khu¢ibat (‘it was dyed’). ,.ʿAlī is not sitting ‘outside’ (i.e 22 فقام سلمان الفارسي رضي الله outside the mosque), but ‘in the عنه ٔاتى علي بن ٔابي طالب عليه courtyard of his house’ (fī ani .(dārihi السلام وهو جالس في صحن داره مع الحسن والحسين عليهما السلام وقص عليه القصة 23 فقام علي عليه السلام وخرج ومعه الحسن الحسين عليهما السلام حتى ٔاتى المسجد فلما ٔراى القوم عليا عليه السلام كبروا الله وحمدوا الله وقاموا إليه Book Reviews 303

ٔاجمعهم فدخل علي عليه السلام وجلس The author here makes Abū 24 فقال ٔابو بكر ٔايها الراهب سله ٕفانه Bakr acknowledge that ʿAlī is صاحبك وبغيتك the true successor of Muhammad, with the implication that his own rule is not legitimate. The monk addresses ʿAlī as 25 فأقبل الراهب بوجهه إلى علي young man’. He was probably‘ عليه السلام ثم قال يا فتى ما in his thirties at the time. اسمك Bertaina’s ‘my children’ should 26 قال اسمي عند اليهود إليا وعند be corrected to ‘my father’ (the النصارى إيليا وعند والدي علي Arabic has wālidī, not wuldī). وعند ٔامي حيدرة Bertaina should not have corrected the edition’s ummī (‘my mother’) to ummatī (‘my community’): according to a Shīʿite tradition, ʿAlī’s mother wanted to name him aydara (Lion), but his father decided to call him ʿAlī. On this topic, see the section on ʿAlī’s names by Faramarz Haj Manouchehri in the entry on ʿAlī b. Abī ālib in the Enc. Islamica. 27 قال ما محلك من نبيكم According to the Muslim 28 قال ٔاخي وصهري وابن عمي Tradition, ʿAbdallāh and Abū لحا5 ālib were sons of ʿAbd al- Mualib which makes their [5 المجلسي: عمي] sons cousins. After the death of ʿAbdallāh, Muhammad was taken in by ʿAbd al-Mualib and after the latter’s death by 304 Book Reviews

Abū ālib. ʿAlī later married Fāima, Muhammad’s daughter. Jesus is not the ‘companion’ (or 29 قال الراهب ٔانت صاحبي ورب .ib) of anyone heremaster’, ā‘ عيسى ٔاخبرني عن شئ ليس لله Instead, the monk swears ‘by (the Lord of Jesus’ (wa-rabbi ʿīsā ولا من عند الله ولا يعلمه الله when recognizing that ʿAlī is his master. It is not clear why Bertaina 30 قال عليه السلام على الخبير rendered the beginning of ʿAlī’s سقطت ٔاما قولك ما ليس لله ٕفان answer as he did: al-khabīr refers to ʿAlī, not to God, and saqaa الله تعالى ٔاحد ليس له صاحبة ولا ʿalā means ‘to stumble on, light ولد ٔواما قولك ولا من عند الله on, come across’. فليس من عند الله ظلم لأحد ٔواما The aad of the second part of the answer should be translated قولك لا يعلمه الله ٕفان الله لا ad of thedifferently from the a يعلم له شريكا في الملك first part. The first aad indeed refers to God’s oneness, following the usage in Q 112: 1, but the second aad carries its regular meaning, ‘someone, anyone’. The monk grabbed not his own 31 فقام الراهب وقطع زناره ٔواخذ head, but ʿAlī’s, and ‘kissed him ٔراسه وقبل ما بين عينيه وقال on his forehead’ (wa-qabbala mā bayna ʿaynayhi). The expression ٔاشهد ٔان لا إله إلا الله ٔوان6 mā bayna ʿaynayhi (literally ‘what محمدا رسول الله ٔواشهد ٔانك is between his eyes’) simply ’.means ‘forehead ٔانت الخليفة ٔوامين هذه الأمة ʿAlī is not ‘the treasure trove ومعدن الدين والحكمة ومنبع عين and wisdom of religion’ (it الحجة would be maʿdin wa-ikmat al- dīn), but ‘the treasure trove of [6 المجلسي: ٔواشهد ٔان] religion and wisdom.’ Perhaps maʿdin is better translated ‘mine,’ or even ‘source, quarry’. Book Reviews 305

