An Arabic Medical Manuscript with Greek Maculatur

1. When I started studying the history of the fragmentary Sinai manuscripts kept at the Bavarian State Library in Munich, the digitized acquisition list of Oriental manuscripts (fig. 1) proofed very helpful. In 1921, the library bought six Christian Arabic fragments of Sinaitic provenance from the collector Friedrich Grote (1861-1922).¹ Interestingly, the library’s acquisition list shows that another Arabic manuscript had been bought from Grote already two years earlier. The manuscript’s shelfmark is MS Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Cod.arab. 1065. Since this is an incomplete² copy of the famous medical encyclopaedia Kitāb Kāmil al-ṣināʿa al-ṭibbiyya (The Complete Art of Medicine) by the Persian physician ʿAlī b. al-ʿAbbās al-Maǧūsī (d. 384/994), there wasn’t much reason to suspect a Sinaitic origin at first. Any possible suspicion was further dissipated by the following indication of provenance: “He [Grote] acquired the manuscript in Syria shortly before the outbreak of the war [WWI]” (“Dieser hat die Hs. kurz vor Ausbruch des Weltkriegs in Syrien erworben”).³ Grote had visited Jerusalem already in 1887 and so I assumed that he must have acquired the manuscript on a similar trip.⁴

2. Contrary to my first impression, however, the manuscript merits detailed attention. First of all, the entry on the acquisition list includes an intriguing note to the effect that the original cover contained both in the front and back board pastedowns of parchment leaves with Greek text in two columns. This Greek text is tentatively identified as a theological work and dated to the 11th century CE. In his catalogue of the Arabic(-script) manuscripts of the Bavarian State Library, Florian Sobieroj has mentioned this “maculatur” as well. Since the cover was apparently heavily damaged, the Greek fragments were removed and substituted with paper leaves.⁵ Felix Wiedemann, subject specialist for Arabic and Islamic Studies, kindly helped me to locate the shelfmark of at least one of these fragments: MS Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Cod.greac. 610(8 (fig. 2).⁶ Fortunately, this fragment has already been digitized. What is more, Friederike Berger identified the text as Hippolytus of Rome’s Commentary on Daniel, the earliest known extant Christian Bible commentary.⁷ Berger dated the fragment to the 9th century CE.

3. The second fragment turns out to be a bit of a mystery. Berger notes that, according to internal cataloguing material, the whole shelfmark 610(8 got lost during World War II.⁸ Wolfgang-Valentin Ikas (Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Handschriften und Alte Drucke) suggested that this information might explain why there is only one fragment today. However, he deems it more likely that the second fragment is not a manuscript fragment in the proper sense, but rather another bit of the original binding, today kept under the shelfmark MS Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Cod.graec. 610(8a (fig. 3). This part of the binding consists of leather and exhibits mirror imprints of the recto of the first fragment.⁹ What’s still a bit puzzling is that the author of the entry on the acquisition list did not take note of the difference in writing support nor of the fact that the second fragment shows mirror imprints of the first. Another question that remains open concers the parent codex of the Greek fragment. The collection of Greek manuscripts of St Catherine’s Monastery is not my area of competence. Hence, I turned to Georgi Parpulov (Niedersächsische Akademie der Wissenschaften) who has recently published on Greek dispersed manuscripts from Sinai.¹⁰ At first glance, he could not connect the handwriting with a manuscript from Sinai.

4. The fact that the original cover of the Arabic medical manuscript contained remnants of a Greek Bible commentary is still a good indication that the Arabic manuscript circulated in a Christian milieu. There are further examples of such dispersed books within dispersed books. I will dedicate a separate post to this phenomenon. There are also further important indications, apart from the manuscript itself, that its users might not only have been Christians, but Arabic-speaking Christians, or at least members of a community in which both Greek and Arabic was used. The first folio actually comes from a different codex and bears a Christianised Hermetic text on the verso side.¹¹ The recto exhibits pen trials with Christian basmalas and ḥamdalas. Hence, although the Maǧūsī manuscript is obviously not a Christian text, its codicological features betray its use within an arabophone Christian community and it is well known that the Sinai monastery was home to members of such a community over centuries.

