East Syrian
ca. 660 C.E.
One of the most valuable East Syrian chronicles is both anonymous and incompletely preserved. Because of its focus on the region of Khuzistan, most scholars call this mid-seventh-century work the Khuzistan Chronicle. It focuses on ecclesiastical history from circa 590 to the mid-seventh century and twice discusses Islam: once in the main section and a second time in a section that most scholars suggest was written by a slightly more recent author and then appended to the main work. These pages contain some of the most extensive East Syrian descriptions of the Islamic conquests and are especially important for those trying to reconstruct seventh-century military history. They also include references to Muḥammad, relations between Christian and Ishmaelite authorities, the Kaʻba, and Medina, as well as the claim that God gave the Sons of Ishmael victory over the Byzantines and the Persians.
Four manuscripts preserve the Khuzistan Chronicle: Baghdad, Chaldean Monastery 509, Vatican Borg. Syriac 82, Mingana Syriac 47, and Mingana Syriac 586. The Baghdad manuscript is dated on paleographic grounds to the thirteenth or fourteenth century, the Vatican manuscript is from the nineteenth century, and the two Mingana manuscripts were copied in the early twentieth century. In 1903 Ignatius Guidi published an edition based on Vatican Borg. Syriac 82, which appears to be a modern copy from the medieval Baghdad manuscript.
The last fifth of the Khuzistan Chronicle witnesses an abrupt change in style and emphasis. These pages consist of more disparate sections without a clear narrative arc and focus more on secular events and issues of geography than do the earlier parts of the Chronicle. This narrative shift has led most scholars to suggest that these final pages form an appendix added to the original Chronicle. As a result, most modern scholars assign two composition dates to the surviving document. The main chronicle discusses the Islamic conquests for only a paragraph. What most scholars consider the appendix contains a much more extensive discussion of these conquests, as well as a brief discussion of the Kaʻba and of Medina.
The Chronicle’s main section relates events from the 590s to the 650s. Although it is anonymous, some modern scholars have suggested that Elias, the East Syrian metropolitan of Merv, could have been the author of at least this part of the work. Because it makes no allusion to any events after the 650s, whether they accept Elias as the author or not, most modern scholars suggest a composition date in the 650s or soon afterward. The last section, however, may allude to Elias’s death (659). It also contains a statement that the Arabs have not yet conquered Constantinople. Some scholars have suggested that this constitutes an allusion to the siege of Constantinople in the late 670s, while others see it as a reference to the Arabs’ first attack on Constantinople, in the 650s. As a result, those scholars who suggest that the last pages came from a different author than the writer of the rest of the chronicle date the composition of the “appendix” to several years after the main work, with estimates ranging from the 660s to the 680s. The entire document’s focus on the Church of the East clearly witnesses East Syrian authorship.
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In the city of Istakhr, they made Yazdgard from the royal lineage the king. With [Yazdgard] the kingdom of the Persians [would] end. He set out and came to Maḥuzē and appointed a general named Rustam. Then God brought against them the Sons of Ishmael, [who were as numerous] as sand upon the seashore. Their leader was Muḥammad. Neither walls nor gates nor armor nor shield withstood them. They took control of the entire Persian Empire. Yazdgard sent countless troops against them, and the Arabs destroyed all of them and also killed Rustam. Yazdgard confined himself within the walls of Maḥuzē, eventually escaped by flight, [[31]] and went to the lands of the Huzāyē and the Marunayē. There his life ended. The Arabs took control of Maḥuzē and the entire region. They also went to the Roman Empire. They plundered and destroyed all the lands of Syria. And Heraclius, the king of the Romans, sent troops against them. The Arabs killed more than one hundred thousand of them. When the catholicos Ishoʻyahb saw that Maḥuzē had been destroyed by the Arabs, that they had carried off its gates to ʻAqulā, and that those remaining there were wasting away through hunger, he went to Bēt Garmai and dwelled in the village of Karkā.
Cyriacus of Nisibis died. Because of the Nisibites’ hatred of him, they denounced his students before the city’s emir. He summoned [them] and imprisoned them.
. . . Ishoʻyahb had led the patriarchate for eighteen years. His body was placed in the martyrium of the church of Karkā in Bēt Garmai. And Mārʻameh was appointed patriarch in the church. He was from the region of Arzun, from the town of Zuzimar. He had been appointed the metropolitan of Bēt Lapāṭ, and [earlier] he had worn the [[32]] monastic habit at the monastery of Mār Abraham of Izla. He had been greatly praised for his monasticism and as the metropolitan. Once he had been appointed the light of the Catholicate, he was honored by all the leaders of the Ishmaelites . . .
[[35]] . . . And, at the aforementioned time when the Arabs had conquered all the lands of the Persians and the Romans, they also invaded Bēt Ḥuzāyē. They conquered all the fortified cities: that is Bēt Lapāṭ, Karkā d-Ledān, and the fortress of Shushan. But there remained Shush and Shushtrā, which were substantially fortified. However, from among all the Persians, none remained to resist the Arabs except for King Yazdgard and one of his generals, a Mede named Hormizdān, who had assembled troops and held Shush and Shushtrā.
