- Title Pages
- Dedication
- Illustrations
- Contributors
- Maps
- Foreword
- Introduction
-
1 The Monastery of Apa Thomas at Wadi Sarga: Points of Departure for a Relative Chronology -
2 Intellectual Life in Middle Egypt: The Case of the Monastery of Bawit (Sixth–Eighth Centuries) -
3 Christianity and Monasticism in al-Bahnasa according to Arabic Sources -
4 Mesokemic or ‘Middle Egyptian’—the Coptic Dialect of Oxyrhynchos (?) -
5 The Monastery of Apollo at Bala’iza and Its Literary Texts -
6 “Twenty Thousand Nuns”: The Domestic Virgins of Oxyrhynchos -
7 Anba Isaac, Bishop of the Fayoum, al-Bahnasa, and Giza, 1834–81 -
8 The Monastery of the Holy Virgin Mary at al-Muharraq, Mount Qusqam: History and Heritage (Reflections of Its Monks) -
9 John of Shmoun and Coptic Identity -
10 Christianity in Asyut in Modern History -
11 The Place of Qusqam in the Textual Data on the Flight into Egypt -
12 John of Lykopolis -
13 Discerning the True Religion in Late Fourteenth-Century Egypt -
14 Egyptian Gnosticism from Its Cradle in the Alexandrian Quarters of the Second Century to Its Jar Tomb in the Upper Egyptian Town of Nag‘ Hammadi -
15 Notes on the Arabic Life of Ibrahim al-Fani: A Coptic Saint of the Fourteenth Century -
16 Snippets from the Past -
17 Liturgy of the Monastery of al-Muharraq -
18 L⋆ as a Secret Language -
19 Bawit in the Twenty-first Century: Bibliography 1997–2014 -
20 Children’s Burials from Antinoopolis -
21 Recent Excavations at Bawit -
22 Funerary Aspects in the Paintings from the Apollo Monastery at Bawit -
23 The Cave of John of Lykopolis -
24 Al-Shaykh Sa‘id Revisited -
25 Toward the Documentation of the Monastery of the Holy Virgin at al-Muharraq, Asyut -
26 The Monastery of the Holy Virgin Mary at al-Muharraq, Mount Qusqam: Reflections of Its Monks Today -
27 An Overview of Rock-cut Coptic Sites in Asyut -
28 Architectural Typology of Historic Coptic Churches from Oxyrhynchos to Dayr al-Ganadla - Abbreviations
- Bibliography
Discerning the True Religion in Late Fourteenth-Century Egypt
Discerning the True Religion in Late Fourteenth-Century Egypt
Pages from the Dayr al-Muharraq Edition of al-Hawi by al-Makin Jirjis ibn al-‘Amid
- Chapter:
- (p.133) 13 Discerning the True Religion in Late Fourteenth-Century Egypt
- Source:
- Christianity and Monasticism in Middle Egypt
- Author(s):
Mark Swanson
- Publisher:
- American University in Cairo Press
In recent years, Dayr al-Muharraq has shared some of its riches with the wider world through the publication of transcriptions of manuscripts from the monastery's library. This chapter sheds new light on an important manuscript, virtually unknown to scholars, that was made by a monk of the monastery—a rare edition of a work called al-Hawi, by al-Makin Jirjis ibn al-ʻAmid. It considers Ibn al-ʻAmid's contribution to one of the earliest apologetic topics in the history of Christian-Muslim controversy, that of how to discern the true religion from among the various religions on offer. Ibn al-ʻAmid strongly rejects the idea of worldly success as an indicator of a religion's truth. In doing so, he may well have been countering forms of argumentation that he had heard from Muslims; but he also cut off at the root a Christian form of argumentation that had been a temptation from the time that Christianity achieved imperial approval under the emperor Constantine.
Keywords: Dayr al-Muharraq, manuscripts, Christianity, Islam, true religion
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- Title Pages
- Dedication
- Illustrations
- Contributors
- Maps
- Foreword
- Introduction
-
1 The Monastery of Apa Thomas at Wadi Sarga: Points of Departure for a Relative Chronology -
2 Intellectual Life in Middle Egypt: The Case of the Monastery of Bawit (Sixth–Eighth Centuries) -
3 Christianity and Monasticism in al-Bahnasa according to Arabic Sources -
4 Mesokemic or ‘Middle Egyptian’—the Coptic Dialect of Oxyrhynchos (?) -
5 The Monastery of Apollo at Bala’iza and Its Literary Texts -
6 “Twenty Thousand Nuns”: The Domestic Virgins of Oxyrhynchos -
7 Anba Isaac, Bishop of the Fayoum, al-Bahnasa, and Giza, 1834–81 -
8 The Monastery of the Holy Virgin Mary at al-Muharraq, Mount Qusqam: History and Heritage (Reflections of Its Monks) -
9 John of Shmoun and Coptic Identity -
10 Christianity in Asyut in Modern History -
11 The Place of Qusqam in the Textual Data on the Flight into Egypt -
12 John of Lykopolis -
13 Discerning the True Religion in Late Fourteenth-Century Egypt -
14 Egyptian Gnosticism from Its Cradle in the Alexandrian Quarters of the Second Century to Its Jar Tomb in the Upper Egyptian Town of Nag‘ Hammadi -
15 Notes on the Arabic Life of Ibrahim al-Fani: A Coptic Saint of the Fourteenth Century -
16 Snippets from the Past -
17 Liturgy of the Monastery of al-Muharraq -
18 L⋆ as a Secret Language -
19 Bawit in the Twenty-first Century: Bibliography 1997–2014 -
20 Children’s Burials from Antinoopolis -
21 Recent Excavations at Bawit -
22 Funerary Aspects in the Paintings from the Apollo Monastery at Bawit -
23 The Cave of John of Lykopolis -
24 Al-Shaykh Sa‘id Revisited -
25 Toward the Documentation of the Monastery of the Holy Virgin at al-Muharraq, Asyut -
26 The Monastery of the Holy Virgin Mary at al-Muharraq, Mount Qusqam: Reflections of Its Monks Today -
27 An Overview of Rock-cut Coptic Sites in Asyut -
28 Architectural Typology of Historic Coptic Churches from Oxyrhynchos to Dayr al-Ganadla - Abbreviations
- Bibliography
