Echoes of the First Encounters - Syriac Testimonies on Islam’s Emergence (EFE) - VIII - Caliphs, Comets, and Civil War: The Chronicle of Zuqnīn from The Prophet to Marwan II

Caliphs, Comets, and Civil War: The Chronicle of Zuqnīn from The Prophet to Marwan II

بِسْمِ اللَّهِ الرَّحْمَٰنِ الرَّحِيمِ

"In the name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful."

"Now after we had wandered about in many places, unable to find reliable written sources, apart from some bits and pieces, we decided to include, at appropriate points in this book, the information we obtained from very old people, who had witnessed and experienced the events, as well as from our own recollections. Nevertheless, if someone reads this and wants to reject it, he should realise that just as events and occurrences of various kinds do not occur in one place or in one single kingdom or region of the world alone, so too is the case here. If he comes across a history that is not similar to this one, he should understand that even former writers do not agree among themselves. One shortens while another lengthens. One writes about the Church while another about other matters. It is of no consequence to intelligent and God-fearing people if an event is dated one year earlier or one or two years later. It should suffice them to realise the punishments of the former generations and they turn away from iniquity lest these punishments should befall them as well. Hence, be careful and fear the Lord your God, lest He bring these punishments upon you, too!”

With these words, the anonymous chronicler of Zuqnīn opens a window into the historical anxieties, spiritual burdens, and moral vision that animate his remarkable work. Writing in the year 775 CE, during the final year of Caliph al-Manṣūr, the chronicler was not merely recording events—he was interpreting them. His chronicle is a tapestry woven of divine judgment, imperial collapse, celestial omens, and deeply personal lament. War, pestilence, famine, and civil strife are not simply historical occurrences in this narrative—they are signs, punishments, and warnings. For the chronicler, history itself is theology in motion.

The Chronicle of Zuqnīn is a universal history, composed in Syriac and structured in four parts, extending from the creation of the world to the late eighth century. It was written in a West Syriac monastic milieu, almost certainly at the monastery of Qenneshre or one of its satellite communities in northern Mesopotamia—a region that, in the eighth century, stood at the fraught crossroads of Christianity, Islam, and imperial power. It is one of the most significant Syriac chronicles to survive from the early Islamic period, offering a rare provincial and Christian view of events dominated by Islamic sources.

The first three parts of the Chronicle largely transmit and rework earlier materials—especially the ecclesiastical histories of Eusebius, Socrates Scholasticus, John of Ephesus, and others. As Amir Harrak notes, the third part is of particular value for preserving sections of the now-lost second part of John of Ephesus’s Ecclesiastical History, which vividly described the Chalcedonian persecution of Miaphysites, the Justinianic Plague, and the suffering of Christian communities under Roman rule.

But it is in the fourth part, covering the period from the late sixth century to 775 CE, that the original voice of the Zuqnīn chronicler emerges most powerfully. Here, and especially in the later entries, the Chronicle is no longer a mere continuation of earlier texts—it becomes a firsthand account, a deeply emotional and often theologically charged witness to a world in turmoil. The monk does not hide behind dispassionate prose; he weeps, rages, warns, and prays. The collapse of regimes, the movement of stars, and the cries of the dying are all caught in his gaze—and interpreted through Scripture.

Between 632 and 750, the period covered in this first installment of our series, the Zuqnīn Chronicle offers a Syriac Christian view of the Rashidun and Umayyad caliphates, framed not only as political developments, but as part of a cosmic drama of sin, punishment, and providence. From brief, cryptic entries on the Prophet Muḥammad to lengthier accounts of Umayyad military campaigns, internal strife, and natural disasters, the Chronicle gradually expands in scope and intensity. The tone shifts markedly in the 720s, when the chronicler becomes more expansive, impassioned, and morally urgent. As Umayyad rule falters and the fabric of society begins to fray, his prose thickens with prophetic language, lamentation, and apocalyptic warning.

Among the most striking elements are his treatments of:

The siege of Constantinople and the failed Umayyad push into Rome;
The civil wars between Arab factions, which he reads as divine punishment;
The ecological catastrophes—plagues, earthquakes, and famines—that accompany political collapse;
And the gradual transformation of the Jazīrah, from a region of wealth and monasteries to one plagued by exactions, apostasy, and loss.

While Islamic historians like al-Ṭabarī, Khalīfa ibn Khayyāṭ, and al-Yaʿqūbī record these same events with a focus on caliphs, conquests, and legitimacy, the Zuqnīn Chronicle offers a starkly different perspective—that of a Christian monk, standing at the margins of empire, watching the world around him change in ways that defied old categories and demanded new theologies. His is a Syriac voice, steeped in the prophets, echoing the laments of Jeremiah and Isaiah, yet unmistakably attuned to the transformations brought by Islamic rule.

This 2-part blog series, “Caliphs, Comets, and Catastrophe,” is dedicated to a close reading of the Chronicle's Islamic-related entries. In this first part, we focus on the Rashidun and Umayyad eras—from the earliest references to the Arab conquests and the Prophet Muḥammad, to the fall of the Marwanid line and the coming storm of the Abbasid Revolution. Along the way, we will encounter Jewish collaborators, floods and comets, sieges and betrayals, and a steadily intensifying sense of divine retribution.

Our goal is not simply to extract data from this Chronicle, but to recover its voice: the moral clarity, spiritual anguish, and apocalyptic imagination of a solitary monk, writing at the twilight of an age.

Let us now begin—at the edges of empire, under the shadow of the sword, with trembling hands and tearful eyes.

📜 Editorial Note on Chronology in the Chronicle of Zuqnin

The Chronicle of Zuqnin arranges its entries in an annalistic format, year by year, with dates primarily calculated according to the Seleucid calendar—also known as the "Era of Alexander" or the "Greek era." This calendar begins in 312/311 BCE, corresponding to the Seleucid conquest of Babylon, and was reckoned differently across regions:

In Syria, the Seleucid year begins on October 1, 312 BCE.
In Babylonia, it begins on Nisan 1 (April), 311 BCE, leading to some overlap with Gregorian years when converting.

The chronicler occasionally supplements the Seleucid era with other dating systems:

The Muslim Hijri calendar (AH), which begins in 622 CE, is used only once, and only in parallel with other systems.
The Era of Antioch, reckoned from October 1, 49 BCE, and the Era of Laodicea each appear once.
An indiction cycle—a 15-year fiscal cycle originally used by the Roman is mentioned once, in combination with the Seleucid and Antiochene eras, to date a devastating earthquake in Antioch.

Additionally, regnal years (e.g., the reign of a Roman or Arab ruler such as Leo III or al-Mansur) are sometimes referenced to anchor political events within the broader historical framework.

When the Chronicler organizes a section thematically, he often introduces it with a title. In the original Codex, these titles were written in red ink; in modern editions, they are typically rendered in italics.

Understanding these overlapping calendrical systems is essential for interpreting the chronicle’s complex dating scheme and correlating its events with the broader history of Late Antiquity and the early Islamic period.

🧭 Quick Conversion Tips: Navigating Ancient Calendars

📅 From Seleucid Era (SE) to Gregorian (CE)

🔁 If SE date is between October–December:
➤ CE = SE − 311

🔁 If SE date is between January–September:
➤ CE = SE − 312

The Seleucid year begins in October (Syrian reckoning).

🌙 From Gregorian (CE) to Hijri (AH)

🧮 AH ≈ (CE − 622) × 33 ÷ 32

Adjusts for the lunar calendar's shorter year.

☀️ From Hijri (AH) to Gregorian (CE)

🧮 CE ≈ AH × 32 ÷ 33 + 622

A good approximation when exact dates aren’t available.

SE 932 | AH – | CE 620–621

Muhammad and the Arab Conquest of Palestine: An Early Syriac View

📝 Text

“The year nine hundred and thirty-two: The Arabs conquered the land of Palestine and the land as far as the great river Euphrates. The Romans fled and crossed over to the east of the Euphrates, and the Arabs held sway over them. The first king was a man among them named Muhammad, whom they also called Prophet because he turned them away from cults of all kinds and taught them that there was only one God, creator of the universe. He also instituted laws for them because they were much entangled in the worship of demons and cult of idols, mainly the cult of trees. Because Muhammad showed them that God was one, because they vanquished the Romans in war through his direction, and because he instituted laws for them according to their desire, they called him Prophet and Messenger of God.

This nation is very lascivious and sensual. Every law instituted for them, be it by Muhammad or by any other God-fearing person, is despised and dismissed if it is not instituted according to their sensual pleasure. But a law which fulfils their wishes and desires, even if it is instituted by a nobody among them, they accept, saying: ‘This has been instituted by the Prophet and Messenger of God. Moreover, it was commanded to him in this manner by God!’ Muhammad ruled them for seven years.”

🧭 Commentary and Analysis

I. Chronological Discrepancies and the Dating of the Arab Conquest

This Zuqnin entry is dated to Seleucid Era (SE) 932, which corresponds to 620–621 CE—a full decade before the traditional dating of the Arab-Muslim conquest of Palestine (636–638 CE). According to both Islamic sources and modern scholarship, the significant early battles against the Romans, such as Ajnadayn (634) and Yarmuk (636), happened after the Prophet Muhammad’s ﷺ death in 632 CE and under the leadership of his successors, the Rashidun caliphs.

This mismatch raises the question: why does the Zuqnin Chronicle place Muhammad at the head of military campaigns that occurred after his death?

🧩 Explanations for the Chronological Conflation

There are two main historical explanations for this:

1. Confusion Between Preaching and Conquest

The chronicler may have mistaken the foundation of Muhammad’s Medinan polity (622 CE) for the beginning of military conquest, merging Muhammad’s spiritual leadership with the military and political expansions that followed. This is compounded by limited access to reliable Arabic sources and the oral transmission of events.

2. Telescoping of Events

As Mehdy Shaddel explains, the Zuqnin Chronicler (alongside the Chronicle of 754 and the Chronicle of 775) reflects a schematic and telescoped view of Islamic history. The chronicler projects later conquests backward onto the Prophet’s own time, effectively turning the Hijra (622 CE) into the epochal moment that marks the birth of Islamic imperial rule.

“[These texts] place the beginning of the Islamic empire, and thus the conquests, at Muḥammad’s foundation of an embryonic polity at Medina... The Chronicle of Zuqnīn informs us that, in the year 932 the ṭayyāyē conquered the land of Palestine all the way to the river Euphrates… Their first king (malkā) was a man from among them whose name was Muhammad.”

🧠 What Is Telescoping?

In historical writing, telescoping refers to the compression of separate historical events into a single timeframe—usually to streamline narrative logic or out of genuine chronological confusion. For the Zuqnin chronicler, Muhammad’s rise to leadership, the founding of a polity, and the conquests that expanded Arab-Islamic rule are all folded into one momentous event.

This is consistent with how ancient and medieval historians often viewed the beginning of a ruler’s reign as the beginning of a new era. In this case:

The Hijra is equated with the founding of the Islamic Empire.
Muhammad is treated as a "king" (malkā), in the same vein as Roman emperors or Sasanian shahs.
The beginning of the Hijri calendar is assumed to mark the start of conquests.

As Shaddel notes:

“Given that from this point on during his career Muḥammad was, at least in hindsight, as much a temporal sovereign of sorts as a spiritual leader, it is not hard to see how non-Muslim sources thought of him as the first Muslim king.”

🏛️ Cultural Logic Behind the Chronology

This conflation of calendar, conquest, and kingship makes sense in the context of late antique and Near Eastern calendrical systems, where eras were often counted from the reigns of rulers (e.g., Seleucid Era, Era of Diocletian, Era of Antioch). It is thus not surprising that a Syriac monastic chronicler writing in 775 CE would:

Treat the Hijra as the founding of an empire,
Consider Muhammad the first monarch of that empire, and
Assume that imperial conquests logically began with him.

In the absence of detailed military or administrative knowledge, the chronicler reconstructed Islamic origins in the mold of biblical monarchy and imperial expansion

II. Geopolitical Scope: Palestine to the Euphrates

The Zuqnin Chronicle claims that in SE 932 (620–621 CE), “the Arabs conquered the land of Palestine and the land as far as the great river Euphrates. The Romans fled and crossed over to the east of the Euphrates, and the Arabs held sway over them.” This statement is anachronistic—but not without deeper meaning. It offers a compressed, post-facto Syriac memory of the disintegration of imperial authority in the Levant and Mesopotamia during the early 7th century.

Let’s break this down.

🌍 Who Controlled Palestine in 620–621?

In 620–621 CE, Palestine was not under Roman rule. The Sasanian Persian Empire had invaded and taken control of the Levant—including Jerusalem—in 614 CE, following the dramatic victories of Xusro II’s generals (especially Shahrwaraz). The Persian occupation of Palestine lasted for roughly 15 years, until Heraclius’ counter-offensive (627–629). Therefore, in 621, the chronicler’s reference to "Romans" ruling Palestine is already historically off.

This misattribution likely reflects:

A confusion or simplification of imperial identities by a chronicler writing 150 years later.
A Christian monastic viewpoint, in which the Romans were the normative rulers, and Persians and Arabs were interchangeable as foreign dominators.

Thus, the reference to "Romans fleeing" may not describe a real-time event in 621, but rather compresses the Roman defeats of the 610s and 630s into a symbolic collapse, with “the Arabs” stepping into the power vacuum.

🏞️ "To the Great River Euphrates" – Geographic Memory and Reach

Claiming that the Arabs conquered territory “as far as the great river Euphrates” stretches not only the timeline but the early spatial extent of Arab power. However, this reflects a macro-regional Syriac perspective on the post-Heraclian world. From the vantage point of Northern Mesopotamia, where the monastery of Zuqnin stood, the Euphrates was not just a river, but a political frontier—often marking the limit of Roman authority.

By attributing Arab control over this entire expanse, the chronicler:

Symbolizes the scale and speed of Arab conquest as it appeared in retrospect.
Suggests a total eclipse of Roman rule in the East, even if this didn’t literally occur under Muhammad.

🧭 "The Romans Fled Across the Euphrates" – Misplaced Directions or Metaphor?

The claim that the “Romans fled east across the Euphrates” is geographically reversed—Roman territory was west of the Euphrates, and Persian lands were east.

As Walter Kaegi notes, after Heraclius’ war with Persia (ending in 628), the borders between Rome and Persia remained ambiguous:

“Some Byzantine military units probably remained stationed in western or especially northwestern areas of the Persian Empire even after Heraclius' return to Byzantine territory.” — Walter Kaegi, Byzantium and the Early Islamic Conquests

Thus, in the chaos of the 620s and early 630s, Arab forces encountered both Persian and Roman forces scattered across Mesopotamia. It was a time of overlapping sovereignties, civil wars, and mobile garrisons.

⚔️ The Arab Conquests as a Resolution to Imperial Collapse

By framing the Arabs as “conquerors” of the entire area between Palestine and the Euphrates, the chronicler reflects:

A theological and historical logic: God abandoned Rome and Persia, and the Arabs were permitted to overtake both.
A compressed narrative: the two decades of conflict (614–636) are condensed into one moment of divine judgment and imperial humiliation.

This also aligns with Mehdy Shaddel’s broader argument that the Zuqnin Chronicle “telescopes” the conquests back into the lifetime of Muhammad, who is imagined as:

“the founder of the empire and, by extension, the initiator of the conquests.”

🗺️ Conclusion: Memory Over Precision

The chronicler’s description is not a historical report of events in 620–621 CE. Rather, it is a post-conquest monastic memory—a retrospective summary of how the Arab invasions reshaped the world as they knew it:

The Romans were gone.
The Persians were broken.
The Arabs—called Ṭayyāyē—ruled from Palestine to the Euphrates.
And Muhammad stood at the origin of it all.

In short, the geographic and chronological imprecision is not a failure of record, but a window into how 8th-century Syriac Christians internalized the collapse of their world.

III. Muhammad as King and Lawgiver

One of the most striking aspects of this Zuqnin entry is the chronicler’s depiction of Muhammad as both "king" and "prophet" — an attribution that, though hostile in tone, reveals far more than mere polemic. This fusion of roles taps directly into Syriac-Christian traditions of sacred kingship, wherein religious authority and political rule are often bound together in the figure of a divinely sanctioned leader.

👑 Muhammad as “King” (malkā): Temporal Authority in Syriac Eyes

The chronicler writes:

“The first king was a man among them named Muhammad, whom they also called Prophet…”

Calling Muhammad a king (ܡܠܟܐ, malkā) is notable. In biblical and Syriac-Christian thought, the king is not merely a ruler — he is often a shepherd of God’s people, a protector of the faith, and at times a messianic or apocalyptic figure. Think of:

King David, who ruled with both political might and divine favor.
The idealized figure of the Roman emperor as basileus kai apostolos (“emperor and apostle”).
The expectation of kingship entwined with cosmic justice and order.

In this frame, to call Muhammad a king is not to compliment him, but to acknowledge his institution of order and sovereignty — much as earlier chroniclers had reluctantly recognized Persian or Roman emperors.

That the chronicler refers to him as the “first king” implies a foundational moment — the beginning of a new political order, namely the Islamic Caliphate, which the chronicler associates directly with Muhammad himself.

📜 Prophet and Lawgiver: Muhammad in the Biblical-Mosaic Mold

The chronicler continues:

“…whom they also called Prophet because he turned them away from cults of all kinds and taught them that there was only one God, creator of the universe. He also instituted laws for them…”

Here, the chronicler places Muhammad within a prophetic tradition of religious reform, mirroring Old Testament figures like:

Moses, who delivered divine law to a wandering, idolatrous people.
Elijah, who challenged pagan cults.
Even Ezra or Hezekiah, who re-established scriptural fidelity.

This passage mirrors Islamic tradition itself: Muhammad’s mission was to call his people to monotheism, abolish idol worship, and deliver divinely sanctioned laws (sharīʿa).

However, the chronicler subtly undermines the legitimacy of this prophetic claim:

He attributes Muhammad’s authority not to revelation, but to social utility — i.e., his laws suited their “desires.”
He implies religious manipulation rather than divine inspiration.

Still, even this criticism reveals a grudging recognition of Muhammad’s ability to reform and unify an otherwise “sensual” and “idolatrous” people.

🧱 Religious Reform as a Mark of Political Legitimacy

The chronicler’s structure follows a familiar pattern of Syriac historiography:

A people are living in sin and idolatry.
A prophetic figure arises to lead them to truth.
He imposes laws and brings order.

Even if this pattern is distorted by theological hostility, it betrays a deep awareness that Muhammad’s movement represented more than tribal revolt. It was a comprehensive socio-religious revolution.

To the chronicler, Muhammad succeeded where others failed: he transformed the ṭayyāyē (Arabs) from scattered idolaters into a single nation under a single God, with a legal system and a military capable of defeating empires. That transformation demanded explanation — and even the bitter pen of a monk could not deny it.

🧩 "They Called Him Prophet" – Collective Recognition, Not Divine Validation

The phrase:

“They called him Prophet and Messenger of God.”

is carefully chosen. The chronicler does not confirm Muhammad’s prophecy — he reports what his followers claimed. This rhetorical distancing is typical of Syriac Christian polemic, which seeks to record Muslim belief without affirming it.

Still, the implication is powerful:

The chronicler admits that Muhammad’s authority was not personal charisma alone.
It was institutional, communal, and lasting — rooted in doctrine, law, and collective memory.

🪞 Mirroring and Anxiety: A Religious Rival

Ultimately, this portrayal of Muhammad as “king” and “lawgiver” reflects more than observation — it reflects anxiety. Here was a man who did what Christian emperors were supposed to do:

Unite a people.
Destroy idolatry.
Govern by divine law.
Subdue enemies.

The Zuqnin Chronicler, like other Syriac writers, viewed Muhammad as a rival to the sacred mission of Christendom. But in doing so, he inadvertently preserved an important early non-Muslim witness to the remarkable success and coherence of Muhammad’s mission.

IV. Religious Transformation and Pre-Islamic Arab Religion

The Zuqnin chronicler writes:

“…they were much entangled in the worship of demons and cult of idols, mainly the cult of trees.”

This statement is part of the chronicler’s broader attempt to characterize the Arabs as formerly pagan, and Muhammad as a figure who reformed their religion. The description — though polemical — reflects both genuine pre-Islamic practices and a deep tension in how Syriac Christians perceived the monotheistic claims of Islam.

🌲 “Mainly the Cult of Trees”: Animism in Pre-Islamic Arabia

The chronicler’s emphasis on tree cults is striking — and not wholly unfounded. Across pre-Islamic Arabia, there is ample evidence of sacred groves, trees, and natural sites treated as loci of divine or ancestral presence. Some Arab tribes are known to have:

Hung votive offerings on sacred trees,
Made sacrifices near groves or rocks,
Treated certain trees as inviolable.

This religious world is one of local shrines, spirits (jinn), and idols associated with natural elements — practices which Islam would later strongly condemn and seek to abolish.

🌿 **The Qur’anic Echo: Ashab al-Aykah (“Companions of the Wood”)**

Interestingly, this motif is also acknowledged in the Qur'an itself, though in a different theological frame. The Prophet Shu‘ayb is said to have been sent to the "companions of the wooded area" (Ashab al-Aykah) — a people who worshipped amidst or under trees (see Qur'an 15:78, 26:176–189, 38:13, 50:14).

In Islamic tradition, Ashab al-Aykah were idolaters connected to tree cults, and Shuʿayb called them back to monotheism. Thus, when the chronicler claims that Muhammad turned his people away from “the cult of trees,” it ironically parallels the Qur'anic portrayal of pre-Islamic idolatry.

The Zuqnin author and the Qur'an agree on this much: the Arab past was steeped in local, non-transcendent cults tied to natural objects — and the prophet’s role was to challenge and destroy these traditions.

👁️ Polemic or Cultural Memory?

So how should we interpret this language of “demon worship” and “tree cults”?

1. As Genuine Cultural Memory

It reflects an understanding — however vague — of actual pre-Islamic religious practices. Syriac authors were familiar with Arab paganism from centuries of frontier contact. Some may have personally witnessed the transition from polytheistic shrines to mosques.

2. As Theological Polemic

The phrasing (“worship of demons”) reflects biblical polemic, echoing Psalms and Deuteronomy, where Gentile gods are called “demons” (shedim). By associating Islam’s roots with such practices, the chronicler implies that:

Islam’s monotheism is only superficial,
Its followers are still bound to their sensual and pagan origins.

This is a classic rhetorical device: by linking the founding of Islam to a sensual and demonic past, the chronicler seeks to delegitimize its claims to divine origin.

🕊️ Muhammad as the One Who Eradicates Idolatry — But...

Despite his intent to undermine Muhammad, the chronicler cannot avoid acknowledging:

“Muhammad… turned them away from cults of all kinds and taught them that there was only one God…”

This is a powerful admission. Even amid harsh judgment, the chronicler credits Muhammad with:

Abolishing idolatry,
Teaching monotheism,
Instituting a unifying religious framework.

Yet, he quickly pivots to question Muhammad’s sincerity, suggesting that:

The people’s acceptance of religion was driven by sensual desire,
Any law that pleased them was falsely attributed to prophetic authority.

Thus, the chronicler’s view is split:

Muhammad reforms a pagan people,
But the resulting religion is (in his view) a reflection of their passions, not divine truth.

🪞 A Mirror of Christian Self-Reflection?

Ironically, this passage reveals a mirror of Christian identity:

Early Christianity also arose among a polytheistic people,
Also sought to abolish idols and establish monotheism,
Also faced accusations of novelty, heresy, and deviation.

The chronicler may not intend it, but his account underscores how Islam appeared as a religious revolution that mirrored and rivaled Christianity in both form and mission.

V. A Moral Judgement: Sensuality and Hypocrisy

The Zuqnin chronicler, after acknowledging Muhammad’s role as lawgiver and prophet, abruptly shifts tone to launch a harsh indictment of the Arab-Muslim nation’s moral and spiritual character:

“This nation is very lascivious and sensual. Every law instituted for them, be it by Muhammad or by any other God-fearing person, is despised and dismissed if it is not instituted according to their sensual pleasure. But a law which fulfills their wishes and desires, even if it is instituted by a nobody among them, they accept, saying: ‘This has been instituted by the Prophet and Messenger of God. Moreover, it was commanded to him in this manner by God!’”

This sweeping generalization serves not only as a condemnation of the Muslims’ perceived moral character, but also as a theological argument about why Islam succeeded.

🔥 Sensuality as a Polemical Trope

Describing the ṭayyāyē (Arabs) as lascivious and sensual is part of a long-standing polemical tradition in Syriac Christian literature:

The enemies of God’s people are often cast as morally corrupt, addicted to luxury, appetite, and base desire.
Paganism, heresy, and foreign domination are explained not only in terms of theological error but as moral and bodily decay.

This rhetorical pattern allows the chronicler to suggest that Islam:

Appealed to the flesh, not the soul.
Triumphed because of its permissiveness, not its righteousness.
Reflected the carnality of its adherents, not divine favor.

In other words, the success of Islam was not a sign of God's blessing—but a punishment, or a deception rooted in human weakness.

⚖️ Islamic Law as “Easy”? Ascetic Bias in Christian Perceptions

The chronicler’s accusation that Muslims accept only laws that serve their pleasures reflects a Christian ascetic worldview that deeply shaped Syriac monastic theology:

True religion, in this view, is difficult: it demands fasting, celibacy, self-denial, and obedience.
Therefore, a religion that allows sexual relations within marriage, ownership of property, and worldly success must be inferior or corrupt.

Islam, from this monastic lens, appeared suspiciously earthy—a religion of soldiers, merchants, and families, not monks and martyrs.

This contrast gave rise to a recurring Syriac polemic:

“Their religion is worldly; ours is heavenly.”

But such critiques often reveal more about Christian self-perception than about the actual ethical framework of Islam, which—ironically—emphasized discipline, legal boundaries, and worship.

😠 Prophetic Authority as a Cover for Desire

The chronicler adds a scathing line:

“Even if [a law] is instituted by a nobody… they accept it, saying: ‘This was instituted by the Prophet... commanded to him by God!’”

This is a double attack:

It accuses Muslims of projecting divine authority onto their own desires.
It implicitly denies the authenticity of Muhammad’s prophethood, suggesting that his revelations were merely political tools.

To a Syriac monk, this was the ultimate religious inversion: God’s law was supposed to oppose the flesh. But here, it was claimed to serve it.

This is a moral-theological critique, not a historical one. It shows the chronicler wrestling with the deep contradiction he perceived: how could a nation so recently pagan, so lacking in ascetic virtue, now dominate the holy lands of the Christians?

😔 Explaining Catastrophe: Theological Logic of Punishment

This moral condemnation must also be read within the chronicler’s broader theology of history. The success of the Arabs, like the ancient Assyrians or Babylonians, is explained not by their strength—but by God’s punishment of His own people:

The Christians sinned.
They became lax, worldly, divided.
So God raised up a foreign, inferior nation to humble them.

This is a central theme of Syriac apocalyptic historiography, where imperial reversals are read through the lens of divine chastisement and purgation.

In this light, the “sensuality” of the Arabs becomes a mirror: a contrast that reveals the failings of Christian society more than the sins of the Muslims.

🪞 Projection and Paradox: A Rival Image of Religious Success

Ironically, in describing the Muslims this way, the chronicler affirms several unintended truths:

That Islamic law did unify a massive population,
That Muhammad’s authority was seen as decisive and binding,
That the Arabs had become a nation — not just a confederation of tribes.

Even as he condemns, he recognizes that Islam provided a coherent moral and legal structure — powerful enough to explain, command, and justify.

VI. Muhammad’s Reign: Seven Years?

The Zuqnin chronicler concludes his brief narrative with the striking statement:

“Muhammad ruled them for seven years.”

From a strictly historical standpoint, this is incorrect. According to Islamic tradition:

Muhammad began receiving revelation in 610 CE.
He migrated to Medina and assumed political leadership in 622 CE.
He died in 632 CE.

Thus, his period of prophetic activity lasted 22 years, while his political and legislative rule in Medina extended for approximately 10 years. So where does the chronicler get “seven years”?

⏳ The Origin of the Seven-Year Reign Claim

This truncated chronology is not unique to the Chronicle of Zuqnin. It can be traced to an earlier Syriac source — the Chronicle of Jacob of Edessa (d. 708 CE). As Michael Philip Penn notes:

“Jacob assigned Muhammad’s reign a length of seven years, as opposed to the more commonly attested ten. If his reference to Arab raids is an allusion to the beginning of the conquests, these also were dated early.”
— Michael Philip Penn, When Christians First Met Muslims

Jacob's chronicle is fragmentary, but the version we have equates:

The 21st year of Heraclius (630),
The 2nd year of Ardashir III (629), and
The 3rd year of Abu Bakr (634).

These misaligned chronologies highlight the confusion and inconsistency with which early Syriac chroniclers integrated Muslim timelines into their annalistic frameworks. The seven-year reign of Muhammad thus seems to have originated with Jacob, and was transmitted into later texts such as the Zuqnin Chronicle.

🧮 Chronological Compression and Narrative Logic

The chronicler may not be making a factual claim so much as employing schematic simplification — a practice common in Syriac historiography. The number seven may serve multiple symbolic or historiographical functions:

1. Symbolic Approximation

Seven is a biblically resonant number — often used to represent completeness or a divinely ordered period. In this sense, it may indicate:

The perceived "fullness" of Muhammad’s rule,
Or the time between the Hijra (622) and the beginning of the major conquests (c. 629–630).

2. Telescoping of Key Events

If the chronicler (following Jacob) understood the Prophet’s rule to begin with the Hijra (622) and end with the conquest of Mecca or the first major Arab raids into Syria, then a seven-year span (622–629) would appear reasonable within that logic.

As Sebastian Brock writes regarding the Chronicle of 705, which similarly echoes this model:

“The seven years for Muhammad’s reign are presumably derived from James [Jacob of Edessa]… The text makes Muhammad ‘come to the earth’ in AG 932 = AD 620; but it is only if we count his seven years from the year after that, AG 933 [i.e. the Hijra], that we come… to AG 1017.”

So even later chroniclers were attempting to force Islamic chronology into a schematic frame, using the Hijra as the epoch, and back-projecting a reign of seven years.

🏛️ Muhammad as a Caliph-like Figure

The attribution of a reign to Muhammad is itself a significant interpretive move. The chronicler treats him not just as a prophet, but as a temporal ruler, whose leadership fits into the regnal models familiar to Syriac chroniclers — like that of emperors or bishops.

This reinforces the Syriac perception of Muhammad as the founder of a theocratic empire, whose spiritual authority was inseparable from political rule.

Such perception may have been shaped by Islamic usage as well:

Later Muslim sources treat Muhammad as the first head of state, the imām and rasūl.
His model is institutionalized in the caliphate that succeeded him.
This makes it natural for Syriac historians to attribute to him a reign, complete with duration, succession, and historical weight.

🔁 From Myth to Memory: The Function of Numbers

The "seven years" is less about accurate recordkeeping and more about framing memory:

It creates a clean narrative arc: from foundation (Hijra) to expansion (early raids/conquests).
It makes Muhammad’s rule digestible within annalistic structures.
And it harmonizes the Islamic story with biblical-historical expectations, where reigns are often set in idealized spans (e.g., David’s 40 years, or the 7-year cycles of judgment and rest in Judges).

Muhammad, the Arabs, and the Syriac Christian Gaze

This brief yet densely layered entry from the Chronicle of Zuqnin offers an invaluable glimpse into the mental world of an 8th-century West Syrian monk, grappling with the seismic transformations that had redefined his world. Written more than a century after the rise of Islam, this passage reflects not a neutral chronicle of events, but a Christian theological reading of history — one marked by polemic, misunderstanding, and yet undeniable recognition of Islam’s transformative power.

🔍 More Than Misinformation: Misremembered Truths

While the chronicler misdates the Islamic conquests to the time of Muhammad (620–621 CE) and compresses his rule to just seven years, these are not simple factual errors. Rather, they are symptoms of a historical consciousness struggling to comprehend a new imperial and religious order.

Chronological compression is not merely ignorance — it is a form of narrative ordering.
Misattribution of conquest to Muhammad reflects the understanding that he, not his successors, set the world-changing movement in motion.
The seven-year reign, borrowed from Jacob of Edessa, reflects an effort to fit Islam into familiar prophetic and regnal models, even as it distorts the timeline.

These inaccuracies tell us more about the chronicler’s worldview than about the events themselves.

🕌 Recognition Beneath Polemic

Beneath the polemical language — accusing the Arabs of sensuality, moral corruption, and self-serving religious law — lies a deeper recognition:

That Muhammad unified his people,
That he abolished idolatry and introduced monotheism,
That his authority was remembered, invoked, and institutionalized,
And that Islam’s legal and religious structure carried profound communal legitimacy.

Even while mocking the sincerity of Muslim faith, the chronicler inadvertently testifies to its coherence and success. He is not describing a mere tribal uprising, but a religious revolution that redefined the political and spiritual geography of the Near East.

🛡️ Theological Anxiety and Apocalyptic Framing

The tone of the entry is marked by unease and judgment. The chronicler seems compelled to interpret Islam’s triumph as:

A punishment for Christian sin,
A temporary victory of the flesh over the spirit,
Or a divine chastisement, similar to the rise of Assyria or Babylon in biblical history.

This is not a neutral historical record — it is a theological defense, crafted by a Christian community forced to explain its own displacement and humiliation.

In this light, Muhammad becomes a figure at once feared and mythologized: not merely a false prophet, but a founder-king, a lawgiver, and an agent through whom God has reshaped history — whether justly or in wrath.

