Ibn Kabar

Ibn Kabar (Shams al-Riʾāsa Abū al-Barakāt ibn Kabar, d. 1324) was a Coptic Christian author of an ecclesiastical encyclopedia known as Mișbâḥ al-ẓulma.

He was secretary to the Mamluk minister Baybars al-Manșûrî, presumably editing the latter's work Zubdat al-fikra fi ta'rîkh al-hijra ("quintessence of thought in Muslim history"). He was ordained as a priest in 1300, under the name of Barsum and took office in Mu'allaqah, the ancient Coptic church in Cairo. A number of rhyming Arabic sermons of his have been preserved. He had to flee the persecution of Christians in 1321, and died shortly after.

His main works are:

• Al-Sullam al-kabir "the great ladder", a Bohairic-Arabic lexicon. This work was widely received and survives in numerous copies. It was first edited in 1643 in Rome with a Latin translation by Athanasius Kircher (Lingua Ægyptiaca restituta).
• Mișbâḥ al-ẓulma wa-îḍâḥ al-khidma ("the lamp of shadows and the illumination of service"), an ecclesiastical encyclopedia in 24 chapters and divided in two large parts. The first part, chapters 1 to 6, is dedicated to dogmatic and canonical matters (theology, hagiography, canon law, biblical exegesis) and the second part (chapters 8 to 24) deals with the office of the various categories of priests from a liturgical and practical viewpoint. Interposed between the two parts is chapter 7, a very valuable catalogue of books by Christian authors of different denominations that were available in Arabic (partly via translation from Greek, Syriac or Coptic) at the time.

References

• Eugène Tisserant, Louis Villecourt, Gaston Wiet, Recherches sur la personnalité et la vie d'Abul Barakat Ibn Kubr, Revue de l'Orient chrétien XXII, 1921-22, 373-394.
• Eugène Tisserant, 'Le calendrier d'Abû l-Barakât ', Patrologia Orientalis 49 Paris, Firmin-Didot, 1915, 47-286.
• Samir Khalil Samir (ed.), Mișbâḥ al-ẓulma fī iḑâḥ al-khidma, 2 volumes, Cairo, 1971-1998.
• Samir Khalil Samir, 'L'encyclopédie liturgique d'Ibn Kabar († 1324) et son apologie d'usages coptes', in: H.-J. Feulner, E. Velkovska, R. F. Taft (eds.), Crossroad of Cultures. Studies in liturgy and patristics in honor of Gabriele Winkler (Orientalia Christiana Analecta 260), Rome, 2000, 619-655.
• Wilhelm Riedel (ed.),'Der Katalog der christlichen Schriften in arabischer Sprache von Abū l-Barakāt', Nachrichten der kgl. Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen, philologisch-hist. Klasse 5 (1902), 635-706.
• Louis Villecourt, Eugène Tisserant, Gaston Wiet (eds.), 'Livre de la lampe des ténèbres et de l'exposition (lumineuse) du service (de l'Église)', Patrologia Orientalis 99, Paris, Firmin-Didot, 1929.