Ibn Al-‘Assāl
IBN AL-‘ASSĀL
Canon lawyer and chief of protocol to the Coptic Patriarch Cyril III (1235–43). Little else is known of his life and death. In preparation for the synod of 1239 he prepared a canonical collection known as the Nomocanon of Ibn al-‘Assāl. It gives the civil and ecclesiastical law of the Monophysite Coptic Church and is noted for its orderliness and careful reproduction of sources. Manuscripts of the work can be found in the Vatican Library, the British Museum, and the Bibliothèque Nationale of Paris. Two editions in Arabic were published in Cairo in 1908 and 1927. The work is sometimes erroneously attributed to two younger brothers of the author.
Bibliography: s. jargy, Dictionnaire de droit canonique, ed. r. naz, 7 v. (Paris 1935–65) 5:1237–42. j. m. wansleben, Histoire de l'Église d'Alexandrie (Paris 1677) 335.
[h. a. larroque]