He is the author of a world chronicle in two parts. It is traditionally known as
al-Majmu` al-Mubarak (
The blessed collection), but in fact its real title is simply
Kitāb al-Taʾrīḫ (
Book of History/Chronology). The first portion runs from Adam down to the 11th year of
Heraclius and consists of a series of 166 numbered biographies, in some manuscripts ending with a list of the Patriarchs of the Church of
Alexandria. The second half is devoted to Islamic history, from the time of
Muḥammad to the accession of the Mamluk Sultan
Baybars in 1260. This second half is mainly derived from
al-Ṭabarī, as the author tells us, through
Ibn Wāṣil. The
Kitāb al-Taʾrīḫ is essentially a learned compilation of earlier sources: the
Bible first and foremost, the world chronology of
Ibn al-Rahib, but also the works of the Melkite authors Ibn Biṭrīq (
Eutychius of Alexandria) and
Agapius (al-Manbiǧī), the
Josippon,
hermetic sources, and a mysterious Rūzbihān, who is credited with a history of pre-Islamic Persia. The book proved influential among different readerships: Eastern Christians, Muslim historians, and early modern Arabists. It is preserved in more than 40 manuscripts in different recensions. In particular, it was used by the 14-15th century Mamluk historians
Ibn Khaldūn,
al-Qalqashandī, and
al-Maqrīzī. The second half of the
Kitāb al-Taʾrīḫ was published in
Arabic with
Latin translation in
Leiden in 1625. It was chiefly the work of
Thomas Erpenius, although it was completed and published posthumously by his disciple
Golius. The
Historia Saracenica, as
Erpenius entitled it, was a breakthrough in European knowledge of Islamic history and it was soon translated into
French by
Pierre Vattier as ''L'Histoire mahométane'' (
Paris, 1657). An abbreviated English translation was also made from the Latin by
Samuel Purchas as early as 1626. The edition and translation by
Erpenius was one of the first ever made of an Arabic text in early modern Europe and suffers accordingly from the lack of lexica. It has been only partially emended by a new Egyptian edition by ʿAlī Bakr Ḥasan (Cairo, 2010, unfortunately on the same two manuscripts that were used by
Erpenius). The work is still partly unedited. In 2023 Martino Diez published a critical edition with English translation of the first quarter, from Adam to the end of the Achaemenids, which is expected to be followed by a second volume from Alexander the Great to Heraclius. The last part, from the author's birth to the end of the work, was edited by Claude Cahen and translated into French by Anne-Marie Eddé and Françoise Micheau. An Ethiopic translation of the whole work also exists. From the manuscript British Library, Oriental 814,
E. Wallis Budge translated the chapter on Alexander the Great, which contains verbatim extracts from the old Arabic Hermetic work
al-Isṭimākhīs.
Muffaḍḍal ibn Abī l-Faḍāʾil, who may have been the author's great-nephew, wrote a continuation of the chronicle to the death of
al-Nāṣir Muḥammad ibn Qalāwūn in 1341. This appendix mainly covers secular history, with only limited references to events in the Coptic community. The continuation was apparently written for personal use and has been edited and translated in European languages: from the beginning to 1317 by Edgar Blochet, in French; from 1317 to the end by Samira Kortantamer, in German. ==References==