The Alexander–Jerusalem Episode in a Berlin Arabic Manuscript

This article presents a focused philological and visual analysis of the Alexander–Jerusalem encounter as preserved in a damaged yet richly illustrated Arabic manuscript held in Berlin (Ms. or. fol. 2195). Concentrating on four folios that narrate Alexander’s arrival at Jerusalem, his reception by the Jewish priesthood, and his ritual conduct at the Temple, the study treats this episode as a coherent narrative unit within the broader Arabic Alexander tradition and within the intellectual geography of Islamic Jerusalem. Through close attention to manuscript language, material condition, and visual program, the article situates the Berlin manuscript within African intellectual and scribal milieus. Philological analysis highlights Middle Arabic features and Egyptian linguistic markers, while selected annotations foreground moments in which narrative authority is redirected from imperial power toward revealed scripture, prophecy, and sacred space. Particular emphasis is placed on the tension between inherited polemical rhetoric and gestures of sacral recognition, including the elevation of the Torah, the invocation of Danielic prophecy, and Alexander’s acts of prayer and prostration. A complementary examination of the manuscript’s miniatures demonstrates how a visual idiom shaped by Coptic artistic conventions reframes the encounter through ritual posture, spatial hierarchy, and controlled restraint. By foregrounding manuscript practice rather than doctrinal synthesis, the article contributes to Islamic Jerusalem studies by showing how Arabic manuscript cultures mediate Jerusalem as a sacred locus of recognition within Jewish, Christian, and Islamic traditions.