Book of Elucidation (The Precious Pearl: Elucidation of Religion)

Kitāb al-Īḍāḥ (printed as Kitāb al-Durr al-Thamīn fī Īḍāḥ al-Dīn) · Sawirus ibn al-Muqaffaʿ, Bishop of al-Ashmunein, d. 987 · before 987 · treatise

Coptic · domain: copto-arabic · researched 2026-11-13

Why this is in the register

The work is extant in a Cairo Arabic print (Misr: al-Matbaʿa al-Jadida, 1925); HOLLIS query 'Kitab al-Durr al-thamin fi idah al-din' returns exactly that one record, in Arabic, with no translation attached: https://hollis.harvard.edu/discovery/search?query=any,contains,Kitab%20al-Durr%20al-thamin%20fi%20idah%20al-din&tab=Everything&search_scope=MyInst_and_CI&vid=01HVD_INST:HVD2&offset=0 . Graf II 309-312 describes the twelve tractates and records the 1925 Cairo edition (Kitāb al-Durr al-thamīn fī īḍāh al-dīn) and the Ethiopic version (Mashafa Sawiros), but no European-language translation of the Arabic: https://archive.org/details/GGrafGeschichte . The only modern translation is of the Ethiopic text, with Italian: Mäṣḥafa Säwiros zä-ʾƎṣmunayn: la versione geʿez del Kitāb al-Īḍāḥ di Severo di Ašmūnayn, Omelie I-III (Brepols, 2017) and Omelie IX-XII (Brepols, 2024), HOLLIS language fields 'gez; ita': https://hollis.harvard.edu/discovery/search?query=any,contains,Mashafa%20Sawiros%20za-Esmunayn&tab=Everything&search_scope=MyInst_and_CI&vid=01HVD_INST:HVD2&offset=0 . The CCE biography of the author (CE:2100b-2102a) lists his works without recording any translation: https://ccdl.claremont.edu/digital/collection/cce/id/1736 .

The earliest sustained piece of Copto-Arabic catechesis — twelve letter-treatises written because Coptic had ceased to be understood, covering Trinity, Incarnation, typology, Easter, the liturgical cycle, fasting, the Filioque-free Christology against the Melkites, and consolation. It circulated in Ethiopic as 'the Book of Severus', which is how it reached European scholarship; the Arabic original still has no English translation. CCE entry on Severus (CE:2100b-2102a): https://ccdl.claremont.edu/digital/collection/cce/id/1736 .

Existing translations recorded

None recorded in English. Non-English versions, where they exist, are named in the evidence above.

Electronic text

No open electronic text was verified for this work. The Greek/Coptic/Geʿez may exist only in a print or subscription edition (Migne, CSCO, TLG, CMCL).

Scanned witnesses

Scan search: open scan — 1 candidate(s). This is the Cairo 1925 Arabic print that Graf II 309-312 and the HOLLIS record describe (al-Matbaʿa al-Jadida), i.e. the work's own edition, and it is openly readable with a CC0 item licence — the strongest Coptic-chunk find after the CSCO chronicle. OCR is poor but readable enough for retrieval/keyword work; re-OCR with tesseract -l ara on 300 dpi page renders if a cleaner text is needed. No manuscript witness for the Arabic was located: DigiVatLib has no Copto-Arabic record for it and HMML search is blocked (403 Turnstile). The Ethiopic version (Mäṣḥafa Säwiros) was not searched in this chunk because it is not the Copto-Arabic text.

Harvard Hollis

Hollis query: Sawirus ibn al-Muqaffaʿ Bishop of al-Ashmunein d 987 — 1 record(s); match basis author_only.

Sources checked

• https://archive.org/details/GGrafGeschichte
• https://ccdl.claremont.edu/digital/collection/cce/id/1736
• HOLLIS search — Kitab al-Durr al-thamin fi idah al-din
• HOLLIS search — Mashafa Sawiros za-Esmunayn

Cite: Tergwame, “Book of Elucidation (The Precious Pearl: Elucidation of Religion)” (coptic gap dossier), 2026. https://naxiai.com/christian/gaps/copto-arabic-severus-durr-al-thamin