The Art of Being Humble

Scribes Anticipating Mistakes in Christian Arabic Manuscripts

IIn a previous blog post, we explored the work of a meticulous thirteenth-century scribe at St. Catherine’s Monastery and examined how carefully he corrected his mistakes—sometimes even offering explicit apologies for them. This post follows a similar path but takes a broader view, exploring how scribes of Christian Arabic manuscripts expressed humility more generally. Christian Arabic manuscripts preserve a rich and varied tradition of humility formulas, revealing that self-effacement was considered an essential part of scribal identity.

At the end of most manuscripts, one finds a paragraph known as a colophon. This section typically provides information about the manuscript’s production and occasionally hints at its intended future. Colophons vary widely in length and detail, ranging from brief notes to elaborate records that may include the manuscript’s contents, date of completion, the name(s) of the scribe(s) and patron(s), the place of production, and more.¹

Within these colophons, scribes commonly introduced themselves using expressions of humility in chains of self-effacing adjectives such as the sinner, the poor, the lazy, the wretched, or the pitiful. These descriptions appear so frequently that they are almost impossible to count. Indeed, it would be more surprising to encounter a colophon in which a scribe names himself without at least one such descriptor. These expressions can be read either as signs of piety and devotion, or as a precaution against unnoticed mistakes. In this blog, I present a range of such expressions, from conventional formulas unrelated to any real error, to poetic apologies and even awkward or humorous excuses offered in anticipation of mistakes. I also consider how these expressions relate to names, age, and rank.

A common practice among scribes was to ask readers to overlook and forgive any slips, and sometimes even to correct them wherever they were found. This raises intriguing questions. What did scribes expect readers to do with such invitations? If every reader made even a single correction, what would a manuscript look like after several years? Did scribes assume that readers might know better than they did? Or were these appeals merely rhetorical gestures of humility rather than genuine invitations?²

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MS Paris, BNF, Ar. 113, f.182v: A scribe asks the reader to overlook his mistakes. Source gallica.bnf.fr, ©Bibliothèque nationale de France

Although systematic evidence is lacking, direct correction of scribal mistakes appears to have been relatively rare. More often, readers responded creatively, expanding and supplementing the text. In such cases, these formulas seem less like literal requests for correction and more like conventional expressions of humility. Moreover, readers’ interaction with manuscripts often took forms other than straightforward correction. In biblical manuscripts and commentaries, for example, readers frequently added variant readings from other translations, supplied omitted phrases, or inserted marginal glosses and commentary. Rather than correcting errors, these interventions often enriched the text, adding new layers of interpretation. In this light, the scribes’ invitations may be better understood as calls for engagement rather than literal correction. “Mistake” here may not have meant error alone, but absence—something left open for further elaboration.

Beyond these conventional formulas, some scribes demonstrated remarkable creativity, turning humility into a literary art. Hundreds of such examples survive, ranging from biblical allusions and poetic rhymes to self-directed insults. For instance, the scribe of MS Paris, BnF, Copt. 64 (f. 206r) used a biblical allusion to the Parable of the Talents, describing himself as “the one who took a talent from his master and hid it in the ground.”³ Another striking example appears in MS Coptic Orthodox Patriarchate, Theology 6 (f. 236v), where the scribe writes:

…الذي يكتب بما لا يعرف ويقرا بما لا يعلم الذي يظن انه حكيم وهو بلا شك خنزير

…who writes what he does not know and reads what he does not understand; he, who thinks himself wise, while he is without doubt a pig…

Other scribes even expressed themselves in a poetic manner rhyming their excuses, such as:

…فانه بخطاياه محتار…فان عقله كان جايلا في الأقطار …

By his sins he stood confused and sore,
for his mind had roamed from shore to shore⁴

Admissions of slips of mind—or sahw, as they are termed in Arabic—were not limited to novice or anonymous scribes. On the contrary, even highly professional scribes adopted such formulas. One notable example is the fourteenth-century Coptic scribe Jirjis ibn al-Mufaḍḍal, whose manuscripts are celebrated for their lavish illumination and representing Mamluk manuscript’s art. He concluded one of his finest works, MS Paris, BnF, Ar. 12, with the phrase:

على يد أضعف خلق الله علما وعملا…

… by the hand of the weakest creature of God in knowledge and work

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MS Paris, BNF, Ar. 12, f.290r: Jirjis ibn al-Mufaḍḍal admitting his weakness.Source gallica.bnf.fr, ©Bibliothèque nationale de France

The handling of scribes’ names also played a significant role in expressing humility. Some scribes avoided writing their names altogether, considering them unworthy of mention.⁵ Others insisted that their names were “unworthy of mention in a book or among people,” yet still recorded them, often reluctantly, as in the case of Sābā ibn Tādrus.⁶

Some scribes treated the mere act of naming themselves as morally questionable, and sought to justify it by stressing their need for the readers’ prayers or by explicitly denying any trace of pride. Others, such as Yūsuf ibn ʻAbd al-Masīḥ, explained that they included their names to safeguard the manuscript ownership rights.⁷ In extreme cases, scribes concealed their identity by encoding their names, writing them in symbols or using an unfamiliar language.⁸ Some even wrote their names only to scratch or cross them out, although it is difficult to determine whether this was done by the scribes themselves.⁹