5. In order to establish the manuscript’s provenance, we have to return to its acquisition history. As I mentioned at the beginning, according to the information recorded on the acquistion list, it was bought by Friedrich Grote in Syria around 1914. However, it can be demonstrated that this information is wrong. The key piece of evidence is an anonymously published article in the Cairo-based periodical al-Muqtaṭaf, which appeared in March 1894 (Šaʿbān 1311).¹² The text is entitled Kunūz Sīnāʾ aw al-kutub al-ʿarabiyya fī Ṭūr Sīnāʾ – “Treasures of Sinai or the Arabic Books on Mount Sinai” (fig. 4). It starts by referencing the groundbreaking discoveries of Constantin Tischendorf and Agnes Smith Lewis. Yet, the hero of the text is no other than Friedrich Grote. It describes no less than eight manuscripts purportedly discovered by Grote at St Catherine’s Monastery (not all of which are actually Arabic manuscripts). I have written a post on one of these over at the Biblia Arabica blog. The whole story of the Muqtaṭaf manuscripts is explored in a forthcoming publication.¹³ In the article, three manuscripts are described in some detail, while in the case of the remaining five only the subject matter is indicated and a random line of text quoted. The first of these five manuscripts is described as “one leaf from a medical book” (waraqa min kitāb ṭibbī).¹⁴ Then, the following line of Arabic text is quoted:

وكذلك لا سبيل الى انبات الشعر في الصلع الطبيعي لان ذلك انما يكون من سبب طبيعي تغلب على مزاج الدماغ ومادة الراس

“And likewise, it is impossible to cause hair to sprout on a natural bald head, since this is due only to a natural cause, which overcomes the temprament of the brain and the matter of the head.”¹⁴

As it turns out, the quote comes from Maǧūsī’s Kāmil. It is found in the part that is preserved in the Munich manuscript. The quoted line is found on folio 280r, lines 1-3. What immediately struck me when I saw the manuscript in September 2022 were two horizontal folds in folios 280 and 281. These folds looked like the two folios were at some point brought to the rectangular size of an envelope. Now, the Muqtaṭaf article mentions only one “leaf” (waraqa) and it is not clear whether its author saw the leaf itself or a photograph of it, since Grote is said to have photographed many manuscripts. However, the folds in the folios are suspicious. They clearly show that they have been detached from the codex. Its probably no coincidence that one of the two folios bears exactly the text that is quoted in the Muqtaṭaf.

6. Notably, all the manuscripts mentioned in the article are presented as discoveries that Grote made at St Catherine’s Monastery. Yet, not one of them has stayed in the monastery. It is not clear yet how Grote could get hold of these manuscripts. In some cases, however, their provenance is undoubtedly connected to him. Accordingly, there is not much reason to assume that the “medical manuscript” of the Muqtaṭaf article is not the one we now find in the Bavarian State Library. This shows, first of all, the potential importance of provenance research for understanding the history of a manuscript. Apparently, the Munich manuscript once had an arabophone Christian monastic readership.¹⁵ This also adds information about the history of St Catherine’s collection of Arabic manuscripts. The only other example of a medical manuscript that I’m aware of is an incomplete copy of ʿAlī Ibn ʿĪsā’s (fl. 5th/11th century) Taḏkirat al-Kaḥḥālīn.¹⁶ Even though still sparse, the collection by no means only included biblical, liturgical, theological, hagiographical, or otherwise identifiably Christian manuscripts in Arabic.

Published: 14 July 2023. Last updated: 12 April 2024. License: CC BY-NC. Download PDF