Although the modern Arabic dictionary of Wehr gives the meaning ‘treasure trove’ for it, Lane’s medieval Lexicon does not. Christians were obliged to wear a belt (zunnār) under Muslim rule. Cutting it symbolized conversion to Islam. The phrase al-kutub al-sābiqa is 32 لقد ٔقرات اسمك في التوراة إليا not a genitive construction, but وفي ٕالانجيل إيليا وفي القرآن عليا an adjectival phrase: it is not ,’the books of the forefathers‘ وفي الكتب السابقة7 حيدرة .’but ‘the earlier books ووجدتك بعد النبي وصيا ٕوللامارة It is not clear how Bertaina وليا ٔوانت ٔاحق بهذا المجلس من arrived at ‘I proclaim the truth to this gathering of others’ from غيرك فخبرني ما شأنك وشأن aqq bi-hādhā l-majlis minwa-anta a القوم ghayrika. [7 المجلسي: السالفة] Translating waī as ‘regent’ implies actual reign which was certainly not the case for ʿAlī in the time of Abū Bakr. The word is best translated ‘legatee’ (see Etan Kohlberg’s entry on waī in the Enc. of Islam, 2nd ed.). 33 فأجابه بشئ فقام الراهب وسلم المال إليه بأجمعه It is not the monk who distributes 34 فما برح علي عليه السلام مكانه the money, but ʿAlī, to whom the حتى فرقه في مساكين ٔاهل monk had just given it, as is clear .from the previous passage المدينة ومحاويجهم وانصرف Surprising as it may be, according الراهب إلى قومه مسلما to the story the monk returned to Byzantium.

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Three mistranslations of al-abriī’s text stem from lack of revision: Bertaina, it seems, originally worked from another source, probably the Biār al-anwār of al-Majlisī (d. 1699),9 and never modi- fied his translation to match al-abriī’s al-Itijāj, although in his footnotes to the story he refers only to the latter and never as much as mentions the former. The remaining deviations from the Arabic original are translation errors plain and simple. Some mistakes are perhaps inevitable when rendering a medieval Arabic text into a modern language. Classical Arabic is not the mother tongue of anyone and the gap between medieval Islamic and modern culture easily obscures the assumptions and thought processes of the author, occasionally making it impossible to establish the precise meaning of a word or phrase. Yet the chasm between the worlds of Bertaina and al-abriī does not explain this proliferation of inaccuracies in the translation of a two- page Arabic text—an insufficient grasp of the language exacerbated by hasty work, however, does so. It is astounding to find a host of mistakes in a peer-reviewed academic publication. Sadly, the material examined above is not unusual; it is representative of Bertaina’s poor understanding of the six Muslim debates that were available to him only in the Arabic original. His multiple errors and imprecisions render the summaries of his sources fundamentally untrustworthy and any arguments based on them of questionable value.

9 For this version, see al-Majlisī, Biār, vol. 10, 52–54. Three deviations point to the work of al-Majlisī: ‘your prophet’ in v. 2, ‘speechless’ in v. 20, and the addition of ‘I testify’ before ‘that Muhammad is the messenger of God’ in v. 31.

Martin Tamcke, ed., Zur Situation der Christen in der Türkei und in Syrien: Exemplarische Einsichten (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2013). Pp. 267; €48.00.

