السيرة
In the days of the Fatimid caliphs, when the Copts of Egypt bore both the burden of service in the royal chancery and the steadfast confession of the Faith, there shone among them a faithful layman known as Ibn al-Saʿīd the Scribe. He was a Christian of upright walk, learned in letters and trusted in the keeping of accounts, and the Lord gave him favour in the eyes of those in authority.
He was appointed scribe of the payrolls in the reign of the caliph al-Hafiz, and by his diligence and his good faith he rose at length to the headship of the council. Yet, though he was raised to high office among the powers of this passing world, he did not let his heart be lifted up nor cleave to riches; rather he remembered the word that the Christian must be in the world but not of it, and he made his standing a means of mercy for his people and his Church.
For it was the lot of the Copts in that age to serve as the trusted scribes and stewards of the realm, and not a few of the wealthy notables among them used what God had entrusted to them to adorn the house of the Lord and to comfort the brethren. So did this faithful steward: he poured out his substance in the service of the Church, in the rebuilding of her sanctuaries and the restoration of her holy monasteries, that the lamps of prayer and the chant of the monks might not be quenched in days of straitness.
The Lord did not leave his house without inheritors of his piety. When his earthly course was finished, his son Sadid al-Mulk was appointed in his place in the foremost office of the council; while his second son, Abu al-Barakat, turned away from the honours of the world and gave himself wholly to the service of the Church of Christ. Thus the father and his two sons together became, as it were, a threefold cord of devotion, spending their care and their wealth upon the building up of the monasteries and the upholding of the faithful.
Such was the life of this blessed steward: a man set in the midst of a kingdom that was not his own, who kept his faith unspotted, used the goods of this world for the glory of God, and reared up children who feared the Lord. He fell asleep in the peace of Christ, leaving behind him the sweet savour of a name remembered among the benefactors of the Coptic Church.
May his prayers and the example of his charity be with us. Amen.