🧭 A Rare Witness to Islamic Beginnings

Despite its inaccuracies, this Zuqnin entry is one of the earliest extant Christian reflections on Muhammad and Islam, predating the polemical sophistication of later Greek and Latin sources.

It is a first-hand glimpse into how Islam appeared from the outside:

Not as heresy, but as an entirely new dispensation;
Not as a passing cult, but as a formidable and enduring religious civilization;
Not as mere conquest, but as a reorientation of sacred history.

For the chronicler, Islam was not simply a theological challenge — it was a force that redefined the known world.

SE 937 | AH ~4 | CE 625–626

Stars as Spears: Celestial Omens and the Fall of Empires

📝 Text

“The year nine hundred and thirty-seven: The stars of the sky fell in such a way that they all shot like arrows toward the north. They provided the Romans with a terrible premonition of defeat and of the conquest of their territories by the Arabs. This was in fact what happened to them almost immediately afterwards.”

🧭 Commentary and Analysis

I. Chronology and Historical Incongruities

The Zuqnin entry is dated to SE 937, which corresponds to 625–626 CE. At this time, the Arab-Muslim conquests had not yet begun. In fact:

The Prophet Muhammad ﷺ was still based in Medina, consolidating power in the Hijaz.
The Battle of Uhud (625) had just occurred — a setback, not a geopolitical advance.
Most significantly, the Romans and Persians were still at war, with Sasanian Persia occupying large parts of the Levant, including Palestine and Syria, since their capture of Jerusalem in 614 CE.

So, if this omen refers to the defeat of the Romans by the Arabs, it is anachronistic. The real Arab-Muslim victories over Roman forces began nearly a decade later, starting with the Battle of Ajnadayn (634) and culminating in Yarmuk (636).

The chronicler is again compressing time, projecting later events backward into the pre-conquest period — a common feature in Syriac and apocalyptic historiography.

II. Signs in the Sky: Celestial Portents and the End of Empires

The description of stars falling “like arrows toward the north” situates this entry firmly within late antique apocalyptic sensibility. In this worldview, celestial disturbances — comets, falling stars, fiery swords in the sky — were harbingers of divine wrath or imperial collapse.

📖 Parallels in Apocalyptic Literature

As Emmanouela Grypeou notes in The Abomination of Desolation, the tradition of interpreting heavenly signs as omens of political catastrophe is well attested:

Sibylline Oracles III.672–674 describe fiery swords in the sky announcing the end.
Josephus and Lactantius similarly interpret such signs as signals of divine judgment.
The Chronicle of Pseudo-Joshua the Stylite and John bar Penkaye describe spears, brooms, or lances in the sky as precursors to war and ruin.

In each case, these signs are read not as natural phenomena, but as divine messages — heavenly decrees warning the world of upheaval.

🛑 Directionality and Symbolism

The fact that the stars shot “like arrows toward the north” is especially ominous, since:

The north was traditionally associated with dangerous invaders (cf. Gog and Magog in Ezekiel),
And for Syriac Christians, it may also evoke the direction of Roman centers or the locus of imperial power.

The imagery of stars becoming arrows or weapons reflects a deep theological metaphor: even the heavens have turned against the empire.

III. Apocalypse and the Fall of Rome: Theological Reading of History

This celestial omen becomes a theological narrative: the falling stars prefigure Rome’s humiliation at the hands of a new, divinely permitted power — the Arabs.

This is not a neutral event:

It is a cosmic sign of divine abandonment.
It casts the Romans as a people under judgment.
It validates the rise of the Arabs as part of God’s inscrutable will — just as the Babylonians once rose against Judah.

“They provided the Romans with a terrible premonition of defeat and of the conquest of their territories by the Arabs.”

This statement is retroactive prophecy — the chronicler is writing decades after the fact, but inserts the omen before the conquests to reinforce the idea that Rome’s fall was preordained, visible in the heavens.

IV. Historical Context: A Confused Landscape of Power (625–626 CE)

It is worth emphasizing that in 625–626, the actual geopolitical situation was very different:

The Sasanians controlled the Levant, not the Arabs.
Roman military resurgence was still underway under Heraclius, who would not defeat the Persians until 627–628.
The Arabs were still in internal conflict with Quraysh, not yet a regional military force.

Thus, this entry represents a retrospective imposition of Islamic conquest chronology onto an earlier symbolic event. The chronicler is reading history through the lens of destiny and divine warning, not chronology.

V. Memory, Myth, and the Reshaping of Time

This entry is a clear example of mythologized memory:

An actual celestial event — a meteor shower, or comet — was remembered and reinterpreted.
Its significance was re-framed after the rise of Islam, so that it appeared to predict the conquests.

This is part of a larger apocalyptic strategy of “recognition after the fact”: seeing in past events the signs that were missed, in order to warn future generations.

As Mischa Meier and others have shown, such reinterpretation of signs was common in late antique texts: history was a coded text, and the faithful were meant to learn from the past that disobedience leads to divine reversal.

SE 938 | AH ~5 | CE 626–627

A Premature Death: Muhammad and the Rise of Abu Bakr

📝 Text

“The year nine hundred and thirty-eight: Muhammad, King of the Arabs—that is their Prophet—died, and Abu-Bakr ruled over them for five years.”

🧭 Commentary and Analysis

I. Chronological Error: A Death Too Soon

The statement that Muhammad died in SE 938 (626–627 CE) is plainly incorrect. According to Islamic tradition, supported by a wealth of internal Muslim historiography and cross-referenced external sources, Muhammad:

Died in 632 CE (AH 11), corresponding to SE 943.
Was succeeded by Abu Bakr, who ruled for only two years, not five (632–634 CE).

Here, the Zuqnin Chronicler compresses events by a full six years and extends Abu Bakr’s reign beyond what is historically accurate.

Why?

II. Source of the Error: Jacob of Edessa and Chronological Transmission

This misdating is not unique to Zuqnin. It echoes an earlier source — the Chronicle of Jacob of Edessa, which also makes major chronological errors in its treatment of Muhammad and Abu Bakr. As Michael Philip Penn notes:

“Jacob assigned Muhammad’s reign a length of seven years... and his reference to Arab raids is dated early. Despite the chronological discrepancies, Jacob’s entries remain important for their terminology and discussion of Muhammad.”
— Michael Philip Penn, When Christians First Met Muslims

Moreover, Sebastian Brock, writing about the Chronicle of 705, observes:

“Muhammad ‘comes to the earth’ in AG 932 = AD 620; but it is only if we count his seven years from the year after that... we arrive at the right endpoint. The seven years for Muhammad’s reign are presumably derived from James [Jacob of Edessa]...”

In this light, the Zuqnin chronicler is copying or adapting an inherited error—likely transmitted through Jacob’s schema or other intermediary chronicles which calculated regnal years according to Seleucid dating but imprecise synchronisms.

III. Confusion of Prophethood with Kingship

The phrase:

“Muhammad, King of the Arabs—that is, their Prophet…”

continues the chronicler’s pattern of conflating spiritual and political authority. He doesn’t distinguish between Muhammad’s prophetic mission and his political leadership—a fusion that, while accurate in the Islamic view, was conceptually dissonant for many Syriac Christians.

In the Christian worldview:

A prophet was a moral witness, not a king.
The fusion of military leadership, lawgiving, and prophecy was unsettling, perhaps even blasphemous.

By calling Muhammad King and Prophet interchangeably, the chronicler:

Acknowledges his dual authority,
While also stripping away divine legitimacy—presenting Muhammad as a tribal monarch who claimed divine inspiration.

IV. Abu Bakr: Five-Year Rule?

The statement that Abu Bakr ruled for five years is plainly incorrect. Islamic sources are almost unanimous:

Abu Bakr became Caliph in 632 CE (AH 11),
He died in 634 CE (AH 13).

So why five years?

Possible explanations include:

1. Chronological Slippage

If Muhammad’s death was misdated to 626, and the chronicler wanted to match Abu Bakr’s death closer to early Muslim military actions, then a five-year reign fits a compressed narrative: 626–631.

2. Misreading of Islamic Succession Traditions

Early Syriac authors may have had limited and conflicting access to Muslim regnal lists.
Some confusion might stem from later attempts to synchronize caliphate years with Seleucid dating, without precise knowledge of AH or CE chronology.

3. Typological Framing

Numbers like five and seven carry symbolic value.
“Five years” might be a literary approximation, reflecting a period of transition between founder (Muhammad) and consolidator (Umar).

V. Historiographic Value Despite Inaccuracy

Although riddled with factual problems, this entry still offers us several important insights:

1. Recognition of a Leadership Succession

The chronicler recognizes Abu Bakr as Muhammad’s immediate successor — which confirms an awareness of caliphal continuity, even if the details are flawed.

2. Muhammad's Role as Political Architect

By stating plainly that Muhammad died, the chronicler sets up a key transition: Islam survives its prophet. This acknowledges the institutional strength of Muhammad’s leadership and the stability of his followers, who did not fragment upon his death.

3. The Shaping of Memory

This entry reflects a larger pattern: early Christian writers, unsure of precise dates and skeptical of Islam’s divine claims, nevertheless had to account for its historical momentum. In doing so, they crafted a mythic but patterned version of Islamic origins, one that explains Islam’s endurance through the legacy of Muhammad and the succession of rulers who followed him.

SE 943 | AH 13 | CE 631–632

Caliphal Succession: The Rise of ʿUmar

📝 Text

“The year nine hundred and forty-three: Abu-Bakr, Caliph of the Arabs, died and 'Umar succeeded him, for twelve years.”

🧭 Commentary and Analysis

I. Chronological Inaccuracy — But Only Slightly

At first glance, this entry appears surprisingly accurate in its structure:

Abu Bakr’s death is correctly noted to precede ʿUmar’s accession.
ʿUmar’s succession is presented as immediate.
His reign is said to last twelve years, which is nearly correct (Islamic sources say ten years and a few months).

However, the dating is premature:

The entry assigns the event to SE 943, which corresponds to 631–632 CE.
But according to reliable Islamic sources:
- Abu Bakr died in Jumada al-Akhira, AH 13 (August 634 CE).
- ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb became caliph shortly thereafter.
- So the correct Seleucid year would be SE 945, not 943.

As Amir Harrak notes in his footnote:

“Michael IV 414 [II 417], Elias I 131, al-Ya'qubi II 138 and al-Tabari III 419ff all date the event to (August) H. 13 (634).”

Thus, the chronicler is off by approximately two years, but the structure and names of the succession are correct — indicating some access to genuine traditions, even if misaligned chronologically.

II. The Title "Caliph of the Arabs" (ܟܠܦܐ ܕܛܝܝ̈ܐ)

This is one of the earliest Christian attestations of the term "caliph" (ܟܠܦܐ in Syriac), showing awareness that Abu Bakr:

Was not just a tribal elder,
But a political and religious successor (khalīfah) to Muhammad.

The chronicler accepts the term in a fairly neutral tone, indicating a shift in perception:

Muhammad was prophet and king;
Abu Bakr is now seen as a caliph — a new office of governance that persisted beyond Muhammad’s death.

This suggests that by the time of writing (775 CE), the institution of the caliphate was recognized in Christian East Syrian discourse as a stable, historical reality.

III. ʿUmar’s Twelve-Year Reign: Historical Truth Wrapped in Error

The Zuqnin Chronicle states that ʿUmar ruled for twelve years. While traditional Islamic chronology records:

A reign from 634–644 CE (approx. ten years and six months),
Some Christian sources seem to round it up to twelve — possibly for symbolic or schematic reasons.

This pattern may stem from:

The use of round numbers in annalistic structures,
The influence of older regnal models, where "perfect" reigns often span 12 or 40 years (mirroring scriptural kings),
Or simple transmission errors across sources.

Nevertheless, this is relatively close to the truth, and compared to previous Zuqnin entries, remarkably accurate.

IV. Christian Recognition of ʿUmar’s Role

Even in this terse statement, there is implicit acknowledgment that:

ʿUmar succeeded Abu Bakr peacefully,
The office of caliph was stable and transferable, not ad hoc,
And Islamic governance was now institutionalized.

Later Syriac sources, including the Chronicle of 724 and Chronicle of 819, will credit ʿUmar with major conquests (Syria, Palestine, Mesopotamia, Egypt) and foundational reforms (e.g. taxation, administration, treatment of Christians).

So while this Zuqnin entry does not elaborate, it reflects a growing Christian awareness that ʿUmar was a pivotal figure, not only politically but in shaping the religious landscape of the Near East.

V. Broader Historical Context (631–634)

If the chronicler truly believed that ʿUmar rose to power in 631–632, it would reflect a worldview in which:

Muhammad had died much earlier than in Islamic sources (626/627),
Abu Bakr ruled for a longer-than-historical span (five years instead of two),
And therefore, ʿUmar’s rise would follow naturally by 631–632.

This reinforces the idea that the Zuqnin Chronicle follows a compressed and skewed version of Islamic chronology, where key moments are real, but misdated.

This style of telescoped history — seeing Islam as rapidly established and expansionist — aligns with the theological need to interpret Arab power as both divinely permitted and historically sudden, fulfilling a pattern of punishment or reversal.

SE 944 | AH ~12 | CE 632–633

Gabitha and the End of Empires: Rome Retreats, Persia Collapses

📝 Text

“The year nine hundred and forty-four: Heraclius, the Roman Emperor, marched down to Edessa. The battle of Gabitha took place. The Persians were routed and they retreated from Mesopotamia.”

🧭 Commentary and Analysis

I. Chronological Compression: Three Events, One Year

This entry from the Zuqnin Chronicle condenses at least three major events from 636 into a single annal:

Historical Event Actual Date (CE) SE Hijri (AH) Notes
Heraclius in Edessa (al-Ruhaʾ) January 636 947 15 AH Confirmed by al-Ṭabarī, in the context of the Emesa (Ḥimṣ) siege
Battle of Yarmuk (Gabitha) August 636 947 15 AH Decisive Arab-Roman clash in southern Syria
Battle of Qadisiyyah November 636 947 15 AH Decisive Arab-Sasanian clash in Mesopotamia

While these events are distinct in time and geography, the chronicler merges them under one symbolic year—SE 944—as a reflection of their perceived cosmic unity.

Historical Event	Actual Date (CE)	SE	Hijri (AH)	Notes
Heraclius in Edessa (al-Ruhaʾ)	January 636	947	15 AH	Confirmed by al-Ṭabarī, in the context of the Emesa (Ḥimṣ) siege
Battle of Yarmuk (Gabitha)	August 636	947	15 AH	Decisive Arab-Roman clash in southern Syria
Battle of Qadisiyyah	November 636	947	15 AH	Decisive Arab-Sasanian clash in Mesopotamia

II. Heraclius in Edessa (Al-Ruhaʾ): A Real Winter Campaign

The Zuqnin Chronicle’s note about Heraclius marching to Edessa is not entirely misplaced, but it refers to a lesser-known episode, not a triumphant campaign.

According to al-Ṭabarī (relying on Sayf ibn ʿUmar), in early 636—as the Muslims laid siege to Emesa (Ḥimṣ)—Heraclius moved his base to al-Ruhaʾ (Edessa) in upper Mesopotamia. From there, he gave instructions to the commander in Emesa:

"Do not fight them except on cold days, for their food is camel meat and their drink is camel milk... None of them will survive until summer."

This passage suggests a desperate strategic calculation: leveraging winter’s harshness to wear down the Muslims. It was not an offensive march, but a retreat to a safer distance, signaling Heraclius’ declining confidence. By the time the decisive battles of Yarmuk and Qadisiyyah unfolded, he had already withdrawn from the Syrian heartland.

III. Gabitha = Yarmuk: Biblical Overtones

The term Gabitha is a Syriacized form of Jabiyah (الجابية), a garrison town near the Golan Heights, associated with the Battle of Yarmuk in several sources:

Greek: Theophanes refers to the battlefield as Γαβιθά.

Arabic: Al-Ṭabarī and al-Yaʿqūbī connect Jabiyah with the events around Yarmuk.

Syriac: The Chronicle of 637 mentions:

“On the twentieth of August in the year 947 [636 CE], there assembled in Gabitha... the Romans, and many people were killed.”

This unmistakably refers to Yarmuk—the catastrophic defeat that shattered Roman control of Syria. Although Zuqnin places it three years earlier (SE 944), the geographic and thematic details align. The chronicler conflates Heraclius’ earlier withdrawal with the climactic Roman collapse.

IV. “The Persians Were Routed”: An Echo of Qadisiyyah

The statement that:

“The Persians were routed and they retreated from Mesopotamia.”

clearly alludes to the Battle of Qadisiyyah (November 636 CE), where the Muslim army under Saʿd ibn Abī Waqqāṣ decisively defeated the Sasanian forces. This battle initiated the collapse of Sasanian rule in Iraq and paved the way to Ctesiphon.

Though Zuqnin places this too in SE 944 (rather than SE 947), the chronicler treats Yarmuk and Qadisiyyah as a single eschatological moment—the simultaneous unravelling of the two world empires.

V. Apocalyptic Structure: A Double Collapse

This entry follows a classic Syriac apocalyptic pattern:

A celestial or imperial signal – Heraclius’ movement to Edessa;

A great clash – the Battle of Gabitha (Yarmuk);

A collapse of empires – both Rome and Persia fall back.

To the Christian Syriac chronicler, these were not just military defeats, but the fulfillment of divine judgment. The Arabs, though not yet fully understood, were seen as a force sent by God to humble the corrupt world powers.

This narrative is echoed in other apocalyptic works:

Pseudo-Methodius describes the Arabs as a divine scourge.

John bar Penkaye (Book XV) presents them as part of a divine plan.

The Pseudo-Athanasian Apocalypse imagines both empires falling before a cosmic reckoning.

In this framework, SE 944 becomes less a literal date and more a symbolic threshold—the moment when the old world ends and a new one begins.

SE 948 | AH ~15–16 | CE 636–637

Encroachment on the Jazira: ʿIyāḍ's Raids and the Roman Collapse

📝 Text

“The year nine hundred and forty-eight: The Arabs crossed over to the Jazira, and the Romans were routed; ʿIyāḍ invaded Edessa.”

🧭 Commentary and Analysis

I. Chronological Coherence: A Broad Window for the Jazira Campaigns

This entry is more accurate than it may first appear. While many historians date the full conquest of the Jazira (Upper Mesopotamia) to 639–640 CE, this entry rightly reflects that:

Muslim incursions into the region began earlier, specifically in 636–637 CE, as part of a series of strategic raids and multi-front operations.

Divergent Dates for the Conquest of the Jazira: A Historiographical Cross-Section

In assessing the Arab incursion into the Jazira, Amir Harrak offers a concise but revealing survey of both Syriac and Arabic chronographic traditions, highlighting the range of proposed dates for when this conquest occurred. These variant datings reflect both differences in access to information and disparate historiographical frameworks.

Let us examine this spectrum in greater detail:

🕯️ Elias of Nisibis (11th century, Syriac Christian)

“SE 948” = 636–637 CE

Elias gives what is likely one of the earliest plausible dates for the initial military penetration into the Jazira. His Seleucid-era dating (S. 948) corresponds to 636–637 CE, which aligns closely with ʿIyāḍ ibn Ghanm’s preliminary raids into northern Mesopotamia. His dating suggests he preserved traces of local Christian memory, which remembered early incursions rather than the formal submission of the cities.

📜 Theophanes the Confessor (d. ca. 818, Greek Orthodox)

“A.M. 6130” = 638–639 CE

Writing in Greek and using the Anno Mundi system, Theophanes dates the conquest slightly later, in 638–639 CE. This better corresponds to ʿIyāḍ’s campaigns reaching their apex, with major cities like Edessa and Harran falling in this period. Theophanes likely had access to diplomatic or monastic reports and wrote from a more imperial perspective than the localized viewpoint of Elias.

📖 Michael the Great (12th century, West Syriac Patriarch)

“SE 951” = 639–640 CE

Michael, summarizing earlier Syriac chronicles, places the conquest in SE 951, corresponding to 639–640 CE — likely marking the formal and final submission of Edessa and the surrounding cities. His later date may reflect a broader historiographic understanding, consolidating fragmented entries into a symbolic turning point — the completion of the conquest, not just its beginning.

📚 al-Yaʿqūbī (d. ca. 897, Arabic historian)

“Hijri 18” = 639 CE

Al-Yaʿqūbī, writing in Arabic and using the Hijrī calendar, gives AH 18 (639 CE) — again reflecting the climax of operations under ʿIyāḍ ibn Ghanm. His account may blend both oral tribal memory and emerging Islamic historiographic structures, capturing the moment when Muslim political control became institutionalized in the region.

📘 al-Ṭabarī (d. 923, monumental Islamic historian)

“AH 17 (638) or AH 19 (640)”

Al-Ṭabarī provides a range, acknowledging the complexity of the campaign:

AH 17 (638 CE) may mark the first multi-directional raids, involving Khalid, ʿIyāḍ, ʿUmar b. Mālik, and others.
AH 19 (640 CE) likely denotes the final fall of Edessa and the stabilization of Muslim authority.

Ṭabarī's flexibility shows his methodological care: he does not collapse events into a single date, but allows for a phased understanding of conquest.

🧭 Synthesis: Why These Dates Matter

The range of proposed dates — 636 to 640 CE — reflects the reality that the “conquest of the Jazira” was not a single event, but rather:

A series of raids, culminating in sieges and negotiations,
Involving multiple commanders across different axes of entry,
Taking place over several campaigning seasons.

Thus:

Elias preserves the memory of early incursions.
Michael and Theophanes record the full subjugation.
al-Ṭabarī tries to reconcile multiple traditions.
Zuqnin, written in 775 CE, chooses to mark the first invasion, reflecting how initial terror and displacement often left the most lasting impression in local Christian memory.

This variation is not a flaw — it is evidence of a multivocal historical tradition, where each community recorded what mattered most to its experience: shock, collapse, victory, or continuity.

II. ʿIyāḍ ibn Ghanm: The Strategist of Northern Expansion

The mention of:

“ʿIyāḍ invaded Edessa”

is significant. ʿIyāḍ ibn Ghanm was the general personally responsible for the conquest of northern Syria and the Jazira, including:

Raqqa (Kallinikos),
Harran,
Edessa (Urhay),
Nasibin,
Samosata,
Mardin.

According to al-Ṭabarī (vol. IV, 53ff), the initial movements into the Jazira occurred as part of a coordinated, multi-pronged assault:

ʿIyāḍ and Khālid came from Syria.
ʿUmar b. Mālik and ʿAbdallāh b. al-Muʿṭamm entered from the eastern route via Kufa.
Al-Walīd b. ʿUqbah entered from the direction of the Banū Taghlib tribe (i.e., the far northeastern Jazira).

These early attacks were not full annexations, but rather military testing and destabilization. Ṭabarī notes:

“This was the first penetration of Roman territory in Islamic times… it took place in the year 16/637–638.”

So while the conquest of Edessa would not be formalized until 639–640 CE, the Zuqnin Chronicle accurately captures the earliest moment of incursion and local impact.

III. “The Arabs Crossed into the Jazira” — Theological Geography

This phrasing in the Zuqnin Chronicle—“crossed over to the Jazira”—carries a symbolic weight beyond simple military description.

In Syriac Christian perception, the Jazira was:

A buffer zone between Roman and Persian empires.
A place of monasteries, theological schools, and rural Christian communities.
The cultural heartland of Syriac Christianity.

The image of “Arabs crossing over” thus signals:

The breach of an invisible spiritual and civilizational boundary.
The arrival of a new, unfamiliar order—militarily strong, theologically alien, and religiously threatening.

This fear is echoed in a Syriac chronicle of 640, which states:

“In the year 947 [635/36 c.e.], the ninth indiction, the Arabs invaded all Syria and went down to Persia and conquered it. They ascended the mountain of Mardin, and the Arabs killed many monks in Qedar and Bnātā. The blessed Simon, the doorkeeper of Qedar, the brother of Thomas the priest, died there.”

This shows how even raids were experienced as existential crises—interpreted by Christians not as temporary incursions, but as signs of cosmic judgment and political reversal.

IV. The Rout of the Romans — Local Defeats, Global Symbolism

The chronicler states:

“The Romans were routed.”

While no specific battle is named, this likely refers to:

Small-scale skirmishes or retreats by local garrisons,
Especially around Edessa, Harran, and Raqqa, which would fall piecemeal to Arab forces by 639–640.

In the Christian imagination, this rout would have:

Confirmed the failure of the Roman Empire to defend the faith,
Marked the beginning of Islamic dominion in a historically Christian space, and
Reflected the continuing withdrawal of divine favor from Rome.

This entry thus joins earlier ones (Gabitha, Qadisiyya) in a growing narrative of imperial unraveling at Arab hands.

V. Theological Interpretation: Punishment, Not Progress

The chronicler does not celebrate these events, nor offer praise for the Arabs’ military prowess. Instead, as with previous entries, the tone is implicitly one of divine chastisement:

The rout of Rome is deserved—a punishment for Christian division, sin, or corruption.
The Arabs are tools of divine justice, like the Assyrians or Babylonians of old.
The invasion of the Jazira, a Christian heartland, is a particularly potent symbol of loss—geographic, spiritual, and historical.

SE 952 | AH 19 | CE 640–641

The Conquest of Dara and the Sack of Dvin: Fire and Treaties at the Edge of Empire

📝 Text

“The year nine hundred and fifty-two: The Arabs besieged Dara and attacked it. Many people from both sides were killed, but more among the Arabs. In the end, the Arabs promised the citizens of Dara security, and they captured the city. From that time onward no one was killed. In the same year, they besieged Dvin, in which many people—up to twelve hundred among the Armenians—were killed."

🧭 Commentary and Analysis

I. Chronological Coherence: A Rare Moment of Alignment

For once, the Chronicle of Zuqnin aligns impressively well with other historical traditions. Multiple sources—Syriac, Arabic, and Armenian—date ʿIyāḍ ibn Ghanm’s sweeping northern campaign across Dara and Armenia to 640 CE (Seleucid Era 952, Hijri 19).

🗂️ Corroborating Sources:

📚 Leif Inge Ree Petersen (Siege Warfare and Military Organization, pp. 435–437):

“The climactic siege and capture of Dara occurred in October 640… The same campaign took them across the Bitlis Pass into Armenia, ending at Dvin.”
📜 al-Ṭabarī (Taʾrīkh al-Rusul wa’l-Mulūk, vol. IV, 54–55):

“Then Saʿd [ibn Abī Waqqāṣ] moved with the remainder of the Muslim warriors to Dara and went against it until he had conquered it… Then he dispatched ʿUthmān b. Abī al-ʿĀṣ to southern Armenia… fighting occurred…”
📖 Sebeos (7th-century Armenian bishop and chronicler):

“They came and camped at the edge of the forest of Khosrovakert. On the fifth day they attacked the city [Dvin]… they surrounded it with smoke… mounted the wall with ladders, entered inside, and opened the city gate. The enemy army rushed within and put the multitude of the city’s population to the sword… [capturing] 35,000 souls.” (Sebeos, trans. Thomson, chronicle dated to 6 October 640 CE)

This convergence of sources gives this Zuqnin entry a high degree of historical reliability—a rare case of multi-tradition agreement in the chronicle’s Islam-related annals.

II. The Siege of Dara: Strategic Negotiation through Desperation

Once the forward stronghold of the Eastern Roman Empire, Dara had long symbolized imperial resistance to Persian pressure. Now, in 640, it became the target of an emergent Muslim power testing its siegecraft and statecraft.

🏹 Siege Tactics and Blockade

The Chronicle of Zuqnin reports:

“The Arabs besieged Dara and attacked it. Many people were killed, but more among the Arabs.”

According to Balādhurī and confirmed by Petersen, the Muslim strategy was clear:

Cavalry units stationed at each gate to seal off exit and reinforcement.
Systematic clearing of surrounding villages, seizing provisions and prisoners.
Siege occurred during harvest time, increasing the city’s vulnerability.
Dara's patrician surrendered within five to six days, likely fearing famine and total destruction.

The Zuqnin Chronicler unusually notes Arab casualties as higher than the defenders—this detail, rare in Christian polemical literature, underscores that this was not an easy conquest, but one hard-won through blood and blockade.

🤝 Treaty and Amān (Safe Conduct)

Zuqnin states:

“They promised the citizens of Dara security, and they captured the city. From that time onward, no one was killed.”

This reflects standard Islamic protocols for a surrendering city:

Jizyah (tribute tax) levied in exchange for protection,
Continued agricultural output and public order,
Avoidance of massacre or destruction.

As Petersen concludes:

“The objective was to capture the city with minimal destruction to preserve the tax base.”

In short, Dara was not razed—but absorbed, reconfigured into the early Islamic fiscal and administrative network.

III. The Sack of Dvin: Smoke, Swords, and Captivity

In stark contrast, the Arab campaign into Armenia, culminating in the sack of Dvin (Դվին), followed no such negotiated settlement.

🔥 Chronicle of Zuqnin:

“In the same year, they besieged Dvin… up to twelve hundred among the Armenians were killed.”

But the Armenian chronicler Sebeos offers a far more detailed—and chilling—narrative:

“They camped at the edge of the forest of Khosrovakert. On the fifth day they attacked the city… they surrounded it with smoke. By means of the smoke and shooting of arrows they pushed back the defenders. Having set up ladders, they mounted the wall, entered inside, and opened the city gate. The enemy army rushed within and put the multitude of the city’s population to the sword… It was the 6th of October, a Friday [in 640 CE]… they left leading away 35,000 captives.”

This was no treaty conquest—it was a storm and sack:

Use of smoke and archery—a form of psychological siege warfare—to blind and disorient the defenders.
Ladders and scaling of walls, indicating preparation, not improvisation.
Mass killings and enslavement, echoing earlier Persian tactics at Jerusalem (614 CE).

🗺️ Campaign Route and Logistics

The Arabs entered via the Bitlis Pass, advanced through Taron, camped near Khosrov’s forest, and stormed Dvin.
Assisted by Vardik of Mokkʿ, an Armenian noble, in crossing the Metsamawr Bridge (which had been destroyed to delay them).
They rebuilt the bridge—an early sign of siege engineering.
Sebeos states this all occurred on 6 October 640, the only Friday of that date in the decade—an astoundingly precise timestamp.

IV. Treachery or Strategy? Armenian Betrayals and Imperial Faultlines

The Arab entry into Armenia was aided by internal divisions:

Vardik of Mokkʿ, likely seeking political advantage or protecting his own lands, guided the Arab army through dangerous terrain.
This reflects a recurring motif in early Islamic conquests: internal betrayal weakens resistance.

Additionally:

The Armenian nobility had destroyed key bridges—but the Arabs repaired and crossed them, showcasing strategic adaptability.
After the sack of Dvin, they retreated the same way, not remaining to garrison—their goal was punitive, not administrative.

V. Interpretation: Conquest and Contrast

The Chronicle of Zuqnin preserves an important contrast between two modes of conquest in 640 CE:

Dara	Dvin
Siege and treaty	Siege and slaughter
Negotiated amān	Breached walls
Tribute and protection	Pillage and captives
Incorporated into fiscal system	Ravaged and abandoned

Dara represents the emerging Islamic system of occupation, taxation, and indirect rule.
Dvin is a case of military terror—a deterrent to further resistance.

This duality reflects early Islamic strategy: integration where profitable, destruction where defiance lingered.

SE 953 | AH 20 | CE 641–642

The Fall of Caesarea: The End of Roman Palestine

📝 Text

“The year nine hundred and fifty-three: The Arabs captured Caesarea of Palestine.”

🧭 Commentary and Analysis

I. Chronological Complexity: The Many Falls of Caesarea

While the Chronicle of Zuqnin succinctly places the event in SE 953 = 641–642 CE, other sources present a slightly more fragmented picture. This isn't due to confusion alone but reflects the complex, prolonged nature of the siege, which lasted for years.

🗂️ Cross-Tradition Chronology:

🕯️ Theophanes (Greek, A.M. 6133): Dates the fall to 641–642 CE — matching Zuqnin almost exactly.
📖 Michael the Great & Elias of Nisibis (Syriac, SE 951): Slightly earlier, dating the fall to 639–640 CE.
📚 al-Ṭabarī (Arabic): Gives two options — AH 17 (638) or AH 19 (640).
🗺️ al-Yaʿqūbī (Arabic): Opts for AH 18 (639 CE).
📘 al-Balādhurī (Arabic): Provides a narrative explanation, noting that:

A Jewish man named Joseph led the Muslims to a secret entrance of the city.

This tradition of internal betrayal echoes patterns seen elsewhere (e.g., Dvin, Egypt), where local dissidents or minorities — often Jews in Christian-dominated cities — facilitated Muslim entry.

II. Caesarea: The Last Bastion of Rome in Palestine

Founded by Herod the Great, Caesarea Maritima had been the capital of Roman Palestine and a coastal citadel of Greco-Roman culture, Roman imperial power, and Christian authority. By the 7th century, it was:

A heavily fortified port,
The seat of the Chalcedonian patriarch in the region,
And a refuge for Roman troops and officials as Muslim forces advanced inland.

Its fall represented:

The total loss of Roman Palestine,
The end of direct Roman political and ecclesiastical control,
And the solidification of Muslim rule across the Levant.

