Dadishoʿ Qaṭraya is a seventh century Syriac author of monastic and ascetic literature, a Church of the East monk who was a native of the Qatar region, as his demonym “Qaṭraya” indicates. He belongs to an important group of Syriac writers on spirituality and commentators or exegetes within the Church of the East tradition who all originated from the Qatar region (Beth Qaṭraye) and were educated there. This fact reveals the presence of an important school of education that rivaled in its sophistication the other more well-known schools such as the School of Nisibis or the School of Edessa. The Syriac writers of Qatar as a whole produced some of the best and most sophisticated writing to be found in all Syriac literature of the seventh century.

Although Dadishoʿ Qaṭraya’s Compendious Commentary was originally written in Syriac it was eventually translated into Garshuni or Syro-Arabic. It is a work aimed at immersing the novice monk in the spiritual lore of the monastic vocation, and saturating his mind and spirit with advice and warnings about the pitfalls of aiming to be perfect while remaining nevertheless an imperfect human being. This Garshuni version features in a number of manuscripts one of which was first identified in Berlin by Eduard Sachau in 1899 who also established the relationship between this Garshuni Compendium and a Syriac abridged version to be found in the British Library. This critical edition and translation of the Compendious Commentary uses all available manuscripts.

This is the third publication of a three year research project funded by the Qatar National Research Fund (QNRF) under its National Priorities Research Program (NPRP). Project number: NPRP 4-981-6-025.

Front cover: Rubric indicating the start of Dadishoʿ Qaṭraya’s Compendious Commentary on The Paradise of the Egyptian Fathers in MS Mingana Syriac 174 folio 44v. Courtesy of Birmingham University Library.