Anecdota Oxoniensia. Semitic series.

MONASTERY OF SAINTANTHONY NEAR THE RED SEA. 159

Husain ibn al-Hafiz and of the quarrel between the Raihanlyah and
the Juyfshiyahl, when many on both sides were killed. With the
materials thus seized, the mosque called ' Mosque of the Hyena,' at
Itfih, was restored, in the lunar year 528 (A.D. I134). The result was
that this church was entirely ruined and fell to the ground.
Monastery of Saint Anthony near the Red Sea.
~ Itfih received its name from one of the sons of Mlik, son of
Tadras, one of the sons of Mizraim; for most of the large towns are
called after the names of their sons. [Itfih] travelled towards the west,
until he reached the [Sea of] Darkness2, and beheld many wonders.
~ The monastery named after Saint Anthony3. This stands to the
east of Itfih, and to the south of Misr, and from it to the river Nile there
1 These two sections of the Egyptian army quarrelled and fought in the reign
of Al-Hafiz, and his son Husain had much trouble in quelling, the riots. See the
account in Al-Makrizi, Khz'tat, ii. p. I v ff.
2 The Atlantic Ocean, called by the Arabs Az-.Zulmah or Bahr az-Zulumda,
was thought by them to be the western portion of the circumambient ocean. In
these dark regions, curiously enough, is placed the Fountain of Life, of which
Al-Khidr drank and so lives on to the Day of Judgment. (A. J. B.)
3 Abfi Slih now passes from the Nile valley eastward through the desert to
the celebrated monastery of St. Anthony, which lies in the mountains towards
the Red Sea coast, to the south-east of Cairo, and nearly in lat. 29~ N. In Coptic
Churches, i. p. 342 ff., may be found some remarks on this and the neighbouring
monastery of St. Paul. A woodcut of Dair Antdnzyuis is given in Sharpe's Hist.
of Egypt, ii. p. 350. St. Jerome in his Life of Hilarion gives a brief description
of the place, mentioning the gardens with their springs of running water, and the
chapel of St. Anthony on the height. For the visit of the P6re Sicard, see
tome v. pp. 125-200 of Nouveaux Mem. des Mzissions du Levant, Paris, 1725,
where there is an interesting plan of Dair Antadniys and Dazr Bulus, as well as
a map of Egypt. Still earlier is the visit in the seventeenth century of Jean
Coppin, a French officer, who published his travels in a work called Bouclzer
de l'Europe, Paris, I686, 4to, where there is an account of these monasteries on
p. 305 ff. Pococke (vol. i. p. 128), besides some brief notes on the two monasteries,