III. Siege and Strategy: The Role of Betrayal

While Zuqnin gives no detail, al-Balādhurī's narrative fills the gap:

“Muʿāwiya laid siege to Caesarea until he gave up all hope of conquering it....The reason that he was able to conquer it was that a Jew called Yūsuf came to the Muslims by night and offered to guide them to the way through a tunnel in which the water came up to a man’s waist in return for a safeconduct for himself and his family. Muʿāwiya acted on it and the Muslims went through it at night and cried, ‘God is great!’ inside. The Romans tried to escape through the tunnel but found the Muslims in it. The Muslims opened the gate (of the city) and Muʿāwiya and those with him entered.”
This theme of Jewish assistance:

Reflects local resentments against Chalcedonian rule, often harsh on Jews.
Aligns with other traditions of Jewish-Arab alliances during early conquests (e.g., in Jerusalem or Egypt).

Regardless, the city fell not by sheer force alone but through a strategic breach, following a lengthy siege.

IV. Religious and Symbolic Aftermath

The fall of Caesarea was more than military. It was:

The end of Roman administrative structures in the Holy Land.
A defining moment of displacement for Chalcedonian Christianity in the region.
A trigger for theological reflection, as chroniclers like Zuqnin tried to make sense of:
- Why God allowed His “city” to fall,
- And how to explain the sweep of Arab dominion over once-Christian lands.

The Chronicle of Zuqnin, though terse, notes the event without embellishment—perhaps its brevity reflects the painful finality of the conquest.

V. Legacy: Caesarea after the Conquest

Under early Muslim rule:

Caesarea never regained its former prominence.
It declined due to its strategic vulnerability and Christian identity.
Other coastal cities like Acre and Tyre would later rise in prominence.

Still, Caesarea remained a symbolic loss—in the memory of Syriac, Greek, and later Latin Christian writers—as the moment when Roman Palestine ended.

SE 955 | AH 22 | CE 643–644

Valentinus Routed, David Ravages, and the Arabs Avenge: The Batnan Campaign

📝 Text

“The year nine hundred and fifty-five: The commander of the Roman army, the patrician Valentinus, came to battle with the Arabs. He was terrified before them and fled, leaving all his money for the Arabs to take away. In the same year, Procopius and Theodorus marched out and in a great fury invaded Batnan of Sarug. They pillaged and plundered it, and carried off as much as they wanted when they returned to their land.”

🧭 Commentary and Analysis

I. Who Was Valentinus? And What Happened to Him?

In the Chronicle of Zuqnin, Valentinus appears as a Roman military commander who attempts to fight the Arabs, is struck with fear, abandons his wealth, and flees. This sparse notice is richly fleshed out in Michael the Syrian’s Chronicle, which records his death at Arab hands in a failed military maneuver.

📖 Michael the Syrian:

“Valentinus with his soldiers left the country of the Arabs… The Arabs attacked Valentinus and killed him.”

Valentinus may have been a patrikios or regional dux attempting a coordinated campaign with an Armenian contingent.
His death occurred during a joint effort to repulse Arab expansion into Upper Mesopotamia.
His fear and flight in Zuqnin becomes, in Michael, a fatal ambush and divine punishment.

II. The Plundering of Batnan: Christian-on-Christian Violence

The second part of the entry describes Procopius and Theodorus plundering Batnan of Sarug, a historically Christian Syriac town, known for its monastic culture and poetic schools.

Zuqnin’s phrasing is minimal:

“They pillaged and plundered it, and carried off as much as they wanted when they returned to their land.”

But again, Michael the Syrian preserves a far more detailed and brutal narrative—identifying the actual leader of the raid as David, an Armenian general, accompanied by Roman and Armenian forces.

📜 Michael the Syrian adds:

David and his men sacked Christian villages like Beth Ma‘da, plundering gold, silver, wine, bread, and even torturing civilians to find hidden wealth.
“They beat the Christians and filled their nostrils with sand and ashes… decent women were raped in front of their husbands.”
This paints a horrific picture: Roman/Armenian Christian troops assaulting Syriac Christian civilians.

Michael also gives voice to a moral protest:

“Titus said to David, ‘It is not appropriate for you as a Christian to stretch your hand against the Christians… the emperor will not praise you.’”

This contrast—between David’s brutality and Titus’ ethical restraint—is central to Syriac historical theology: it frames Roman cruelty as morally worse than Arab conquest, because fellow Christians should have known better.

III. Divine Judgment and the Arab Response

What follows is a dramatic and clearly theologically charged narrative.

When the Arabs learned of David’s atrocities, they assembled an army and marched on Edessa.
The Armenians, terrified, fled in panic, abandoning their camp.
Arabs pursued them in small detachments, eventually slaughtering David and his forces.
David pleaded with Titus: “This is the time to show your affection for the Romans.”
- Titus refused: “If I help you, the Lord will never support me.”

Here we see:

The Syriac concept of divine retribution: Christian rape and looting are punished not by Romans, but by Arabs as instruments of God’s wrath.
Titus becomes a moral witness, distancing himself from Roman cruelty, and affirming the rightness of Arab vengeance.

The Chronicle of Zuqnin alludes to this with its reference to Valentinus’ terror and Procopius’ plundering—but Michael’s additions bring the moral and emotional depth Syriac Christians remembered.

IV. Historical and Geopolitical Implications

🛡️ The Arab Defense of Upper Mesopotamia

By 643–644, the Arabs had firmly secured:

Edessa, Harran, and parts of the Jazira.
Dara had fallen in 640.
Now, they were defending the territory from Roman counter-attacks.

David’s invasion of Batnan reflects:

Roman attempts to reverse the tide, using Armenian auxiliaries.
But also, Rome’s growing unpopularity and brutality in Christian provinces.

V. Moral Theology in Syriac Memory

The fall of Valentinus, the horrors of David, and the Arab counter-attack are not told as neutral historical episodes — they are remembered apocalyptically.

Christian-on-Christian violence is judged most severely.
Arabs are seen as agents of divine punishment, a recurring theme in Syriac chronicles from Pseudo-Joshua the Stylite to Dionysius of Tel-Maḥrē.

SE 956 | AH 24 | CE 644–645

The Death of ʿUmar: History, Hadith, and the Eclipsed Sun

📝 Text

“The year nine hundred and fifty-six: ʿUmar, Caliph of the Arabs, died. He was succeeded by ʿUthman, who reigned for twelve years.”

🧭 Commentary and Analysis

I. ✅ An Accurate Entry: Zuqnin Gets It Right

Among the many entries in the Chronicle of Zuqnin on Islam, this is one of the few that is historically accurate in both detail and dating.

🗓 Seleucid Calendar Match

SE 956 = October 1, 644 to September 30, 645 CE
This overlaps exactly with AH 24, the year of ʿUmar’s death and ʿUthmān’s accession.
The early Islamic inscription of Zuhayr, dated AH 24 (644 CE), confirms the contemporary recognition of this transition.

II. 🪵 The Zuhayr Inscription: A Contemporaneous Record

“In the name of God
I, Zuhayr, wrote [this] at the time ʿUmar died in the year four and twenty.”

🪨 This is one of the earliest dated Islamic inscriptions, written in the Ḥijāzī script. Key points:

It confirms ʿUmar’s death in AH 24 (644 CE).
Shows that diacritical marks (dots) were already in use in Arabic before the canonization of the Qur'an.
Contradicts outdated Orientalist assumptions (e.g., by Luxenberg) that early Arabic script was “defective.”

This epigraphic testimony proves that Muslim communities marked ʿUmar’s death contemporaneously, and lends historical weight to Islamic chronologies.

III. 📖 The Death of ʿUmar in Classical Islamic Sources

Multiple Islamic historians and hadith scholars also agree on the exact date of ʿUmar’s assassination.

🔹 Imam al-Ṭabarī:

“ʿUmar was killed on Wednesday, four nights before the end of Dhu al-Ḥijjah, in the year 23H.”
📘 Taʾrīkh al-Rusul wa’l-Mulūk, 4/194

🔹 Imam al-Bukhārī:

“ʿUmar was struck on Wednesday, with four nights remaining before the end of Dhu al-Ḥijjah.”
📘 Tārīkh al-Kabīr, 7/164

🕯 These narrations date the assassination to 26 Dhu al-Ḥijjah 23H, with his burial occurring on 1 Muharram 24H—the very first day of the new Hijri year.

IV. 🌒 The Solar Eclipse on the Day of ʿUmar’s Death

One of the most extraordinary corroborations of this historical moment comes from the sky itself.

🔭 Reported by Imam al-Ṭabarānī:

“I witnessed the death of ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb, and the sun was eclipsed that day.”
📘 al-Muʿjam al-Kabīr, 1/71

This was authenticated by:

Nur al-Dīn al-Haythamī: “Its narrators are trustworthy.”
al-Suyūṭī: “Reported with an authentic chain.”

🌍 Modern Confirmation:

NASA records confirm that a solar eclipse occurred on November 5, 644 CE — 26 Dhu al-Ḥijjah 23H, visible across:

The Arabian Peninsula,
Iraq,
The Levant.

This astounding alignment confirms the integrity of the isnād system, the Islamic science of transmission, and the reliability of early Islamic historical memory.

V. 📜 Transition of Power: ʿUthmān ibn ʿAffān

Zuqnin’s entry continues:

“He was succeeded by ʿUthman, who reigned for twelve years.”

This, too, is historically accurate:

ʿUthmān ibn ʿAffān was appointed caliph immediately after ʿUmar’s burial.
He ruled from AH 24 to AH 35 (644–656 CE).

This makes him the longest-reigning caliph of the Rāshidūn era.

VI. 🕊 Significance for Syriac Chroniclers

That a West Syriac Christian chronicler recorded:

ʿUmar’s death, and
ʿUthmān’s accession,

…proves that the Islamic caliphate had become a central concern of Near Eastern historiography by the mid-7th century.

Even if brief, this entry shows:

A recognition of Arab governance as the new imperial order,
A functional awareness of Muslim succession, unlike earlier confused entries,
And a growing precision in chronicling Islamic events, a notable shift from earlier entries that conflated Muhammad’s life with later conquests.

SE 960 | AH 28 | CE 648–649

The Invasion of Cyprus and the Fall of Arwad: Islam Takes to the Sea

📝 Text

“The year nine hundred and sixty: Muʿāwiya invaded Cyprus. In the same year, Arvad was captured.”

🧭 Commentary and Analysis

I. 🕰 Chronological Alignment: A Multitradition Convergence

The Chronicle of Zuqnin is remarkably well-aligned in this entry. Despite common challenges in dating elsewhere, both the invasion of Cyprus and the capture of Arwad are firmly attested in a variety of sources.

🗓 Source Concordance:

Source	Date Given
Zuqnin Chronicle	SE 960 = 648–649 CE
Michael the Great	SE 960 = 648–649 CE
Theophanes	A.M. 6140 = 648–649 CE
Elias of Nisibis	SE 959 = 647–648 CE, AH 28
al-Ṭabarī	H. 27, 28, or 33 (647–654 CE)
Agapius of Manbij	Year 3 of ʿUthmān (646–647 CE)

Though some Muslim sources provide multiple years, the general consensus places the first raid in 648–649 CE, with further attacks later in the 650s.

II. 🪵 Epigraphic Confirmation: The Soloi Inscription

The Soloi inscription (from Cyprus) offers stunning contemporary, non-Muslim evidence:

“In Year 7 of the Indiction, 365 of the Diocletian era… there took place the attack on the island… about 120,000 were led away as prisoners.”

📍 Interpreting the Dates:

Diocletian Era (Era of the Martyrs) begins February 24, 303 CE.
Year 365 Diocletian = 648 CE.
Indiction 7 = Sept 1, 648 – Aug 31, 649 CE.

✅ This confirms that the initial Arab invasion of Cyprus occurred in 649 CE—perfectly aligning with SE 960, as recorded in Zuqnin.

💥 The Scale of the Invasion:

120,000 prisoners reportedly taken,
Wide destruction of churches, episcopal buildings,
A second invasion followed soon after.

This was not a minor raid but a devastating amphibious campaign, coordinated under Muʿāwiya ibn Abī Sufyān, governor of Syria under Caliph ʿUthmān.

III. ⚓ Muʿāwiya and the Dawn of Islamic Naval Power

This entry marks a historic shift: from land conquests to maritime warfare.

Muʿāwiya was the first to develop a formal Muslim navy.
With support from ex-Roman shipwrights and seamen,
He launched fleets from Acre, Tyre, and Tripoli.

🌊 Why Cyprus?

Strategically placed between Syria and Asia Minor,
A Roman outpost and naval base,
Also a wealthy Christian island, useful for revenue, prisoners, and morale.

🛳 Aftermath:

The island was turned into a tribute-paying territory,
Later re-invaded during Muʿāwiya’s caliphate,
Many inhabitants were forcibly deported to the Levant.

IV. 🏝 The Fall of Arwad (Arados): The Last Island Bastion of Rome in Syria

Alongside the high-profile invasion of Cyprus, the Chronicle of Zuqnin notes a far less discussed—but equally significant—event in the same year (SE 960 / 648–649 CE): the fall of the island fortress of Arwad.

“In the same year, Arvad was captured.” (Zuqnin Chronicle)

🌊 Arwad: A Strategic Island Fortress

Known in Arabic as Arwād and in Greek as Arados, the island lies just off the Phoenician coast, near modern Tartus in Syria.

Arwad had been an ancient Phoenician settlement, later heavily fortified by the Romans, and was one of the last significant Roman naval outposts in the eastern Mediterranean.

It was renowned for its natural harbor, making it a defensive lynchpin for Roman control of the Syrian coastline.

🏛 A Fortress that Refused to Surrender

According to Amir Harrak’s footnote (Zuqnin, p. 153 n.3):

“Arwad… did not surrender to the Arabs but was later so devastated by the conquerors that it became uninhabitable.”

Unlike some cities that submitted under terms (like Dara or Edessa), Arwad resisted outright.

The result was catastrophic: the Arabs sacked the island, devastated its infrastructure, and it never fully recovered—becoming uninhabitable for a time.

This suggests the siege of Arwad was brutal and total, contrasting with more negotiated settlements on the mainland.

🗓 Discrepancies in Dating: When Did Arwad Fall?

Like many events in the early Islamic conquests, the exact date of Arwad’s fall varies across sources:

Source Date Given
Zuqnin Chronicle SE 960 = 648–649 CE
Michael the Great SE 960 (648–649)
Theophanes A.M. 6141 = 649–650 CE
Agapius of Manbij 3rd year of ʿUthmān = 646–647 CE
While Agapius gives an earlier date, the consensus among the sources centers on 648–649 CE, aligning it with Muʿāwiya’s campaign and the fall of Cyprus.

⚓ Strategic Implications

Arwad’s fall was not just a symbolic blow—it had major geopolitical consequences:

🧭 It removed the last Roman naval base on the Syrian coast, leaving the region exposed to Islamic fleets.

🌊 It enabled unimpeded Arab naval expansion across the eastern Mediterranean, facilitating:

Further raids into Asia Minor,

The eventual naval battles with Rome, such as the Battle of the Masts (655 CE),

The siege of Constantinople 5 years later.

In essence, Arwad was the final domino in the Islamic conquest of the eastern Levantine littoral.

🧩 A Forgotten Conquest?

Arwad receives little attention in most Arabic sources, overshadowed by Cyprus, Alexandria, and Rhodes. Yet Zuqnin’s brief mention is vital because:

It preserves local Christian memory of a traumatic event,

Acknowledges the thoroughness of the Arab advance,

And situates Arwad’s destruction within a pattern of geopolitical erasure—a powerful, fortified city literally wiped off the map.

In later Islamic times, Arwad would be repopulated, but its 7th-century fall marked the permanent end of Roman authority in coastal Syria.

V. 🔍 Historical Significance: Islam on the Seas, Rome on the Brink

The Zuqnin Chronicle’s entry for SE 960 (648–649 CE) is deceptively brief—just two lines noting Muʿāwiya’s invasion of Cyprus and the fall of Arwad. Yet these lines mark a critical inflection point in the trajectory of the early Islamic empire, Christian theological response, and the geostrategic balance of the eastern Mediterranean.

🧭 A New Phase of Expansion

Feature Transformation
🌍 Geographic Reach From inland Syria to offshore islands; the Islamic expansion literally sets sail.
🛳 Strategic Shift Naval operations begin in earnest, signaling the Caliphate’s capacity for amphibious warfare.
🕌 Political Development Muʿāwiya, as governor of Syria, begins asserting influence that foreshadows his later caliphate.
🪦 Christian Response The narrative of divine punishment for communal sin intensifies, especially in Syriac and Greek Christian laments.

Feature	Transformation
🌍 Geographic Reach	From inland Syria to offshore islands; the Islamic expansion literally sets sail.
🛳 Strategic Shift	Naval operations begin in earnest, signaling the Caliphate’s capacity for amphibious warfare.
🕌 Political Development	Muʿāwiya, as governor of Syria, begins asserting influence that foreshadows his later caliphate.
🪦 Christian Response	The narrative of divine punishment for communal sin intensifies, especially in Syriac and Greek Christian laments.

🌒 "Because of Our Sins...": The Apocalyptic Interpretation

The Soloi Inscription, left by the Christian community in Cyprus, frames the Arab invasions as a divinely ordained punishment:

“Because of our sins, there took place the attack on the island.”

This phrasing is not unique. It echoes:

Apocalyptic motifs from the Sibylline Oracles and Pseudo-Methodius,

Biblical patterns where national calamities result from spiritual failings (cf. Isaiah, Jeremiah),

And Christian chronicles that interpreted Muslim conquests as chastisement.

For Syriac Christians in particular, these events were not just historical—they were moral and eschatological.

📜 Theological Shock and Theodicy

The devastation of Cyprus and Arwad ignited theological crises among Christians:

How could heretical Arabs triumph over the orthodox (or in the Syriac case, non-Chalcedonian) faithful?

How could Muslim "Ishmaelites" conquer lands sanctified by the apostles?

Writers like Pseudo-Methodius would wrestle with these questions, seeing the Arabs as agents of divine punishment—but also as temporary scourges that would herald the return of a Christian empire.

🧱 Confirmed by Multilateral Evidence

This Zuqnin entry stands out for its alignment across cultural and linguistic traditions:

Source Type Example Note
🪧 Epigraphic Soloi Inscription Diocletian Era, Indiction Year 7 = 649 CE; confirms invasion.
📖 Syriac Chronicle Zuqnin, Michael, Elias Date ranges from SE 959 to 960 = 648–649 CE.
📘 Greek Sources Theophanes A.M. 6140 = 648–649 CE.
📚 Arabic Sources al-Ṭabarī, Balādhurī, Agapius Date fluctuates between AH 27–33.
🏺 Archaeology Burn layers, destruction strata in Cypriot coastal cities Corroborate scale and violence of invasion.
In short, this moment is one of the rare points where Roman, Syriac, Islamic, and archaeological voices all speak to the same rupture.

Source Type	Example	Note
🪧 Epigraphic	Soloi Inscription	Diocletian Era, Indiction Year 7 = 649 CE; confirms invasion.
📖 Syriac Chronicle	Zuqnin, Michael, Elias	Date ranges from SE 959 to 960 = 648–649 CE.
📘 Greek Sources	Theophanes	A.M. 6140 = 648–649 CE.
📚 Arabic Sources	al-Ṭabarī, Balādhurī, Agapius	Date fluctuates between AH 27–33.
🏺 Archaeology	Burn layers, destruction strata in Cypriot coastal cities	Corroborate scale and violence of invasion.

⚔ Military and Geopolitical Turning Point

The conquest of Cyprus and Arwad reflects a mature and adaptive military strategy:

The early Caliphate was no longer a purely land-based power.

The eastern Mediterranean—once a Roman lake—was breached.

Arab raids would soon extend to Rhodes, Crete, and eventually Constantinople itself (669 and 674–678 CE).

These were not opportunistic raids—they were:

Planned

Coordinated

Strategically situated

Cyprus became a springboard, Arwad a secure base, and the Levantine coast a supply corridor.

✍ Final Thought

“Because of our sins…”

That single phrase encapsulates how 7th-century Christians read history through theology. The Zuqnin Chronicle, like the Soloi inscription, offers not just a factual report—but a window into how communities absorbed conquest, reinterpreted trauma, and ultimately recorded the irreversible reshaping of their world.

SE 963 | AH 32 | CE 651–652

The Battle at Tripolis: Prelude to the Siege of Constantinople

📝 Text
“The year nine hundred and sixty-three: A battle between the Arabs and the Romans took place in Tripolis.”

🧭 Commentary and Analysis

I. 📍 Zuqnin’s Cryptic Clue: The Battle at Tripoli

While Zuqnin simply reports a battle between the Arabs and the Romans at Tripoli in SE 963 (651–652 CE), most Christian sources place the Tripoli revolt slightly later, around 653–654 CE. The rebels — Roman prisoners — reportedly killed the Muslim garrison and escaped on a few ships. The fact that Zuqnin records the event a year or two earlier than Theophanes, Agapius, Elias of Nisibis, and Michael the Syrian suggests it preserved a separate, possibly earlier, Syriac tradition, untainted by later harmonizations.

II. 🔥 Prelude to a Forgotten Siege: Sebeos’ Account of 654

Armenian chronicler Sebeos gives the only detailed contemporary account of what he claims was a massive Arab naval siege of Constantinople in 654 CE, led by Muʿāwiya:

“Behold, the great ships arrived at Chalcedon… For they had stowed on board mangonels, machines to throw fire and stones, archers and slingers… to descend onto the walls. But the Lord looked down… a storm arose… the ships broke up… and the soldiers were drowned.” (Sebeos, History, pp. 169–171)

This vivid narrative describes:

A combined sea and land offensive assembled from all corners of the early Islamic realm — Persia, Egypt, India, and Khūzistān.
300 warships and 5,000 light vessels, loaded with elite troops and siege engines.
A catastrophic storm off Chalcedon (directly across from Constantinople) that destroyed the Arab fleet, a divine intervention in Christian eyes.

III. 🚢 The Tripoli Revolt: The Beginning or a Disruption?

The Tripoli episode, long associated with 654 and linked to the Battle of Phoenix (655), now appears — in Zuqnin’s telling — as a prelude in 651–652.

A prison uprising at Tripoli may have been an early Roman response to Arab naval preparations — a desperate attempt to cripple the fleet before it launched.
However, only a few ships were captured, and the invasion continued.

Shaun O’Sullivan (2004) argues that the Tripoli revolt had minimal impact on the larger Arab naval campaign. Instead, it was followed by:

The disastrous siege of 654.
A Roman counter-offensive in 655, leading to the Battle of Phoenix, where Emperor Constans II himself led the fleet but was nearly killed.

IV. 🧠 Historiographical Suppression and Erasure

Sebeos’ singular account may have survived only because he wrote from Armenian Monophysite circles, which were not subject to the theological erasures of the Chalcedonian imperial establishment.

After the Sixth Ecumenical Council (680–681), which condemned Monotheletism and Emperor Constans II, historical memory was rewritten:

Constans became a theological villain.
Records of divine protection under his rule — like the failed Muslim siege of 654 — were quietly suppressed.

📖 Example: Anastasius of Sinai attributes all Roman disasters, even those under Heraclius, to Constans — as punishment for Monotheletism.

V. 🌊 A Forgotten Cataclysm Confirmed?

Other corroborating Christian traces survive:

🕯 Khuzistan Chronicle (661): "God has not permitted them to take Constantinople."
🏛 Fredegar Chronicle (Gaul, 6661): Constans “regained his empire” and stopped paying tribute in ~654.
✝ Maronite Chronicle: Describes later Muslim setbacks and the siege of Thrace with remarkable levity — implying Constantinople had already resisted once.
🖋 Theodosius Grammaticus: Greek poem praising divine destruction of an Arab fleet "off the city."

Confirmation from Islamic Sources

The entries from Ṭabarī and Khalīfa ibn Khayyāṭ reinforce that the Arab-Roman conflict had already extended to the vicinity of Constantinople.

🔹 Al-Ṭabarī (Taʾrīkh al-Rusul wa’l-Mulūk):

“Among the events of the year 32 [AH] was the expedition of Muʿāwiya b. Abī Sufyān to the Bosphorus—that is, the straits of Constantinople. He was accompanied by his wife ʿĀtikah bt. Qurtah...” (vol. 4, p. 259)

🔹 Khalīfa ibn Khayyāṭ (Taʾrīkh Khalīfa):

“In the year 32, Muʿāwiya raided the *straits of Constantinople (al-madīq min Qusṭanṭiniyya).”

This terminology, "al-madīq" (the strait), clearly refers to the Bosphorus, the key maritime chokepoint that guards the city.

⚔ Interpretation: Zuqnin Is Not Mistaken — It's Concise

This proves that the Zuqnīn Chronicle’s laconic note about a battle at Tripolis in SE 963 (651–652 CE) isn’t an error, nor too early. Instead, it refers to a real campaign that was:

Recognized in Islamic records but not heavily emphasized, likely due to its limited result;
Seen in Christian memory as the beginning of Muʿāwiya’s aggression toward the imperial capital.

🔍 Why This Matters

This underscores a broader pattern:

Feature	Christian Sources	Muslim Sources
Framing	Siege narratives, apocalyptic warnings, divine signs	Factual mention, neutral tone, no elaboration
Event Type	Cataclysmic or providential moments	Routine campaigns or seasonal raids
Historical Value	Preserves what was felt	Records what was done

Thus, the Zuqnīn Chronicle actually bridges the two traditions. It links the localized revolt at Tripoli, the naval presence at the Bosphorus, and the later storm-bound fleet of 654 into a single remembered episode — compactly, yet accurately.

✅ Final Conclusion:

The Chronicle’s mention of a “battle at Tripolis” in SE 963 = 651–652 CE:

Anticipates Muʿāwiya’s naval positioning near Constantinople, already underway.
Matches Islamic reports that do record this expedition — just in a more subdued tone.
Serves as documentary glue that connects:
- The Tripoli revolt,
- The naval approach to the Bosphorus,
- And the great storm that wrecked the fleet in 654 per Sebeos.

Rather than being confused, the Zuqnīn Chronicle offers a compressed but accurate summary of events leading up to one of the most ambitious early Islamic campaigns against Rome.

SE 964 | AH 33 | CE 652–653

Ḥabīb’s Invasion of Armenia and Procopius’ Embassy to Muʿāwiya: War and Peace in the Era of Tension

📝 Text:

“The year nine hundred and sixty-four: Ḥabīb invaded the Jazira and Procopius came to make peace with the Arabs.”

🧭 Historical and Analytical Commentary

I. Ḥabīb’s Campaign: The Invasion of Armenia — Not the Jazira

Although the Zuqnīn Chronicle states that Ḥabīb b. Maslamah “invaded the Jazira,” this is a geographic misidentification. A broader convergence of sources reveals that Ḥabīb’s real target in this campaign was Armenia, not Mesopotamia (al-Jazira). The confusion likely stems from the campaign being launched from the Jaziran frontier zone — particularly from Raqqa or Harran — but its arc extended northward into the Armenian highlands, especially around Dvin.

📚 Theophanes (A.M. 6145 / 653–654)

“In the same year the Arab general Ḥabīb attacked and ravaged Armenia. Meeting the Roman general Maurianos, he chased him all the way to the Caucasus Mountains.”

📖 Al-Ṭabarī, citing al-Wāqidī (AH 31 / 651–652):

“In this year… Armenia was conquered by Ḥabīb b. Maslamah al-Fihrī.
Al-Mawriyan al-Rūmī [Maurianos] set out to meet him with 80,000 Romans and Turks… Ḥabīb attacked them by night, reached the pavilion of al-Mawriyan, and his wife [Umm ʿAbd Allāh] preceded him — she was the first Arab woman assigned a pavilion as spoils of war.”

🗺 Synthesis of the Campaign:

Staging Ground: Jazira (likely Raqqa or Harran)

Target: Armenia, especially Dvin

Climax: Night assault against Maurianos' camp; capture of his wife as spoils — a detail noted as unique in early Islamic military lore.

II. The Peace Embassy: Procopius’ Mission to Damascus — Misdated by Zuqnīn

While Ḥabīb waged war in Armenia, diplomatic efforts were already unfolding two years earlier in Damascus. The Zuqnīn Chronicle compresses events and incorrectly places the embassy in SE 964 (652–653), when in fact it occurred in 650 CE. A wide array of sources converge to place this peace initiative earlier, following Arab incursions into Asia Minor and naval engagements in the Bosphorus.

📖 Theophanes (A.M. 6142 / 650–651):

“The Emperor sent Procopius to Muʿāwiya to ask for peace… there was peace for two years. At Damascus, Muʿāwiya received as hostage Gregory, son of Theodore [Heraclius’ brother].”

📖 Agapius of Manbij:

“Constans… sent messengers to Muʿāwiya in Damascus asking for a peace treaty… Manuel, who had been in Egypt, was among them… Muʿāwiya agreed on the condition that Constans leave members of his own family as hostages.”

📖 Chronicle of 1234:

“Constans sent a messenger to Muʿāwiya… a treaty was drawn up… the Arabs received Gregory, son of Theodore, as a hostage. The following year Gregory died and was embalmed and returned to Constantinople. The treaty was annulled.”

📖 Syriac Chronicle (Msyr):

“Ptolemy [i.e., Procopius] went out again, gave gold and made peace for three years… The king sent Gregory, his brother’s son, as hostage.”

📖 Sebeos:

“Constans was terrified… he began to parley for peace… and sent Procopius to Damascus to conclude the treaty with Muʿāwiya… The peace lasted three years.”

📅 Precise Chronology of the Treaty:

Constans II became sole emperor: November 5, 641

12th regnal year (per Sebeos’ chronology): begins late 652 – ends late 653

Sebeos writes:

“Now when the king of Ismael [i.e., Uthman] saw the success of this victory… after three years of the peace treaty had fully passed, he no longer wished to make peace… in the 12th year of the reign of Constans.”

Therefore, the treaty must have begun no later than 650 CE to have expired in 653.

📌 Duration and End of Peace:

Treaty concluded in 650

Gregory died the following year (651) in Baalbek

Peace was annulled soon after

Full-scale naval confrontations resumed by 653–654

III. Broader Implications: Diplomacy and Militarism in Parallel Motion

Theme Insight

⚔ Arab Expansion Ḥabīb’s operations in Armenia signal an assertive northern thrust, testing Roman control in the Caucasus frontier.

🕊 Roman Diplomacy Constans’ embassy reflects a strategic retreat after military setbacks (e.g., Arab raids on Isauria and Bosphorus).

🏛 Damascus Ascendant With Muʿāwiya hosting embassies, Damascus effectively becomes the new capital of Arab diplomacy — and soon, of caliphal power.

📜 Zuqnīn’s Compression The chronicler telescopes war and peace events, failing to distinguish that Procopius’ embassy preceded Ḥabīb’s Armenian raid by two full years.

🌍 East-West Strategy The contrast between Muʿāwiya’s diplomacy in Damascus and Ḥabīb’s offensive in the Armenian highlands reveals a sophisticated Arab dual-track strategy: negotiate peace in the west to free up forces for the north.

Theme	Insight
⚔ Arab Expansion	Ḥabīb’s operations in Armenia signal an assertive northern thrust, testing Roman control in the Caucasus frontier.
🕊 Roman Diplomacy	Constans’ embassy reflects a strategic retreat after military setbacks (e.g., Arab raids on Isauria and Bosphorus).
🏛 Damascus Ascendant	With Muʿāwiya hosting embassies, Damascus effectively becomes the new capital of Arab diplomacy — and soon, of caliphal power.
📜 Zuqnīn’s Compression	The chronicler telescopes war and peace events, failing to distinguish that Procopius’ embassy preceded Ḥabīb’s Armenian raid by two full years.
🌍 East-West Strategy	The contrast between Muʿāwiya’s diplomacy in Damascus and Ḥabīb’s offensive in the Armenian highlands reveals a sophisticated Arab dual-track strategy: negotiate peace in the west to free up forces for the north.

📚 Conclusion

The events of 650–653 CE mark a crucial inflection point in early Roman-Arab relations. While diplomacy temporarily halted conflict in Syria and Asia Minor, the Arab push into Armenia revealed the limitations of Roman strategic depth and the growing autonomy of provincial Arab governors like Muʿāwiya. The embassy of Procopius — properly dated to 650, not 652 — and the short-lived treaty it produced stand as testimony to the fragile balance between war and peace in this pivotal transitional decade.

SE 967 | AH 35–36 | CE 655–656

The Death of ʿUthmān and the Outbreak of the First Fitna

📝 Text

“The year nine hundred and sixty-seven: ʿUthmān, Caliph of the Arabs, died. Civil war broke out, the land was troubled, and the Arab people were confused. Evils increased in the land and the Arabs were responsible for much bloodshed among themselves, because they did not want to submit to one single leader. Rather, each one of them sought after the leadership, because each one of them wanted to rule.

In the Western Region, the military commander, Muʿāwiya by name, wanted to be leader; furthermore, the people of the West liked him, pledged their allegiance and submitted to him.

Nevertheless, the Eastern Region and the Jazīra rejected this man and submitted to another military commander whose name was ʿAbbās. They acknowledged him as Caliph. This is why from this time onward wars and bloodshed between both parties began to take place. Not only did they shed the blood of each other, but they saturated the ground with it. The many battles which they fought in every region against each other lasted some five years, all marked by quarrels and conflicts.”

🧭 Commentary and Analysis

I. Chronological Accuracy: The Death of ʿUthmān

✅ The Chronicle accurately places the death of Caliph ʿUthmān in SE 967 / 655–656 CE.

