The Marvels Found in the Great Cities and in the Seas and on the Islands: A Representative of ‘Aǧā’ib Literature in Syriac

216 Pages·2021·14.088 MB·English

by  Sergey Minov

Cambridge Semitic Languages and Cultures
The Marvels Found in the Great Cities
and in the Seas and on the Islands The Marvels Found in the Great Cities
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A Representative of A aib Literature in Syriac r and in the Seas and on the Islands
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Sergey Minov e
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This volume presents the original text, accompanied by an English
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transla� on and commentary, of a hitherto unpublished Syriac composi� on,
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en� tled The Marvels Found in the Great Citi es and in the Seas and on the o
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ERGEY INOV
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Islands. Produced by an unknown East Syrian Chris� an author during the
late medieval or early modern period, this work off ers a loosely organized
catalogue of marvellous events, phenomena, and objects, natural as well
as human-made, found throughout the world. The Marvels is a unique
composi� on in that it bears witness to the crea� ve adop� on by Syriac
Chris� ans of the paradoxographical literary genre that was very popular
among Arab and Persian Muslim writers. The East Syrian author blends M
together inherited Chris� an, borrowed Muslim, and local oral tradi� ons, a
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providing his audience with a fascina� ng panorama of imaginary geography.
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As with all Open Book publica� ons, this en� re book is available to read l
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for free on the publisher’s website. Printed and digital edi� ons, together F
with supplementary digital material, can also be found here: www. o
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Cover image: An image from the manuscript of Zakarīyā al-Qazwīnī’s Kitāb ‘Aǧā’ib al-maḫlūqāt wa-ġarā’ib
al-mauǧūdāt (1750–1770); Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Cod. arab. 463, fol. 78r. Courtesy of Bayerische
Staatsbibliothek, München.
Cover design: Anna Ga�
e 6
book
ebook and OA edi� ons
also available
OBP
THE MARVELS FOUND
IN THE GREAT CITIES
AND IN THE SEAS
AND ON THE ISLANDS

The Marvels Found in the
Great Cities and in the Seas
and on the Islands
A Representative of ‘Aǧā’ib Literature
in Syriac
Sergey Minov
https://www.openbookpublishers.com
© 2021 Sergey Minov.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license
(CC BY 4.0). This license allows you to share, copy, distribute and transmit the text; to
adapt the text and to make commercial use of the text providing attribution is made to the
authors (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work).
Attribution should include the following information:
Sergey Minov, The Marvels Found in the Great Cities and in the Seas and on the Islands: A
Representative of ‘Aǧā’ib Literature in Syriac. Cambridge, UK: Open Book Publishers, 2021,
https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0237
In order to access detailed and updated information on the license, please visit, https://
doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0237#copyright
Further details about CC BY licenses are available at, https://creativecommons.org/
licenses/by/4.0/
All external links were active at the time of publication unless otherwise stated and have
been archived via the Internet Archive Wayback Machine at https://archive.org/web
Updated digital material and resources associated with this volume are available at
https://doi.org/ 10.11647/OBP.0237#resources
Every effort has been made to identify and contact copyright holders and any omission or
error will be corrected if notification is made to the publisher.
ISBN Paperback: 978-1-80064-032-0
Semitic Languages and Cultures 6.
ISBN Hardback: 978-1-80064-033-7
ISSN (print): 2632-6906
ISBN Digital (PDF): 978-1-80064-034-4
ISSN (digital): 2632-6914
DOI: 10.11647/OBP.0237
Cover image: An image from the manuscript of Zakarīyā al-Qazwīnī’s Kitāb ‘Aǧā’ib
al-maḫlūqāt wa-ġarā’ib al-mauǧūdāt (1750–1770); Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Cod. arab.
463, fol. 78r. Courtesy of Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, München.
Cover design: Anna Gatti
ةرشع ةثلاثلا ةكلمل
How many miles to Babylon?
Three score miles and ten.
Can I get there by candle-light?
Yes, and back again ...
If your heels are nimble and your toes are light,
You may get there by candle-light.
I. Opie and P. Opie, The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery
Rhymes (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997).

CONTENTS
Acknowledgments ix
1. INTRODUCTION 1
1.1. Textual tradition 5
1.2. Language 14
1.3. Content 17
1.4. Date and milieu 27
2. EDITION AND TRANSLATION 29
2.1. Sigla and Conventions 30
2.2. Recension I 32
2.3. Recension II 68
2.4. Synopsis of Recensions 90
3. COMMENTARY 93
4. INDEXES 163
4.1. Index of toponyms 164
4.2. Index of ethnonyms, demonyms,
and personal names 166
5. BIBLIOGRAPHY 167
6.APPENDIX: Manuscript Facsimiles 189

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Since no scholar is an island, I gladly acknowledge my indebted-
ness to those colleagues of mine without whose support and en-
couragement this book would never have been written.
While the thought of publishing the Marvels has been on
my mind since I first came across this fascinating composition in
Berlin’s Staatsbibliothek in the year 2014, the main bulk of re-
search behind this book was carried out while being a member
of the project Stories of Survival: Recovering the Connected Histories
of Eastern Christianity in the Early Modern World, which is suppor-
ted by funding from a European Research Council Starting Grant
under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innova-
tion programme (grant agreement no. 638578). I am deeply gra-
teful to John-Paul Ghobrial, the head of the project, for his gene-
rous support, as well as to its other members — Salam Rassi, Lucy
Parker, Feras Krimsti, Tobias Graf, and Nora Schmid, whose sug-
gestions have helped me to improve this book significantly.
Moreover, I owe a great debt of gratitude to two syriaci-
santes of Paris — Flavia Ruani, who provided me with some cru-
cial information on the manuscript tradition of the Marvels, and
Alice Croq, who generously put her impressive knowledge of
Muslim and Christian Arabic literature at my disposal. I am also
grateful to Sebastian P. Brock, Alessandro Mengozzi, Nikolai
Seleznyov, as well as to two reviewers of the book, for their
thoughtful comments and corrections. Needless to say, all re-
maining errors are my own.