TIJMEN BAARDA, LEIDEN UNIVERSITY With the recent developments for the situation of Christians in Turkey due to the different policy of Tayyip Erdoğan’s government and the war in Syria, the appearance of a new volume focusing on Christians in both countries is to be welcomed. Only a few scholarly works have appeared on the more inclusive stance of the current Turkish government towards its citizens who are non- Muslim or not ethnically Turkish, including the discussion of the notion of Türkiyeli (“person from Turkey”) as opposed to the tradi- tional Türk, and the same is true for the situation of Christians in Syria since the beginning of the revolution. While the present volume does address both issues, as a whole it falls short of the expectations raised by its title. The volume does nevertheless include several interesting papers. The book is based on papers presented at a summer school in Istanbul, organized by the Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, and those from a conference of the Austrian organization Pro Oriente, events held simultaneously in 2010. A smaller part of the volume is the fruit of a conference about Syria at the Evangelische Akademie in Hofgeismar (Germany) in 2012, a year after the start of the Syrian uprisings. The volume is divided into three parts: one about the situation in Turkey, another about interaction between Turkey and Europe, and the last about Syria. While the title and the preface are in German, the majority of the contributions are in English. Only eight of the seventeen contributions are full-length academic essays, while the rest are short papers, most of which have a political message. The first part, “Zur Situation in der Türkei,” includes four contributions by ecclesial figures, all of whom pres- ently reside in Turkey. The Greek Orthodox patriarch of Constantinople, His All Holiness Bartholomew I, addressed the Pro Oriente conference about what he calls the “Byzantine Model” of synthesis in the relationship between church and state, and compares it to later models prevalent in the Ottoman Empire and modern Turkey, stressing the importance of harmony between religion and politics. Three further contributions, by Franz Kangler,

307 308 Book Reviews

Claudio Monge, and Laki Vingas, discuss the history and current situation of Turkey’s Christians, the limitations of religious freedom that current Turkish nationalism imposes, and the situation of Christian and Jewish foundations in Turkey, especially their lack of recognition by the state. These four contributions criticize the situation in Turkey, but are not cynical: the authors show great respect for the country and its people, and they express their hope that Turkey will find a way to grant full religious freedom that will include the recognition of religious organizations. They express the wish for Turkey’s inclusion in the European Union and a redefini- tion of Turkish nationalism. Two scholarly papers complete the first part. Julia Kutzen- berger analyzes how the Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk in his book Istanbul uses the concept of hüzün (normally translated as “melancholy”) to describe the alienation felt by the people of Istanbul as a result of the modernization (or Westernization) policy following the fall of the Ottoman Empire. While Kutzenberger is not the first to study this novel, nor the only one who has explored the use of hüzün in Pamuk’s work, she offers a very accessible and convincing account of the way that Pamuk copes with Istanbul’s post-Ottoman position between East and West. Kai Merten, in a very different contribution, tries to answer the question of whether there was a Nestorian millet in the Ottoman Empire by giving a valuable overview of the existing evidence in addition to presenting new material from Ottoman archives. He concludes that the few texts that speak of a Nestorian millet probably use this word in its general meaning of “nation,” without its juridical value. The second part of the book, “Mit Europa in Interaktion,” has a similar structure. This part begins with four short contributions, followed by two long academic essays. Martin Tamcke opens this section with an overview of the activities of the German Oriental Mission in the ur ʿAbdin region in Southeastern Turkey. The next two contributions, written by the theologian Markus Meckel, a former member of the German parliament, are speeches held for the memorial of the Armenian genocide, one in the German Bundestag and the other for the Armenian Congregation in Berlin. Meckel is critical of Turkey, but recognizes the steps made in past decades and is optimistic about a full recognition of the Armenian genocide in the future. Of equal importance for him is Germany’s responsibility: Germany was aware of the events and engaged in