The area of Shushtrā is very large and further fortified [[36]] by strong rivers and canals that surround it on all sides, like moats. One of [the rivers] is called Ardashiragān, after the name of Ardashir, who had dug it. There is another that crosses it called Shamirām, after the name of the queen. Another [is called] Dārāyagān, after the name Darius. The greatest of all of them is a strong torrent that descends from the northern mountains.
Then there went up against Hormizdān the Mede a general of the Arabs named Abū Mūsā, who, as a settlement for the Arabs, had built Baṣrā where the Tigris flows into the great sea. And [Baṣrā] is situated between cultivated land and desert, just as Saʻd bar Waqqās had built another settlement for the Arabs, the city ʻAqulā. [This city] was named Kūfā, after the name of the bend [kpiputā] in the Euphrates.
When Abū Mūsā went up against Hormizdān, Hormizdān devised ways to prevent [the Arabs] from [engaging in] battle with him until he had assembled an army. He informed Abū Mūsā that should he restrain himself from taking captives and [using] the sword, [Hormizdān] would send him however much tribute they imposed. So it remained for two years. But then Hormizdān’s confidence in the walls broke the truce between them. [Hormizdān] killed those people conveying messages between them (including George, the bishop of Ulay), imprisoned Abraham, the metropolitan of Furāt, and sent many troops against the Arabs. The Arabs destroyed all of them and assailed and besieged Shush. In a few days they had conquered it and killed all the nobles there. They seized the house in it called the House of Mār Daniel. They took the treasure that, in accord with the commandments of kings, had been kept there from the days of Darius and Cyrus. They broke open and took the silver coffin in which was laid an embalmed body that many said [[37]] was Daniel’s, and others King Darius’s.
They also besieged Shushtrā and for two years tried to seize it. Then, from among the foreigners, a Qaṭari man there befriended a man whose house was on the wall. The two of them conspired, went out to the Arabs, and said to them, “If you give us a third of its plunder we will let you into the city.” They made an agreement between themselves, dug holes under the walls from the inside, and let in the Arabs. [The Arabs] conquered Shushtrā, and there they poured out blood like water. They killed the city’s interpreter and the bishop of Hormizd-Ardashir along with the rest of the students, priests, and deacons, whose blood they poured out [in] the sanctuary. But they seized Hormizdān alive.
Afterward, a man among the Arabs whose name was Kāled went west and seized cities and countries as far as ʻArab. Heraclius, the king of the Romans, heard [of this] and sent against them many armies, whose leader’s name was Sqylrā. The Arabs defeated them, destroyed more than one hundred thousand of the Romans, and killed their leader. They also killed Ishoʻdād, the bishop of Ḥirtā, who was there with ʻAbdmasih. while he served as an emissary between the Arabs and the Romans. The Arabs took control of all the lands of Syria and Palestine. They also wanted to enter Egypt but [initially] were unable to because the border was guarded by the patriarch of Alexander with a large and strong army. He had also blocked the land’s entrances and exits and had built walls everywhere upon the Nile’s shore. Due to [the walls’] height, the Arabs could enter [only] with difficulty. They seized the land of Egypt, Thebaid, and Africa.
[[38]] Sorrow for the Romans’ defeat overcame King Heraclius. He went up to his capital, grew sick, and died. He had reigned with his son for twenty-eight years.
The victory of the Sons of Ishmael who overcame and subjugated these two kingdoms was from God. Indeed, the victory is his. But God has not yet handed Constantinople over to them.
And concerning the Dome of Abraham, we could not find out what it is except for this. Because the blessed Abraham had became rich in property and also wanted to be far from the Canaanites’ envy, he chose to dwell in the vast and distant parts of the desert. As a tent dweller, he built that place for God’s worship and the offering of sacrifices. Because the place’s memory had also been preserved by the clan’s descendants, it took its current name from what it had been. It is not new for the Arabs to worship there. Rather, from their beginning, from long ago, [they have worshiped there,] paying honor to the forefather of their people.
And Haṣur, which scripture designates “the capital,” is also the Arab’s. [Theirs also are:] Medina, which is named after the name of Midian, Abraham’s fourth son from Keturah (it is also called Yathrib); Dumat Gandal and the land of the Hagarites, which are rich in water, date palms, and fortified buildings; the land of Haṭṭā, which is situated near the sea in the vicinity of the islands of Qaṭar, similarly rich and filled with various plants; the land of Mazun, which, similar to [Haṭṭā], is also situated by the sea and [whose] area contains more than one hundred parasangs; the land of Yamāmā, which is in the middle of the desert; the land of Ṭup and the city [[39]] of Ḥirtā, where King Murdar resided, who was called the Warrior and was the Ishmaelites’ sixth king.
The few notices from church history are finished.