📜 Confirmed by:

🕋 Islamic sources: ʿUthmān b. ʿAffān was assassinated on 17 Dhū al-Ḥijjah, 35 AH / 17 June 656 CE in Medina, following a siege of his home.
🪦 One of the most pivotal events in early Islamic history, his death marked the beginning of the First Fitna (civil war).

II. Syriac Terminology: Arabisms and Cultural Blending

The chronicler employs two notable Arabisms:

Fitna (فِتْنَة) – rendered into Syriac as a noun with an emphatic ending:
- A term that entered Syriac vocabulary to refer to internal Muslim strife or "civil discord."
Bayʿa (بَيْعَة) – rendered with Syriac plural and suffixes:
- The Arabic term for “allegiance” or oath of loyalty, adapted into Syriac as a clear indicator of cross-linguistic borrowing.

These linguistic elements reveal the chronicler’s proximity to Arab-Muslim rule and suggest Syriac communities were closely observing Muslim political vocabulary.

III. Major Mistake: Confusing ʿAlī with ʿAbbās

⚠️ The chronicler’s major error is the claim that the eastern Arabs rallied around a man named “ʿAbbās” as their caliph.

🛑 Inaccurate Identification:

ʿAbbās ibn ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib was the Prophet Muhammad’s uncle.
He died in 653 CE, three years before ʿUthmān’s assassination, and never vied for political rule.
The actual caliph acknowledged in the East (and in fact elected in Medina) was ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib, the cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet.

📍 Possible Causes of the Error:

Confusion due to the future prominence of the ʿAbbāsid dynasty (named after ʿAbbās).
Misidentification due to similar names or oral transmission errors.
Syriac authors occasionally misheard or misunderstood Arabic names, especially when those names had limited direct relevance to their own communities.

IV. Geography and Political Polarization

The chronicler divides the Muslim world into two rival camps:

Region	Leader	Allegiance
🕌 West (Syria)	Muʿāwiya ibn Abī Sufyān	Accepted as leader
🌄 East (Iraq & Jazira)	"ʿAbbās" (mistakenly)	Rejected Muʿāwiya

🔍 In fact, the accurate picture is:

The Syrians rallied behind Muʿāwiya, governor of Syria and kinsman of the slain caliph ʿUthmān, demanding vengeance.
The Iraqis (Kūfa in particular), along with much of the Jazira, backed ʿAlī, who had been elected by the Medinese elite as the next caliph.

V. Civil War and Moral Framing

The Chronicle gives a strikingly vivid and moralistic summary of the First Fitna:

“They did not want to submit to one single leader… each one wanted to rule… they saturated the ground with blood…”

📚 The language echoes biblical judgment motifs:

Civil strife is cast as divine punishment.
The Arabs, initially unified under religious zeal, are now shown fracturing from within.
The chronicler reflects the shock and anxiety of neighboring Christian communities observing this internal unraveling.

🩸 The Battle of the Camel (656) and later Ṣiffīn (657) likely form the background of the statement: “The many battles… lasted five years.”

The Zuqnīn entry captures the traumatic unraveling of early Islamic unity, marked by the murder of a caliph, the breakdown of political consensus, and the eruption of regional loyalties. Though mistaken on names, it accurately reflects the scale and consequences of the crisis, including the onset of five years of bloody conflict that would permanently alter the Islamic world.

SE 968 | AH 37 | CE 656–657

The Battle of Ṣiffīn: The Great Civil War Between ʿAlī and Muʿāwiya

📝 Text

“The year nine hundred and sixty-eight: The battle of Siffin between ʿAbbās and Muʿāwiya took place. Much blood was shed on both sides.”

🧭 Commentary and Analysis

I. Accurate Chronology: Ṣiffīn in 657

✅ The dating of this entry is historically accurate. The Battle of Ṣiffīn occurred between 26 and 28 July, 657 CE, corresponding to Dhu al-Ḥijjah 37 AH, and falls neatly within Seleucid Year 968 (October 656 – September 657).

This marks a rare moment of chronological precision in the Chronicle of Zuqnīn’s early Islamic entries.

II. The Misnamed Caliph: "ʿAbbās" Again

⚠️ As in the previous entry, the chronicler mistakenly refers to ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib as “ʿAbbās”.

This likely stems from confusion between ʿAlī and the Prophet’s uncle ʿAbbās ibn ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib, who had died in 653 CE, three years before this event.
It's possible the chronicler conflated ʿAlī with the later ʿAbbāsid movement, which would rise in the next century and claim descent from ʿAbbās.

Despite the name error, the historical content is broadly accurate: a major battle between the two rival Muslim claimants to leadership took place in this year.

III. The Battle of Ṣiffīn: Historical Context

⚔ Location: Ṣiffīn, a region near the Euphrates River, close to Raqqa in modern Syria.

Faction	Leader	Base of Support
ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib	The fourth Caliph	Iraq (Kūfa), Hijaz
Muʿāwiya ibn Abī Sufyān	Governor of Syria	Syria, Levant

🧠 The conflict was rooted in:

Muʿāwiya’s refusal to recognize ʿAlī until the killers of ʿUthmān were punished,
Tribal, regional, and political rivalries,
The decentralizing tensions in the early Islamic polity.

IV. Bloodshed and Stalemate

“Much blood was shed on both sides.”

Indeed, the battle was one of the deadliest of the early Islamic period:

Tens of thousands are said to have died.
According to al-Ṭabarī, the fighting was nearly even, with both sides exhausting themselves over three days.

⛔ The battle ended in a stalemate:

The Syrians raised pages of the Qurʾān on spears, calling for arbitration.
ʿAlī reluctantly agreed—a decision that divided his own supporters, leading to the emergence of the Khawārij (a radical third faction).

V. Syriac Perspective: A Civilizational Crisis

The Chronicle’s mention of “much bloodshed” captures the view of early Christians witnessing the collapse of Arab-Muslim unity.

🔍 From the chronicler’s perspective:

Islam, once united under Muhammad and the first caliphs, now fractured.
This fragmentation opened up political space, and perhaps theological hope, for Christian communities living under Muslim rule.

💭 Yet the chronicler refrains from any polemical attack here—perhaps because the chaos of Muslim infighting spoke for itself.

The Zuqnīn Chronicle, despite its brevity and nominal confusion, captures the sheer significance and bloodshed of the Battle of Ṣiffīn. It marks a turning point—not just in Islamic political history, but in the narrative of the Syriac-speaking Christians who saw the rise of Islam descend into fratricide.

SE 973 | AH 40–41 | CE 661–662

The Assassination of ʿAlī and the Rise of Muʿāwiya: A Caliphate Recast

📝 Text

“The year nine hundred and seventy-three: ‘Abbās was assassinated by his nobles in a plot on a Friday at prayer time, while he was prostrated for prayer. Muʿāwiya ruled alone for twenty-one years, including the five years during which he kindled civil war, and its resulting confusion, between him and ‘Abbās.”

🧭 Commentary and Analysis

I. Chronology and Misidentification: “ʿAbbās” Again

✅ The event described is the assassination of ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib, which occurred on January 28, 661 CE, corresponding to 19 Ramaḍān 40 AH, while he was leading the Fajr (dawn) prayer in the mosque of Kūfa.

📅 Chronological Note:

SE 973 (October 661 – September 662) does include this date, so while slightly delayed, the Zuqnīn dating is functionally accurate.

⚠️ However, the name "ʿAbbās" is again a misidentification:

As discussed in earlier entries, this appears to be a recurring error in Syriac historiography, possibly confusing ʿAlī with the Prophet’s uncle al-ʿAbbās ibn ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib (d. 653).
Alternatively, this could reflect later ʿAbbāsid-era influence or scribal confusion.

II. The Assassination of ʿAlī: By His Own “Nobles”?

The Chronicle attributes ʿAlī’s death to a conspiracy by his nobles “while he was prostrated for prayer.”

🗡️ In Islamic tradition, the assassin was:

ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Muljam al-Murādī, a member of the Khawārij, the radical sect that broke from ʿAlī's camp after the arbitration with Muʿāwiya post-Ṣiffīn.

🧠 The reference to “his nobles” may be a Syriac misunderstanding or generalization:

To Christian chroniclers, a group like the Khawārij may have appeared as ʿAlī’s own supporters turned conspirators—not unlike political noble factions.
It reflects internal betrayal, reinforcing a broader Syriac theme of civilizational implosion within Islam.

III. “Muʿāwiya Ruled Alone for 21 Years”: Inflated Duration

📏 Historical Record:

Muʿāwiya officially ruled from 661 to 680 CE, a total of 19 years as caliph.

📉 The Chronicle, however, claims 21 years, including five years of civil war with "ʿAbbās" (i.e., ʿAlī).

📌 Possible explanations:

Symbolic Numerology – 21 may represent three sevens, a theological trope of completeness or divine testing.
Rounded Estimate – The chronicler may have begun Muʿāwiya’s “rule” around 656 (the start of the civil war), viewing his political maneuvering as de facto kingship.
Inclusion of Rival Period – Muʿāwiya’s self-assertion of power during the First Fitna may have been seen as part of his effective rule, despite not being universally recognized.

IV. Political Fracture: The End of the Rāshidūn and the Rise of the Umayyads

This moment marks a paradigm shift in early Islamic history:

Feature	Transition
🕌 Caliphate Ideal	From community-based leadership (Shūrā)
👑 Monarchical Rule	To hereditary dynasty (Umayyads)
🤝 Consensus Rule	To contested sovereignty
⚔ Righteous Rule	To realpolitik and dynastic consolidation

📍 With ʿAlī’s death, the Rāshidūn Caliphate (632–661) ended, and the Umayyad dynasty (661–750) formally began under Muʿāwiya ibn Abī Sufyān.

V. Syriac Framing: Islam’s Collapse Into Confusion

The chronicler’s emphasis on:

“Evils increased… wars… bloodshed… they did not want to submit to one single leader…”

mirrors a moral and eschatological lens:

The First Fitna is depicted as a judgment upon the Arabs,
Unity, law, and even prophetic legitimacy had collapsed into ambition and fratricide,
This was not merely a civil war—it was, to Syriac Christians, the beginning of the unraveling of Islam’s divine momentum.

The passage parallels biblical judgments upon Israel for disobedience—thus, to the chronicler, Islam's internal collapse is evidence of its moral illegitimacy.

This Zuqnīn entry, despite naming errors and time approximations, records one of the most pivotal turning points in Islamic—and Near Eastern—history. The assassination of ʿAlī, the rise of Muʿāwiya, and the shattering of prophetic unity are not just political milestones—they are deeply woven into the Syriac-Christian understanding of divine judgment, chaos, and the fate of empires.

SE 988 | AH 56–57 | CE 676–677

The Mistimed Death of Muʿāwiya and Succession of Yazīd

📝 Text

“The year nine hundred and eighty-eight: Muʿāwiya, Caliph of the Arabs, died. He was succeeded by Yazīd, for three and a half years.”

🧭 Commentary and Analysis

I. Chronological Inaccuracy: A Full Four Years Too Early

📍 The Problem:

This entry places the death of Muʿāwiya ibn Abī Sufyān in SE 988 (676–677 CE).
However, historical and Islamic sources are unanimous: Muʿāwiya died in Rajab 60 AH / May 680 CE, which corresponds to SE 991/992.

📜 Corroborating Sources:

Source	Date
al-Ṭabarī	AH 60 = CE 680
al-Yaʿqūbī	AH 60 = CE 680
Theophanes	A.M. 6171 = May 6, 680
Agapius of Manbij	SE 991 = Sunday, May 6, 680
Chronicle of 846	SE 991 = CE 680
Michael the Syrian	SE 992 = CE 680–681

📅 Conclusion:

The Chronicle of Zuqnīn jumps the gun by four years, marking the end of Muʿāwiya’s reign too early.

II. Succession and Duration: Yazīd’s Reign Not Miscounted

📏 While the timing of Muʿāwiya’s death is off, the duration of Yazīd’s reign is accurately stated as:

“Three and a half years.”

🔎 Historical Duration:

Yazīd ruled from Rajab 60 AH (May 680) to Rabīʿ al-Awwal 64 AH (November 683),
That is, approximately three years and eight months, which the Chronicle rounds to 3.5.

✅ So despite dating issues, this internal consistency shows the chronicler had some awareness of succession timelines.

III. Political Significance: The Dynastic Handover

This entry marks a key shift in Islamic political history:

Caliph	Legacy
Muʿāwiya (661–680)	Founder of the Umayyad dynasty; ended the First Fitna; centralized caliphal rule
Yazīd I (680–683)	His reign triggered the Second Fitna (civil war), including the tragedy of Karbalāʾ

🩸 Yazīd’s short reign would see the death of Ḥusayn ibn ʿAlī, the grandson of the Prophet ﷺ, and a major theological-political rupture in Islamic history.

🧠 The Zuqnīn Chronicle doesn’t yet recount these dramatic events — but this line marks the beginning of a new chapter in Islamic discord, one that had long-reaching implications for both Sunni and Shīʿī identity formation.

IV. Syriac Silences: No Mention of Yazīd’s Infamy

What’s conspicuously absent from this entry:

No mention of Karbalāʾ (680),
No reference to Ḥusayn’s martyrdom,
No allusion to the mass upheavals in Iraq and the Hejaz.

📌 This may reflect:

A chronological dislocation, where such events are described later,
Or a limited understanding of the religious weight of these moments in early Syriac sources,
Or the influence of imperial Christian frameworks, more interested in governance than intra-Muslim theological rupture.

📌 Summary

Feature	Detail
📆 Date	SE 988 = AH 56–57 = CE 676–677
🛑 Mistake	Muʿāwiya’s death placed 4 years early
✔️ Correct	Yazīd’s reign as 3.5 years
🕌 Historical Shift	From Muʿāwiya’s realpolitik to Yazīd’s chaotic rule
🔕 Missing	No reference to Karbalāʾ, Ḥusayn, or Shiʿism

This entry reveals a partial memory of caliphal succession — accurate in internal durations but premature in dating. More importantly, it sets the stage for one of the darkest and most formative episodes in Islamic history, even if the Syriac lens has not yet fully registered it.

SE 990 | AH 58–59 | CE 678–679

🌍 The Earthquake of Edessa and the Intervention of Muʿāwiya

📝 Text

“The year nine hundred and ninety: On the third day of the month of Nisan (April), a Sunday, a powerful and severe earthquake took place in which Batnan of Sarug collapsed, as well as the old church of Edessa in which many people died.”

🧭 Historical Context

This entry refers to a major earthquake that struck Upper Mesopotamia in the year SE 990 (April 679), impacting Batnan of Sarug (modern-day Suruç) and Edessa (modern-day Urfa). The Zuqnīn Chronicler places the event on a Sunday in the month of Nisan, which aligns with Easter Sunday, April 3, 679, as noted in Michael the Syrian (Chronicle IV, 437).

Several other sources independently confirm this event:

Theophanes the Confessor (AM 6170 / 678–679):

“In this year there was a severe earthquake in Mesopotamia. In it, the pulpit and the dome of the church at Edessa fell. Because of the Christians' zealous exertions, Muʿāwiya rebuilt it.”

Agapius of Manbij:

“There was an earthquake in Baysan, and Qatnan, one of the villages of Sarug, subsided... A similar thing occurred in Edessa... Muʿāwiya ordered that the churches of Edessa be rebuilt.”

At the time, Muʿāwiya ibn Abī Sufyān ruled from Damascus as the first Umayyad caliph. Though not officially recognized by the Eastern Christians as a legitimate emperor, he was increasingly viewed (especially in Christian sources) as a quasi-Roman-style ruler—one capable of ordering the reconstruction of major Christian churches, even in lands newly subdued by Islam.

The earthquake’s geographic focus in the Jazīra—historically a Christian heartland—alongside Muʿāwiya’s response, marks this as an important episode of Muslim-Christian diplomacy and power politics, one that blurs the lines between conqueror and caretaker.

🧠 Interpretation

This episode is laden with symbolism, cosmic causality, and imperial imagery:

Earthquakes in Syriac and Roman historiography are theological events, interpreted as signs of divine displeasure or harbingers of political change. The destruction of churches—especially during Easter—suggests a moment of communal trial and divine testing.

The mention of many deaths in Edessa’s old church may point to a crowd gathered for Easter worship, reinforcing the gravity of the loss: a sacred space, on a holy day, struck down.

The later tradition, preserved in Michael the Syrian, that Muʿāwiya saw a dream involving ʿAlī’s death as the reason for rebuilding the church is remarkable. It entwines:

Islamic succession conflicts (the lingering trauma of the First Fitna),

personal revelation, and

an act of imperial magnanimity toward Christians.

This may reflect how Christian authors came to narratively reconcile Islamic rulers with biblical paradigms of Cyrus or Constantine—pagans chosen by God to bless His people.

The Chronicler does not editorialize on Muʿāwiya’s actions—but the implication is clear: a powerful Arab ruler took on the sacred duty of restoring Christian life, thereby entering into the cosmological narrative of divine rule.

🔗 Source Comparison

Theophanes the Confessor confirms both the earthquake and Muʿāwiya’s sponsorship of repairs, attributing the reconstruction to Christian initiative and the caliph’s generosity:

“Because of the Christians' zealous exertions, Muʿāwiya rebuilt it.” (Chronographia, AM 6170)

Agapius emphasizes the widespread devastation, and confirms Muʿāwiya’s order to restore the churches:

“Muʿāwiya ordered that they should be restored and the churches of Edessa which had fallen rebuilt.”

No mention of this earthquake survives in Arabic sources like al-Ṭabarī or Khalīfa ibn Khayyāṭ, suggesting its importance was largely felt and recorded in Christian circles.

🧩 Final Thought

In this brief but vivid entry, the Chronicle of Zuqnīn places a natural disaster at the heart of a theological-political drama. The earthquake is not merely geological—it is cosmic commentary on human affairs. That Muʿāwiya, the first Umayyad caliph, should emerge as a restorer of Christian sacred space complicates traditional boundaries between conqueror and benefactor, Muslim and Christian. In the mind of the chronicler—and his readers—this moment affirmed that divine power still watched over the faithful, even in an era of Arab rule.

SE 992 | AH 60 | CE 680–681

Yazīd Begins His Reign — Not Dies: Another Major Misstep

📝 Text

“The year nine hundred and ninety-two: Yazīd, Caliph of the Arabs, died, and Marwan ruled for one year.”

🧭 Commentary and Analysis

I. Chronological Error: Mistaking Accession for Death

The Chronicle of Zuqnīn again stumbles in dating major events. It places Yazīd’s death in SE 992 (October 680 – September 681) — the very year that most sources agree marks the beginning of Yazīd’s reign, not its end.

🗓 What Really Happened:

Muʿāwiya ibn Abī Sufyān died in Rajab 60 AH / May 680 CE.
Yazīd ibn Muʿāwiya began his reign immediately afterward.
Yazīd died in Rabīʿ al-Awwal 64 AH / November 683 CE.

📚 Correct Dating from Primary Sources:

Source	Yazīd’s Reign
al-Ṭabarī	60–64 AH (680–683 CE)
al-Yaʿqūbī	60–64 AH
Theophanes	SE 991–994 (680–683 CE)
Michael the Syrian	SE 992–995

🛑 Zuqnīn’s Error:
It retrojects Yazīd’s death to the year of his accession — either due to confusion or erroneous transmission of dates.

II. The Marwān Mix-Up

The Zuqnīn entry continues:

“And Marwan ruled for one year.”

This refers to Marwān I ibn al-Ḥakam, the Umayyad elder who became caliph after the Second Fitna destabilized Yazīd’s succession.

✅ Historical Note:

Marwān I ruled from AH 64–65 (684–685 CE).
His reign lasted approximately 9 months to 1 year, so the duration is correct.

❌ But his succession occurred in 684 CE, not 680–681 CE.

📌 Thus, Zuqnīn conflates Yazīd’s accession with his death, and Marwān’s rise with events that were 3–4 years later.

III. What Was Happening in 680–681 Instead?

While the Zuqnīn chronicler misplaces the succession chronology, the actual years 680–681 were some of the most consequential in Islamic history:

📆 October 10, 680 (10 Muḥarram 61 AH):

Battle of Karbalāʾ: Ḥusayn ibn ʿAlī, the grandson of the Prophet ﷺ, is martyred.
This marks the great Sunni–Shiʿa rupture, and a pivotal event in Islamic piety, theology, and politics.

🩸 Aftermath:

Uprisings and revolts erupted in Kūfa, Mecca, and Medina.
Yazīd sent armies to besiege Mecca and suppress Medina (Battle of al-Ḥarra, 683).

Yet the Chronicle of Zuqnīn remains completely silent on this world-shaping event.

📉 Why the Silence?

Possibly due to lack of access to Arabic internal reports.
Or due to Christian chroniclers’ greater concern with imperial succession and regional warfare than sectarian detail.

This entry highlights the chronicler’s ongoing difficulty with the sequencing of Islamic political events. Even when names and durations are known, they are dislodged from context, giving us distorted snapshots of otherwise well-attested episodes. It also marks a crucial historiographical gap: the absence of Karbalāʾ from Syriac remembrance.

SE 993 | AH 61–62 | CE 681–682

Marwān’s Death and the Rise of ʿAbd al-Malik: The Second Fitna Unleashed

📝 Text

“The year nine hundred and ninety-three: Marwan, Caliph of the Arabs, died. He was succeeded by ʿAbd al-Malik, who ruled for twenty-one years. In his time, civil war broke out lasting nine years because the Arabs did not want to submit to one single leader. During these nine years, they did not cease from battles and evils.”

🧭 Commentary and Analysis

I. Succession Confirmed: Marwān I to ʿAbd al-Malik

🕊️ Historical Accuracy

This entry correctly places the transition from Marwān I to his son ʿAbd al-Malik:

Marwān I ruled from 684–685 CE (AH 64–65).
He died in Ramaḍān 65 AH / April–May 685 CE in Damascus, after securing Umayyad control in Syria and Egypt.
His son, ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Marwān, became caliph and would eventually reign until 705 CE, making this 21-year reign detail accurate.

📌 Note on SE Misalignment:

SE 993 covers October 681 – September 682 CE, whereas Marwān's death occurred in 685 CE. So the Chronicle of Zuqnīn is off by about 3 years, likely due to either:

Conflation of events during the chaotic Second Fitna,
Or use of rumors or retrospective assumptions about succession.

II. The Second Fitna (AH 61–73 / 680–692 CE)

🩸 What the Zuqnīn Chronicle Describes as “Nine Years of War” is a reference to the Second Fitna — one of the bloodiest and most consequential civil wars in Islamic history.

⚔️ Background

The First Fitna (656–661) ended with Muʿāwiya’s caliphate, but his dynastic succession through Yazīd reignited revolt:

Karbala (680 CE): Death of Ḥusayn ibn ʿAlī at the hands of Yazīd’s forces.
Anti-Umayyad Uprisings in Ḥijāz, Iraq, and Khurasān.

🗺️ Key Episodes of the Second Fitna

Year (AH)	Event
63 AH (683)	Death of Yazīd → His son Muʿāwiya II briefly rules then abdicates/dies. Umayyad power collapses outside Syria.
64–65 AH (684–685)	Marwān I restores Umayyad control in Syria and defeats rival caliphs at the Battle of Marj Rāhiṭ.
66–73 AH (685–692)	ʿAbd al-Malik’s Consolidation: He wages prolonged wars against:
• ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Zubayr in Mecca (who had declared himself caliph in 683 CE),
• Al-Mukhtār al-Thaqafī in Kufa (pro-ʿAlid movement),
• Ibn al-Ashʿath's revolt in the East.

The civil war ends with the Umayyad reconquest of Mecca in 692, following the death of Ibn al-Zubayr.

🧩 Chronicle’s Focus: Fragmented Authority

The Zuqnīn chronicler notes:

“Because the Arabs did not want to submit to one single leader… they did not cease from battles and evils.”

This underscores:

The chronicler’s recognition of deep factionalism across the Islamic world.
A moral framing of civil war as chaotic, self-inflicted, and destabilizing.

🗣️ Language Note:

Just like the earlier entry on the First Fitna, the chronicler employs loanwords from Arabic:

Fitna: Retains its Arabic meaning of internal strife, sedition, and trial.
Bayʿa (allegiance): Suggests access to Arabic terminology, perhaps via administrative use or ecclesiastical reports.

📚 Syriac Perspective vs. Islamic Sources

The Syriac view in Zuqnīn is grim: Islam is fracturing, self-devouring, unable to uphold its claim to unity. But from an Islamic historical perspective, the Second Fitna became the crucible from which:

The centralized Umayyad state emerged,
The Islamic calendar, coinage, and Arabicization of bureaucracy were fully implemented under ʿAbd al-Malik,
The rise of Kufan Shiʿism and messianic expectations gained ground in Iraq and Khurasān.

SE 1002 | AH 71–72 | CE 690–691

The Umayyad Triumph: ‘Abd al-Malik Unifies the Caliphate

📝 Text

“The year one thousand and two: There was peace while ʿAbd al-Malik sat on the throne, because the entire country submitted to him.”

🧭 Commentary and Analysis

I. Historical Context: The End of the Second Fitna

The Zuqnīn Chronicle here marks a pivotal moment in early Islamic history: the consolidation of Umayyad rule under Caliph ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Marwān (r. 685–705 CE), after nearly a decade of civil war.

This statement coincides with the defeat of internal rivals, and particularly the final stages of war against:

ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Zubayr, the Meccan-based counter-caliph who had controlled Ḥijāz, Iraq, and parts of Persia,
The Kharijites, who had challenged both the Umayyads and Zubayrids with radical egalitarianism and military revolt.

While the actual military end of the fitna came in 692 CE (with the fall of Mecca and death of Ibn al-Zubayr), the year 690–691 indeed marks the recovery of Syria, Egypt, and much of Iraq into Umayyad hands.

📜 The Turning Point: Muṣʿab ibn al-Zubayr’s Defeat

In 691 CE, at the Battle of Maskin (on the Dujayl canal near the Tigris), ʿAbd al-Malik defeated Muṣʿab ibn al-Zubayr, the brother and lieutenant of Ibn al-Zubayr in Iraq.

🗡️ Muṣʿab’s death opened the way for ʿAbd al-Malik to:

Take control of Kufa and Basra, the power bases of the east,
Cut off support for Ibn al-Zubayr in Mecca,
Lay the groundwork for his final siege of Mecca the following year.

This event marks the real beginning of Umayyad supremacy, and it is likely what the Zuqnīn chronicler refers to when he says “the entire country submitted to him.”

🕊️ A Return to Peace — At a Cost

The Chronicle emphasizes peace as the outcome:

“There was peace while ʿAbd al-Malik sat on the throne.”

This reflects a Christian Syrian perspective — after years of chaos, taxation shifts, and military raids, centralized rule brought stability, even under non-Christian authority.

However, this “peace” was enforced militarily. Between 685 and 692 CE, ʿAbd al-Malik had:

Defeated the Zubayrids and Kharijites,
Consolidated the fiscal system (especially in Syria),
Launched major Arabization policies, replacing Greek and Persian administrative languages with Arabic,
Reformed coinage, asserting Islamic theology explicitly on currency,
Rebuilt Umayyad legitimacy as not merely Syrian rulers, but rulers of the Islamic world.

SE 1003 | AH 72–73 | CE 691–692

The First Arab Census and the Introduction of the Poll-Tax (Jizyah)

📝 Text

“The year one thousand and three: ʿAbd al-Malik made a census (taʿdīl) among the Syrians. He issued a swift decree stating that every person must go to his country, village, and paternal house to register his name and that of his father, as well as his vineyards, olive trees, cattle, children, and all that he owned. From this time, the poll-tax began to be levied on the male heads, and all the calamities began to emerge against the Christian people. Previously, kings used to levy tribute on land, not on men. From this time onward the Sons of Hagar began to reduce the Sons of Aram to Egyptian slavery. But woe unto us! Because we sinned, the slaves ruled over us! This was the first census (taʿdīl) the Arabs had made.”

🧭 Commentary and Analysis

I. The “Taʿdīl”: First Islamic Census and Tax Reform

The term taʿdīl (تعديل), meaning adjustment or assessment, reflects a comprehensive fiscal survey conducted by the Umayyad authorities under ʿAbd al-Malik. This policy aimed to:

Establish taxable populations based on male household heads,
Standardize the collection of jizyah (poll-tax) and kharāj (land tax),
Identify and register ownership of property, land, livestock, and dependents.

This was the first systematic census of Syria under Islamic rule and marked a radical shift in administrative practice from Roman precedent, which had relied more on land-based tribute systems (mindā, maddattu).

🔹 Key Arabic Terms Referenced in Syriac:

Taʿdīl: Arabic for “adjustment”; used in early Arab fiscal terminology (cf. Ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥakam).
Jizyah: Per capita tax levied on non-Muslim males.
Kharāj: Originally a land tax; later expanded to include various forms of tribute.

II. Shift from Land Tax to Poll Tax

The chronicler contrasts the older system:

“Previously, kings used to levy tribute on land, not on men.”

with the new Islamic model:

“From this time… the poll-tax began to be levied on the male heads.”

This reflects a perceived oppression—not just a new fiscal regime, but one that struck at the autonomy and dignity of Christian communities by reducing them from landholders to taxable subjects. The chronicler’s lament—"the Sons of Hagar reduced the Sons of Aram to Egyptian slavery"—invokes biblical imagery of bondage and divine punishment.

III. Theological Lamentation: Suffering as Punishment

The Chronicle frames this development as divine retribution:

“Woe unto us! Because we sinned, the slaves ruled over us!”

The Arabs (Sons of Hagar) are called slaves, perhaps reflecting their former social status or biblical lineage (cf. Genesis 16).
“Sons of Aram”, i.e., the Aramean (Syriac Christian) peoples, are cast as the chosen but chastised—echoing Old Testament prophetic themes.

This reveals the deep theological anxiety of Syriac Christians, who interpreted Islamic rule not merely as a political reversal, but as cosmic punishment for their communal sins.

IV. Historical Corroboration: Arab Reforms under ʿAbd al-Malik

Numerous scholars have pointed out that the early 690s marked a turning point in Umayyad fiscal policy:

Dennett: Described taʿdīl as a “careful survey and assessment of lands and people” to calculate taxes fairly but firmly.
Morony: Notes the use of Middle Persian fiscal terms like gazitak for land tax and draws comparisons to Akkadian maddattu (tribute).

Moreover, these reforms were part of a larger bureaucratization and Arabization campaign:

Replacement of Greek and Syriac administrators with Arab Muslims,
Introduction of Arabic as the official language of administration (replacing Greek and Pahlavi),
Standardized coinage with Islamic religious inscriptions.

SE 1014 | AH 84–85 | CE 702–703

Death of ʿAbd al-Malik and the Accession of al-Walīd: Chronological Errors and Compressed Memory

📝 Text

“The year one thousand and fourteen: ʿAbd al-Malik, Caliph of the Arabs, who ruled for twenty-one years—including the nine years in which the civil war broke out—died. He was succeeded by Walid, for nine years.”

🧭 Commentary and Analysis

I. Chronological Inaccuracy: Death Date of ʿAbd al-Malik

This entry places the death of Caliph ʿAbd al-Malik b. Marwān in 702–703 CE (SE 1014 / AH 84–85). This is incorrect.

🕯 Historical Fact:

ʿAbd al-Malik died in October 705 CE (AH 86) after a reign of approximately 20 years, having succeeded his father Marwān I in 685 CE (AH 65).
His death is firmly dated by Arabic sources such as:
- al-Ṭabarī, Tārīkh al-Rusul wa-l-Mulūk, vol. V
- al-Yaʿqūbī, Tārīkh, vol. II
- Theophanes, who places his death in A.M. 6197 = 705 CE.

📚 Amir Harrak’s Footnote (on SE 1017 = CE 705):

“ʿAbd-al-Malik’s death occurred in the year SE 1017 (705 CE), not 1014.”

So the Zuqnīn Chronicle incorrectly advances ʿAbd al-Malik’s death by two to three years, perhaps due to source error, memory compression, or scribal misdating.

II. The Civil War: Nine-Year Duration?

The chronicler states that ʿAbd al-Malik reigned twenty-one years, “including the nine years in which the civil war broke out.” This refers to the Second Fitnah, which followed the assassination of ʿUthmān (656 CE) and the eventual rise of ʿAbd al-Malik (685 CE). But the math doesn’t hold up:

📊 Fitnah Timeline Overview:

Event	Year (CE)	SE	AH
Death of ʿUthmān	656	967	35
Battle of Ṣiffīn	657	968	36
Rise of ʿAbd al-Malik	685	996	65
Fall of Ibn al-Zubayr (Mecca)	692	1003	73

So the civil war phase ʿAbd al-Malik inherited lasted roughly seven years (685–692 CE), not nine. Again, the chronicler rounds and exaggerates, possibly for narrative effect.

III. Succession of al-Walīd I

The entry correctly identifies al-Walīd ibn ʿAbd al-Malik as ʿAbd al-Malik’s successor, but it misdates his accession:

🗓 Correct Date:

Al-Walīd began his reign in October 705 CE and ruled until February/March 715 CE, a span of about 9.5 years.

🎯 The Chronicle’s Claim:

“He ruled for nine years.”
This is nearly accurate, though it lacks the precision seen in Arabic sources.

