The Mamluk Historian al-Amīr Baybars al-Manṣūrī al-Dawādār (d. 725/1325) and his Coptic Secretary al-Qiss al-Shams Abū alBarakāt Ibn Kabar (d. 724/1324) (A New Assessment)

ABSTRACT : In recent decades, the multi-faceted historical work of Baybars al-Manṣūrī al-Khiṭā’ī has attracted a great deal of interest among scholars. A series of editions have been published, and a substantial entry added in the new online edition of the Encyclopaedia of Islam. It is known that this Emir was assisted by his “kātib naṣrānī al-Shams Ibn Kabar” for this monumental compilation, the Zubdat al-fikra / fī Ta’rīkh al-Hijra. Abū al-Barak Ibn Kabar in fact belonged to a patrician Coptic family of Old Cairo and was a priest at the al-Mu‛allaqa Patriarchal church. Above all he was an encyclopedist whose work closes the golden age of medieval Coptic Arabic literature.
In a recently published paper, we have been able to reassign to him the authorship of the abridged version
entitled al-Mukhtār al-akhbār, abusively attributed to Baybars himself in a recent edition of part of the work. In
this paper, we intend to provide a detailed focus on the dossier related to both authors and their literary output in
general, and present some clues as to the actual contribution of the Coptic kātib to his master’s huge historical
compilation.