Habib ibn Bahriz

Ḥabīb ibn Bahrīz ( early 9th century), also called ʿAbdishoʿ bar Bahrīz, was a bishop and scholar of the Church of the East, famous for his translations from Syriac into Arabic. He also wrote original works on logic, canon law and apologetics.

Ibn Bahrīz was probably born in the mid to late 8th century. His place of birth is unknown. He was a contemporary of the Abbasid caliph al-Maʾmūn and the physician Jibrīl ibn Bukhtīshūʿ. He may have died shortly before Ibn Bukhtīshūʿ's own death in 827. He was of Persian descent, as indicated by his father's name, Bahrīz. His own given name was Ḥabīb, while ʿAbdishoʿ ('servant of Jesus') was a religious name he took upon entering the church. He served as the bishop of Ḥarrān and later as metropolitan of Mosul and Ḥazza. He also translated works of medicine for Ibn Bukhtīshūʿ.

Ibn Bahrīz is probably the "ʿAbdīshūʿ, the Nestorian mutrān [metropolitan]" who took part in a public debate or discussion of different Christologies in the 820s before an unnamed Muslim vizier. There is a short record of this event in Arabic by an anonymous author, probably a Jacobite, which has been titled A Christological Discussion by its editor. It is preserved in three manuscripts. The Melkite and Jacobite participants—Theodore Abū Qurra and Abū Rāʾita al-Takrītī, respectively—are well known.

Editions Only two works by Ibn Bahrīz have been published, his Syriac lawbook and his Arabic treatise on logic.

Walter Selb, ʿAbḏīšōʿ bar Bahrīz, Ordnung der Ehe und der Erbschaften sowie Entscheidung von Rechtsfällen (Hermann Böhlaus, 1970). M. T. Dānishpazhūh, al-Manṭq li-Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ wa Ḥudūd al-manṭiq li-Ibn Bihrīz (Anjumân-i Shâhanshâhi Falsafah-i Iran, 1978).

A Christological Discussion has been edited and translated into English: Sandra Toenies Keating, Defending the "People of Truth" in the Early Islamic Period: The Christian Apologies of Abū Rāʾiṭah (Brill, 2006), pp. 347–351 (analysis), 352–357 (text).