🧭 Interpretation

This entry shows the patterned rounding and simplification typical of the Zuqnīn Chronicle:

Political reigns are often rounded to symbolic or clean numbers.
Complex civil strife is summarized as a single “9-year” period.
There’s an implicit desire to narrativize decline and rise, marking ʿAbd al-Malik’s death as a transition into a new imperial phase (Walid’s reign and the consolidation of Umayyad rule).

Despite its factual errors, the entry captures the mood of transition—from the violent chaos of fitnah to the administrative and military expansions of the Walidian era, which would soon include the construction of the Umayyad Mosque, the conquest of Transoxiana and Hispania, and the Arabization of bureaucracy.

SE 1016 | AH 85–86 | CE 704–705

The Great Pestilence of Sarug: Echoes of Justinian’s Plague in the Umayyad Era

📝 Text

“The year one thousand and sixteen: A pestilence arose in the country so powerful and severe that there were not enough of the living to bury the dead. It was particularly grave in the region of Sarug. It was in this pestilence that seventy-two people from the monastery of Mar Shila died.”

🧭 Historical Context

This entry records a severe local outbreak of plague in Batnan of Sarug (modern Suruç, near modern-day Turkey-Syria border), with a particularly deadly toll at the monastery of Mar Shila, where 72 monks perished. The chronicler emphasizes that the living were too few to bury the dead, a phrase used frequently in late antique plague accounts to emphasize the total collapse of social and ritual order.

The event took place around 704–705 CE, just at the end of the reign of ʿAbd al-Malik (d. 705) and the accession of al-Walīd I. Though not directly referenced, the wider Umayyad realm would have felt the social and demographic impact of such a catastrophe—especially in the Jazīra, a crucial military and frontier zone that supplied soldiers and taxes to the caliphate.

Modern scholarship, especially Kyle Harper’s The Fate of Rome and Plagues upon the Earth, has argued that this outbreak should be seen as part of the final arc of the First Plague Pandemic (Justinianic Plague), which began in 541 and ended around 749. Harper notes that Yersinia pestis, the bacterium responsible, had established itself in local reservoirs (likely rodent populations), leading to episodic “amplification events” rather than external introductions from Central Asia.

This 704–705 event fits precisely into Harper’s “Iberian phase” or late-period outbreaks, where plague persisted in pockets of the Roman and early Islamic world. Sarug, being on the military-religious frontier, was vulnerable both due to population movement and rodent exposure in monastic agricultural communities.

🧠 Interpretation

Though brief, the entry is theologically rich and literarily powerful:

The line, “not enough of the living to bury the dead,” evokes apocalyptic imagery, not unlike descriptions in Gregory of Tours, Procopius, and Evagrius Scholasticus. It signals a world turned upside-down, where even the duties of mourning and burial collapse.

The focus on the monastery—Mar Shila—highlights monastic vulnerability, possibly a commentary on divine judgment or the spiritual trials of the faithful. Monasteries were both spiritual centers and epidemiological hotspots due to their dense communal living and reliance on external laborers and guests.

The chronicler presents the plague as a force of nature, not linked to Muslim rule, but inserted silently within the Islamic chronological frame—a subtle reminder of a divine order beyond political control.

By recording this plague alongside political events, the chronicler suggests that human history and divine visitation are intertwined: even as caliphs rise and fall, God's hand moves in other, more terrifying ways.

🔗 Source Comparison

Kyle Harper, in The Fate of Rome and Plagues upon the Earth, stresses that plague did not disappear after the 6th century, but persisted through local enzootic reservoirs. This 704–705 plague aligns with what he calls “a chain explosion” of recurring plague in the Near East.

“The plague lurked in any number of rodent species… Once the first thrust of the disease was complete, Y. pestis deployed evasive maneuvers… The first pandemic lasted from the arrival of Y. pestis in AD 541 down to its last violent gasp in AD 749.”

Michael the Syrian, Chronicle of 1234, and other Syriac sources often mirror this Zuqnīn entry’s structure when recording plagues: emphasis on monks, mass death, and abandonment of burial.

No direct mention of this 704–705 outbreak exists in Arabic sources like al-Ṭabarī or Khalīfa ibn Khayyāṭ, reflecting either a regional scope or differing historiographical priorities. But given the military and administrative importance of the Jazīra, the impact likely reverberated in reduced manpower and shifting loyalties.

Procopius (6th century) and Evagrius Scholasticus (7th) describe earlier outbreaks with nearly identical phrases—confirming a shared plague vocabulary in Mediterranean cultures:

“They were unable to bury their dead, and the streets were filled with corpses.”

🧩 Final Thought

In this stark and haunting entry, the Zuqnīn Chronicler captures not only the death of bodies, but the eclipse of communal life. In a landscape governed by the Umayyad caliphate, it was not a sword or siege that felled Sarug—but silence, swelling, and suffocation. By including this episode, this commentary seeks to do justice to the broader rhythms of catastrophe in early Islam, where God’s judgments were not always political, but biological, invisible, and inexorable. This entry reminds us that the caliphate was not immune to the legacies of late Roman disease ecologies—and that nature, too, could be a sovereign force.

SE 1020 | AH 90–91 | CE 708–709

The Second Census of the Umayyads: Control, Burden, and Resistance

📝 Text

“The year one thousand and twenty: A census (taʿdīl) similar to the first one took place. The first one was confirmed, although it greatly added to the misfortunes.”

🧭 Commentary and Analysis

I. Historical Background: Censuses and Centralization

The term taʿdīl (Arabic: تعديل) refers to a process of administrative assessment or “adjustment”, particularly regarding population and land for taxation purposes. The Zuqnīn Chronicle here recalls a second systematic census under the Umayyads, paralleling the earlier one under ʿAbd al-Malik (SE 1003 / 691–692 CE).

🧾 Purpose of the Census:

Enumeration of individuals, land, vineyards, olive groves, livestock, and family members.
Reassessment of the poll-tax (jizya) and land-tax (kharāj) obligations of the dhimmī population.
Reinforcement of state revenue collection and increased fiscal efficiency.

II. Corroborating Testimony: The Syriac Chronicle of 819

Another source, the Chronicle of 819, explicitly corroborates this taxation event:

“Et anno 1022 AG, misit Maslama amiras in universam Mesopotamiam: mensuraverunt agros et numeraverunt vineas et plantas, homines et iumenta, et suspenderunt numismata plumbea collo uniuseuiusque.”
(Chronicle of 819, SE 1022 = CE 710–711)

Translation:

“And in the year 1022 of the Seleucid Era, Maslama sent amīrs throughout all Mesopotamia. They measured the fields and counted the vineyards and trees, people and beasts, and they hung lead tokens around the neck of each individual.”

This matches closely with the Zuqnīn Chronicle’s account of widespread reassessment, and perhaps also hints at early forms of state-issued identification tags or fiscal tokens (lead coins worn around the neck) for tax administration.

III. The Architect: Maslama ibn ʿAbd al-Malik

🛡 Maslama ibn ʿAbd al-Malik, son of Caliph ʿAbd al-Malik and a powerful Umayyad commander, appears as the enforcer of this second census. He is well-attested in:

al-Ṭabarī’s histories,
Military expeditions into Armenia and the Roman frontiers,
And in administrative duties concerning fiscal policy.

His role in this taʿdīl operation reflects the increasing bureaucratization of the Umayyad state.

IV. Christian Response: Misery and Memory

The Zuqnīn Chronicle laments:

“The first one was confirmed, although it greatly added to the misfortunes.”

📉 Perceived Impact:

Reinforced the legal and economic subjugation of Christians and other non-Muslims.
Transformed sporadic or local taxation into uniform empire-wide control.
Marked the tightening grip of the Islamic state on Christian communities in Mesopotamia and Syria.

The language here reflects Christian polemic and despair: taxation is not a neutral bureaucratic tool—it is portrayed as a divine punishment, a marker of servitude, and a symbol of decline.

SE 1023 | AH 93 | CE 711–712

The Death of al-Walīd I and the Accession of Sulaymān: A Mistaken Timing

📝 Text

“The year one thousand and twenty-three: Walīd, Caliph of the Arabs, died. Sulaymān ruled after him for two and a half years.”

🧭 Commentary and Analysis

I. Chronological Inaccuracy: Right Duration, Wrong Year

The Chronicle of Zuqnīn here commits a common chronological error found throughout its Islamic-era entries:

Correct succession and duration:
Sulaymān ibn ʿAbd al-Malik did succeed his brother al-Walīd I and did rule for roughly 2 years and 8 months (a total of ~2.5 years), as the chronicle states.
Incorrect date:
Al-Walīd I died in Jumādā II, 96 AH (February/March 715 CE) — not in 93 AH (711–712 CE / SE 1023).

Hence, the Chronicle is off by approximately 3 years.

📌 Correct Timeline:

Event	Date
Death of al-Walīd I	96 AH / 715 CE / SE 1026
Start of Sulaymān’s reign	96 AH / 715 CE
Death of Sulaymān	99 AH / 717 CE

II. Pattern of Compression and Error

This fits into a broader pattern we’ve seen across the Chronicle:

The chronicler compresses the timeline of early Umayyad caliphs.
Dates are often displaced by 2–4 years, especially when events fall near the Seleucid year’s start (October 1).
This may reflect:
- Reliance on oral or secondhand sources.
- A desire to preserve symbolic narrative coherence over precise dating.
- Possible conflation of events, such as military campaigns or public works, with the caliph’s death.

III. The Reign of al-Walīd I: Contextual Importance

Though the chronicle glosses over it, al-Walīd I’s reign (705–715 CE) was a landmark in Umayyad power:

Massive territorial expansion:
- West: Tariq ibn Ziyad’s entry into the Iberian Peninsula (711 CE).
- East: Qutayba ibn Muslim’s conquests in Transoxiana.
Public works:
- Commissioned the Great Mosque of Damascus.
- Expanded infrastructure and centralized administration.

The chronicle’s silence on these highlights its geographic-linguistic limitations, focusing mostly on Syriac Christian suffering rather than Muslim imperial grandeur.

SE 1029 | AH 99 | CE 717–718

🌍 The Earthquake and the Canals: Judgment and Renewal in the Time of Hishām

📝 Text

“The year one thousand and twenty-nine: A powerful and dreadful earthquake took place and destroyed many places, shrines, churches and great buildings, particularly in (Beth) Maʿde, as well as the Old Church of Edessa. Large and high buildings collapsed on their inhabitants. The earthquake left marks on even the ones that remained standing, so that their inhabitants might tremble before the Lord, whenever they would see the earthquake's marks.

At this time, Hishām dug the Zaytun canal on which he built towns and forts as well as many villages, and adorned it with plants of all kinds. Then he dug the Beth Balish canal on which he built a fort and adorned it with plants of all kinds. Then he dug the Hani canal on which he built forts and gardens of all kinds. Then, Maslama, his brother, dug the Beth Balisht canal and he too built forts and villages on the canal which he dug and adorned it with all beautiful things.”

🧭 Historical Context

This entry describes a major earthquake in Syria and Upper Mesopotamia, dated to December 24, 717 (SE 1029), at the beginning of Caliph ʿUmar II’s reign but just before the active rule of Hishām ibn ʿAbd al-Malik (r. 724–743). The chronicler combines this disaster with a report of Hishām and Maslama’s public works and canal-building campaigns, indicating their continued development of the Jazīra during and after this catastrophe.

Theophanes the Confessor confirms the earthquake:

“In the same year, because there had been a strong earthquake in Syria.” (Chronographia, AM 6210 / 717–718)
Michael the Syrian also notes it, placing it at the same Seleucid date and describing damage across northern Syria and Mesopotamia.
The Chronicle of 846 gives the most precise timestamp:

“Friday, the 3rd hour, 24 [December], SE 1029 (717).”
(Chron. 846, p. 234)
Elias of Nisibis also confirms the event in January of AH 99 (718), again linking it to the broader plague of seismic activity afflicting the region.

The chronicler’s transition into the canal projects of Hishām and Maslama—including the Zaytun, Beth Balish, and Hani canals—suggests that this period was not only marked by natural destruction, but also by imperial renewal, investment, and expansion in the Jazīran frontier. Hishām, who later became caliph, is described here as a builder of towns, gardens, and forts, echoing themes of caliphal prosperity and paradise-building found in other early Islamic sources.

🧠 Interpretation

This passage reflects a deliberate juxtaposition of destruction and creation, punishment and restoration—classic themes in both Syriac and Islamic theology.

The earthquake is portrayed not simply as a disaster, but as a visible, moral warning:

“...that their inhabitants might tremble before the Lord, whenever they would see the earthquake's marks.”

In this worldview, natural catastrophe is a sacred sign, reminding survivors of divine judgment and calling for repentance.
The detailed reference to the destruction of shrines and churches, especially the Old Church of Edessa, evokes a loss of sacred space, perhaps seen as a trial for the Christian community.
Yet the entry immediately transitions to the caliphal irrigation projects—a literary and theological contrast that suggests the Muslim rulers are not agents of destruction, but rather instruments of order, fertility, and renewal.
The canal systems—with forts, villages, and gardens “of all kinds”—mirror Islamic conceptions of earthly paradise (jannah), and perhaps, in the chronicler’s eye, serve as a political counterweight to the destruction of churches. This is not framed polemically, but rather as a reconfiguration of divine favor.
The emphasis on building and beautification aligns with broader Umayyad policies in the Jazīra, which became a key staging ground for campaigns against Rome and a center for Arab settlement and administration.

🔗 Source Comparison

Theophanes confirms the earthquake, but says little else:

“In the same year, because there had been a strong earthquake in Syria.” (Chronographia, AM 6210)
Chronicle of 846 gives the precise date and hour, suggesting a local witness or strong oral tradition:

“Friday, the 3rd hour, 24 December, SE 1029.”
Michael the Syrian and Elias of Nisibis record the same date, but, like Theophanes, do not link the event to political developments or infrastructure.
Umayyad building activity in the Jazīra under Hishām and Maslama is well-attested. Maslama’s use of the Jazīra as a launching pad for campaigns against Roman supports the mention of forts and towns in these irrigation zones.
This entry is one of the rare Syriac sources to associate natural disasters with Islamic infrastructure building, subtly challenging modern assumptions that Christian chroniclers only recorded Arab destruction.

🧩 Final Thought

This entry offers a powerful portrait of a world oscillating between destruction and restoration. The earthquake is framed as a divine signal, inscribed on the land and buildings themselves—a kind of theological scar. Yet the response is not withdrawal but investment. Hishām and Maslama, future pillars of the Umayyad regime, are cast not as indifferent rulers but as architects of order and beauty, reshaping a shaken world. In the Christian mind of the chronicler, the memory of trembling stones is forever paired with the irrigated gardens of the Arab rulers, together forming a picture of God's inscrutable, sovereign balance.

SE 1028 | AH 97 | CE 716–717

The Siege of Constantinople: Maslama's Failed Assault and Leo III’s Rise

📝 Text

"The year one thousand and twenty-eight: Maslama (son of 'Abdal-Malik) invaded the Roman territories. When countless Arab forces gathered and set about to invade the land of the Romans, all the (inhabitants of the) territories of Asia and Cappadocia fled from them, as did those of the whole region of the sea coast, the region near the Black Mountain, Lebanon as far as Melitene, and the region near the Arsanias river as far as Inner Armenia. This whole land was blessed with many human settlements and densely planted with vineyards, green crops, and all kinds of delightful trees. It has since been devastated making these regions no longer inhabitable.

When the Emperor (Theodosius Constantine) saw that a host was marching against him and that his military commander, Leo by name, had negotiated with them, his heart quaked and his hands shook. He resigned the empire, put down the crown and shaved his head. For there is a custom among Roman emperors, if one of them resigns the empire, he shaves his head and stays in his house, having from that time on no entourage.7 This one acted likewise. Even when Leo, the military commander, sent him a message, saying: "Strengthen yourself and *fear not*!" he was not persuaded, and firmly resigned the empire. As for Leo, he was courageous, strong, and warlike.

He was also of 'Syrian extraction, a native of the border lands, and because of his intrepidity, he was made a military commander. Thanks to his wisdom, he promised Maslama to introduce him to Constantinople without any battle, preventing the ground from being drenched with human blood. Abiding by this promise, the last named neither fought nor took anyone into captivity, but with determination he headed toward Constantinople, marched and besieged it.

When Leo entered the capital and realised the hands of the Romans were shaking, and the emperor had resigned the empire, he emboldened the Romans, saying to them: "Fear not!" When the Romans realised his courage, fearing that he might still rely on the one who had become emperor, they took him and made him emperor. And as he put on the imperial crown, he was invested with power and valiance. He strengthened the wall of the city (Constantinople) and sent forces to cut the roads by which provisions were brought to the (Arab) army from Syria. He also destroyed the bridge which had been made with ships, cutting it off, and the Arabs and all the forces with them were confined as if in a prison.

At this point, Maslama gave orders to plant a vineyard, but a powerful and severe famine came upon them so that they ran out of bread throughout the camp and had to eat even their beasts of burden and horses. Maslama asked Leo: "Where is the oath that you swore to me by God that you would introduce me to Constantinople without a battle?" Leo answered pleasantly: "Wait for a few days until the nobles of the empire submit to me." On the strength of these words, the Arabs remained outside and the Romans inside without any battle for about three years. The famine became so severe for the Arabs that they ate their sandals and even the flesh of their dead. They even attacked each other with the result that a person was afraid to walk alone. Maslama continued to protest to Leo every day: "Either live up to your promise or I will wage a battle."

News reached the Arabs that Sulayman, Caliph of the Arabs, had died, and that 'Umar (II) was his successor. 'Umar sent them a letter, saying: "Come out of there lest you and all those with you should die of hunger!" When they received the letter, Maslama asked Leo if he might enter the city to see it. He entered it with thirty cavalrymen, walked around for three days, and saw the imperial achievements. Dismissed, they came out of there, not having achieved anything.

When the Arabs arrived at a city named Tyana and the governor of the city saw them hungry, exhausted and weak, he underestimated them and wrote to Leo: "Send me an army: I will attack them by surprise." But this ambush did not stay hidden to the Arabs. When they became aware that an army was pursuing them, one of the military commanders, whose name was 'Abbas—one among the famous in the caliphate—asked Maslama: "Give me an army and I will go to confront them before they come and surround us and chase us away from the land; for then our end would be worse than all that has come upon us in this expedition."

So he took a large army and marched against them. While the Romans were marching loosely, not yet prepared for battle nor knowing that an Arab army was marching against them, 'Abbas preceded them to a large meadow in which the Romans were intending to pitch camp that same day. He placed the whole army in ambushes, ravines and reed-islands that were there. When the Romans arrived and descended into the meadow, neither knowing nor perceiving what the Arabs had done, they pitched camp and sent their beasts of burden out for pasture as was the custom of any army.

The Arabs came up out of the ambushes and holes in which they had hidden themselves around the whole meadow. Following a signal on which they had agreed, they came down upon the Romans, surrounded and slaughtered all of them with the blades of their swords. Not one among the Romans who were about sixty thousand strong escaped. The Arabs pillaged the dead and returned to their fellows. When another Roman army that marched against them heard about what had happened to the first army, they turned back frightened. As for the Arabs, they captured and plundered everything they found before them. They then departed and arrived in Syria."

🧭 Commentary and Analysis

I. 🛡️ The Invasion Begins

📝 Text

“The year one thousand and twenty-eight: Maslama (son of 'Abdal-Malik) invaded the Roman territories. When countless Arab forces gathered and set about to invade the land of the Romans, all the (inhabitants of the) territories of Asia and Cappadocia fled from them, as did those of the whole region of the sea coast, the region near the Black Mountain, Lebanon as far as Melitene, and the region near the Arsanias river as far as Inner Armenia. This whole land was blessed with many human settlements and densely planted with vineyards, green crops, and all kinds of delightful trees. It has since been devastated making these regions no longer inhabitable.”

📖 Commentary and Analysis

📅 Chronology and Campaign Context

This entry refers to the monumental Umayyad siege of Constantinople led by Maslama ibn ʿAbd al-Malik, dated to SE 1028 = AH 98 = CE 716–717. It marked the culmination of decades of Arab-Roman conflict and was the largest military expedition yet launched by the Umayyads against the Roman Empire.

Maslama’s campaign was both ambitious and apocalyptic in scale. The Chronicle presents it with a sweeping geographic scope and evocative language—“countless Arab forces”—meant to emphasize both the magnitude of the threat and the psychological devastation it inflicted.

🗺️ Geographical Range of Panic and Flight

The chronicler lists a wide swath of affected regions, which can be mapped as follows:

Region Mentioned	Modern Equivalent / Notes
Asia (Asiatic provinces)	Asia Minor, western Anatolia.
Cappadocia	Central Anatolia.
Sea coast	The southern Anatolian Mediterranean coast.
Black Mountain	A range near Antioch, in modern southern Turkey (Amir Harrak: near Antioch).
Lebanon	Refers to the Lebanon mountain range and its surrounding regions.
Melitene	Modern Malatya, located on the upper Euphrates, historically a strategic Roman military and civilian hub (Hittite: Melid; Aramaic: Melita).
Arsanias river	The Murad Su, an eastern tributary of the Euphrates near ancient Arsamosata (Amir Harrak: near Enzite).
Inner Armenia	Likely refers to southeastern Anatolia, in or near the highlands of Western Armenia.

This geographic breadth—stretching from coastal Anatolia to Armenia—illustrates the psychological scale of the Arab invasion in the mind of the chronicler, even if the actual military operations did not physically devastate every location named.

🌾 Prosperity Turned to Ruin

The narrative emphasizes the fertility and prosperity of the land prior to the Arab advance:

“many human settlements,”
“densely planted with vineyards,”
“green crops,”
“all kinds of delightful trees.”

This lyrical depiction serves a double function:

Idealized nostalgia: The chronicler mourns a lost Christian world, a paradise disrupted by Arab incursion.
Moral framing: The devastation is implied to be not only military but divinely permitted—a punishment, a “fall,” evoking biblical overtones of desolation after sin.

The final remark—“this whole land... devastated... no longer inhabitable”—reflects a theological worldview, not just historical observation. It magnifies the event’s importance as a turning point in the fate of Christian Anatolia.

II. 👑 The Abdication of the Emperor

📝 Text

“When the Emperor (Theodosius Constantine) saw that a host was marching against him and that his military commander, Leo by name, had negotiated with them, his heart quaked and his hands shook. He resigned the empire, put down the crown and shaved his head. For there is a custom among Roman emperors, if one of them resigns the empire, he shaves his head and stays in his house, having from that time on no entourage. This one acted likewise. Even when Leo, the military commander, sent him a message, saying: ‘Strengthen yourself and fear not!’ he was not persuaded, and firmly resigned the empire.”

📖 Commentary and Analysis

🧔 Who Was “Theodosius Constantine”?

The chronicler refers to Theodosius Constantine, a muddled combination of names. He means Theodosius III, a tax official who had been proclaimed emperor by mutinous troops in 716 CE and ruled until March 25, 717 CE, when he abdicated in favor of Leo III the Isaurian.

The Chronicle of Zuqnīn presents Theodosius’ abdication in highly dramatized, moralized language: fear, trembling, resignation, and ritual head-shaving—conveying a sense of weakness in the face of external pressure and divine fate.

📜 The Historical Reality: Peaceful Abdication

Compare this with the account of Theophanes the Confessor, who gives a more historically grounded version:

"When Theodosios learned what had happened, he consulted the patriarch Germanos and the senate. Through the patriarch he received a pledge from Leo that he would not be harmed and that the church would not be disturbed, and on those terms entrusted the Empire to him. Theodosios and his son became clerics, and lived out the rest of their lives in peace." (Theophanes, Chronographia, A.M. 6208)

Rather than trembling in fear or being betrayed, Theodosius:

Was offered a peaceful and honorable retirement.
Negotiated with Leo via the patriarch of Constantinople.
Tonsured himself and became a monk—a personal spiritual choice, not a state-imposed imperial custom.

✂️ Tonsure ≠ Imperial Custom

The Chronicle erroneously claims:

"There is a custom among Roman emperors... he shaves his head..."

This is historically inaccurate. Roman emperors did not have any custom of shaving their heads upon resignation. However, tonsure was a common Christian monastic act—symbolizing the renunciation of worldly power and entry into the religious life.

The Zuqnīn chronicler appears to misunderstand or reinterpret Theodosius' monastic tonsure as a kind of imperial resignation ritual, perhaps influenced by the broader Syriac Christian trope of rulers abdicating after signs of divine judgment or military catastrophe.

III. 🦁 Leo’s Rise and the Promise to Maslama

📝 Text

“As for Leo, he was courageous, strong, and warlike. He was also of Syrian extraction, a native of the border lands, and because of his intrepidity, he was made a military commander. Thanks to his wisdom, he promised Maslama to introduce him to Constantinople without any battle, preventing the ground from being drenched with human blood. Abiding by this promise, the last-named neither fought nor took anyone into captivity, but with determination he headed toward Constantinople, marched and besieged it.”

📖 Commentary and Analysis

🧬 Leo’s Ethnic Origins: Syrian, Not Isaurian

The Chronicle of Zuqnīn asserts that Leo was of Syrian extraction, a claim echoed by multiple early sources. Modern research, especially Peter Crawford’s detailed reassessment, strongly supports this characterization:

🧾 Peter Crawford, Leo III and the Isaurian Dynasty:
“Leo... was born in Germanikeia (modern Kahramanmaraş in Turkey) and therefore rather a Syrian... The error in regnal number and Isaurian label arises from later confusions with other emperors like Leontios.”

Although Theophanes calls him “Isaurian” in some passages, he also refers to him more accurately as “Leo the Syrian” (paranomotatos Syros), and later sources like Anastasius Bibliothecarius and the Vita Stephani iunioris confirm this Syrian origin.

✅ So, the Zuqnīn chronicler was surprisingly accurate in calling Leo a “native of the border lands” and Syrian by background.

🧠 The Strategos Turned Emperor

Leo’s rise came from his position as strategos (military governor) of the Anatolikon theme, the largest and most powerful district in Asia Minor. He had already shown talent and bravery in defending Roman territory from Arab incursions under Maslama b. ʿAbd al-Malik.

Zuqnīn praises Leo’s intrepidity and wisdom, casting him as a natural war leader—reflecting how later tradition (and imperial ideology) remembered him as the one who saved Constantinople from the Umayyad siege.

🧩 A Secret Deal or Strategic Deception?

The Chronicle of Zuqnīn boldly claims that Leo promised Maslama a bloodless path into Constantinople, resulting in the Arab army advancing without resistance. While this “pact” is not preserved in Islamic sources as such, Roman and Islamic chronicles do refer to diplomatic overtures and suspicious negotiations between the two.

🏛 Theophanes’ Account: A Treacherous Dinner and a Broken Siege

Theophanes, in Chronographia (AM 6208 / 716 CE), records that Arab generals Suleiman and Maslama offered Leo support if he joined them against Constantinople:

“We know the Roman Empire is rightfully yours. Come to us; let us discuss peace terms.”

Suleiman tried to trap Leo during a staged dinner with 3,000 armored horsemen sent to encircle him. But Leo saw through the deception, sent secret messages to the besieged Amorians to resist, and later became emperor himself.

🧠 Insight: Though Leo pretended to negotiate with the Arabs, he was, in fact, undermining them and consolidating power among the Romans. Zuqnīn’s chronicler might be reflecting this episode, recast through the lens of betrayal and divine retribution.

📜 al-Ṭabarī’s Account: Terms, Manipulation, and the Burning of Supplies

Al-Ṭabarī also preserves a record of negotiations between Leo and Maslama. When Maslama sent Ibn Hubayrah to negotiate with Leo, the future emperor criticized Arab leadership as reckless and warned:

“If you withdraw, we will give you one dinar for the head of every soldier who leaves.”

Maslama refused the terms, and Leo gave him a deceptive recommendation: burn the food supplies to force the Romans to surrender. Maslama complied—but the result was famine for the Muslims, not the Romans.

🔁 The outcome? Leo tricked Maslama into weakening his own army, all while working to secure the Roman throne.

🧪 Interpretation: Syriac Polemics and Political Morality

The Zuqnīn narrative reflects typical Syriac Christian apocalyptic and moral interpretation:

Betrayal by outsiders is punishment for sin;
Political collapses and disasters stem from false trust and divine justice;
Arab restraint is portrayed not as strategic, but as naïve compliance with a false oath.

Maslama’s Restraint

The Chronicle insists Maslama:

Took no captives,
Avoided open conflict,
Trusted Leo’s promise of safe entry.

This depiction is likely idealized or exaggerated. While it is true that the Arab forces didn’t immediately assault Constantinople, Roman and Muslim accounts make clear that they laid siege, suffered severe famine, and faced sabotage.

This version may reflect the chronicler’s polemic style: the Arabs are portrayed as disciplined and trusting, only to be deceived by a cunning Roman general.

IV. 🏰 Leo Becomes Emperor

📝 Text

"When Leo entered the capital and realised the hands of the Romans were shaking, and the emperor had resigned the empire, he emboldened the Romans, saying to them: 'Fear not!' When the Romans realised his courage, fearing that he might still rely on the one who had become emperor, they took him and made him emperor. And as he put on the imperial crown, he was invested with power and valiance."

📖 Commentary and Analysis

👑 Leo’s Accession: Fact within Flourish

The Zuqnīn Chronicle dramatizes Leo III’s rise to the throne, presenting it as a spontaneous popular acclamation spurred by his charisma and martial bravery. While this portrayal is theatrical, the broad trajectory it outlines aligns with what we know from other historical sources.

📜 Theophanes’ Version

Theophanes (Chronographia, AM 6208) offers a more institutionalized version:

“Theodosios... entrusted the Empire to [Leo]. Theodosios and his son became clerics, and lived out the rest of their lives in peace.”

In this version, Theodosios III formally abdicated, and Leo was elevated with the backing of the patriarch Germanos and the Roman senate—suggesting that Leo's rise was both legal and orchestrated, not merely popular or military.

🪖 Political Power through Military Prestige

The Zuqnīn passage emphasizes Leo’s courage and battlefield leadership. This reflects a broader truth: Leo's authority was rooted not in aristocratic lineage but in:

His military command in Anatolia (as strategos),
His success in rallying troops and borderland communities,
The Roman fear of Arab conquest, which created an urgent need for a capable defender.

As Peter Crawford notes, Leo (originally named Konon) was from Germanikeia in Syria—not Isauria, despite the later label “Isaurian.” His ascent marks a turning point in imperial politics: the empire's fate now rested on generals from the eastern frontiers, not old Constantinopolitan elites.

🤴 A Narrated Coronation

The Syriac chronicler’s tone is prophetic and idealistic:

“As he put on the imperial crown, he was invested with power and valiance.”

This reflects a moral theology of kingship common in Syriac historiography: righteous rulers are divinely empowered, often cast as saviors in times of trial. Leo, in this frame, becomes the agent of divine deliverance against the Arab siege—an inversion of the earlier depiction of him as a deceiver of Maslama.

V. ⚔ Siege Conditions and Famine

📝 Text

“He strengthened the wall of the city (Constantinople) and sent forces to cut the roads by which provisions were brought to the (Arab) army from Syria. He also destroyed the bridge which had been made with ships, cutting it off, and the Arabs and all the forces with them were confined as if in a prison.

At this point, Maslama gave orders to plant a vineyard, but a powerful and severe famine came upon them so that they ran out of bread throughout the camp and had to eat even their beasts of burden and horses.

Maslama asked Leo: 'Where is the oath that you swore to me by God that you would introduce me to Constantinople without a battle?'

Leo answered pleasantly: 'Wait for a few days until the nobles of the empire submit to me.'

On the strength of these words, the Arabs remained outside and the Romans inside without any battle for about three years. The famine became so severe for the Arabs that they ate their sandals and even the flesh of their dead. They even attacked each other with the result that a person was afraid to walk alone.”

📖 Commentary and Analysis

🛡️ Leo’s Military Countermeasures

The Zuqnīn Chronicle describes a swift and decisive defensive strategy:

Fortifications were reinforced—a common practice under duress, and certainly plausible given the rapid elevation of Leo III and his firsthand military background.
Supply lines were severed—Leo cut off roads linking the Arab encampments to their logistical bases in Syria.
The “bridge of ships” was destroyed—possibly referring to a pontoon or naval supply chain across the Bosphorus.

This created the siege's critical condition: Maslama's forces, unable to forage or resupply, were trapped in a hostile land. The metaphor “as if in a prison” captures the helplessness of even a massive army when starved of sustenance.

Theophanes (Chronographia, AM 6209–6210) confirms the strategic genius of Leo’s blockade and the crippling impact of the Roman navy, which prevented the Arab fleet from resupplying by sea.

🌾 Maslama’s Desperation and the Myth of the Vineyard

The Zuqnīn chronicler claims that Maslama “gave orders to plant a vineyard.” While this detail is almost certainly literary or symbolic—vineyards take years to mature—it may reflect:

A Syriac satirical framing of Arab naïveté or desperation.
An allusion to Maslama’s unrealistic hopes of a prolonged and bloodless occupation.

In a very real sense, however, the Arabs were forced into agricultural improvisation, relying on the surrounding land and any remaining supplies after their long advance. This detail may also echo similar biblical or monastic tropes of siege suffering and spiritual chastisement.

🌪️ The Famine

The famine is presented in apocalyptic terms:

Beasts of burden and horses were eaten.
Even human flesh—cannibalism—is alleged.
Chaos broke down army discipline; travelers feared moving alone.

This mirrors tropes from earlier Christian literature (cf. the siege of Jerusalem in Josephus, or apocalyptic Syriac texts) where famine becomes a sign of divine wrath.

