Cambridge Semitic Languages and Cultures The Marvels Found in the Great Cities and in the Seas and on the Islands The Marvels Found in the Great Cities S e - A Representative of A aib Literature in Syriac r and in the Seas and on the Islands ʿ ǧ ʾ g Sergey Minov e y - M A Representative of A aaib Literature in Syriac This volume presents the original text, accompanied by an English ʿ ǧ ʾ i transla� on and commentary, of a hitherto unpublished Syriac composi� on, n en� tled The Marvels Found in the Great Citi es and in the Seas and on the o S M ERGEY INOV v Islands. Produced by an unknown East Syrian Chris� an author during the late medieval or early modern period, this work off ers a loosely organized catalogue of marvellous events, phenomena, and objects, natural as well as human-made, found throughout the world. The Marvels is a unique composi� on in that it bears witness to the crea� ve adop� on by Syriac Chris� ans of the paradoxographical literary genre that was very popular among Arab and Persian Muslim writers. The East Syrian author blends M together inherited Chris� an, borrowed Muslim, and local oral tradi� ons, a r providing his audience with a fascina� ng panorama of imaginary geography. v e As with all Open Book publica� ons, this en� re book is available to read l s for free on the publisher’s website. Printed and digital edi� ons, together F with supplementary digital material, can also be found here: www. o u openbookpublishers.com n d Cover image: An image from the manuscript of Zakarīyā al-Qazwīnī’s Kitāb ‘Aǧā’ib al-maḫlūqāt wa-ġarā’ib al-mauǧūdāt (1750–1770); Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Cod. arab. 463, fol. 78r. Courtesy of Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, München. Cover design: Anna Ga� e 6 book ebook and OA edi� ons also available OBP THE MARVELS FOUND IN THE GREAT CITIES AND IN THE SEAS AND ON THE ISLANDS The Marvels Found in the Great Cities and in the Seas and on the Islands A Representative of ‘Aǧā’ib Literature in Syriac Sergey Minov https://www.openbookpublishers.com © 2021 Sergey Minov. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0). This license allows you to share, copy, distribute and transmit the text; to adapt the text and to make commercial use of the text providing attribution is made to the authors (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). Attribution should include the following information: Sergey Minov, The Marvels Found in the Great Cities and in the Seas and on the Islands: A Representative of ‘Aǧā’ib Literature in Syriac. Cambridge, UK: Open Book Publishers, 2021, https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0237 In order to access detailed and updated information on the license, please visit, https:// doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0237#copyright Further details about CC BY licenses are available at, https://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/4.0/ All external links were active at the time of publication unless otherwise stated and have been archived via the Internet Archive Wayback Machine at https://archive.org/web Updated digital material and resources associated with this volume are available at https://doi.org/ 10.11647/OBP.0237#resources Every effort has been made to identify and contact copyright holders and any omission or error will be corrected if notification is made to the publisher. ISBN Paperback: 978-1-80064-032-0 Semitic Languages and Cultures 6. ISBN Hardback: 978-1-80064-033-7 ISSN (print): 2632-6906 ISBN Digital (PDF): 978-1-80064-034-4 ISSN (digital): 2632-6914 DOI: 10.11647/OBP.0237 Cover image: An image from the manuscript of Zakarīyā al-Qazwīnī’s Kitāb ‘Aǧā’ib al-maḫlūqāt wa-ġarā’ib al-mauǧūdāt (1750–1770); Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Cod. arab. 463, fol. 78r. Courtesy of Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, München. Cover design: Anna Gatti ةرشع ةثلاثلا ةكلمل How many miles to Babylon? Three score miles and ten. Can I get there by candle-light? Yes, and back again ... If your heels are nimble and your toes are light, You may get there by candle-light. I. Opie and P. Opie, The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997). CONTENTS Acknowledgments ix 1. INTRODUCTION 1 1.1. Textual tradition 5 1.2. Language 14 1.3. Content 17 1.4. Date and milieu 27 2. EDITION AND TRANSLATION 29 2.1. Sigla and Conventions 30 2.2. Recension I 32 2.3. Recension II 68 2.4. Synopsis of Recensions 90 3. COMMENTARY 93 4. INDEXES 163 4.1. Index of toponyms 164 4.2. Index of ethnonyms, demonyms, and personal names 166 5. BIBLIOGRAPHY 167 6.APPENDIX: Manuscript Facsimiles 189 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Since no scholar is an island, I gladly acknowledge my indebted- ness to those colleagues of mine without whose support and en- couragement this book would never have been written. While the thought of publishing the Marvels has been on my mind since I first came across this fascinating composition in Berlin’s Staatsbibliothek in the year 2014, the main bulk of re- search behind this book was carried out while being a member of the project Stories of Survival: Recovering the Connected Histories of Eastern Christianity in the Early Modern World, which is suppor- ted by funding from a European Research Council Starting Grant under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innova- tion programme (grant agreement no. 638578). I am deeply gra- teful to John-Paul Ghobrial, the head of the project, for his gene- rous support, as well as to its other members — Salam Rassi, Lucy Parker, Feras Krimsti, Tobias Graf, and Nora Schmid, whose sug- gestions have helped me to improve this book significantly. Moreover, I owe a great debt of gratitude to two syriaci- santes of Paris — Flavia Ruani, who provided me with some cru- cial information on the manuscript tradition of the Marvels, and Alice Croq, who generously put her impressive knowledge of Muslim and Christian Arabic literature at my disposal. I am also grateful to Sebastian P. Brock, Alessandro Mengozzi, Nikolai Seleznyov, as well as to two reviewers of the book, for their thoughtful comments and corrections. Needless to say, all re- maining errors are my own.