I have written before about the Coptic expert in Coptic language, Mu’awad Daoud Abdel-Nour (1921 – 2000), who is famous for writingDictionary of the Coptic Language in Bohairic and Sahidic Dialects.
Abdel-Nour was born in 1921 in the city of Al-Mahalla al-Kobra, in the Nile Delta. During his childhood, his family moved to Alexandria. There, he finished his secondary school in 1937, and in 1942 he was employed in the Ministry of Interior, in which he worked until his retirement in 1981. While working, he joined the Faculty of Art at the University of Alexandria, and was graduated in 1957 with a BA in history. After that, he obtained a master degree in Coptic manuscripts.
Abdel-Nour’s interest in Coptic started in his childhood, while attending Sunday Schools, which had a Coptic language programme supervised by Basenti Rizk Allah, a Coptic expert who spoke Coptic fluently. By listening carefully to Coptic liturgy, psalmodies and chants, he taught himself Coptic; and his self-education was enhanced by copying old Coptic manuscripts. In 1942, he was expert enough and commenced teaching the language. In 1969, he wrote his book on Coptic grammar, دروس في تبسيط قواعد اللغة اللغة القبطية. In the same year, he contributed to the translation and editing of Alexis Mallon’s monumental book, Grammaire Copte, Avec Bibliographie, Chrestomathie Et Vocabulaire (1907). In the years 1981-1988, he published his Bohairic Coptic-Arabic Dictionary in four volumes. This was hand-written, and was based on W. E. Crum’s A Coptic dictionary (1939). In 1999, he published a second edition of his book, again hand-written, and added Sahidic words to the Bohairic words, with Greek words he found in Coptic literature added as an index at the end. In 2000, shortly after his death in April 2000, the book was produced in the printing press. Again, another print was made by the Cultural Coptic Orthodox Centre in Cairo, in 2013.
The activities by Copts to teach and promote their language, however, did not please the Arab-dominated Egyptian state. In 1981, the conflict between President Sadat (1970 – 1981) and Pope Shenouda III (1971 – 2012), backed by most Copts, escalated. On 3 September 1981, Sadat ordered a campaign of mass arrests of both Mulsim and Coptic activists: 170 bishops and priests were arrested, together with many lay Coptic activists. On 5 September, Sadat suspended Pope Shenouda and ordered his functions transferred to a patriarchal committee of five.
The Coptic activists who were arrested included human rights activists and all those who were working to strengthen the Coptic identity through teaching. The last group included Copts who promoted the Coptic language and were active in educating Copts in it. Abdel-Nour was in the arrests list. Security forces descended on his home on the 3rd of September at dawn with the charge of “teaching Coptic”. That was before his retirement from his job at the Directorate of Security, in the Ministry of Interior, by a few days. However, we are told that when the security forces knew of his work at the Ministry of Interior, they spared him.[1]
[1] See مشروع الكنوز القبطية: الأستاذ بيشوي فخري: الأستاذ معوض داود عبد النور (آخر تحديث: 11 أكتوبر 201). (Retrieved 30 August 2020)