Dar Mardin: Christian Arabic and Syriac Studies from the Middle East – serie

The aim of this book is to demonstrate the movement of Greek thought into Arabic via the Syriac language. Al-Hamad devotes the four sections of this book to profiling four different authors who either wrote in Syriac or whose works were transmitted into Arabic via Syriac translations: Porphyry, John Philoponos (‘the Grammarian’), Jacob of Edessa and Dionysios of Tellmahre.

This book is a reproduction of Philoxenos Dolabani’s handwritten catalogue of the Syriac, Karshuni, and Arabic manuscripts located in St. Mark’s Syrian Orthodox Monastery in Jerusalem, one of the most important Christian manuscript collections in the Middle East.

This book is a reproduction of Philoxenos Dolabani’s handwritten catalog of the manuscripts contained at Dayr al-Za‘faran. Dolabani was one of the greatest scholars of Syriac in the twentieth century and he made the catalogue while still a monk. This work, two volumes combined under one cover, is an important resource for all interested in Syriac and Christian Arabic.

This book originated in Bishop Yohanna Gregorios’ dissatisfaction with the lack of a study which would show where the music of the Syrian church came from, how it was accepted in the church, the basis on which it entered the church, the regional variation in chanting traditions, and the development of church music through time.