Writing Christian History in Islamic Egypt :the History of the Patriarchs of Alexandria

During the Fatimid period (11th c.), a major enterprise of translation of earlier historical Coptic sources into Arabic took place in Egypt, on the initiative of the Coptic Church. It resulted in the composition of the famous text of the “History of the Patriarchs of Alexandria,” which is considered a major source for the history of Egypt and the Middle East in general. Indeed, in a biographical framework, it offers rich and rare narratives of historical events (from the 1st c. CE onwards), presented from a Coptic point of view. In her lecture, ISAW Visiting Research Scholar Perrine Pilette will present the results of her ongoing research on this corpus, highlighting its multi-linguistic issues as well as its key-position between Christian and Islamic literary heritages