A Tree Without Branches? On Coptic Arab historian Mufaḍḍal Ibn Abī l-Faḍā’il and His Conjectural Stammbaum

The Coptic Arab writer Mufaḍḍal Ibn Abī l-Faḍā’il (d. after 759 AH/1358 AD), author of al-Nahj al sadīd (“The Correct Path”), a chronicle of the early Mamluk period, is apparently “ a historian without history”. Indeed, the only known information about his life is the date of completion of his work : the 11th of Shawwāl 759 AH, i.e. the 16th of September 1358 AD, as the author himself declared in the introduction of his book. Apart from this, he did not provide any information on himself and he apparently left no trace on any other writer, either in his generation or in the following ones. Nevertheless, some modern scholars tried to speculate on possible connections between Mufaḍḍal and some personalities mentioned in sources of the time. In particular, Edgard Blochet, in 1919, argued that some Coptic notables mentioned in other manuscripts should be identified as members of Mufaḍḍal’s family. Blochet's hypothesis has been accepted by scholars until now, in spite of its merely conjectural nature, and has been the basis for further speculations. In the present paper, we argue that the whole matter deserves to be carefully reconsidered and we endeavour to demonstrate that none of the hypotheses made on Mufaḍḍal’s family until now can be considered as conclusive.