Though no Islamic source corroborates cannibalism, we do know from both Muslim and Roman records that:

The siege of 717–718 was exceptionally brutal.
Winter conditions and supply collapse decimated the Umayyad forces.
Greek fire devastated the Arab fleet, and a Bulgarian counter-attack from the north helped break the siege.

📆 Timeline Clarification

The Chronicle says the Arabs remained “without any battle for about three years,” but this must be nuanced:

Event	Date
🚶 Initial Arab mobilization	716 CE
🏰 Formal siege of Constantinople begins	August 717 CE
❄ Harsh winter famine	717–718 CE
⚔ Siege lifted, Arabs retreat	August 718 CE

The three-year span includes the pre-siege maneuvering and encampment (716–717), but the true siege lasted one full year, as corroborated by Theophanes, al-Ṭabarī, and other sources.

VI. 📜 Withdrawal After Sulayman’s Death

📝 Text

“Maslama continued to protest to Leo every day: ‘Either live up to your promise or I will wage a battle.’

News reached the Arabs that Sulayman, Caliph of the Arabs, had died, and that ʿUmar (II) was his successor. ʿUmar sent them a letter, saying: ‘Come out of there lest you and all those with you should die of hunger!’

When they received the letter, Maslama asked Leo if he might enter the city to see it. He entered it with thirty cavalrymen, walked around for three days, and saw the imperial achievements. Dismissed, they came out of there, not having achieved anything.”

📖 Commentary and Analysis

🪦 The Death of Caliph Sulaymān (r. 715–717)

Sulaymān ibn ʿAbd al-Malik, the Umayyad caliph who had ordered the siege of Constantinople, died in September 717 CE, reportedly just as the siege was beginning in earnest. His death marked a decisive shift in the caliphate’s military posture.

His successor, ʿUmar II, was known for piety, reform, and less aggressive military policy.
ʿUmar likely viewed the siege as untenable, given the mounting Arab losses, famine, and naval disasters.
The Zuqnīn Chronicle reflects this turning point with ʿUmar’s urgent message: “Come out of there lest you all die of hunger!”

This aligns with Islamic sources like al-Ṭabarī, who also note that ʿUmar halted the campaign shortly after coming to power, although the tone of the withdrawal differs.

🤝 Maslama’s “Farewell Tour” and the Symbolism of Entry

The Chronicle of Zuqnīn includes an extraordinary detail:

Maslama, before withdrawing, requested permission to enter Constantinople with thirty cavalrymen. He spent three days inspecting the city, observing its imperial achievements, and then departed empty-handed.

This episode, while not corroborated by other sources, is not inherently implausible.

In fact, it could reflect a real episode staged by Leo III—by then securely enthroned—to humiliate Maslama and display the might and invincibility of Constantinople. In this interpretation:

Maslama’s entry was a controlled, supervised gesture—a vanquished general allowed a tour of the city he failed to take.

Leo, having withstood the siege and taken the throne, asserts dominance without warfare by allowing Maslama to witness what he could never conquer.

This would serve not only as a final insult, but as a political theatre—a quiet but cutting repudiation of Arab ambitions.

The symbolism fits neatly into Syriac historiographical motifs, particularly those in Christian chronicles that interpret historical events through the lens of divine favor and moral failure. The subtext is clear:

God protected His city, and the would-be conqueror departed humbled.

Even if partially embellished, the episode functions as a powerful moral tableau:

Maslama, weakened by famine, war, and betrayal, enters not as a victor but as a spectator.

Constantinople, impervious and radiant, stands untouched.

The defeated general sees what he cannot have, and leaves.

🛡 Why the Siege Ended

Multiple sources converge on a set of interlocking reasons for the Arab withdrawal:

Cause Source(s)
💀 Death of Sulaymān ***Theophanes, al-Ṭabarī, Zuqnīn Chronicle*
❄️ Severe winter (717–718)** Theophanes, Agapius, Syriac traditions
🔥 Greek fire and naval losses Theophanes, Muslim naval narratives
🪖 Bulgarian intervention Theophanes (mentions Khan Tervel's counterattack)
⛔ Supply collapse and famine Universally attested across all traditions
By 718 CE, the Arab army was starving, encircled, and demoralized. Sulaymān’s death and the rise of ʿUmar II—a caliph noted for restraint—further removed any political incentive to persist. The campaign, once seen as the pinnacle of Umayyad military ambition, ended in quiet retreat.

Cause	Source(s)
💀 Death of Sulaymān	**Theophanes, al-Ṭabarī, Zuqnīn Chronicle**
❄️ Severe winter (717–718)	Theophanes, Agapius, Syriac traditions
🔥 Greek fire and naval losses	Theophanes, Muslim naval narratives
🪖 Bulgarian intervention	Theophanes (mentions Khan Tervel's counterattack)
⛔ Supply collapse and famine	Universally attested across all traditions

VII. ⚠️ The Tyana Ambush

📝 Text

“When the Arabs arrived at a city named Tyana and the governor of the city saw them hungry, exhausted and weak, he underestimated them and wrote to Leo: 'Send me an army: I will attack them by surprise.' But this ambush did not stay hidden to the Arabs. When they became aware that an army was pursuing them, one of the military commanders, whose name was ʿAbbās—one among the famous in the caliphate—asked Maslama: 'Give me an army and I will go to confront them before they come and surround us and chase us away from the land; for then our end would be worse than all that has come upon us in this expedition.’”

🧭 Historical Context: The Retreat from Constantinople

Following the failed siege of Constantinople (717–718), Maslama’s retreating forces were battered by:

Famine,

A brutal winter,

Naval blockade,

Disease and logistical collapse.

The route of withdrawal likely led through southern Anatolia via the Cilician Gates, passing through Tyana (modern-day Kemerhisar near Niğde, Turkey). Tyana was:

A long-standing Roman military hub on the Anatolian plateau,

A critical point of transit between the eastern and central provinces,

Within range of Roman regrouping efforts.

🛡 Roman Overconfidence and Tactical Hubris

The local Roman governor, seeing the depleted state of the Arabs, commits a classic strategic blunder:

Underestimates a retreating enemy who had just endured a failed siege,

Requests reinforcements from Leo III, now Emperor, assuming an easy victory,

Plans a surprise ambush—likely counting on Maslama’s troops being unfit for serious resistance.

This sequence echoes a familiar historical pattern: overconfidence leads defenders to strike hastily at a wounded yet still dangerous foe.

🧠 Arab Awareness and Preemptive Strategy

The tide turns when the Arabs detect the plot. The chronicle is vague about how they became aware, but possible explanations include:

Intercepted correspondence or spies embedded in the local population,

Military vigilance, even in retreat,

Maslama’s sophisticated intelligence apparatus.

At this critical moment, the chronicle introduces ʿAbbās, identified as:

“One among the famous in the caliphate.”

This refers to ʿAbbās ibn al-Walīd, son of Caliph al-Walīd I, a well-documented Umayyad general. His campaigns are confirmed in Khalīfa ibn Khayyāṭ, who records that:

“In this year [720 CE], al-ʿAbbās b. al-Walīd conducted a raiding expedition in which he conquered D-b-s-h in the land of the Romans.”

This place-name, D-b-s-h, if the Greek letters Δ-β-σ (Delta, Beta, Sigma) are involved, could plausibly be an Arabization of the Town of Thebasa (Greek: Θήβασα), which is to the southwest of Tyana by 107 Kilometers.

🔁 From Prey to Predator

ʿAbbās’ tactical foresight flips the narrative:

He recognizes the risk of being surrounded,

Proposes a preemptive strike before the Romans are ready,

Frames the confrontation as a last stand to avoid complete collapse.

This shift—from passive retreat to offensive maneuver—recovers Arab military agency and restores a sense of dignity after the humiliations suffered at Constantinople.

His words underscore the stakes:

“…our end would be worse than all that has come upon us…”

The campaign had already delivered loss, starvation, and deception. Another defeat on homeward soil would be unbearable.

📚 Literary Framing and Thematic Function

For the Chronicle of Zuqnīn, this episode serves several symbolic and narrative purposes:

Purpose Narrative Function
🦁 Heroic Arab Resistance Shows that the Arabs, even in defeat, can organize, retaliate, and win.
🤴 ʿAbbās as Archetype Presents ʿAbbās as a military paragon—loyal, brave, and wise.
🏛 Roman Arrogance Punished Casts the local Roman official as a cautionary tale of pride before the fall.
✝️ Theological Overtones Reinforces the idea that divine judgment spares the humble and punishes the arrogant.
This scene also begins the climax of the campaign: the reversal of fortune that will be consummated in the Ambush at Tyana.

Purpose	Narrative Function
🦁 Heroic Arab Resistance	Shows that the Arabs, even in defeat, can organize, retaliate, and win.
🤴 ʿAbbās as Archetype	Presents ʿAbbās as a military paragon—loyal, brave, and wise.
🏛 Roman Arrogance Punished	Casts the local Roman official as a cautionary tale of pride before the fall.
✝️ Theological Overtones	Reinforces the idea that divine judgment spares the humble and punishes the arrogant.

VIII. 🪤 ʿAbbās’ Counterambush and Roman Defeat

📝 Text

“So he took a large army and marched against them. While the Romans were marching loosely, not yet prepared for battle nor knowing that an Arab army was marching against them, ʿAbbās preceded them to a large meadow in which the Romans were intending to pitch camp that same day. He placed the whole army in ambushes, ravines and reed-islands that were there. When the Romans arrived and descended into the meadow, neither knowing nor perceiving what the Arabs had done, they pitched camp and sent their beasts of burden out for pasture as was the custom of any army. The Arabs came up out of the ambushes and holes in which they had hidden themselves around the whole meadow. Following a signal on which they had agreed, they came down upon the Romans, surrounded and slaughtered all of them with the blades of their swords. Not one among the Romans who were about sixty thousand strong escaped. The Arabs pillaged the dead and returned to their fellows.”

⚔ The Ambush Reversed

This episode marks a dramatic reversal of fortunes: from being perceived as starving and demoralized, the Umayyads suddenly strike back with devastating efficiency.

The entire setup plays on the motif of “victory through cunning”, a deeply rooted literary trope in Near Eastern and Islamic war narratives.
The setting — a meadow with ravines and reed-islands — evokes the use of terrain-based tactics, rare in many chronicles but remarkably vivid here.

The ambush was not just tactical brilliance; it was psychological warfare:

The Arabs allowed the Romans to enter the meadow, relax, and unload their animals.
This created a false sense of safety.
The signal — likely a horn, cry, or visual flare — unleashed simultaneous, multi-directional assault.

📉 Roman Catastrophe

The chronicler’s claim that “not one among the sixty thousand escaped” is clearly hyperbolic — even the most disastrous defeats (e.g., Yarmuk, 636 CE) had survivors. But the scale of the rout serves a function:

It is a moral counterbalance to the Arab humiliation at Constantinople.
The Roman governor’s arrogance is punished.
The caliphate reasserts its military dominance, even in retreat.

This also parallels biblical battle narratives, where overconfidence leads to divine retribution.

👤 Who Was ʿAbbās?

As discussed in the previous section, this figure may be:

ʿAbbās ibn al-Walīd, a known Umayyad commander and son of Caliph al-Walīd I.
His prominent role in rescuing the army lends historical weight to the claim, even if no other source independently confirms this precise episode.

That the chronicler calls him “one of the famous in the caliphate” suggests either:

Contemporary notoriety, or
Retrospective elevation of his reputation in oral or communal memory.

🧠 Military Commentary: Tactic, Terrain, Timing

This is one of the most tactically detailed battle descriptions in the Chronicle of Zuqnīn:

Component	Detail
🗺️ Terrain Use	Ravines, reed-beds, meadow chosen for concealment and entrapment
🕐 Timing	Attack timed precisely as the enemy let down its guard
🧍 Arab Discipline	Coordination, camouflage, signal-based synchronized assault
🏇 Roman Error	Marching loosely, no scouting, unguarded setup
⚰️ Casualties	Total annihilation claimed (60,000 Romans) — almost certainly exaggerated

This reflects an idealized memory of Arab martial superiority, intended to reclaim honor after a failed siege.

📚 Literary and Theological Framing

The narrative is saturated with theological undertones:

After the famine and humiliation, victory is portrayed as restorative grace.
The Romans fall into the very trap they planned, echoing scriptural patterns of divine reversal.

It also reflects a redemptive arc common in Syriac literature:

“Though the sons of Hagar were shamed, the Lord permitted them this triumph to preserve their dignity.”

IX. 🏁 Aftermath and Return

📝 Text

“When another Roman army that marched against them heard about what had happened to the first army, they turned back frightened. As for the Arabs, they captured and plundered everything they found before them. They then departed and arrived in Syria.”

🔁 Strategic Withdrawal and Psychological Fallout

This closing remark completes the narrative arc of Maslama’s campaign. The retreat from Constantinople was not a total disaster—at least not in how the chronicler wishes it to be remembered:

The Arabs redeemed themselves militarily at Tyana,
Shamed a Roman relief force into retreat,
And withdrew on their own terms, carrying spoils back to Syria.

This final turn of events reframes the campaign as one that ended not in humiliation, but in tactical and moral recovery.

🛡 The Frightened Romans

The claim that another Roman army “turned back frightened” serves several narrative functions:

It reflects the psychological ripple effect of ʿAbbās’s ambush.
It casts the Romans as demoralized, despite having just saved their capital.
It reinforces the heroic image of the Arabs, especially given their earlier suffering and famine.

This is not found in Roman sources, but it fits a Syriac chronicle’s moral framework: the proud are humbled, the defeated redeemed.

🔥 Plunder and Pillage: A Common Epilogue

The final statement — “they captured and plundered everything they found before them” — is almost formulaic in early Islamic war narratives, echoed in:

al-Balādhurī, who often ends conquest reports with terms accepted or booty seized,
Sebeos, who sometimes uses loot as a sign of victory, not conquest,
Theophanes, who grudgingly acknowledges plundering even in failed campaigns.

Here, it performs a double function:

Function	Narrative Role
🏅 Redemption	After famine and failure, Arab armies regain honor
💰 Economic Realism	Armies that cannot conquer must at least enrich themselves through plunder
🧭 Closure	Provides a satisfying ending to a traumatic expedition

🚪 Return to Syria

The final clause — “they then departed and arrived in Syria” — signals both a geographic and narrative closure. The Near East was still the Umayyad heartland, and returning there was a return to stability after a costly imperial overreach.

While this sentence is understated, it carries powerful connotations:

Survival after catastrophe,
Homecoming from holy war, and
A subtle reminder that the frontier struggle with Rome would continue.

This completes the Chronicle of Zuqnīn’s epic and detailed portrayal of the 716–718 campaign — a Syriac Christian memory of the largest Arab assault on Constantinople, combining terror, betrayal, famine, and redemption in a complex literary and historical tapestry.

SE 1032 | AH 101 | CE 720–721

The Final Year of Maslama’s Campaign and the Reign of ʿUmar II

📝 Text

“The year one thousand and thirty-two: It is the first year of ʿUmar (II), Caliph of the Arabs, and the fourth year of Leo, the Roman Emperor. Maslama left the Roman territories, completely destroying the land between its boundaries, turning it desolate like an empty steppe. So as not to prolong this account with many details, I am leaving out other events that happened to them on this expedition.”

📅 Chronological Discrepancy

This entry introduces a notable chronological error:

ʿUmar II ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ruled from 99 AH / 717 CE until his death in 101 AH / 720 CE.
The Zuqnīn chronicler wrongly dates his accession to 720–721, likely because:

📌 He believed the Arab siege of Constantinople (begun in 716) lasted a full three years, and so artificially extended the timeline to synchronize Maslama’s final withdrawal with the beginning of ʿUmar’s rule.

This kind of compression or extension of timelines is not uncommon in medieval chronicles when theological or narrative coherence is prioritized over precise dating.

🛡 Historical Reality: Withdrawal in 718 CE

The actual withdrawal of Maslama’s army occurred in August 718 CE, shortly after the death of Caliph Sulaymān in September 717 and the accession of ʿUmar II.

By that time, the Arabs had:

Suffered famine, plague, naval losses, and logistical catastrophe,
Lost thousands of men and animals during the siege,
Abandoned hopes of capturing Constantinople.

This Zuqnīn entry, though dated incorrectly, confirms the devastation wrought by Maslama's forces during their retreat across Anatolia, culminating in the ambush at Tyana and the pillaging of several regions on the way back to Syria.

🔥 "Desolate Like an Empty Steppe": Devastation of Anatolia

The chronicler paints the devastation of Asia Minor in stark, apocalyptic terms:

“…completely destroying the land between its boundaries, turning it desolate like an empty steppe.”

This literary depiction reflects:

Environmental and demographic trauma left in the wake of the siege: razed farms, scorched vineyards, displaced populations.
A Syriac Christian theological lens—linking physical desolation with divine punishment or eschatological signs.
Possibly embellished memory, echoing the biblical imagery of wasteland following divine wrath (e.g., Isaiah, Lamentations).

✂️ A Narrative Break: Omission of Details

“So as not to prolong this account with many details, I am leaving out other events…”

This abrupt comment reflects two things:

Narrative exhaustion — the preceding accounts (especially the Constantinople siege) were already unusually long and vivid for this chronicle.
Possible lack of further sources — the chronicler may not have had reliable material beyond this climactic arc.

Despite claiming omission, the preceding episodes have given us a richly detailed campaign:

Beginning in 716
Climaxing at Constantinople (717–718)
Ending with battles in Tyana and beyond (718–720)

This entry marks the official end of the Maslama campaign episode in the Chronicle of Zuqnīn—a vivid and theologically laden record of one of the most ambitious, and most disastrous, campaigns of the early Islamic expansion.

SE 1034 | AH 104 | CE 722–723

The Death of ʿUmar II and the Accession of Yazīd II

📝 Text

“The year one thousand and thirty-four: ʿUmar (II), Caliph of the Arabs, who ruled for two years and four months, died. After him Yazīd (II) ruled for four years.”

🕰 Chronological Issues

While the Zuqnīn Chronicle gets the duration of ʿUmar II’s reign mostly correct (he ruled for approximately two years and five months), it places his death two years too late, in 722–723 CE (AH 104).

📚 More accurate chronology:

ʿUmar II ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ruled from Safar 99 AH (Sept 717) until his death in Rajab 101 AH, corresponding to February 720 CE.

As Amir Harrak notes, this discrepancy likely stems from the chronicler’s mistaken dating of Maslama’s siege of Constantinople, which he extended to 720 CE to align with ʿUmar’s reign.

🗂 Comparative Chronological Data:

Source	Date for ʿUmar II’s Death
al-Ṭabarī	Rajab 101 AH / Feb 720 CE
al-Yaʿqūbī	Confirms same: 101 AH
Theophanes	AM 6212 = 719–720 CE
Chronicon 846	SE 1031 = 719–720 CE
Michael the Syrian	SE 1034 = 722–723 CE (same as Zuqnīn)

Notably, the Zuqnīn Chronicle follows Michael the Syrian’s dating, likely because both drew from the same early Syriac sources.

⚖ ʿUmar II’s Significance

Despite the dating error, the Zuqnīn Chronicle correctly notes that ʿUmar ruled briefly and was succeeded by Yazīd II.

Key points about ʿUmar II:

Often regarded in Islamic tradition as the “fifth righteous caliph” due to his justice, piety, and reforms.
Halted many military campaigns, focusing on internal reform, justice for non-Muslims, and curbing corruption.
Reversed many of his Umayyad predecessors' excesses, earning grudging admiration from Christian chroniclers.

The Chronicle, however, does not expand on these reforms—unlike other Christian sources like Theophanes or Elias of Nisibis, who at least allude to ʿUmar’s tax equity and milder governance.

🤴 The Succession of Yazīd II

“After him Yazīd (II) ruled for four years.”

This is broadly accurate in terms of regnal duration:

Yazīd II ibn ʿAbd al-Malik ruled from February 720 to January 724 — a reign of nearly four years.

The Chronicle does not elaborate on Yazīd’s reign in this entry, though future entries address his iconoclasm and other tensions with the Christian population.

SE 1035 | AH 105 | CE 723–724

Yazīd II’s Iconoclasm: An Imperial Assault on Christian Images

📝 Text

“The year one thousand and thirty-five: Yazid (II) ordered that all images be destroyed wherever they were found, whether in a shrine, church or house. Thus people among his agents went out and destroyed all images wherever they were found.”

🧱 Widespread Historical Memory

The Chronicle of Zuqnīn preserves one of the earliest and clearest records of Islamic state-sponsored iconoclasm:

Yazīd II issues a sweeping decree against all figural images:
- In shrines, churches, markets, and even homes.
- Destruction is carried out by state-appointed agents.

This decree is corroborated by multiple independent traditions, across Christian, Islamic, and ecclesiastical sources:

Source	Detail
🕯 Zuqnīn Chronicle	Decree applies universally—even to private houses
🏛 Second Council of Nicaea (787)	Reports that Yazīd was influenced by a Jewish magician named Tessarakontapechys
📜 Chronicle of 819	Describes images as being "destroyed and torn apart"

🎯 What Was Targeted?

The language used in the Chronicle of 819 emphasizes destruction, not mere removal:

“Delerentur et lacerarentur figurae” — "Be destroyed and torn apart."

Objects targeted included:

Bronze sculptures (aenéae)
Wooden icons (ligneae)
Stone reliefs (lapideae)
Painted murals and frescoes (coloribus depictae)

This aligns with Islamic views on figural imagery, especially anthropomorphic representations in religious contexts, which were perceived as:

Violations of tawḥīd (God's unity)
Potential gateways to shirk (idolatry)
Holdovers from pagan imperial culture

🎭 Motives Behind the Decree

1. Religious and Political Messaging

Yazīd’s decree was possibly designed to:

Undermine Christian imperial theology, where icons were sacral objects of intercession and sovereignty.
Reinforce Islamic identity in contested frontier regions like Syria and Mesopotamia.

This was a visual rejection of Christian Rome’s sacred art, replacing it with an Islamic ethos of aniconic purity.

📝 Yazīd's edict predates Leo III’s imperial iconoclasm (c. 730) by nearly a decade—raising the intriguing possibility of Islamic influence on Roman policy.

2. Moral Continuity with ʿUmar II

Many scholars argue that Yazīd II's decree was a continuation of:

Ethical purification policies initiated by Caliph ʿUmar II (r. 717–720)
A desire to restore early Islamic simplicity, oppose opulence, and promote a more austere public morality.

In this view, iconoclasm was not just anti-Christian, but a part of a larger Islamic social and visual reform.

3. The “Magician” Legend

The Second Council of Nicaea (787) offers a highly polemical account:

Yazīd was reportedly seduced by a Jewish sorcerer from Tiberias named Tessarakontapechys.
He was promised 30 years of life in exchange for destroying all icons.
The story ends with Yazīd’s death and his son al-Walīd II executing the magician.

Though mythical, this legend:

Shows how Christian sources demonized Islamic iconoclasm.
Connected it to occultism, magic, and betrayal, painting Yazīd as a tyrant corrupted by heresy and Jews.

🕍 Effects on Christian Communities

Space	Impact
🛐 Churches	Frescoes, icons, and wall mosaics were destroyed, covered, or defaced
🏛 Public areas	Market statues and city monuments removed or smashed
🏠 Private homes	Even domestic devotional icons faced confiscation or destruction

In the eyes of Syriac Christians, this was a totalizing visual purge—an attack on theology, memory, and artistic identity.

Yet the Chronicle of Zuqnīn, interestingly, reports the decree without moral outcry. This may reflect:

A resigned acceptance of Umayyad policy
Recognition that this decree, while damaging, was less violent than other persecutions
An attempt at historical realism over theological polemic

🎨 A Turning Point in Sacred Art and Imperial Ideology

Yazīd II’s edict marks a watershed moment in the intersection of art, theology, and imperial authority:

Art becomes battlefield: not just decoration, but contested political and spiritual expression.
The image becomes ideology: destroyed by the caliphate, and later banned by the Romans themselves.

SE 1036 | AH 106 | CE 724–725

Of White Dogs, Blue Eyes, and Legal Inversions

📝 Text

“The year one thousand and thirty-six: The same Yazid (II) also ordered that white dogs, white pigeons and white cocks be killed. Thus a swift order was issued and dumb animals that had done no wrong were destroyed, causing stench in the streets of the cities and villages. Instead of: Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and tread it down, and let birds fly across the firmament and let the animals multiply on the earth, they made themselves the adversaries of creation. And through their cruelty, they sought to destroy what was formed and fashioned inside the womb under the laws of creation and according to God's will; they wanted to stop the order of the Creator so that the world could not progress according to the laws set for it by the Creator. Then he ordered that all blue (eyed) people be killed, but he was stopped by God-fearing people and did not kill anyone. Then he ordered that the testimony of a Syrian against an Arab not be accepted, and he set the (blood) value of an Arab at twelve thousand (dirhams) and that of a Syrian at six thousand (dirhams). This is the origin of these corrupt laws. Then he ordered that the arm of the thief be amputated instead of his hand. The Arabs despised him and his regulations.”

I. 🐕 Slaughter of White Animals: Symbol or Fact?

“He ordered that white dogs, white pigeons and white cocks be killed… dumb animals that had done no wrong were destroyed, causing stench in the streets…”

🔎 Commentary:

No other historical source—Islamic, Syriac, or Roman—records such a decree.
It is likely symbolic, serving as a theological metaphor:
- White animals are traditionally associated with purity, sacrifice, or divine favor.
- Their mass killing symbolizes a reversal of natural and divine order, paralleling biblical Genesis language:
  
  “Be fruitful and multiply…”
The Zuqnīn author is implying that Yazīd’s regime:
- Violated the laws of creation,
- Was unnatural,
- And possibly even demonic in intent.

This narrative fits with the broader apocalyptic tone of the chronicle, which often interprets political disasters as spiritual ones.

II. 👁️ The Blue-Eyed Pogrom That Wasn’t

“Then he ordered that all blue(eyed) people be killed, but he was stopped by God-fearing people…”

🔎 Commentary:

This part defies credibility—no other source mentions it.
It may reflect deepening ethnic fear among Syriac Christians:
- Blue eyes were stereotypically associated with Romans (Greeks), Syrians, or Slavs—non-Arab groups.
- The chronicler may have used this detail to underline Yazīd’s irrational cruelty.
Being “stopped by God-fearing people” presents a morality tale:
- Even in tyranny, divine mercy operates through the righteous.

This echoes biblical tropes where genocidal plans are thwarted by providence or moral intervention.

III. ⚖️ Racist Legal Discrimination: Syrians vs. Arabs

“Then he ordered that the testimony of a Syrian against an Arab not be accepted, and he set the (blood) value of an Arab at twelve thousand (dirhams) and that of a Syrian at six thousand (dirhams). This is the origin of these corrupt laws…”
— Chronicle of Zuqnīn, on the decrees of Caliph Yazīd II

This remarkable passage, recorded in the Chronicle of Zuqnīn, lays bare the institutionalized legal apartheid that emerged in the early Umayyad period under Yazīd II (r. 720–724). It exposes two related forms of legal discrimination implemented by state authority:

Legal testimony from a Syrian (Christian) was declared inadmissible against an Arab (i.e., Muslim).
The blood money (diya) — the compensation paid for wrongful death — was set at:
- 12,000 dirhams for an Arab
- 6,000 dirhams for a Syrian

🧠 Legal and Social Context

This aligns with broader trends in Umayyad legal policy, in which Islamic jurisprudence increasingly differentiated people along religious and ethnic lines:

Muslim Arabs vs. non-Arab converts (mawālī) and non-Muslims (dhimmīs)
Islamic law privileged Arab-Muslim men, especially in:
- legal testimony (who could testify against whom),
- diya values, and
- access to political authority and military command.

Under these systems:

A Christian’s testimony was not accepted against a Muslim — a rule codified in many legal texts.
Non-Arab lives were legally worth half that of Arabs, as measured in diya.

The Chronicle of Zuqnīn is not inventing these policies. Rather, it documents and condemns their implementation in Syria, where Christians like the chronicler saw their civil status erode under what he calls “these corrupt laws.”

💸 Diya in Monetary Terms: Dirhams and Inequality

To understand how stark this discrimination was, we can quantify the value of these blood prices in modern silver and dollar terms, based on the historical weight of an Umayyad silver dirham.

🪙 Step 1: Umayyad Dirham Standard

Each Umayyad dirham weighed approximately 2.97 grams of silver (about 0.095 troy ounces).
So:
- 12,000 dirhams = 35.64 kg of silver
- 6,000 dirhams = 17.82 kg of silver

💵 Step 2: Modern Market Conversion (as of May 2025)

Silver price: ~$30 USD per troy ounce
1 troy ounce = 31.1035 grams

Therefore:

Person Type	Dirhams	Silver (kg)	Troy Ounces	Approx. USD
Arab	12,000	~35.64 kg	~1,145 oz	~$34,350
Syrian	6,000	~17.82 kg	~572.5 oz	~$17,175

This means that an Arab's life was worth literally twice that of a Syrian — not only symbolically, but materially.

🚨 Historical Impact

These values are more than mere silver weights. In the 8th-century Syrian economy:

12,000 dirhams could purchase a landed estate, fund a caravan, or equip a military unit.
6,000 dirhams was still substantial but represented a clearly inferior valuation of personhood.

Such policies reflect the codification of ethnic and religious hierarchy under Umayyad rule:

The Arab-Muslim elite had legal supremacy, even over indigenous populations who had lived under Rome for centuries.
Non-Arab Christians in Syria, like the author of the Chronicle of Zuqnīn, experienced this as a systematic stripping of dignity and legal rights — and he names it plainly as corruption.

📜 Legacy of Legal Stratification

The disparity in diya and legal standing became an enduring problem:

It was modified but not fully dismantled under the Abbasids.
Legal treatises continued to reflect Arab-first models in testimony and diya.
Non-Muslims (dhimmīs) remained legally inferior in most Islamic legal schools (madhāhib) well into the medieval period.

Yet what makes the Zuqnīn testimony especially powerful is its clear moral condemnation: this is not just reportage — it is resistance through memory, an effort to record and reject a system that degraded the Syriac Christian population under Umayyad imperial rule.

❓ Did the Prophet of Islam (ﷺ) or His Companions Permit or Institute This Discrimination?

No — neither the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ nor his companions institutionalized ethnic or racial disparities in legal testimony or blood money (diya).

The discriminatory policies described in the Chronicle of Zuqnīn under Yazīd II were not based on the Qur’an or the Prophet’s teachings, but rather emerged later, as Umayyad rulers—especially in Syria—constructed an Arab-centric imperial system that diverged in many ways from the original Islamic ideals of equality among believers.

🕊️ The Prophetic Model: Justice and Equality

1. On Legal Testimony and Equality:

The Prophet ﷺ emphasized justice for all people, regardless of tribal or ethnic background. One famous hadith states:

"Indeed, there is no superiority of an Arab over a non-Arab, nor of a non-Arab over an Arab, nor of a red (i.e., light-skinned) person over a black person, nor of a black person over a red person — except by righteousness. Verily, the most honorable of you in the sight of God is the most righteous among you."
— Musnad Aḥmad, Ibn Ḥanbal

The Qur’an also commands:

"O you who believe, stand firmly for justice, as witnesses for Allah, even if it be against yourselves, your parents, or your kin..."
— Qur’an 4:135

There is no evidence that the Prophet ﷺ ever declared a Syrian (or non-Arab) unworthy to testify against an Arab, or that he endorsed racial preferences in judicial proceedings.

2. On Blood Money (Diya):

The Qur’an (2:178) does mention the concept of blood money but frames it in terms of murder and justice, not ethnicity:

"O you who believe, retaliation is prescribed for you in cases of murder... But if the killer is forgiven by the victim’s family, then blood money should be paid with fairness."

The Prophet’s policies were class- and justice-sensitive, not ethnicity-sensitive.

In his Constitution of Medina, the Prophet ﷺ granted non-Muslim groups (like Jews) equal legal status within the Muslim polity.
In the early Islamic period, the diya for Muslims and non-Muslims was, in many cases, treated as equal, especially under pacts and covenants of protection.

📜 What Changed Under the Umayyads?

The policies of Yazīd II reflect a political shift, not a prophetic norm.

Under the Umayyads, particularly after the expansion into Syria, Islamic governance became increasingly ethnically stratified, favoring Arab-Muslims over non-Arab Muslims (mawālī) and non-Muslim dhimmīs.
The policy of doubling the diya for Arabs over non-Arabs, and excluding non-Muslims from testifying, was part of this imperialization of Islam, criticized by both Muslim and non-Muslim voices.

Even Muslim scholars in later periods debated and questioned these rulings:

Some classical jurists (like Abū Ḥanīfa) did not allow different diya rates based on religion or ethnicity, especially where covenants existed.
Others, like al-Shāfiʿī and Mālik, justified the difference based on dhimmī status — not ethnicity — and never based on Arabness.

⚖️ Conclusion

The racist legal hierarchy described in the Chronicle of Zuqnīn:

Was not based on Islamic revelation,
Was not practiced by the Prophet ﷺ or his righteous successors,
But rather arose under the Umayyad dynasty as it sought to consolidate Arab-Muslim political supremacy over a diverse imperial population.

It is best understood not as Islamic law (sharīʿa) in its ideal form, but as imperial policy masquerading as religious authority.

