Encyclopedia of Byzantine and Eastern Christian Literature

• Abul-Faradj — The Arabic name of Bar Hebraeus (Ghiyath al-Din Abu al-Faraj ibn al-Ibri), an illustrious 13th-century Jacobite Christian scholar, physician, philosopher, and theologian, considered one of the last great polymaths of the Christian East. Operating in a context marked by the Mongol invasions, he authored monumental universal chronicles and essential theological treatises in both Syriac and Arabic, preserving a vast amount of knowledge from classical antiquity and Islamic science during a period of profound cultural crisis.