Documenta Coranica Byzantina (DoCoByz). Byzantino-Islamica in the Age of Digital Humanities

To understand the evolving role of Islam in Europe, it is important to comprehend the forms and contents of intellectual exchange between the Latin and Byzantine world. Research to date has mainly focused on the Latin impact on the Christian perception of the Qur’an and Islam.

Documenta Coranica Byzantina (DoCoByz) will address a significant research gap by diachronically exploring Greek translations of the Qur’an and anti-Islamic argumentation in Byzantine polemics (7th–13th century) before the first Latin translation appeared (12th century).

This way it will be possible to synchronously compare their possible impact on the later Latin tradition.DoCoByz will trace the exact transmission lines of (I.) the Greek Qur’anic translation(s) (Testimonia Coranica Graeca), in order to (II.) document their reception and (re)use within Greek-Orthodox polemics (Episteme Islamica Orthodoxa), and to (III.) distill diachronically the common topoi and stereotypes of anti-Islamic argumentations as well as to synchronously study them with the pre-12th century Latin translations (Traditio Islamica Medievalis).The project is based on a genuine interdisciplinary approach: it combines Greek, Latin, and Arabic philologies with paleographical, historical, and theological work and methods of digital humanities.

DoCoByz will create big data corpora giving open access to them as TEI XML files.

It will process them into an online database which will contain a synoptical digital edition of all sources reaching out to both researchers and the broader public.After the project’s lifetime, the database can be continuously enriched with sources from (Early) Modern Times as the project's methodology especially focuses on reproducibility and interoperability with other projects.

This will contribute to broaden our perception of Islam and of Christian-Muslim relations.

DoCoByz's multidisciplinary approach will enable scholars to tackle urgent questions of hitherto unstudied intellectual interactions between the Latin and Byzantine anti-Islamic tradition and Qur’anic knowledge in Medieval Christianity.