IV. ✂️ The Amputated Arm: Legal Mutation?

“He ordered that the arm of the thief be amputated instead of his hand…”

🔎 Commentary:

Islamic law traditionally mandates cutting the right hand of a thief under specific conditions (Qur’an 5:38).
Ordering the entire arm amputated appears either:
- A sign of arbitrary cruelty in enforcement,
- Or a hyperbolic metaphor for disproportionate punishment.

The line:

“The Arabs despised him and his regulations”

—suggests even Muslim contemporaries viewed Yazīd’s rule as excessive and unpopular.

V. 🧠 Theological Polemic and Political Protest

The chronicler ends with a cosmic accusation:

“…they made themselves the adversaries of creation… They sought to destroy what was formed and fashioned inside the womb under the laws of creation and according to God’s will.”

This frames Yazīd II’s policies as:

Satanic inversion of divine order,
A challenge to God’s creative sovereignty,
A manifestation of the end-times disorder—a sign of imminent apocalypse.

Such language reflects deep despair and theological resistance—not only against a ruler, but against a system perceived as divinely condemned.

🧩 Final Note: Syriac vs. Arab – Ethnicity or Religion?

As Amir Harrak notes, “Syrian” here refers not only to ethnicity or geography—but to religious-linguistic identity:

“Neo-Aramaic-speaking Christians still use Sūrāyē to refer to Christians in general.”

Thus:

“Arabs” = Muslims (dominant, legal elite)
“Syrians” = Christians (subordinate, culturally besieged)

The Zuqnīn Chronicle laments not merely a political shift, but the desacralization of the world—a regime at war with God’s creation.

SE 1038 | AH 108 | CE 726–727

⚖️ The Death of Yazīd II and Administrative Rotations in the Jazīra

📝 Text:

“Yazīd (II) died. His amirs of the Jazīra were first Abūrīn and then Mardas, after the former was dismissed; then Mardas was dismissed and Abūrīn returned.”

I. 🪦 The Death of Yazīd II

Yazīd II ibn ʿAbd al-Malik ruled from AH 101–105 / CE 720–724, and died in Shaʿbān 105 AH / January 724 CE. Thus:

The Chronicle of Zuqnīn misdates his death by approximately 2–3 years.
This error likely arises from its previous narrative confusion: the chronicler had already attributed events of 720–725 to Yazīd, so the ruler’s death had to be pushed later to fit his literary chronology.

II. 🧑‍✈️ Who Are “Abūrīn” and “Mardas”?

The Zuqnīn Chronicle mentions two governors of the Jazīra:

Abūrīn: Appointed, dismissed, then reinstated.
Mardas: Interim replacement, then dismissed.

There are no known governors of the Jazīra with these exact names in Arabic sources—however, plausible identifications via Syriac transcription are possible.

🧩 Possibilities:

Syriac Name	Arabic Equivalent	Notes
Abūrīn	Possibly ʿAbd al-Raḥmān or ʿAbd al-Malik	The Syriac 'b' and 'r' could reflect a misheard or simplified form.
Mardas	Could correspond to Marwān, Mardās, or Marda’ī	There are several tribal and military names that fit this mold.

Since Maslama b. ʿAbd al-Malik was the dominant governor over Iraq and the frontiers before Yazīd’s full appointment of ʿUmar b. Hubayra, it's possible these names refer to lesser frontier commanders or local Jazīra amīrs under the larger governor-general structure.

III. 🏛 Governor Context from Arabic Sources (Khalīfa ibn Khayyāṭ)

The period surrounding Yazīd II’s death was marked by frequent gubernatorial rotation, especially in Iraq, Kufa, and Basra. These posts oversaw:

Military operations in the Jazīra
Frontier defense
Legal oversight (appointment of qāḍīs)

Key Figures Around 724–726:

Position	Governor	Notes
Iraq (central authority)	ʿUmar b. Hubayra	Appointed by Yazīd II in 721–722 CE; had authority over the Jazīra.
Basra	Saʿīd b. ʿUmar al-Ḥarashī → Ḥasan al-Fazārī → Fīrās al-Fazārī	High turnover, reflecting instability.
Kufa	al-Sāʿir b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Murrī	Remained until Yazīd’s death.
Judges (Basra)	Mūsā b. Anas → ʿAbd al-Malik b. Yaʿlā	Appointed during this period.

Although the names Abūrīn and Mardas don't appear exactly in these lists, it's likely that:

They were local commanders or provincial amirs.
They held subordinate roles within the greater structure governed by ʿUmar b. Hubayra or Maslama b. ʿAbd al-Malik.
The Chronicler’s naming likely reflects local Syriac memory rather than the formal Arabic administrative record.

IV. 🧠 Literary and Political Implications

The Chronicler may be highlighting:

Political instability under Yazīd II,
Frequent dismissals and reinstatements, which he likely interpreted as a symptom of poor governance or divine punishment,
The fragility of Umayyad control in a volatile region like the Jazīra.

SE 1039 | AH 110 | CE 727–728

👑 The Accession of Hishām ibn ʿAbd al-Malik

📝 Text:

“The year one thousand and thirty-nine: Hisham, son of 'Abd-al-Malik, ruled over the Arabs for nineteen years and four months.”

🧭 Historical Correction:

Event	Zuqnīn Date	Actual Date
Accession of Hishām	SE 1039 = AH 110 = CE 727–728	AH 105 / February 724 CE
Length of reign	19 years and 4 months	✅ Correct (Reigned from February 724 – January 743 CE)

Summary:

While the Zuqnīn Chronicle correctly records the length of Hishām’s reign, it misdates the beginning by about 3 years.
This error is likely due to a compounding chronological inaccuracy from earlier entries. For instance, the chronicler:
- Misdated Yazīd II’s death to 726–727, instead of 724.
- Placed ʿUmar II’s reign and Maslama’s siege events into an expanded three-year frame, distorting the imperial succession timeline.

📚 Why the Misdating?

This dating slip likely stems from:

Narrative Compulsion: The chronicler retroactively adjusted political events to fit theological or narrative arcs—especially the prolonged siege of Constantinople, which he mistakenly believed lasted three years.
Lack of Precise Chronological Tools: Syriac chroniclers, including Zuqnīn, often relied on Seleucid Era years but had imperfect synchronization with Hijrī or Julian calendars.
Limited Access to Arab Court Records: The chronicler may have relied on local oral traditions or Christian monastic memory, rather than direct state documentation.

🧠 Literary Value

Despite its chronological flaw, this entry performs an important transitional role in the chronicle:

It closes the arc of political instability following Yazīd II’s chaotic reign (marked by wild decrees and instability in the Jazīra).
It opens the period of Hishām’s long, mostly stable rule, which will dominate the next two decades of the chronicle.

SE 1042 | AH 110 | CE 730–731

🛡️ Maslama’s Campaign Against the Khazars and the “Gate of the Turks”

📝 Text:

"The year one thousand and forty-two: Maslama invaded the Gate of the land of the Turks. The Huns, who are the Turks, marched out and caused considerable damage in the land of Armenia and in the whole northern land. Then Maslama invaded them with innumerable forces because they used to march out in this way every year and commit many evils. When he invaded them and they came out to confront him, he waged a battle against them, killing numerous people among them. As he terrorised them, they came to his feet and asked him for peace. He granted it to them, hoping that the agreement would last. It was in this year that Maslama tore down the Gate of the land of the Turks, because they waged a battle behind this Gate and also because they used to fortify themselves in it. He feared that if his forces should go to a land they were unaware that it belonged to the Turks, then these Turks would gather against them and drive them away from it because they were a godless nation and Magians. Because of this, Maslama was pressed and ordered that the Gate of the land of the Turks which had been built by Alexander of Macedonia be destroyed. First, all the camels were released and left, then the donkeys, after these the labourers, and at the end the Arabs themselves came out, while throwing thorn bushes over the whole road behind them."

🧭 Historical Context: The Umayyad–Khazar Conflict

Source	Detail
al-Ṭabarī	Reports a month-long campaign by Maslama near Bāb al-Lān (Derbent) where the Khagan of the Khazars was routed.
Khalīfa ibn Khayyāṭ	Calls this the "Campaign of the Mud", indicating continuous rain; confirms the defeat of the Khazar army near Talamīs or al-Bāb.
Zuqnīn Chronicle	Refers to the Khazars as “Huns” and describes Maslama’s destruction of the “Gate of the Turks” for strategic reasons.

Who were the “Turks”?

The Syriac term “Huns” (ܗܘܢܐ) was a generic exonym for steppe nomads, including the Khazars, who were a Turkic polity in the North Caucasus. The Chronicle refers to them as Magians (Mazdayans/Zoroastrians) and “godless,” reflecting Christian polemics against non-monotheists.

🏯 The Gate of the Turks (Bab al-Abwab)

"He ordered that the Gate of the land of the Turks which had been built by Alexander of Macedonia be destroyed..."

This is a legendary motif found in several traditions:

Tradition	Claim
Syriac/Greek	The gate was built by Alexander the Great to block Gog and Magog Syriac Alexander Romance).
Islamic	Known as Bāb al-Abwāb or Derbent, the fortress line was built to defend against northern invasions (Khazars, Huns, etc).
Historical	The Sasanian king Xusro I fortified this region in the 6th century as the Darband Wall.

Maslama’s demolition of part of the gate wall likely reflects:

A retreat strategy to prevent future Turkish/Khazar encampments.
A legendary layer emphasizing the undoing of Alexander’s work, symbolizing a world-altering military campaign.
The chronicler’s emphasis that this was no ordinary raid, but a cosmic, almost eschatological battle.

🪖 Campaign Summary

Feature	Detail
📆 Date	AH 110 = CE 728–729 (SE 1040–1041), but recorded in Zuqnīn as SE 1042 = 730–731
📍 Location	Near Bab al-Lān / Derbent, Caucasus frontier
🏹 Opponent	The Khazars (referred to as Huns/Turks)
⚔ Duration	Around a month, in heavy rain
🥵 Conditions	Known as the “Campaign of the Mud”; harsh climate and terrain
✅ Outcome	Umayyad victory; Khagan defeated and sued for peace
🧱 Strategic Result	Gate demolished to deny Khazar use of defenses or shelter

🎭 Literary and Theological Framing

The Zuqnīn Chronicle links geopolitical warfare with divine and moral cosmology.
The Khazars are depicted as godless and Magian, invoking Zoroastrian associations—though by the 8th century, they were Tengrist.
The dramatic retreat—"while throwing thorn bushes behind them"—has echoes of biblical or apocalyptic imagery, suggesting a scorched-earth withdrawal.

🏔️ 731–732 | SE 1043 | AH 112

The Battle of Ardabīl and the Khazar Invasion

📝 Text

"The year one thousand and forty-three: The same Maslama gathered a large crowd of craftsmen, carpenters and labourers and prepared everything necessary for building. They went in and rebuilt the Gate of the land of the Turks that he had torn down. After he had rebuilt it he made a treaty under an oath by God with the Turks that no one of them should cross over the boundary of his neighbour, and then he left. But the Turks, not knowing God nor understanding that they were his creatures, nor realising that there was a God in Heaven, did not abide by his treaty, but despised God and rejected his word. Scornfully, they crossed over and committed numerous evils in the whole land extending beyond their boundaries.

Hisham sent (al)- Jarrah, the military commander, against them with a great number of cavalrymen. (Al)-Jarrah invaded the whole land, and during his invasion inflicted considerable damage because it was harvest time. He was not a moderate man nor was he justt in using his forces. He destroyed the entire crop of the peasants and caused the poor along his way to suffer many other troubles. Although all of them came and complained before him, no one of them received any respite by him. And as everyone suffered because of his invasion, all prayed with one accord that he meet his deserts. When al-Jarrah marched in and waged a battle with the Turks, they killed most of his army and captured many others whom they took into their land. At this point, al-Jarrah sent a message to Hisham to dispatch help for him. Maslama marched after him with a huge army, and while he was on the march, al-Jarrah and his army were put to the sword. The Turks outnumbered them on all sides and slaughtered them all with the blades of their swords. Not one of them escaped. The Lord treated the evil doer in a manner that exactly befitted him, and requited him with all the evils which he and his army had committed toward the peasantry, for wherever he arrived, the Lord inflicted his army with all of them at once.

Nevertheless, when Maslama invaded (the land of the Turks), they trembled before him out of fear, afraid more of his reputation than of his person. He waged a battle with them, shed their blood like water on the face of the earth, and filled the birds of the sky and the beasts of the steppe with their flesh. After he had defeated them, he appointed Marwan son of Muhammad, who later ruled over the Arabs, governor over Armenia. He departed, leaving with the man a great force. As for Marwan, he destroyed the Turks more than any other before him."

I. 🔧 Rebuilding the Gate of the Turks

“The same Maslama gathered a large crowd of craftsmen, carpenters and labourers and prepared everything necessary for building. They went in and rebuilt the Gate of the land of the Turks that he had torn down. After he had rebuilt it, he made a treaty under an oath by God with the Turks that no one of them should cross over the boundary of his neighbour, and then he left.”

🏗 Strategic Reconstruction and the Reassertion of Control

This passage from the Zuqnīn Chronicle marks a key moment in early Islamic frontier policy: the deliberate reconstruction of the “Gate of the Turks” (i.e., Bab al-Abwāb, modern Darband or Derbent) — the critical choke-point between the Caucasus and the Eurasian steppes.

Maslama ibn ʿAbd al-Malik, having previously destroyed the gate in his 730/731 campaign to prevent hostile use by the Khazars, now reverses course. The new construction initiative is portrayed as massive and state-coordinated: a full logistical operation involving builders, craftsmen, and military engineers.

⛓ Zuqnīn’s Reasoning

The Zuqnīn chronicler is explicit:

The destruction of the gate had left Muslim borderlands exposed.
The Khazars (referred to as “Turks”) crossed the frontier with impunity.
The new gate — restored under Maslama’s direction — is tied to a sworn treaty, a covenant “under an oath by God” intended to prevent further incursions.

This shows that the gate was more than a wall — it was a political and theological symbol of control, order, and enforced boundaries. By restoring it, Maslama reasserted not just military supremacy but the legitimacy of Umayyad territorial claims in the Caucasus.

🏛 Ribāṭ Culture and Umayyad Border Policy

This act fits into a broader Umayyad trend: the militarization and fortification of frontiers, particularly in the volatile zones between Islam and Rome, Islam and the Turks, and Islam and India.

Islamic jurisprudence and political rhetoric referred to these outposts as ribāṭ (frontier fortresses), seen both as defensive bulwarks and spiritual spaces for vigilantly defending the faith.
The Caucasian Gates (Bab al-Abwāb) were especially vital — they were a geostrategic bottleneck, the only reliable land route between the steppe and the Middle East.

This initiative also mirrored Roman and Sasanian practices, which had long used fortification chains in Armenia and the Caucasus to manage nomadic threats.

🧱 Archaeological and Historical Corroboration

📚 Islamic sources confirm this effort:

Al-Ṭabarī recounts how Maslama returned to Bab al-Lān after earlier conflict and left at-Taʾī to supervise fortification efforts.
Khalīfa ibn Khayyāṭ notes similar movements and rebuilding efforts near al-Bāb during this period.

These sources suggest that Darband (Derbent) remained under near-continuous Umayyad management during the 720s–730s — not only as a launching point for northern campaigns but as a defensive anchor.

In essence, the rebuilding of the Gate marked not just an engineering feat, but a diplomatic reset, a religious gesture, and a strategic masterstroke. The frontier had been pierced in blood — now it was being stitched together in stone.

II. ⚔ The Khazar Betrayal and Invasion

“But the Turks, not knowing God nor understanding that they were his creatures, nor realising that there was a God in Heaven, did not abide by his treaty, but despised God and rejected his word. Scornfully, they crossed over and committed numerous evils in the whole land extending beyond their boundaries.”

🤥 Treaty Betrayed, Faith Profaned

This passage marks the moment when the fragile peace between Maslama and the Khazars collapses. The chronicler emphasizes the religious dimension of this breach:

The Khazars are portrayed not merely as oath-breakers, but as spiritually ignorant:

“Not knowing God… not understanding that they were His creatures…”
Their violation is not political but theological:

“They despised God and rejected His word.”

This reflects a broader Christian worldview (and echoes Islamic treaty theology as well), where treaties are not merely pacts between men but oaths before God. To violate a treaty is to sin against the divine order.

Such oaths are sacred in both Syriac Christianity and early Islam:

The Qur’an (e.g., Surah Al-Nahl 91) condemns breaking oaths made in God's name.
Syriac Christian texts (such as Jacob of Edessa’s letters) regard oaths—even between rival nations—as religiously binding.

Thus, the Khazar violation becomes moral justification for what follows: retributive war, massacre, and divine vengeance.

🏹 Nomadic “Godlessness” as a Literary Trope

The Zuqnīn author casts the Khazars (called “Turks” in this context) in a manner typical of how nomadic steppe peoples were viewed throughout Late Antiquity and the early medieval period:

As lawless and godless (anomoí in Greek sources)
Disconnected from divine truth, whether Christian, Islamic, or Zoroastrian
A perpetual external threat to settled civilization

This is not unique to this chronicle. We find similar characterizations:

In Roman accounts of Huns, Avars, and Turks, who are accused of ignoring treaties and lacking a true understanding of God.
In Islamic traditions, where the Khazars are often described as mulūk al-kufr (“kings of unbelief”), and as a people difficult to trust in diplomacy.

The Zuqnīn Chronicler continues this ancient Near Eastern civilized-vs-barbarian binary, where order is sacred, and its violation unleashes chaos.

🛡 Parallels with Roman Historical Theology

The Syriac author’s tone here closely mirrors Roman theological historiography:

In Theophanes and other chronicles, truce-breaking Persians or deceitful Arabs are often blamed for divine punishment befalling the Romans.
A broken treaty is not just a cause for war, but an affront to cosmic justice—prompting theomachic (God-driven) retribution.

The Zuqnīn chronicler adopts this language to prepare the audience: the Khazars will be punished not merely by the sword of the Arabs, but by the hand of God, using the Arabs as the instrument.

🗺 Historical Background: The Khazar–Umayyad Border

By 731 CE, the Umayyad–Khazar frontier had become one of the most volatile borders in the Islamic world:

The Khazar Khaganate (based in the Caucasus and steppes) had resisted both Sasanian and Umayyad expansion.
The treaty mentioned by Zuqnīn was likely a recent political settlement following Maslama’s campaign (728–729), where he had ravaged Khazar lands but agreed to peace.
The Khazars’ re-invasion breaks that truce and renews the war, setting the stage for the disaster at Ardabil (covered in the next section).

In sum, this passage is not merely a historical note about a renewed conflict—it is a sacral indictment of the Khazars, positioning them as cosmic antagonists against divine order, thereby legitimizing the terrible vengeance that follows.

III. 🧨 Al-Jarrāḥ’s Campaign and Defeat at Ardabīl

“Hisham sent (al)-Jarrah, the military commander, against them with a great number of cavalrymen. (Al)-Jarrah invaded the whole land, and during his invasion inflicted considerable damage because it was harvest time. He was not a moderate man nor was he just in using his forces. He destroyed the entire crop of the peasants and caused the poor along his way to suffer many other troubles. Although all of them came and complained before him, no one of them received any respite by him. And as everyone suffered because of his invasion, all prayed with one accord that he meet his deserts.

When al-Jarrah marched in and waged a battle with the Turks, they killed most of his army and captured many others whom they took into their land. At this point, al-Jarrah sent a message to Hisham to dispatch help for him. Maslama marched after him with a huge army, and while he was on the march, al-Jarrah and his army were put to the sword. The Turks outnumbered them on all sides and slaughtered them all with the blades of their swords. Not one of them escaped.

The Lord treated the evildoer in a manner that exactly befitted him, and requited him with all the evils which he and his army had committed toward the peasantry, for wherever he arrived, the Lord inflicted his army with all of them at once.”

🗺 Historical Setting: The Battle of Ardabīl (Dec 730)

The Zuqnīn Chronicle recounts one of the darkest episodes in Umayyad military history — the disastrous defeat of al-Jarrāḥ ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Ḥakamī at the hands of the Khazars near Ardabīl in AH 112 / 8th December 730 CE.

📍 Location:

Ardabīl, a major Muslim stronghold in northern Azerbaijan, strategically located in the Caucasus frontier zone, and a bulwark against Khazar incursions.
Al-Jarrāḥ was tasked with halting the Khazar invasion after the collapse of the earlier treaty with Maslama.

⚔ Prelude: Al-Jarrāḥ’s Invasion — Brutality and Injustice

“He invaded the whole land... inflicted considerable damage because it was harvest time… destroyed the entire crop… caused the poor to suffer… no one of them received any respite…”

The Zuqnīn chronicler portrays al-Jarrāḥ not only as a failed general but a moral villain:

Economic Devastation: His campaign came at harvest, devastating local agrarian economies. Grain, the peasantry’s lifeblood, was destroyed.
No Restraint: Al-Jarrāḥ is explicitly called “not a moderate man” and “not just”. He disregarded civilian needs, particularly of poor Christian peasants.
No Mercy: When locals petitioned him for mercy or reparations, they were ignored. This failure of justice becomes a theological catalyst.

💀 Judgment Framed as Divine Retribution

“All prayed with one accord that he meet his deserts.”

Here, popular prayer becomes prophecy. In Syriac historiography, collective suffering provokes divine justice. The fall of al-Jarrāḥ is not just political—it’s providential.

This links with a common Near Eastern trope: tyrants fall not to enemies, but to divine retribution.

⚰ The Battle and Its Catastrophic Outcome

“They killed most of his army and captured many others… Maslama marched after him… [but] al-Jarrāḥ and his army were put to the sword… not one of them escaped.”

Al-Jarrāḥ’s defeat is narrated as a total annihilation:

Mass Slaughter: Not even survivors. The phrase “not one of them escaped” echoes biblical destruction motifs (e.g., the fate of Sennacherib's army or Egypt's chariots in Exodus).
Delayed Reinforcement: Maslama—sent too late—could not save him.

🔥 Islamic Sources Confirm the Defeat:

Al-Ṭabarī: Confirms al-Jarrāḥ was killed on 22 Ramaḍān 112 (8 December 730 CE). His army was overrun by Khazar forces at Ardabīl.
Khalīfa ibn Khayyāṭ: Details Khazar invasion reaching deep into Armenia and even approaching Mosul, taking thousands of captives from Ardabīl.
The siege of Ardabīl ended with:
Muslim defenders overwhelmed
City taken by storm
Survivors, including women and children, enslaved

🏛 Moral Conclusion — Theological Framing

“The Lord treated the evildoer in a manner that exactly befitted him… for wherever he arrived, the Lord inflicted his army with all of them at once.”

This closing sentence crystallizes the chronicler’s view:

Al-Jarrāḥ’s defeat is punishment, not simply a military failure.
The suffering he imposed on Christian peasants is mirrored in the annihilation of his own forces.

This is a moral inversion: the unjust sword that once razed fields is now broken by divine decree.

It recalls:

Syriac biblical-style narrative logic (e.g., Nebuchadnezzar’s fall)
Islamic ideas of divine niqmah (retribution) for tyrants

🧠 Concluding Reflections

The Zuqnīn Chronicle’s depiction of al-Jarrāḥ’s campaign is not merely an anti-Arab or Christian lament—it is a deeply structured moral theology of empire. The chronicler uses his death to make three points:

Justice matters in war—even against enemies. Violation of the innocent will invite divine wrath.
Empire is accountable—the suffering of peasants is seen and heard by God.
Military failure is providential—not just strategic.

Al-Jarrāḥ’s destruction thus becomes a cautionary tale, not only for Muslims but for all who wield power without mercy.

IV. 🏇 Maslama’s Response

“Nevertheless, when Maslama invaded (the land of the Turks), they trembled before him out of fear, afraid more of his reputation than of his person. He waged a battle with them, shed their blood like water on the face of the earth, and filled the birds of the sky and the beasts of the steppe with their flesh.”

⚔ Context: After Ardabīl

Following the catastrophic defeat and death of al-Jarrāḥ at Ardabīl in December 730 CE, the Umayyad caliph Hishām ibn ʿAbd al-Malik turned once again to his brother Maslama ibn ʿAbd al-Malik, the empire’s most experienced general, for a counterstrike against the Khazars.

Maslama’s campaign in Shawwāl 112 / December 730 – January 731 was intended as:

Retribution for the massacre at Ardabīl
A strategic counteroffensive to reclaim lost ground
A psychological demonstration of renewed Umayyad resolve in the volatile Caucasian frontier

🛡 Psychological Warfare: A Name That Struck Fear

“…they trembled before him out of fear, afraid more of his reputation than of his person.”

This is a key literary moment in the Zuqnīn narrative. Maslama’s fame precedes him:

His personal charisma and battlefield record are invoked as more terrifying than his physical presence.
This framing echoes biblical and Syriac martial tropes, where heroic figures (e.g., David, Judas Maccabeus) command fear through reputation alone.
It reflects Maslama’s historical reputation as the empire’s frontier enforcer, from the siege of Constantinople (717–718) to previous Caucasus campaigns.

⚰ Imagery of Carnage and Divine Justice

“He shed their blood like water… filled the birds of the sky and beasts of the steppe with their flesh.”

This dramatic language is not merely ornamental:

“Blood like water” mirrors Hebrew Bible descriptions of divine wrath in battle (e.g., Isaiah 34, Ezekiel 39), linking Maslama’s victory with divine vengeance.
“Birds and beasts feeding on flesh” evokes apocalyptic imagery—symbolizing not just death but a cosmic reckoning.

This style highlights the theological framing in Zuqnīn: Maslama is God’s scourge—avenging injustice and restoring order.

🧾 Islamic Source Corroboration

The Zuqnīn Chronicle’s account is supported by Islamic historians:

✅ Khalīfa ibn Khayyāṭ:

“In Shawwāl 112 / Dec 730 – Jan 731, Maslama b. ʿAbd al-Malik went out in pursuit of the Turks, in driving rain and snow, until he passed al-Bāb (Darband). He left at-Taʿī to rebuild and fortify al-Bāb. He assigned a detachment for that. Then he sent the armies, and conquered cities and fortresses. The enemies of God burned themselves in their cities.”

Terrain and Weather: The reference to “rain and snow” underscores the difficult campaign conditions, reinforcing Maslama’s endurance and determination.

Fortification of al-Bāb: This complements the earlier rebuilding of the Gate (see Part I), showing that Maslama aimed not only to defeat the Khazars, but to re-secure the frontier.

City Conquests: The conquest of cities and fortresses shows that the campaign was not a mere raid—it was territorial restoration.

Enemy Self-Destruction: The statement that “the enemies of God burned themselves in their cities” likely refers to
Cities destroyed to prevent their capture by the Arabs

This could also serve as symbolic imagery of divine punishment—inflicted by the enemy upon themselves in despair.

🧠 Theological Resonance and Literary Design

The Zuqnīn chronicler crafts this episode as a cosmic reversal:

Before	After
Arabs slaughtered	Turks slaughtered
Injustice in the land	Justice restored
Tyrant (al-Jarrāḥ) punished	Avenger (Maslama) exalted

Maslama is positioned as both a warlord and a moral instrument. His actions—though violent—are framed as necessary and sanctified by both divine law and imperial justice.

This episode marks Maslama’s return to form—a moment of imperial restoration and personal redemption after the disaster at Ardabīl. While the Khazar threat was not eradicated, the narrative arc shifts, and for the chronicler of Zuqnīn, order—however fragile—has been violently restored.

V. 🏛 Marwān ibn Muḥammad and the Aftermath

“After he had defeated them, he appointed Marwan son of Muhammad, who later ruled over the Arabs, governor over Armenia. He departed, leaving with the man a great force. As for Marwan, he destroyed the Turks more than any other before him.”

⚔ Transition of Command: From Maslama to Marwān

This passage marks the transition from Maslama ibn ʿAbd al-Malik, the Umayyads’ most experienced general, to Marwān ibn Muḥammad, who would later become the last Umayyad caliph (r. 744–750).

According to Islamic sources:

Maslama returned from the Caucasus after his final campaign against the Khazars in 113 AH / 731–732 CE.
Marwān was appointed governor of Armenia, Azerbaijan, and al-Jazīra in early 114 AH / March 732 CE by Caliph Hishām ibn ʿAbd al-Malik.

🧾 Khalīfa ibn Khayyāṭ:

“In 114, Hishām dismissed Maslama… and appointed Marwān ibn Muḥammad at the beginning of al-Muḥarram 114 / March 732.”

🏇 Marwān’s Rise: From General to Caliph

This appointment marked the military emergence of Marwān, who had previously played only a limited role. Over the next decade, he would:

Wage repeated campaigns against the Khazars, Slavs, and other Transcaucasian groups.
Lead raids north of the Caucasus, crossing the ‘-l-r-m river (likely the Kura or Rioni).
Eventually suppress internal uprisings and become the heir of Umayyad legitimacy in its final years.

The Zuqnīn Chronicler retrospectively acknowledges his future rule:

“…who later ruled over the Arabs…”

This suggests the chronicler had lived into Marwān’s reign and was writing with hindsight—confirming the historical reliability of the account.

🔥 Military Impact: “He destroyed the Turks more than any other before him”

Zuqnīn's assertion is echoed in Islamic records. According to:

✅ Khalīfa ibn Khayyāṭ:

“In 114, Marwān marched until he crossed the river ‘-l-r-m. He killed many and took captives. He conducted a raid against the Slavs.”

This corroborates several important points:

Marwān took the offensive beyond Armenia, pursuing enemies into their own lands.
He engaged with not only Khazars but also Slavic populations in the Pontic steppe or Caucasian northlands.
His campaigns represented a shift from defense (Maslama) to consolidation and retaliation.

Marwān’s experience here would later shape his resilience during the Third Fitna and his role as the last stand of the Umayyads against ʿAbbāsid rebels.

🧠 Theological and Literary Framing
The Zuqnīn chronicler, despite being a Christian Syriac writer, provides a strikingly sober and pragmatic portrayal of Marwān:

Zuqnīn's Tone	Commentary
“Destroyed the Turks…”	Acknowledges military success despite theological divide
“Later ruled over the Arabs”	Recognizes historical continuity and imperial succession

This is significant because the chronicle tends to moralize events—yet here, it treats Marwān’s rise as a natural outcome of merit and achievement, not just dynastic privilege.

This final portion of the Zuqnīn Chronicle’s northern campaign narrative not only confirms the historicity of the Arab–Khazar conflict, but also introduces Marwān II as a formidable figure long before his caliphate.

The chronicler’s respectful tone and careful dating—alongside Islamic sources like Ṭabarī and Khalīfa—highlight a rare convergence between Christian and Muslim historiography in the 8th century. It also brings to a close one of the most detailed frontier military accounts preserved in a Christian chronicle of the Umayyad period.

SE 1040 | AH 110–111 | CE 728–729

🛡️ Maslama and the Treachery of Neocaesarea

📝 Text

"The year one thousand and forty: Maslama conquered Neocaesarea. He took all its citizens into captivity and sold them into slavery like cattle, except for the Jews who surrendered the city. For they went out secretly to Maslama, made an agreement with him, and treacherously directed him to the entrance of the city. These he took into captivity and did not sell them. So they went with him."

🧭 Historical Context

The Chronicle of Zuqnīn places the capture of Neocaesarea (modern Niksar, northern Turkey) in SE 1040 (CE 728–729), crediting it to Maslama ibn ʿAbd al-Malik, a senior Umayyad general and prince under Caliph Hishām ibn ʿAbd al-Malik (r. 724–743). This campaign unfolded during an era of aggressive Umayyad incursions into Anatolia, with Maslama launching regular raids (ṣawāʿif) from the Jazīra and Syria.

Neocaesarea of Pontus, situated near the Black Sea, had long been a strategic ecclesiastical and military site. Its conquest would have been a substantial psychological and logistical loss for the Romans. Maslama, known for leading the siege of Constantinople in 717–718, remained an active commander until his death in 738 and led multiple campaigns across the eastern front.

The Zuqnīn Chronicle is the only extant Syriac source to explicitly date the capture of Neocaesarea to 728–729, but other contemporary sources suggest a broader campaign arc that likely included both Neocaesarea and Caesarea of Cappadocia (modern Kayseri)—located only 316 km apart.

Agapius of Manbij notes under the third year of Hishām (726–727) that Maslama "captured the town of Neocaesarea and took its inhabitants into captivity."

The Chronicle of 846, a Syriac source, places the conquest of Neocaesarea of Pontus in SE 1037 (725–726).

Theophanes the Confessor records that in A.M. 6218 (726–727), “Maslama attacked and took Caesarea of Cappadocia.”

al-Ṭabarī also records that in H. 108 (726–727), “Maslama reached Qaysariyyah, the Roman city near al-Jazīrah, and conquered it.”

Rather than contradiction, these accounts likely reflect a multifaceted campaign, with Maslama seizing both Neocaesarea and Caesarea in successive or even simultaneous operations. The conquest of both cities within a few years fits the rhythm of Umayyad military logistics and confirms Maslama's capacity for coordinated deep raids into central Anatolia.

🧠 Interpretation

This account from Zuqnīn reads as a compressed narrative of treachery, retribution, and divine justice, richly laced with theological symbolism and rhetorical framing common to West Syrian historiography:

The phrase describing citizens being “sold like cattle” serves not only as a brutal image but as a symbol of divine punishment, portraying the city’s downfall as a moral consequence.

The Jews of Neocaesarea, despite aiding Maslama by revealing the city’s entrance, are not rewarded but merely spared sale—indicating their ambiguous place in the chronicler’s worldview. This reflects a broader Syriac Christian trope of Jewish betrayal under Muslim rule, often used to explain or moralize historical reversals.

