al-Diyarat lil-Shabashti
- Author died
- 388 AH
- Editions
- al-Diyarat lil-Shabashti
Kitab al-Diyarat (The Book of Monasteries) is an adab and topographical work by al-Shabashti (d. 388 AH / 998 CE) documenting Christian monasteries across Iraq, al-Jazira, Mosul, Syria, and Egypt, alongside the poetry and courtly anecdotes associated with them .
Composition and Method
Al-Shabashti served as keeper of the library and boon companion to the Fatimid caliph al-Aziz Billah in Egypt, likely compiling the work during his stewardship of the royal library . In structuring the text, he followed the genre of monastery monographs established earlier by Abu al-Faraj al-Isbahani and the Khalidiyyan brothers (al-Khalidiyyan) .
The book uses monasteries as entry points to explore the literary and social life of the early Abbasid period . For each monastic site, al-Shabashti outlines its geographical location, physical structure, gardens, and surrounding topography, as well as the Christian festivals celebrated there . He then cites the verses composed by visiting poets and digresses into biographical accounts of poets, singers, princes, and boon companions (nadims), including their interactions with caliphs and court entertainments . Among its unique historical passages is a detailed account of the celebration held by the Abbasid caliph al-Mutawakkil on the occasion of the circumcision of his son al-Mu'tazz . The surviving text treats nine Egyptian monastic sites: Dayr al-Qusayr, Dayr Marihanna, Dayr Nahya, Dayr Tamwayh, Kanisat al-Tur, Bi'at Abi Hur, Dayr Yuhannis, Bi'at Atrib, and a monastery near Akhmim .
Manuscript Tradition and Missing Sections
The work has survived in a single manuscript preserved at the Berlin State Library (Ms. 8321, formerly 1100) . The manuscript is incomplete at the beginning and contains several lacunae: it lost entries for several monasteries in Iraq and almost all monasteries in Syria, leaving only the entry for Dayr al-Bakht intact .
Reception and Modern Editions
Kitab al-Diyarat was widely consulted and quoted by later geographers, encyclopedists, and historians, including Yaqut al-Hamawi in Mu'jam al-Buldan, Ibn Fadl Allah al-Umari in Masalik al-Absar, and al-Maqrizi in al-Mawa'iz wa-al-I'tibar, who drew on its lost Syrian and Iraqi material as well as its Egyptian descriptions .
Extracts from the manuscript were utilized by Habib Zayyat in a 1935 issue of the journal al-Mashriq . In 1939, Aziz Suryal Atiya published the sections describing Egyptian monasteries . The full surviving text was edited by Gurgis Awad and published in Baghdad in 1951, followed by a second edition in 1966 .
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