1. These were first described in Georg Graf, “Christlich-arabische Handschriftenfragmente in der Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek”, Oriens Christianus, 4. Serie, 38 (1954), pp. 125-132. See now also Florian Sobieroj, Arabische Handschriften der Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek zu München unter Einschluss einiger türkischer und persischer Handschriften, vol. 1, Verzeichnis der Orientalischen Handschriften in Deutschland, 17, B, 8 (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 2007), pp. 11-21. This post is based on observations that I will also publish in a forthcoming article; see Peter Tarras, “The Legacy of a Failed Amateur Enthusiast: Friedrich Grote’s Sinaitic “Discoveries” and Their Post-Sinaitic Fate“. [↩]
2. The manuscript contains part 2, treatises 1-5. The beginning of treatise 1 and the end of treatise 5 is missing. Cf. F. Sobieroj, Arabische Handschriften, pp. 9-11. [↩]
3. This entry on the acquisition list was probably made by Emil Gratzl (1877-1957) who was in charge of acquiring Oriental manuscripts for the State Library at the time. I’m grateful to Helga Rebhan for pointing this out to me. On Gratzl, see her “Emil Gratzl als Orientalist”, in: Klaus Haller, Klaus Kempf (eds), Sammeln und Erwerben an der Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek: In Memorian Emil Gratzl (1877-1957), Schriftenreihe der Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek, 4 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2011), pp. 79-82. [↩]
4. Grote described his visit to Jerusalem in the only publication under his name I was able to trace: Friedrich Grote, “Wo liegt Golgotha?”, Zeitschrift für kirchliche Wissenschaft und kirchliches Leben, 8 (1887), pp. 25-34. See also Peter Tarras, “From Sinai to Munich: Tracing the History of a Fragment from the Grote Collection“, Comparative Oriental Manuscripts Bulletin, 6/1 (2020), pp. 73-90, at p. 81. [↩]
5. F. Sobieroj, Arabische Handschriften, p. 9. [↩]
6. In the course of our correspondence, provenance information was added to the online catalogue entries for MSS Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Cod.arab. 1065 and Cod.graec. 610(8. [↩]
7. Friederike Berger, Katalog der griechischen Handschriften der Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek München, vol. 9: Codices graeci Monacenses 575-650, Catalogus codicum manu scriptorum Bibliothecae Monacensis, II/IX (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2014), pp. 130-131. The text was edited in Gertrude Pycha, “Münchner Pergamentfragmente”, in: Miscellanea Giovanni Galbiati, vol. 2: Filologia classica – storia – letteratura medioevale latina e bizantina – paleografia – letteratura italiana – arte, Fontes Ambrosiani, 26 (Milan: Ulrico Hoepli, 1951), pp. 189-200, at pp. 183-193. [↩]
8. F. Berger, Katalog der griechischen Handschriften, p. 131. [↩]
9. Cf. F. Berger, Katalog der griechischen Handschriften, p. 131. [↩]
10. See Georgi R. Parpulov, “Membra disiecta Sinaitica Graeca“, Fragmentology: A Journal for the Study of Medieval Manuscript Fragments, 5 (2022), pp. 79-85. [↩]
11. Reproduced in F. Sobieroj, Arabische Handschriften, p. 11. [↩]
12. “Kunūz Sīnāʾ aw al-Kutub al-ʿArabiyya fī Ṭūr Sīnāʾ [Treasures of the Sinai or the Arabic Books on Mount Sinai]“, al-Muqtaṭaf, 18/6 (1 March/Adhār/23 Shaʿbān, 1894), pp. 365-368. [↩]
13. See note 1 above. [↩]
14. “Kunūz Sīnāʾ”, p. 368. [↩] [↩]
15. In a post on the Asian and African studies blog of the British Library, Bink Hallum dealt with another Sinaitic manuscript (MS London, British Library, Or. 8857) that contains, among others, astrological texts. He makes the following interesting observation: “The fragment ends with an anonymous introductory text on astrology, which includes an unusual method for determining a person’s ascendant […] through numerological analysis of their name and that of their mother. While this text may seem the least appropriate in a monastery, there was considerable legal and theological disagreement about which of the various astrological practices were licit or illicit, and knowledge of the planets’ influences on the environment and the human body was generally considered an important part of maintaining good health and wellbeing”. Without exploring this manuscript’s provenance, it would not at all be clear that such texts were studied in this Christian Arabic monastic context. This sheds light both on the history of the use of these texts and the history of their collection context. [↩]
16. See Aziz S. Atiya, The Arabic Manuscripts of Mount Sinai: A hand-list of the Arabic manuscripts and scrolls microfilmed at the library of the Monastery of St. Catherine, Mount Sinai (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1955), p. 23. [↩]

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