Although he was a reader rather than a scribe, an intriguing case is that of an archbishop of Tripoli who, while visiting St. Catherine’s Monastery, recorded his presence in a marginal note. Despite mentioning his ecclesiastical rank, he identified himself simply as fulān, a colloquial term meaning “someone.”¹⁰

MS Sinai, Ar. 230, f. 92v. Image published with permission from St. Catherine’s Monastery, Sinai, Egypt

Another formula of humility appears in expressions such as “priest/deacon/monk by name only,” adding sometimes “not in deeds.” Such phrases, used by scribes holding ecclesiastical rank, conveyed a sense of unworthiness, emphasizing the gap between office and personal merit.

Such exaggerated strategies in dealing with names demonstrate how important concealing personal identity was. To hide one’s name was to hide one’s identity, and self-effacement was equated with humility.

At times, scribes offered explicit excuses for their shortcomings, often citing intellectual or mental limitations. Examples:

…لأن الناسخ عاجز وفهمه قليل لا تؤاخذوه

…for the scribe is incompetent and limited in understanding, do not hold it against him¹¹

…لأن ناسخه عاجز وكثير الغلط والنسيان ومتعلم لا معلم

…for its scribe is incompetent and prone to many mistakes and lapses of memory, and a student rather than a teacher¹²

Age, too, became a rhetorical tool. Some scribes claimed youth or ṣaghīr, even citing specific ages. ʻAbd al-Masīḥ ibn Yaʻqūb, steward of the Armenian Church in Mardin, excused his poor handwriting by stating that he was eight years old—likely a reference to monastic rather than biological age.¹³ In contrast, others apologized for old age. Gabriel, the scribe of MS Coptic Orthodox Patriarchate, Bible 194, wrote:

… في زمان الشيخوخة في اخر عمرنا فلا تلومونا على عجز الخط …

…In the time of old age, at the end of my life, do not blame me for the weakness of the handwriting…

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To summarize, while many of these formulas became conventional, they retained strong social and spiritual significance. They invited readers to engage with the text and underscored the scribes’ perseverance in writing despite limiting circumstances. At the same time, they reveal what scribes and their communities understood to be the most powerful expressions of humility.

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1. Colophons in different traditions and languages have recently received scholarly attention. See, for example, Yusrī al-Saʻdāwī, Ḥard al-matn fī al-makhṭūṭ al-ʻArabī (Colophons in Arabic manuscripts), Cairo: Institute of Arabic Manuscripts, 2022; Nalini Balbir, Giovanni Ciotti (eds.), Syntax of Colophons: A Comparative Study across Pothi Manuscripts, Berlin: De Gruyter, 2022; Kiraz, George A. and Sabine Schmidtke, Literary Snippets : Colophons Across Space and Time, Berlin: De Gruyter, 2023; Bahl, Christopher  and Stefan Hanß, Scribal practice and the global cultures of colophons, 1400-1800, Cham, Switzerland : Palgrave Macmillan, 2022. ↩︎
2. Cf. formulas in Syriac manuscripts in Adam McCollum, “The Rejoicing Sailor and the Rotting Hand: Two Formulas in Syriac and Arabic Colophons, with Related Phenomena in Some Other Languages.” Hugoye 18 (2015): 67-93; and Heleen Murre-van den Berg, “I the Weak Scribe: Scribes in the Church of the East in the Ottoman Period.” Journal of Eastern Christian Studies 58. 1-2 (2006), 9-26. ↩︎
3. This is an illusion to Christ’s parable about the talents in Matthew 25:14-30. ↩︎
4. MS Coptic Orthodox Patriarchate, Bible 60, f.157r. English translation by AI. ↩︎
5. MS Wādī al-Naṭrūn, St. Macarius Monastery, Ar. 36, page 435. ↩︎
6. MS Shuwayya, Monastery of St. Elias, 34, f.211. ↩︎
7. MS Leiden, Ar. 59, f. 106r. ↩︎
8. MS Wādī al-Naṭrūn, St. Macarius Monastery, Ar.25, page 376. ↩︎
9. See MS Wādī al-Naṭrūn, St. Macarius Monastery, Ar. 14, page 337. ↩︎
10. MS Sinai, Ar. 230, f.92v. ↩︎
11. MS Cairo, Coptic Orthodox Patriarchate, Bible 38, f.287r. ↩︎
12. MS Cairo, Coptic Orthodox Patriarchate, Bible 148, f.238v. ↩︎
13. MS Mardin, Mar Hirmiz Keldani Kilisesi, 456, f.172v. ↩︎

Keywords: Christian Arabic manuscripts, colophons, copying mistakes, scribes’ humility, scribes

Citation Suggestion: Vevian Zaki )25 February 2026). “The Art of Being Humble: Anticipating Mistakes in Christian Arabic Manuscripts.” in Margins Speak Blog (https://vevianzaki.com/the-many-ways-of-being-humble/).

Arabic Translation of this blog here الترجمة العربية لهذه المُدوّنة هنا