Book Reviews 309 military collaboration with the Ottoman Empire. Meckel does not mention the Greek and Syriac communities in this respect. Meckel’s essays are followed by another short contribution by Tamcke, the printed version of a lecture held for Turkish students at the Pro Oriente conference. After explaining the relationship between state and religion in Germany, Tamcke directly addresses his audience by asking them how they themselves cope with questions of human rights, tolerance, and religious freedom. He even states that Muslims in Turkey are responsible for making a stance for their “Christian brothers.” While he expects the same from Germany’s Christians concerning Muslims, his words are rather frank, especially after the discussion (and praise) of Germany’s sys- tem, and it would be interesting to know how his Turkish audience responded. In the first of the two longer papers, Monika Bosbach discusses the coverage of the 2007 assassination of the Turkish- Armenian journalist Hrant Dink in German, Dutch, and French newspapers. While interesting and useful, the author’s choice to focus on a limited number of newspaper articles does not allow for a comprehensive view on the event’s representation in European media. Daniela-Oana Ioan’s contribution “Borders in Literature” concerns Kurban Said’s novel Das Mädchen vom Goldenen Horn and highlights a number of differences between East and West as portrayed through the experiences of the novel’s characters, who are Muslims living in the Europe of the “golden twenties.” The third part, “Syrien,” is in fact about Syria and Lebanon. It opens with a very general historical introduction to Christianity in Syria by Martin Tamcke, which offers an overview of the different denominations. This is followed by four longer papers. Erik Mohns discusses the apparent absence of Christians in the Syrian protest movement. In a wonderful way he presents the positions of the clergy, describes how the Syrian government used the minorities against the insurgents after the start of the revolution (by advocating the widespread idea that the government is the best protection against Islamism), and notes the existence of Christians who do participate in the opposition movement. Mohns bases this argument on a great number of recent sources in Arabic and other languages, including several interviews. In the next entry, Najib G. Awad asserts that Arab Protestant and Catholic Christians are sometimes— because of the Western origins of their faith—suspected of having

310 Book Reviews an identity that is more Western than Arab. He discusses (with disapproval) a book in which the Syrian author ʿAdnān ʿUwayyid attacks Western missionaries for having established churches only for the sake of the political and economic goals of the colonial powers. While aspects of Awad’s criticism can be challenged, he offers an interesting insight into recent discourse in the Arab world concerning the status of Christians with regard to Arab identity. The next essay, by Katie Tanner, concerns the Joint Christian Committee for Social Service in Lebanon, a Christian organization serving the Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, where she worked as a volunteer as part of her fieldwork. The volume is concluded by a profound study of the practice of hymen-repair in Lebanon by Verena E. Kozmann. Based on interviews conducted with seven Lebanese gynaecologists during three months of fieldwork, Kozmann not only discusses the medical operation as it is practiced in Lebanon, but also presents the gynaecologists’ perspective on the social and moral questions that play a role in their decision to offer the operation. With such a variety of topics, it is difficult to assess the volume as a whole. As a report on the summer school in Istanbul and the Pro Oriente conference, the short contributions at the beginning of the first two parts provide a useful impression of the general atti- tude that must have been prevalent among the participants: a critical view of Turkey’s policy towards Christians but great respect for the country, the expectation that the situation will improve, and the wish that Turkey’s application for inclusion into the European Union will succeed. But the inclusion of a number of papers that barely touch on this topic, and the choice to include also papers from yet another conference, make the volume largely incoherent. As a result, the book does not answer to the expectations raised by its title. Moreover, several articles could have been further revised– two of them clearly give the impression that they are unrevised master’s theses. The strength of the volume lies in the value of several individual papers, especially the ones by Merten, Mohns, and Kozmann. As is usually the case with Harrassowitz Verlag, in terms of appearance the volume is very well produced and has a simple but elegant layout. The fact that the volume’s title is German and not English (despite the dominance of English within the book), as well as the lack of online access to the book, results in a poor

Book Reviews 311 accessibility and visibility of the individual contributions. Because of the lack of coherence between the volume’s pieces, it is a legitimate question whether some papers would not better have been published as articles in appropriate journals. The shorter contributions could then have been summarized in separate conference reports.

