The Arabic Version of Demetrius Cantemir's Divan by Athanasios Dabbas: an Unusual Case of Unitarian Ideas Travelling to the Near East

Abstract

The following comments are part of an on-going project that surveys the journey of ethical ideas from Poland to the Netherlands, then to Rumania and finally to the Near East, more precisely to Syria and to neighbouring countries of the Sham. Chronologically speaking, the three scholars involved in this spiritual journey are: a. Andreas Wissowatius, a representative of the Socinian movement in 17th century Central Europe; b. Prince Demetrius Cantemir, the first Rumanian Orientalist, famous not so much for briefly occupying the throne of Moldavia, as for writing Incrementorum et decrementorum Aulae Othmanicae sive Aliothmanicae Historia (see the edition Cantemir 2001), a well-documented book on the Ottoman Empire, translated into English in 1734; c. Athanasios Dabbas, the Greek-Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch.