Abu al-Makarim
Coptic Christian writer
Abu l-Makārim Saʿdullāh ibn Jirjis ibn Masʿūd (Arabic: ابو المكارم سعد الله بن جرجس بن مسعود; died 1208) was a priest of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria in the thirteenth century. Abu al-Makarim is best known as the author of a famous work entitled History of Churches and Monasteries (Arabic: تاريخ ألكنائس وألأديرة). This was written around 1200.
Abu al-Makarim's work is one of the most important sources on the Coptic Church's life during his period and is frequently referenced by scholars of Coptic history.
The work first became known in the West when a portion of a manuscript of it was purchased in 1674 in Ottoman Egypt for three piastres by Johann Michael Vansleb. The manuscript is now in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, ms. arabe 307, which manuscript is dated 1338 CE. A photographic copy of it is in the Coptic Museum in Cairo. This manuscript was edited and published by B.T.A. Evetts in 1895, with an English translation, as if Abū Ṣāliḥ the Armenian was the author, when he was merely the owner of the manuscript, as determined by the scholars Ugo Zanetti and Johannes den Heijer.
Another manuscript has since been discovered in Munich; and a third in Egypt.
An edition of the Egyptian manuscript was printed in Arabic in four volumes, with its volume 2 including the same portion published by Evetts and its volume 4 representing other travellers' reports.
“Abu al-Makarim” enters the record as coptic Christian writer. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what al-Makarim, Coptic and Christian can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Abu al-Makarim” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, al-Makarim, Coptic and Christian provides the most credible route into that argument.
Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jan 15, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q74095. VIAF identifies the subject as 120445278. The Library of Congress control number is n2010023199. 1 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1208, 1200, 1674 and 1338.
A concise life account rarely captures disputed attribution, private networks or the changing language used to describe a career. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.
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Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.
Three-step research path
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- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “Abu al-Makarim” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.