312 Book Reviews

Rainer Voigt, ed., Akten des 5. Symposiums zur Sprache, Geschichte, Theologie und Gegenwartslage der syrischen Kirchen (V. Deutsche Syrologen- tagung), Berlin 14.–15. Juli 2006, Semitica et semitohamitica Bero- linensia 9 (Aachen: Shaker, 2010). Pp. 304; €49,80.

CLAUDIA RAMMELT, UNIVERSITÄT BOCHUM Während aufgrund der andauernden Konflikte im Nahen Osten verschiedentlich auch die Christen ins Zentrum des Interesses rücken und die Sorge um ihren Verbleib in der Region berechtigt ist, gerät das Fach des Christlichen Orients an deutschen Univer- sitäten vor allem durch Einsparmaßnahmen aus dem Blickfeld. Das Anliegen des Veranstalters und Herausgebers des Buches erscheint vor diesem Hintergrund noch dringlicher: „Der Schwund des Faches Christlicher Orient an den deutschen Universitäten – obwohl doch dieses Fach an allen orientalischen Seminaren vertreten sein müßte – droht zu einer verkürzten islamkundlich- arabistischen Rezeption der Geschichte und Geistesgeschichte des Vorderen Orients zu werden“ (7). Der deutsche Syrologentag setzt dazu einen Kontrapunkt, indem er Wissenschaftlerinnen und Wissenschaftlern mit ganz unterschiedlichen Forschungsschwer- punkten und –interessen auf dem Gebiet der Syrologie die Möglichkeit gibt, zusammenzukommen und ihre derzeitigen Ergebnisse einem Fachpublikum zu präsentieren und mit ihm diskutieren zu können. Dadurch wird nicht nur der Facettenreich- tum der Syrologie deutlich, vor allem geben die Beiträge einen Einblick in die derzeitige Forschungslandschaft im deutschen Raum. So ist es eigentlich bedauernswert, dass deren Veröffent- lichung vier Jahre auf sich warten ließ. Achtzehn Vortragende stellten ihre Beiträge zur Verfügung, die als „Akten des 5. Sympo- siums zur Sprache, Geschichte, Theologie und Gegenwartslage der syrischen Kirchen“ in die Reihe „Semitica et Semitohamitica Berolinensia“ aufgenommen worden sind. Die Konferenz fand am 14. und 15. Juli 2006 in Berlin am Seminar für Semitistik und Arabistik der Freien Universität statt. Ein Teil der Beiträge setzt sich vornehmlich mit philologisch- literaturwissenschaftlichen Aspekten auseinander. So beschäftigt sich Martin Heimgartner mit der Edition der Briefe 42–58 des ostsyrischen Patriarchen Timotheos. Dabei bleibt Heimgartner ganz und gar nicht in literarkritischen Überlegungen stecken (63f.), vielmehr stellt er nach einer kurzen Inhaltsübersicht (64f.) bisher Book Reviews 313 unbeachtete Aspekte bei der Aufarbeitung der Briefe in den Vordergrund seiner Überlegungen (65–74). Zwei georgische Paralleltexte zum Testament unseres Herrn (CPG 1743) stellt Michael Kohlbacher vor. Verschiedene Anhänge untermauern seine Argumentation (111–126). Robert R. Phenix nimmt die These von Heinrich Näf aus dem Jahre 1928 zum Ausgangspunkt seines Beitrags. Dieser ging davon aus, dass „Ephräms Genesis- Kommentar auch die Quelle für die Grundstruktur der Joseph-Memren Balais gewesen sei.“ (211) Anhand von vier Aspekten macht er plausibel, dass die Wahrscheinlichkeit dafür sehr gering ist. Schließlich erarbeitet Rainer Voigt sehr detailliert und umfang- reich die Versstruktur des zweiten Kapitels des dem Verbum gewidmeten zweiten Traktats im „Buch der Strahlen“ von Bar- hebraeus. Bevor er sich der metrischen Strukturierung widmet (270–296), stellt er wesentliche Punkte seiner Umschrift vor (268– 270). Helen Younansardaroud untersucht das syrisch-christliche „Buch der Gesänge“ des Elias aus dem 19. Jahrhundert. Dabei legt sie dar, dass eine syrische Variante der arabischen Maqame vorliegt. Bisher standen derartige Untersuchungen nicht im Fokus des Interesses. Dem will Younansardaroud entgegen wirken und fordert auf, ihrem Beispiel zu folgen, um ein Desiderat der Forschung zu schließen. Einige der Aufsätze stellen theologische Aspekte in den Vor- dergrund. Der Beitrag von Armenuhi Drost-Abgarjan fragt nach der Lokalisation des Berges Noahs in der armenischen und syrischen Überlieferung. In beiden Traditionen versteht sich der Berg als theologisch-literarisches Symbol der Errettung der Menschheit. In ihrer Darstellung zieht sie viele Quellen heran. Theresia Hainthaler geht der Theologie insbesondere der Christologie des Cyrus von Edessa im Buch der liturgischen Feste als Ausdruck ost- syrischer Theologie in katechetischem Gewande in der Mitte des 6. Jahrhunderts nach (50–57), nachdem sie sorgfältig den historischen Kontext (43–47) beleuchtet hat und gattungsgeschichtliche Überlegungen zur Form der causae (47–49) anstellte. Einen Vor- schlag für die theologiegeschichtliche Einordnung der „Homélie anonyme sur l’Effusion du Saint Esprit“ unterbreitet Christian Lange. Lange übersetzt den Text (156–160), fasst seine theologi- schen Hauptgedanken zusammen (160f.) und ordnet ihn schließlich theologiegeschichtlich mit dem Schluss ein (161–167), dass sich das Werk in die pneumatomachische Diskussion Syriens der Jahre 314 Book Reviews

