al-Makīn Ǧirǧis Ibn al-ʿAmīd: Universal History

Martino Diez, Ph.D. (2007), is Associate Professor of Arabic Language and Literature at the Catholic University of Milan. He is scientific director of the Oasis International Foundation. In 2019 he was a visiting member to the School of Historical Studies at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton. He has mainly published on Abbasid literature (al-Mutanabbī and al-Maʿarrī) and Christian-Muslim relations.

"Martino Diez has rendered a great service in making the first 91 chapters of al-Makīn Ǧirǧis Ibn al-ʿAmīd’s Universal History more accessible than ever. Students, researchers, and casually interested audiences can profitably use this significant historical resource. It gives a firm and reliable foundation for using Ibn al-ʿAmīd to contribute to research in historical, cultural, and religious studies, such as into how Muslim historians appropriated Ibn al-ʿAmīd’s Universal History, illuminating a concrete example of Christian-Muslim literary cross-pollination." - Simon Luke Robinson Burke, in: Islamochristiana 50, pp. 328-329"We can conclude by saying that we hope and expect that this edition of Ibn al-ʿAmīd’s KT will also attract the attention of those working in fields beyond Christian Arabic and Islamic historiography. Standing at a crossroads of different transmission lines that go back to Late Antiquity and reach early Modern Europe, this work has finally found the edition it deserved, which will make it accessible to anyone interested in the cultural history of the Mediterranean world." - Jonathan Stutz, Theologische Fakultät, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, in: Journal of Eastern Christian Studies 76, pp. 139-142"Grâce à ce travail éditorial méticuleux et bien documenté, l’Histoire universelle d’Ibn al-ʿAmīd a enfin trouvé l’édition qu’elle méritait, ce qui la rendra accessible à quiconque s’intéresse à l’histoire politique et culturelle du monde méditerranéen." - Jonathan Stutz, in: MIDÉO [Online], 40 (2025) [http://journals.openedition.org/mideo/10642, accessed 17 April 2025]"Martino Diez has undertaken a formidable task and has acquitted himself superbly. The original Arabic text is accompanied by a fluent English translation and abundant notes. In the introduction Diez reconstructs the life of al-Makīn, and examines his sources, his style, and the manuscript history of the text. A detailed analysis of the various surviving codices is also provided." - Alastair Hamilton, Warburg Institute, London, in: JAOS 145.2 (2025), pp. 445-446"C’est un véritable monument, valant son pesant, non pas d’or, mais d’érudition que nous livre ici Martino Diez, avec l’édition critique et la traduction, précédées d’une magistrale introduction, de la première partie de l’Histoire universelle d’al-Makīn Ǧirǧis Ibn al-ʿAmīd, mieux connu en Occident, depuis le XVIIe siècle, sous le nom de Georges Elmacin"."On ne peut que souhaiter bon vent à Diez pour la suite de son voyage éditorial". - Pierre Larcher, Aix-Marseille Univ, CNRS, IREMAM, in: Arabica73 (2026), pp 235-242