STUDIES ON THE ORIENTAL SOURCES AND HISTORIOGRAPHY IN ARMENIA (EARLY Ծր․Ամփ․վերջն1 a5 | Page 65

instead of the more common “Patriarch of the Armenians”, by both
the Muslim historian Ibn al-Dawādārī (fl. first half of the fourteenth
century) and the Coptic historian Mufaḍ ḍ al Ibn Abī l-Faḍ ā’il
(d. after 1358).
As I endeavor to show in this paper, the reasons behind such
choice could be different for the Muslim author and the Coptic one.
On the one hand, one may argue that a Muslim writer in Mamluk
times could adopt such formula with a merely descriptive intention,
based on perceived parallelism between the function of the Catho-
licos as religious leader of the Armenians (the King being their
political leader) and that of the Caliph as religious leader of the
Muslims, whereas the Sultan, at least in the concrete historical
situation of Mamluk society, was acting as political leader of the
concerned community. On the other hand, in the case of a Coptic
Christian writer (also living under Mamluk rule) such as
Mufaḍ ḍ al, the use of the word “Caliph” with reference to the
spiritual leader of another Christian community seems far from
being a “naïve” choice. Indeed, several elements seem to suggest
that it was a conscious and voluntary ideological choice. For sure,
the use of such formula by Mufaḍ ḍ al cannot be explained as a
simple and somehow “unconscious” effect of Mufaḍ ḍ al’s large –
but not exclusive – reliance on Ibn al-Dawādārī as a source on the
battle of Hṙ omkla/Qal‘at al-Rūm. In fact, the alternative formula
as “Patriarch of the Armenians” (baṭ rak al-Arman) is largely
attested in other Muslim sources on this episode certainly used by
Mufaḍ ḍ al. As an example, suffice it to quote the following
passage from al-Nuwayrī: «In the city (of Qal‘at al-Rūm), there
was also the Patriarch of the Armenians (baṭ rak al-Arman) and he
was made prisioner» (Nuwayrī 2005, p. 89). In other words, in
Mufaḍ ḍ al’s sources the alternative expressions khalīfat al-Arman
and baṭ rak al-Arman had already been used, in different authors,
in order to “translate” the notion of Catholicos in terms that could
be easily understood by an Egyptian readership. Therefore, in
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