ABŪ ISHĀQ IBN al-'ASSĀL. - Coptic theologian and exegete of the 13th century. He was the son of the sheikh Fahr ad-Daula, renowned in Coptic literature; two of A.’s brothers also remained famous.
Having travelled in Syria, he returned to Cairo, where he wrote the «Collection of the Foundations of Religion», his masterpiece, completed in 1260. He later published an abridgement of II. He also wrote the «Introduction to the Epistles of St. Paul», a commentary on the Apocalypse, and an Arabic-Coptic dictionary. Only a small part of his works has been published.
BIBLI: A. Mallon, Ibn al-'Assat: les trois écrivains de ce nom, in Journal Asiatic, 10 (1905), pp. 509-29; id., Une école de savants égyptiens au Moyen Age, in Mélanges de la Fisc. Or., 1 (1906), pp. 109-32; G. Graf, Das Schriftstellerverszeichnis des Abū Ishāq ibn al-'Assāl, in Or. Christianus, 2 (1912), pp. 205-27; id., Die hoptische Gelehrtenfamilie der Awhād al-'Awal, in Orientalia, 1 (1932), pp. 34-56, 129-48, 193-204; P. Sbath, Vingt traités, Cairo 1929. Maurizio Gordillo