SSCN Voumes 1-10, 1994-2004

St. Shenouda Coptic Newsletter

this church through the prayers of the martyrs and

the saints Amen.

Severus ibn al-Muqaffa‘ Bishop of Ashmunain (1) (by Ramses Wassif)

the one who always curls up, is not known. Besides his native Coptic language, Abu Bashir mastered the Arabic language and learned Greek as he grew up. He was the first Copt to adopt Arabic in ecclesiastical literature at a time when Coptic was being little by little replaced by Arabic as the lingua franca of the educated Copts. Abu Bashir held certain public offices under the Ikhshidids and reached the level of a secretary (Katib), an important step in the ascend for an administrative career, before he abandoned his profession to become a monk. His reputation as a man of knowledge and having good ascetic life, made the Patriarch Anba Macarius (933-53 AD) call him and ordain him bishop of Ashmunain in upper Egypt, most probably before he reached the age of fifty, the canonical age to be a bishop in the Coptic Church at that time. Severus lived to be eighty-years old, and died sometime after 987 AD during the patriarchate of Anba Philotheos (976-99 AD) which means that he was a bishop for over thirty years. Severus’ Literary Activities: Severus’ main concern was the deterioration in the knowledge of the Copts about the traditions and the teachings of their own church. As many of them could not understand Coptic any longer, the influence of hearing the religious interpretations of the Moslems was starting to show up in their faith. To deal with that problem, he adopted writing in Arabic and dealt in his literary activities mainly with the religious education of the people, the exposition of the Bible, everyday morality, and the liturgy. We have two lists for the works of Severus. The first is given in the biography of the Alexandrian Patriarch Philotheos, a contemporary of Severus. This list shows twenty works:

Introduction: The tenth century started with Egypt under the rule of the Tulunids. A brief revert to the ‘Abbasid Caliphs of Baghdad followed from 905 to 935 AD. In 935, Mohammed b. Tughj al-Ikhshid was able to establish the Ikhshidid Dynasty and rule Egypt independently. As the Ikhshidids grew weaker, they were overcome by the stronger Fatimids of North Africa. The Fatimids founded Cairo in 969 AD. and made it the new capital for their rule which lasted for another two hundred years. The rule of Egypt by independent dynasties for most of the tenth century made it a time of progress. In general, that century seems to have been a splendid time for the production of Arabic Literature in Egypt and elsewhere. It is the century of prominent poets, writers and historians and is considered in the heart of the Golden Age of Arabic Literature at large. Among the historians who flourished in that century were such celebrated men as al-Tabari (d. 923), al-Mas‘udi (d. 956) and Al- Kindi the Egyptian (897-961). Two of the best historians of the church who wrote in Arabic, flourished at that time. Both of them were clergymen, the one, who is the subject of this study, was a bishop in the Coptic Church; the other was a patriarch of the Melekite Church named Sai‘d ibn Batriq. Biography of Severus:

St. Shenouda Coptic Newsletter We do not have a complete biography of Severus, but from the little information that we have about his life we can draw the main outlines.

Severus was born sometime between 905 and 915 AD. as Abu Bishr (or Abu Bashir) to a father that was known by the appelative name of ibn al- Muqaffa‘. The origin of his father’s appelative name, which means the one with a bowed head or

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