Alphonse Mingana was a scholar who helped establish the Mingana Collection (between 1924 and 1929) at Selly Oak, in Birmingham, U.K.. Dr. Mingana made three trips to the Middle East, on behalf of Dr. Edward Cadbury of Selly Oak, and purchased the many Syriac and Arabic manuscripts which are now preserved in a collection which bears his name.
Dr. Mingana collected nearly 660 Syriac manuscripts and over 2000 Arabic manuscripts, including 270 works by Arab Christians including the oldest known text of the Acta Thomae and an early copy of works by St Ephrem. He also collected a large number of Islamic Arabic manuscripts, including two collections of Qur'an fragments which are said to date from the 8th and 9th centuries.