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The House of Publishing of the Romanian Academy announces:

DIMITRIE CANTEMIR

The Salvation of the Wise Man and the Ruin of the Sinful World

Salah al-hakim wa-fasad al-'alam al-damim
Edited and translated, with Editor's Note, notes, and Indices, by
IOANA FEODOROV

Introduction and Comments by
VIRGIL CÂNDEA
Member of the Romanian Academy
ISBN: 973-27-1490-5
400 pages in English & Arabic, including 23 illustrations

PRICE: 20 euro

Editat de Centrul "Fundamentele modernitatii europene" (FME) si de Societatea Romana de Fenomenologie

Editori: Cristian Ciocan, Lucian Petrescu & Andrei Pinta cu colaborarea lui Paul Balogh

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Ioana Feodorov (b. Bucharest, 1962) holds a diploma in the Arabic Language and Literature from the University of Bucharest (1984) and a Ph. D. from the same University (1998). In 1994-2004 she taught the Arabic language and literature at the University of Bucharest. In 2004 she was a Research Fellow of the Warburg Institute in London, on a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Since 1987 she has studied the relations between Christian Arabs and the Romanians in the 16th-18th c. She published articles about Christian Arab authors and their manuscript works, and contributed papers to conferences (Budapest, London, Krakow, Durham, Bucharest). Currently attached to the Institute for South-East European Studies of the Romanian Academy, she focuses on the edition and translation of 17th-18th c. manuscripts of works written by Makarios Ibn al-Za'im and Athanasios Dabbas (Patriarchs of Antioch), by Paul of Aleppo, a. o.

        After a first book with the House of Publishing of the Romanian Academy (The Expression of Grading in Arabic, 2003), her present work offers the first edition of the Arabic version of Dimitrie Cantemir's Divan, achieved in 1705 by Athanasios Dabbas, Greek-Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch, and revised by the Maronite Gabriel Farhat. The Introduction and comments were signed by an expert on Dimitrie Cantemir, the late Virgil Cândea who, over forty years, was the editor and commentator of many of the Prince's works.

        This is the first critical edition of an Arabic manuscript published in Romania. The edition was established based on two copies: MS Arabe 6165, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, and MS Arabe 337 (no.2),Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana.
       This is also the first translation in a modern language of Cantemir's Divan, which this great Romanian scholar intended as a testimony of his extensive knowledge and readings, of his encyclopaedic culture and proficiency in languages. Also, Book III of the Divan is the complete translation of Stimuli virtutum, fraena peccatorum (Amsterdam, 1682), by the Polish Unitarian Andreas Wissovatius. Thus, over a short span of time, only 23 years, Protestant ideas travelled in an unexpected way, through Greek and subsequently Arabic, to the Christian Arabs of Bilad al-Šam.

        Beside allowing a better knowledge of Cantemir's first printed pages, this book sheds light on a neglected chapter in the evolution of Christian Arab civilization. The spiritual quest of Athanasios Dabbas in the Romanian Principalities (which also resulted in the printing, in Snagov and Bucharest, of the first Greek-Arabic church books) is thus evoked through one of the Patriarch's most significant works.
       Please find attached the Contents and sample pages from the edited text and the translation.
      To order the book please fill in the Order Form and send it to us via e-mail or regular mail.