Christian manuscripts from the Middle East, usually written in Arabic, Syriac, or Coptic, are influenced by Islamic styles but have unique characteristics. -jm

These first two are from Syriac traditions, which have their own styles, but are also influenced by Islamic phrasing to some extent, as in the use of invocations to begin the text. -jm

This one is Coptic (and Arabic), from Egypt. -jm

Some Christian Arabic manuscripts adopt the full Islamic style, like this commentary on the Psalms from 1707. -jm

But most take a distinctive path, like this translation of Thomas Aquinas's Summa Theologica. -jm

Christian Arabic manuscripts almost always begin with an invocation in the Islamic style, but generally Trinitarian. -jm https://twitter.com/J_mugs/status/1050025718753755136?s=20

Sometimes Christians copy texts by Muslims, even in Garshuni (Arabic text written in Syriac script), like this commentary by Ibn Rushd on a poem about medicine by Ibn Sīnā. -jm https://twitter.com/J_mugs/status/1087114589991587840?s=20

The lines between religious traditions are sometimes blurry. Christian collections might have many copies of Islamic works on Arabic grammar and other theologically "neutral" topics, and even a few theological and legal works, like this hadith commentary. -jm

The header image for the week, for example, is from a commentary on grammar by ʻAbd al-Raḥmān al-Makkūdī (d. 1404/5), probably copied in North Africa, that now belongs to the Dominican Friars of Mosul. -jm

It's much less common to find texts by Christians in Muslim libraries, just because of the way that power dynamics tend to work. Minorities often need to be more aware of what their powerful neighbors are saying than vice versa. -jm

But you never know what you'll find in these manuscripts, as we can see from Balmand Monastery MS 196, an Arabic manuscript of Church law (canon law) copied in 1866. -jm

Manuscripts in this thread: https://w3id.org/vhmml/readingRoom/view/131685; https://w3id.org/vhmml/readingRoom/view/132269; https://w3id.org/vhmml/readingRoom/view/133016; https://w3id.org/vhmml/readingRoom/view/506646; https://w3id.org/vhmml/readingRoom/view/507104; https://w3id.org/vhmml/readingRoom/view/134571; https://w3id.org/vhmml/readingRoom/view/507075; https://w3id.org/vhmml/readingRoom/view/134406; https://w3id.org/vhmml/readingRoom/view/107716