375–428 einfügt und vermutlich aus dem Schülerkreis Ephraem des Syrers stammt (167). Reinhard Meßner widmet sich dem Menschenbild des Johannes von Bosra im Antesanctus, das diesen vor allem im Rahmen einer Schöpfungstheologie betrachtet (169f.). Nach ein paar generellen Überlegungen zum Text (171), stellt er diesen in einer syrischen und einer koptischen Version zur Verfü- gung (172–175) und wertet das Menschenbild im Anschluss aus- führlich aus (176–182). Yousef Kouriyhe untersucht das „Buch der Materien“ von Bar Wahib aus dem Jahre 1304 mit dem Ergebnis, dass dieser überzeugt ist, „dass die syrisch-aramäische Sprache die ursprüngliche von Gott gegebene Sprache ist aus der sich alle anderen Sprachen abgeleitet haben.“ (134) Ulrike-Rebekka Nieten fragt, ob die hebräischen Pijjutim und die syrisch-aramä- ischen Hymnen sich beeinflussten oder unabhängig voneinander entwickelten. Sie weist die These von Schirmann zurück und geht davon aus, dass es im syro-palästinensischen Kontext Wechsel- beziehungen gab und Piyyut-Dichter sich der gleichen Instrumente wie ihre Umwelt bedienten. Sehr verschieden bewertete die For- schung die Frage, ob Johannes von Litarb mit dem Styliten von Mar Zeora bei Sarug identisch ist. Harald Suermann greift in seinem Artikel die Frage erneut auf. Nachdem Suermann die Quellen zur Kenntnis genommen und diskutiert hat, lassen ihn inhaltliche wie vor allem auch geographische Abwägungen resümie- ren, dass die Identität der beiden Personen nicht nachzuweisen ist, aber auch nicht ausgeschlossen werden kann (234). Ein paar wenige Artikel beschäftigen sich mit der jüngeren syrischen Geschichte. Martin Tamcke untersucht einen Brief von Mar Thomas als Zeugnis für die komplexe Koexistenz von Luthe- ranern und syrischen Thomaschristen auf indischem Boden. Shabo Talay widmet sich der brisanten, aber bisher wenig Beachtung gefundenen Frage nach der Beurteilung der Ereignisse des 1. Welt- kriegs aus der Sicht der syrischen Christen. Dafür wertet er verschiedene Quellen aus, die verdeutlichen, dass mit den Begriffen sayfo, firman und qafle das Erlebte ausgedrückt wird. Mit dem syrisch-orthodoxen Patriarchen Aphrem I. Barsaum beschäftigt sich Amill Gorgis in Form einer „Bio-Bibliographie“, in der er das Leben des Patriarchen in seinem historischen Kontext nach- zeichnet (25–33) und besonders auf sein literarisches Schaffen hinweist, indem er ein Schriftenverzeichnis der veröffentlichten, aber auch unveröffentlichten Schriften mit jeweils einer kurzen Book Reviews 315

