[Useful file] ALPHONSE MINGANA And his contribution to early Christian-Muslim Studies
1878-1937
And his contribution to early Christian-Muslim Studies
By
Samir Khalil Samir SJ
Lecturer at University of St Joseph, Beirut,
Consultant to the Pontificio Istituto Orientale, Rome,
and William Paton Fellow 1990 in the Selly Oak Colleges
A lecture delivered on 25 May 1990 to the First Woodbrooke Mingana Symposium
on “Christian Arabic Apologetic texts during the Abbasid period 750-1258 CE”
Selly Oak Colleges Birmingham B29 6LQ United Kingdom
1990
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1 IRAQ (1878-1913) 6
a) Mingana’s youth in Iraq (1878-1902) 6 i) At home (1878-1891) ii) At the Mosul Seminary (1891-1902)
b) Teaching Syriac in the Mosul Seminary (1902-1910) 7
c) Narsai’s Homilies (1905) 8 i) The edition of Narsai’s Homilies ii) The reaction of Chabot iii) Mingana’s response iv) Mingana’s forgery and its consequences
d) The Chronicle of Arbela (1907) 12 i) A modern manuscript made old and its success ii) Some forgeries of Mingana? iii) The irritation of the Chaldean Patriarch
e) End of Mingana’s career in Mosul and the rupture 14
2 WOODBROOKE (1913-1915) 17
a) Woodbrooke a haven of refuge (1913-1915) 17 i) First months in Britain ii) Short stay at Cambridge iii) Return to Woodbrooke and marriage
b) Mingana’s doctorate 19 i) The story of the ‘papal doctorate’ ii) When did Mingana start using the title ‘Doctor’? iii) Explanation of this fact
3 MINGANA IN MANCHESTER (1915-1932) 23
a) Before the journeys to the Middle East (1915-1924) 23
b) The letter of Philoxenus to Aba ‘Afr 24
c) The catalogue of the John Rylands Library 24
4 AT MANCHESTER: 26 TWO MAJOR ISLAMIC-CHRISTIAN APOLOGIES
a) Tabari’s defence of Islam (1920-1930) K 26 i) The publication of Tabari’s defence of Islam ii) The critique of Peeters and Bouyges iii) The mistake of Peeters and Bouyges iv) The revenge of history
b) The apology of Timothy I (1928) 28
THE MINGANA COLLECTION OF MANUSCRIPTS AND ITS CONSEQUENCES FOR THE SELLY OAK COLLEGES
a) Collecting manuscripts in the Middle East (1924-1929)
b) A safe building for the manuscripts (1924-1926) i) Creation of the “Mingana Collection” (1924) ii) A curator for the new collection (1926) iii) ‘We should make Mingana feel happy amongst us’
c) The new Central Library (1926-1932)
i) The project of building a new Central Library ii) The new Central Library
BACK TO WOODBROOKE (1932-1937) 35
a) Cataloguing his Collection 35
b) “Woodbrooke Studies” and “Woodbrooke Scientific Publications” 35
c) Death and a friend’s testimony 36
CONCLUSIONS 37
a) Mosul as an ecclesiastical milieu at the beginning of the century 37
b) Mingana, a man with ambitious projects and wide horizons 37
c) Mingana as western-eastern scholar 38 i) The double education
ii) Role of Selly Oak for Oriental Christians and in Britain iii) Meaning of the present conference
d) Conclusion 40