The Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies issued the book Mikhail Mashqa: Between Biography and History , by the author Mohammed Al-Akash. It is located on 216 pages, and provides a historical and critical reading of the book The Answer to the Suggestion of the Beloved by Mikhail Michaqa (1800-1888), which is one of the most prominent Arabic texts of the nineteenth century that combined biography and historiography of political and social events in the Ottoman Mashreq. It starts from the study of the text in its intellectual, cultural and political contexts, and from tracing its textual history throughhis manuscripts, editions, and translations, to reconsider his place within the history of modern Arabic historical writing.
The importance of the Book of Al-Akash lies in the fact that it shifts attention from using the Book of Nuisance as a source for the history of the Levant, to studying the text itself and the history of its formation and circulation. Although researchers relied on the latter book extensively in the study of the history of the Arab Mashreq, the majority of studies were based on different versions that were reproduced at later stages, having undergone editing, abbreviation, addition and deletion processesconducted by other authors and editors, in line with their intellectual, political, and cultural contexts. Al-Akash shows that these copies were not merely a republishing of the text, but contributed to reshaping its content and the image of its author, and influenced how subsequent historical writings received it. By comparing manuscripts, editions, and translations, Al-Akash reveals the history of the reproduction of the Book of Hardship, and analyzes the motives behind those interventions, and their impact on the construction of historical knowledge about the Levant in the nineteenth century.