Inhaltsangabe beifügt (33–41). Mit der Gegenwart setzt sich Horst Oberkampf auseinander, der von der aktuellen Situation der Christen im Nordirak als einer Momentaufnahme im Juli 2006 berichtet. Andere wenige Artikel gehen der Frage nach dem kulturellen Austausch nach. Cornelia Horn beschäftigt sich mit dem weiten und drängenden Thema der Beeinflussung des Qurans durch das Christentum. Sie widmet sich einigen Aspekten der Schnittstelle zwischen dem Quran und der apokryphen neutestamentlichen Tradition, wie sie im syrischen Bereich bekannt ist. Der Aufsatz zeigt die Mühen, die ein solches Unternehmen in sich birgt mit der Hoffnung, dass dadurch auch weitere Schritte auf dem Gebiet der gegenseitigen Beeinflussung gegangen werden können (95). Martin Lang wählt einen anderen Schwerpunkt des kulturellen Aus- tauschs. Am Beispiel des Paradiesberges und des Landungsplatzes der Arche möchte er zeigen, wie die syrische Kultur mesopotami- sches Kulturerbe aufgenommen hat und weiterleben lässt. Dabei wählt er einen Dreischritt, indem er zunächst das Motiv des Paradiesberges (138–141) aufarbeitet, nach altmesopotamischen Ursprüngen (141–147) fragt und schließlich vor allem theologische Aspekte thematisiert (147–153). Es gelingt, einen Einblick in die Heterogenität und Weite der derzeitigen Beschäftigung auf dem Feld der Syrologie zu geben. Es wird deutlich, dass die fundamentalen und wichtigen Bereiche der Sprache, Literatur und Theologie im Mittelpunkt der deutschen Wissenschaftslandschaft stehen. Darüber hinaus ist es sehr zu begrüßen, dass auch Fragen des Kulturtransfers, genauso der Koexistenz vor allem zwischen Christentum und Islam, aber ebenso die jüngere und jüngste Geschichte nicht außer Acht gelassen werden. Die achtzehn Beiträge sind in ihrer Quantität sehr überschaubar und dadurch leserfreundlich. Auch überzeugen die meisten der Artikel in ihrer klaren Darstellungsform. Vor allem ist sehr zu begrüßen, dass bis auf wenige Ausnahmen fast jeder Artikel mit einer Zusammenfassung endet, die die Ergebnisse bündelt. Möglicherweise wäre es zur besseren Orientierung für den unkun- digen Leser ratsam, ein thematisches und nicht alphabetisches Inhaltsverzeichnis zu erstellen. Es bleibt zu hoffen, dass der seit 1998 bestehende Syrologentag weiter eine Größe in der deutschen Wissenschaftslandschaft bleibt, die zum einen bestrebt ist, die klassischen Felder historisch-kritischer Wissenschaft zu beleuchten, 316 Book Reviews aber auch noch stärker die Bearbeitung weiterführender Fragen ins Blickfeld nimmt; vor allem aber möge er den Christen im Nahen Osten verbunden bleiben.