The theme of internal betrayal—a “secret agreement” and the fall of a city from within—is a recurrent literary device in Syriac historiography, echoing the fates of Edessa and Amida. It reinforces the chronicler’s view of cities as moral communities vulnerable to internal corruption more than external siege.

Overall, the passage casts Maslama as an agent of divine chastisement, not unlike the Assyrians or Babylonians in biblical tradition—instrumental in the punishment of faithless or treacherous cities.

🔗 Source Comparison

Agapius of Manbij (early 10th c.) directly confirms the capture of Neocaesarea, dating it to 726–727:

“Maslama made a raid against the Greeks; he captured the town of Neocaesarea and took its inhabitants into captivity.”

The Chronicle of 846 places the same event in SE 1037 (725–726):

“Maslama entered Roman territory, took Neocaesarea of Pontus, and devastated it, taking its inhabitants captive into Syria.”

Theophanes the Confessor, AM 6218 (726–727), reports:

“In this year Maslama attacked and took Caesarea of Cappadocia.”
Though a different city, this confirms Maslama’s Anatolian operations.

al-Ṭabarī, under H. 108 (726–727), states:

“He reached Qaysariyyah, the Roman city near al-Jazīrah, and conquered it.”

These varying reports indicate a multi-target campaign, rather than a misattribution. The chronicler of Zuqnīn simply preserves the Neocaesarea episode with unique detail, especially concerning the alleged Jewish betrayal, absent in other traditions.

🧩 Final Thought

The Zuqnīn Chronicler’s brief but charged account of Neocaesarea’s fall encapsulates the worldview of an 8th-century West Syrian Christian observing the steady advance of Islamic power and the fracturing of Roman control. More than a military report, it is a theological lens on history—where cities fall not merely due to siegeworks or betrayal, but as signs of divine will and communal failure. In selecting Neocaesarea, not Caesarea, and emphasizing the role of internal treachery, the chronicler draws a moral geography of punishment and survival. The silence of Muslim sources on such betrayals, and the omission of Neocaesarea from Roman ones, leaves us with the Chronicle of Zuqnīn as the sole witness to this dramatic episode—an invaluable glimpse into how borderland Christians made sense of empire, conquest, and complicity in an age of accelerating transformation.

SE 1045 | AH 115–116 | CE 733–734

👑 Sulayman’s Raid and the Usurpation of Artabas

📝 Text

“The year one thousand and forty-five: Sulayman (son of the Caliph Hisham) invaded the Roman land, conquered Palozonium and took all its people into captivity.

Artabas, the son-in-law of the Roman Emperor Constantine, usurped power, assuming control of the capital Constantinople as well as wearing the imperial crown. Because Constantine the Emperor was fighting many enemies with his whole army, he had left this rebellious Artabas in the capital so that he might protect it with a great army from Palozonium.

When Artabas took control of the capital, he seized the opportunity to claim the empire for himself, not remembering the pact he had made with Leo before the Lord. After he had assumed control of the city, the imperial army as well as the emperor besieged the capital from the outside, whereas the whole army of Palozonium was fighting against the emperor from the inside.

At this point, Sulayman marched and Leo (sic) sent him a message: ‘Do not come to me lest you escape badly from my hands! Rather, go to Palozonium, capture it, take captives, and do whatever you wish, because there is no one to resist you!’

Thus Sulayman went and captured Palozonium and pillaged it as he wished. He carried off more spoil than any other person before him.

As for the usurper, Leo (sic) captured him and gouged out his eyes; he also deprived the army that was with him of their pay.”

🧭 Historical Context: The Arab Conquest of Pelūzanyā and the Crisis of the Roman Empire

The passage in the Chronicle of Zuqnīn refers to a critical moment in the history of the Roman Empire and the Islamic Caliphate: a period defined by external invasion and internal collapse. Around the early 740s CE, the empire was reeling from both Arab incursions and the usurpation of Artabasdos, a former general and the son-in-law of Emperor Leo III.
In this volatile context, the chronicler of Zuqnīn records that:

"Sulaymān [ibn Hishām] entered the land of the Romans, conquered Pelūzanyā, and took all its people into captivity" (ܥܠ ܣܘܠܝܡܢ ܠܒܝܬ ̈ܪܗܘܡܝܐ. ܘܟܒܫܗ ܠܦܠܘܙܢܝܐ. ܘܐܦܩ ܠܥܡܗ ܟܠܗ ܒܫܒܝܬܐ).

This event is dated by Zuqnīn to SE 1045 (CE 733–734), but as both Amir Harrak and Leif Inge Ree Petersen observe, this is chronologically inaccurate. The raid on "Palozonium" — the Latinized form of the Syriac Pelūzanyā — more plausibly occurred in 741–742, a period marked by the civil war between Emperor Constantine V and the usurper Artabasdos. As Petersen summarizes:

“Sulaymān (son of the Caliph Hishām) invaded the Roman land, conquered Palozonium and took all its people into captivity... This probably happened several years later, in about 741–42, and in the context of the Byzantine civil war, during the rebellion of Artabasdos who had stripped P. of defenders before taking control of Constantinople, where he was besieged by Leo.” — Leif Inge Ree Petersen, citing Harrak and Hoyland

Indeed, Artabasdos, the strategos of the Armeniac theme and a close relative of the imperial family, revolted against Constantine V soon after the death of Leo III in June 741. With the emperor distracted by Arab raids in the east, Artabasdos seized Constantinople, declared himself emperor, and reigned for nearly two years before being defeated and blinded by Constantine in 743. During this interval, the eastern frontier was dangerously exposed — creating the perfect opportunity for Sulaymān ibn Hishām to strike deep into Asia Minor.

🏛 Philomelion and the Identification of Pelūzanyā

The Pelūzanyā mentioned by Zuqnīn is not found under that name in Greek or Arabic sources. However, based on its phonetic structure, strategic context, and regional location, the most plausible identification is with the city of Philomelion (Φιλομήλιον), located at modern-day Akşehir in northern Pisidia.
Philomelion was no obscure town. Likely a Pergamene foundation, it lay on the Graeco-Roman highway from Ephesus to the Cilician Gates. It hosted St. Paul on his journeys and is referenced in the epistle on the martyrdom of Polycarp. By the Late Roman period, it had become a bishopric, reflecting its ecclesiastical and urban significance. Its location — near Amorion, Synnada, and along a principal invasion corridor — made it an ideal target for a deep raid during a time when Roman defenses were crippled.
In the chaos of civil war, Artabasdos is said to have stripped the Anatolian frontier of troops in order to defend his claim to Constantinople. This would have left important towns like Philomelion open to capture. Sulaymān’s raid, then, fits into the broader Arab military strategy of exploiting internal Roman weaknesses.

🔠 Philomelion → Pelūzanyā: A Linguistic and Epigraphic Trail

The transformation from Φιλομήλιον (Philomelion) to Pelūzanyā (ܦܠܘܙܢܝܐ) is entirely consistent with Syriac phonetic adaptation of Greek toponyms:

Φ (phi) often becomes ܦ (p).

ιλο (ilo) can become ܠܘ (lū or lu).

μήλιον could be garbled through oral transmission into ܙܢܝܐ (zanyā) — especially when Greek m-l clusters are misunderstood.

The -ion or -ium suffix becomes the Syriac -yā or -āyē, as in many place-name renderings.

Such transliterations are common and well-documented. Consider:
Greek Name Arabic / Syriac Equivalent
Κωνσταντινούπολις قسطنطينية (Qusṭanṭīniyya) / ܩܘܣܛܢܛܝܢܝܐ
Ἀμόριον أمورية (ʾAmūriyya) / ܐܡܘܪܝܐ
Σιννάδα صِنّادة (Ṣinnādah)
Ἀντιόχεια أنطاكية (Anṭākiyya) / ܐܢܛܝܘܟܝܐ
Φιλομήλιον Pelūzanyā (ܦܠܘܙܢܝܐ) — reconstructed
This pattern shows that the shift from Philomelion to Pelūzanyā is neither mysterious nor implausible. It fits into a recognized system of how Greek names were perceived, transliterated, and preserved by non-Greek speakers — particularly among Syriac chroniclers, who often received their knowledge orally or second-hand, and adapted names to fit their own phonetic and orthographic conventions.

Greek Name	Arabic / Syriac Equivalent
Κωνσταντινούπολις	قسطنطينية (Qusṭanṭīniyya) / ܩܘܣܛܢܛܝܢܝܐ
Ἀμόριον	أمورية (ʾAmūriyya) / ܐܡܘܪܝܐ
Σιννάδα	صِنّادة (Ṣinnādah)
Ἀντιόχεια	أنطاكية (Anṭākiyya) / ܐܢܛܝܘܟܝܐ
Φιλομήλιον	Pelūzanyā (ܦܠܘܙܢܝܐ) — reconstructed

🏁 Conclusion

Pelūzanyā (ܦܠܘܙܢܝܐ), the town said to have been conquered and depopulated by Sulaymān ibn Hishām during the Arab raid of the early 740s, is best identified with Philomelion (Φιλομήλιον), a major Roman urban center in Pisidia.

This identification is supported by:

Linguistic analysis of transliteration patterns;

The geostrategic value of Philomelion during the civil war;

The timing and context of Sulaymān’s raid as confirmed by Islamic and Roman sources;

And scholarly observations by Harrak, Hoyland, and Petersen, who place the conquest of "Palozonium" firmly within the 741–742 crisis.

Far from being a forgotten kastron or an unattested village, Pelūzanyā was almost certainly a known city — one whose name survives in Syriac under a distorted form, a relic of a turbulent age where empires fractured, frontiers collapsed, and entire communities vanished into captivity.

🧠 Interpretation

This account offers a vivid, dramatized snapshot of imperial betrayal and divine retribution. Its literary structure is rich with theological and political motifs common to West Syrian historiography:

The usurpation by a close relative of the emperor, left behind to “guard” the capital, mirrors biblical and Roman motifs of Judas-like betrayal—a trusted insider turning opportunist.

The pact “before the Lord” broken by Artabas invokes a moral and sacred dimension, portraying the political act as sacrilegious rebellion. It transforms the conflict from a mere civil war into a cosmic drama of loyalty and treachery.

The dual siege—Constantine’s army from without and the troops of Palozonium from within—evokes apocalyptic imagery of a world collapsing inward due to disloyalty.

The chronicler’s imagined dialogue between Leo (sic) and Sulayman serves as theological satire: the emperor, beset by inner division, essentially invites the Muslim commander to pillage his own territory, signifying complete political breakdown and divine judgment.

The blinding of Artabas and the withholding of pay from the disloyal army signal both punitive justice and the restoration of moral order—a theme beloved by Syriac chroniclers who often viewed imperial dysfunction as symptomatic of spiritual failure.

🧩 Final Thought

This entry exemplifies the Zuqnīn Chronicler’s unique approach to history: interweaving real political events with theological interpretation, moral drama, and eschatological imagination. The simultaneous betrayal from within Rome and invasion from without by Muslim forces becomes, in the chronicler’s hands, a parable of divine retribution. By juxtaposing Artabas’s rebellion with Sulayman’s raid, he casts imperial dysfunction as the true enabler of conquest—an argument as much spiritual as historical. Though chronologically flawed, the account preserves a powerful memory of the interconnected fates of empire and faith, as seen from the fault lines of the late antique frontier.

SE 1046 | AH 117 | CE 734–735

⚔️ The Catastrophe at Synnada: Arab Defeat and Roman Vengeance
📝 Text

"The year one thousand and forty-six, Malik, son of Shabib, the amir of Melitene (Malatya), and 'Abd-Allah al-Battal marched in and besieged Synnada. While they were camped in a meadow in Synnada, numerous troops that could not be counted gathered against them so as to take vengeance on them for the blow the Arabs had inflicted on Palozonium the year before.

As these Arabs, who were about fifty thousand strong, were camped without worry, the Romans suddenly surrounded them on all sides, and slaughtered them all with the blades of their swords. Only a few Arabs remained alive, as the day declined to sunset, though they too were wounded by the swords, lances and bows.

They fled in this condition and marched the whole night. Barely five thousand out of the fifty thousand strong who came, escaped. Even their leaders fell along with them in the battle. Such a disaster had never befallen the Arabs before."

🧭 Historical Context
This dramatic entry narrates a disastrous defeat of an Arab force led by Malik ibn Shabīb and the legendary al-Battāl (ʿAbd Allāh al-Battāl) near Synnada, a city in the Roman theme of Phrygia, west-central Anatolia.
According to the Zuqnīn Chronicle, this was a retaliatory Roman strike in response to the Arab sack of Palozonium in the previous year (SE 1045 / CE 733–734). The chronicler describes a massive Arab force of fifty thousand being caught off guard, encircled, and annihilated by Roman troops in a surprise assault, leaving fewer than ten percent alive.
While the Zuqnīn account is vivid and detailed, it is not independently confirmed in Arabic sources. However, multiple references to Arab campaigns around this period survive:

Khalīfa ibn Khayyāṭ reports two campaigns:

In Ramadan 115 (Oct–Nov 733), Muʿāwiya ibn Hishām raided as far as Paphlagonia (northern Anatolia).

In AH 117 (735–736), he again conducted a raid deep into Roman territory, reportedly reaching Sardis (S-r-d-h) and Sybira (S-y-b-r-h), both in western Anatolia—suggesting widespread Umayyad incursion across the region.

al-Ṭabarī, under the year AH 117 (Jan 735 – Jan 736), mentions a twin summer campaign:

Muʿāwiya ibn Hishām attacked the Romans on the left flank,

Sulaymān ibn Hishām led a campaign from al-Jazīra, dividing his raiders across Roman territory.

Though these sources do not reference Synnada or a major Arab defeat, they confirm extensive Arab military activity in precisely the same area and time frame. The lack of a recorded catastrophe in Arabic sources may reflect deliberate omission, a common phenomenon in medieval military historiography, especially when defeats were severe or embarrassing.
The mention of ʿAbd Allāh al-Battāl, a semi-legendary Arab warrior and hero of later Turkish epic (Battalname), situates this event within the early Islamic military mythology of the Anatolian frontier. His inclusion in Zuqnīn provides rare non-Muslim evidence for his historicity, if only as a well-known Arab commander of the 730s.
🧠 Interpretation
The Zuqnīn chronicler presents this event as a cathartic reversal of Arab dominance, framing it as divine vengeance for the previous year’s Arab sack of Palozonium. Several narrative and theological elements stand out:

The contrast between the relaxed Arab camp and the sudden Roman onslaught amplifies the drama and moral irony—the aggressors now fall victim to their own complacency.

The loss of 45,000 men and the death of commanders like Malik and al-Battāl evokes a biblical scale of judgment, reminiscent of the Assyrian routs described in 2 Kings or 1 Maccabees.

The phrase “such a disaster had never befallen the Arabs before” mirrors other Syriac laments or triumphs that use absolute language to underscore turning points in cosmic or eschatological struggles.

The meadow of Synnada, transformed into a site of slaughter, may echo the imagery of Psalm 23’s “green pastures,” now inverted as a place of ruin—possibly a deliberate allusion.

The chronicler’s tone is not merely jubilant but theological: the Romans, often portrayed as morally compromised elsewhere, here become instruments of divine justice, punishing Arab overreach.
🔗 Source Comparison

Khalīfa ibn Khayyāṭ (d. 854) notes Muʿāwiya ibn Hishām's raids into Paphlagonia (AH 115 / 733) and Sybira/Sardis (AH 117 / 735–736), suggesting wide operations but no mention of defeat:

“In this year, Muʿāwiya b. Hishām conducted a raiding expedition in the land of the Romans. He reached S-y-b-r-h. His troops reached S-r-d-h and they took prisoners.”

al-Ṭabarī corroborates a major dual campaign in AH 117 (735), placing Sulaymān ibn Hishām and Muʿāwiya ibn Hishām on coordinated raiding routes, but again without noting any disaster.

The presence of al-Battāl here is particularly valuable: although prominent in later epic, this is one of the few near-contemporary mentions of him in historical sources.

🧩 Final Thought

This account of the Arab disaster at Synnada captures more than just military reversal—it is a rare instance where the Chronicle of Zuqnīn celebrates a Roman victory as a moral triumph, one that avenges the desecration of Roman lands. Through its use of grand numbers, martyr-like suffering, and theological framing, the narrative elevates the skirmish to a cosmic moment of reckoning. While Muslim and Roman sources are silent or vague, this Syriac voice—rooted in the borderland monastic tradition—preserves a memory of imperial vulnerability, frontier heroism, and the high cost of hubris.

SE 1047 | AH 118 | CE 735–736

⚔️ The Night Ambush at Sinjar: ʿAtiq and the Harūrī Revolt

📝 Text

“The year one thousand and forty-seven: ʿAtiq rebelled and joined the sect of the Harurites. When ʿAtiq rebelled and joined the sect of the Harurites, he did what the Arabs who joined this sect had the custom of doing in giving up their wives and all their possessions. He went with twenty of his colleagues to below Sinjar. When Hisham learned about him, he sent a message to Qaliu and Zuhayr, commanders of the cavalry in Sinjar, to wage battle against him.

When they received the order, they gathered numerous troops and marched out against ʿAtiq. When they reached him in the steppe of Sinjar, he asked them to wait until the morning, at which time they would fight against each other. Because they were a great army and ʿAtiq’s people were few in number, they underestimated him. Moreover, they were tormented by thirst because water was lacking in that desert and the day near declining.

Whereas they underestimated him in every regard, ʿAtiq—a powerful man, as were those who followed him—did this to trick them. When it became dark, and as the army (of Hisham) ate, drank, and were sleeping without worry, ʿAtiq and his followers armed themselves and fell upon them in the first watch of the night, killing them all. The Lord had turned the sword of one man against another and the partisans of ʿAtiq had gone through them like stone cutters and like plough-men in the field.

If a few had not been riding fast horses and had escaped, not one among them would have remained without being killed with the blades of their swords. Even the military commanders, Qaliu and Zuhayr, fell with the other victims in the battle.”

🧭 Historical Context

This passage likely describes a Kharijite uprising—identified here as the Harurites (from Ḥarūrāʾ, the early center of the sect)—led by a figure named ʿAtiq in the Sinjar region, on the northern Mesopotamian frontier.

While this rebellion is not directly mentioned in Arabic chronicles, it parallels in timing and spirit the Kharijite revolts in Upper Mesopotamia and Iraq during the later Umayyad period, particularly around AH 118 / CE 735–736, the latter years of Hishām ibn ʿAbd al-Malik’s reign. The most likely analogue is the revolt of ʿAṭiyya ibn al-Aswad al-Hanafī, a known Kharijite leader who operated in this timeframe. Though centered slightly further south, the broader Jazīran periphery was home to frequent dissident activity, and Sinjar served as a borderland zone of contestation.

The report describes ʿAtiq’s ritual renunciation—abandoning property and wives—as part of his ideological separation from the caliphate, consistent with Kharijite doctrine, which emphasized personal purification, egalitarianism, and militant opposition to “unjust” rulers (in this case, the Umayyads).

Sinjar, located between Nisibis and Mosul, would have been a logical area for Umayyad cavalry presence, especially given the proximity of Melitene and al-Jazīrah to Roman frontiers. That Hishām dispatches two officers—Qāliu and Zuhayr—suggests that the rebellion was taken seriously despite the rebels’ small numbers.

🧠 Interpretation

The account is structured as a moral fable, infused with the Chronicler’s typical divine causality and poetic diction:

The rhetorical contrast between the vast Umayyad force and the ragtag twenty-man rebel band creates dramatic irony: the arrogant imperial troops, weakened by thirst and lulled into complacency, fall to an enemy they scorned.

The night ambush, with swords flashing "like stone cutters" and rebels moving “like ploughmen,” blends agricultural and artisanal metaphors, turning battle into cosmic harvest—a Syriac literary trope of divine reaping and judgment.

The chronicler attributes the slaughter to divine intervention: “the Lord had turned the sword of one man against another,” echoing biblical war narratives (cf. Judges 7:22, 1 Samuel 14:20), where confusion among enemies signals God’s judgment.

The narrative also inverts typical expectations: here, a sectarian group condemned by Muslim authorities is presented, if not sympathetically, then at least as unexpectedly victorious, and possibly divinely favored, against a corrupt imperial army.

Interestingly, the chronicler does not explicitly condemn the Harurites, nor does he describe their doctrine in theological terms, perhaps reflecting limited awareness or deliberate neutrality toward intra-Muslim sectarianism.

🔗 Source Comparison

While Arabic sources do not mention an ʿAtiq, they do record major Kharijite uprisings in the 730s:

al-Ṭabarī, under AH 122–125 (740s), covers Kharijite revolts led by al-Ḍaḥḥāk ibn Qays and ʿAṭiyya al-Hanafī, but is silent on a Sinjar-based campaign during 735–736.

Khalīfa ibn Khayyāṭ similarly focuses on major Kharijite risings in southern and central Iraq and does not mention a leader named ʿAtiq.

However, the pattern of revolt, renunciation, and small-band guerrilla attacks is typical of early Kharijite tactics, and the Zuqnīn account may preserve a local memory of a skirmish that fell beneath the radar of centralized Arab historiography.

No equivalent narrative appears in Theophanes or Greek sources, who generally do not concern themselves with Muslim sectarianism unless it affects imperial borders.

🧩 Final Thought

This passage offers a glimpse into the fractured world of Umayyad imperial power—where not only the Romans challenged the caliphate, but its own subjects, animated by radical visions of justice and purity, rose up in defiance. In elevating the tactical brilliance and daring of ʿAtiq’s band, the Chronicle of Zuqnīn transforms what might have been a skirmish into a symbolic overturning of power, where arrogance is punished and vigilance rewarded. It is an episode less about sectarian doctrine and more about the fragility of empire and the unpredictability of God's justice, refracted through the dry, lethal landscapes of the Syrian steppe.

SE 1053 | AH 124 | CE 741–742

🐂 The Bellowing Earthquake at Maraq: Liturgy Interrupted, Land Groaning

📝 Text

“The year one thousand and fifty-three: A powerful and violent earthquake took place on a Sunday. During the whole night of Sunday it roared, and a noise, like the terrible noise of a bellowing bull, was heard.

When the time of the Liturgy came and all the people went into the church, the church of Maraq collapsed as a consequence of the severity and intensity of the earthquake that suddenly took place. All the people inside the church were crushed. No one survived except for the priest who was offering the Eucharist at that time.

Even the hill upon which the church of Maraq had been built kept roaring and rumbling for about thirty days.”

🧭 Historical Context

This account records a major seismic event that struck the region of Maraq, , a town and caravan station between Nisibis and Mosul, during the Third Fitna and the final years of the Umayyad Caliphate, specifically under Hishām ibn ʿAbd al-Malik (d. Feb 743).'
This disaster occurred during a period of immense political upheaval: the Third Fitna had just begun with the death of Hishām and the brief, unstable reigns of Walīd II, Yazīd III, Ibrāhīm, and Marwān II. It is precisely in this environment that natural catastrophe could be read as divine judgment—not just upon individuals, but upon an empire.

There is no mention of this event in Arabic sources, including al-Ṭabarī or Khalīfa ibn Khayyāṭ, likely due to its regional scale and the priority given in Islamic chronicles to political and military developments over local disasters.

🧠 Interpretation

The account is a masterclass in apocalyptic and theological narrative, blending auditory, liturgical, and geological elements into a compelling meditation on divine power.

The description of the earthquake “roaring all night” and the sound being like “a bellowing bull” is both viscerally realistic and symbolically charged:

Geologically, such deep rumbling noises are consistent with what we now know about audible seismic waves and tectonic resonance.

Symbolically, the “bellowing bull” evokes images of unleashed chaos, divine wrath, and animalistic terror—echoing biblical imagery of wild beasts as instruments of judgment (cf. Psalm 22, Jeremiah 50).

The collapse of the church of Maraq during the Eucharist, killing the entire congregation except the priest at the altar, is a haunting inversion of Christian sanctuary:

The survival of the priest in the act of consecration is likely viewed as miraculous, possibly intended as a sign of divine election or protection for the one performing the mystery.

This aligns with a motif common in Syriac martyrdom narratives: the priest as a faithful intercessor, preserved by grace even in communal catastrophe.

The detail that “even the hill... kept rumbling for thirty days” is both literal and apocalyptic. It suggests:

A sequence of aftershocks or volcanic tremors.

But also a landscape made animate, a cosmic protest echoing Isaiah 13:13: “Therefore I will make the heavens tremble, and the earth will shake from its place at the wrath of the LORD.”

This account turns the earth itself into a liturgical actor—responding to human sin, divine will, or perhaps both.

🧩 Final Thought

This is not merely an earthquake—it is a sermon carved into the earth itself. In Zuqnīn’s telling, the bellowing hill, the crushed worshippers, and the lone surviving priest are not random outcomes but divine signs. The land groans, the stones speak, and human liturgy is interrupted by God’s own liturgy of judgment. As the Umayyad state begins to crack politically, the ground itself offers an unsettling echo: even creation is not at rest.

SE 1054 | AH 125 | CE 742–743

🌊 Bridges Broken, Cities Flooded: Snow, Rain, and the Collapse of Hishām’s Infrastructure

📝 Text

“The year one thousand and fifty-four: The large bridge across the Tigris near Amida was destroyed.

Due to the severe winter that took place and the heavy snow that came down from the sky and accumulated considerably on the ground for many days, every living thing, particularly animals and birds, almost perished.

Afterwards, a strong and violent wind, as well as rainstorms occurred for many days. When the snow melted, the ground became saturated with the melted snow and abundant rainfall. Then all the rivers swelled, especially the Tigris which flooded and seriously overflowed. The flood killed many people and ravaged countless places. Tall, heavy, and massive trees were carried away in it, in such a way that huge walnut trees became stuck against the large bridge beside Amida. They piled against the bridge on top of each other for five or six miles upstream.

Thus, because of the large and heavy trees as well as the powerful flood, the bridge broke loose and collapsed before the water. It was not rebuilt thereafter, for when Hishām gathered labourers, craftsmen and all the equipment to rebuild it, and while he hastened to do so, he met his end and the bridge remained in ruins.

At this time, Edessa was also devastated. Abundant and heavy rain made the river called Daysan, which runs through the city of Edessa, overflow. The mighty waters flooded (the city), and the exit in the eastern side of the wall became blocked. And the waters dashed against it, receded, then rose up, flooding the streets of the city. The flood ruined all the merchandise belonging to shop owners, and numerous houses collapsed. Because of the fact that this happened during the day, people were able to abandon their houses and flee and thus they were not harmed. The breach of the waters' exit also caused considerable damage throughout the plain of Edessa and Harran.”

🧭 Historical Context

This passage chronicles a devastating climate crisis in northern Mesopotamia, triggered by a brutal winter, unprecedented snow accumulation, and the subsequent spring floods of 742–743 CE (SE 1054). It occurred during the final year of Caliph Hishām ibn ʿAbd al-Malik’s reign, just before the beginning of the Third Fitna (civil war) and the slow unraveling of Umayyad authority.

Key events and contexts:

The Tigris overflowed violently, destroying the great bridge at Amida (modern Diyarbakır), a major infrastructural artery in the Jazīra, critical for troop movement, administration, and commerce.

The city of Edessa (Urfa), located along the Daysan River, was simultaneously devastated by flooding, with markets submerged, houses destroyed, and major damage to the surrounding Harranian plain.

Hishām’s attempt to rebuild the bridge—mobilizing labor and materials—is presented as an imperial effort cut short by death, symbolizing both the fragility of empire and divine interruption.

Theophanes the Confessor, under AM 6232 (Sept 740–Aug 741), briefly mentions:

“Also, in September there was a flood at Edessa.”
Though dated earlier than Zuqnīn, this overlap confirms the event was regionally known.

No reference to the bridge destruction or flooding exists in Arabic sources like Ṭabarī or Khalīfa ibn Khayyāṭ, which is unsurprising given their central focus on political-military history and relative disinterest in environmental disasters unless tied to famines or rebellion.

🧠 Interpretation

This is a highly structured catastrophe narrative, with deliberate emphasis on natural escalation, human response, and divine restraint:

The chronicler’s meteorological sequence is precise and dramatic:

First: Severe, life-threatening cold and snowfall.

Then: Winds and rains.

Finally: Melting snow, saturated ground, and massive river flooding—an environmental chain reaction.

The bridge collapse is rendered not as accidental but fated. The logs piling for “five or six miles” is both mechanical explanation and symbolic buildup: the empire’s infrastructure, overwhelmed by forces it cannot manage.

The language—“every living thing... almost perished”, and the inability to rebuild the bridge after Hishām’s death—suggests a moral exhaustion in the cosmos, a withdrawal of divine favor at the end of his reign.

The destruction of Edessa’s shops and houses—while sparing human lives—reinforces a recurring Syriac motif: property is lost, life is spared, implying God’s mercy amid judgment.

By including Hishām’s personal effort to rebuild the bridge, the chronicler paints a portrait of an active but ultimately thwarted ruler. His death is synchronous with collapse, not only of a bridge, but of Umayyad stability.

🔗 Source Comparison

Theophanes the Confessor records only the Edessa flood:

“Also, in September there was a flood at Edessa.” (Chronographia, AM 6232)

Chronicle of 846 and Michael the Syrian do not offer direct parallel to the Amida bridge collapse but record natural disasters and floods in nearby periods, often framing them as divine signs.

No Arabic sources report this disaster, although Umayyad-era canal and bridge-building in the Jazīra is well-attested elsewhere. That Hishām was involved in infrastructure is consistent with other Zuqnīn entries (e.g., SE 1029).

🧩 Final Thought

This is not just a story of weather, but of political entropy and divine withdrawal. As nature overwhelms the Umayyad world, rivers breach their limits, markets drown, and bridges fall—not just literally, but symbolically, under the weight of empire. Hishām's final gesture, a bid to restore order, is halted by death. In this moment, the Chronicle of Zuqnīn gives us more than a flood—it gives us a parable of imperial fragility, as the caliph’s authority dissolves with the receding waters.

SE 1054 | AH 125 | CE 742–743
Comets, Calamity, and the Coming of the Abbasids

📝 Text

“The stars in the sky fell at the beginning of Latter Kanun (January), on a Friday, and they were seen like fiery balls flying in all directions. They predicted the calamities, sword, and plague that were to occur in the land afterward, as well as the advent of the Persians [i.e. the Abbasids].”

🧭 Historical Context

This short annal, written by the Zuqnīn chronicler in retrospect, records a celestial omen in January 743 CE, just before the death of Caliph Hishām in February of that year. The event—a meteor shower or cometary display—is interpreted not as a natural phenomenon but as a divine harbinger of impending doom: plague, war, and political upheaval.

The year 742–743 was a watershed in Islamic history. It marked:

The death of Hishām, one of the last effective Umayyad caliphs.

The acceleration of factional conflict, particularly between Marwān II, the sons of Walīd II, and the party of Ibrāhīm ibn al-Walīd.

The onset of plague in Syria (as recorded by al-Ṭabarī).

And, crucially, the dawn of the Abbasid movement, which would culminate in the toppling of the Umayyads within a decade.

The chronicler's reference to the "advent of the Persians" is a veiled but unmistakable mention of the Abbasids, whose revolution was closely associated with Khurasān—the eastern Iranian region—and whose army would, within a few years, pour into Iraq and Syria, ending Umayyad rule.

🧠 Interpretation

1. The Sky as Scripture

In the Syriac tradition—as in many Late Antique cosmologies—the heavens were not mute. Stars and comets were living signs, part of the divine machinery of history. The chronicler's reference to "fiery balls flying in all directions" is apocalyptic in tone and evokes biblical language from texts like Joel and Revelation, where heavenly portents signal divine wrath.

2. Cosmic Legitimacy and Doom

The link between celestial disruption and political upheaval is long-standing in both Christian and Islamic historiography. In this passage, astrological symbolism and historical foresight merge: the meteor shower portends the collapse of Umayyad order and the rise of a new dynasty. The fireballs are not random—they are omens of judgment.

3. “The Advent of the Persians”

The use of "Persians" (Fārsāyē) is telling. From a Syriac monastic perspective, the Abbasid uprising—though Muslim—was interpreted in ethnic and geographic terms. It revived memories of the old Sasanian adversaries, now ironically returning as saviors or scourges. In the chronicler’s typology, the Abbasids are not framed by theology but by geography, as a new wave from the East—just like the Persians of old.

🌠 Final Thought

This entry encapsulates the Zuqnīn Chronicle’s genius: the ability to see heavenly events as historical commentary. Where others saw chance, the chronicler saw cosmic causality. The stars did not merely fall—they announced the end of an age.

SE 1055 | AH 125–126 | CE 743–744

🔥 The Fall of Hishām and the Rise of Civil War: The Beginning of the Umayyad Collapse

📝 Text

“The year one thousand and fifty-five: Hisham, Caliph of the Arabs, died, and Walid (II) ruled after him for eight months.

The usurpers Yazid (III, son of Walid I) and the brothers ʿAbbas and Ibrahim, together with ʿAbd al-ʿAziz son of Hajjaj their father, rebelled against Walid near the town of Qura, and killed him with the sword. Yazid (III) ruled after him for six months, but the country did not submit to him nor did he establish governors in the Jazira.

Yazid died and his brother Ibrahim replaced him.

During this year civil war broke out in the whole country because of the rebellion which ʿAbbas and his brothers had instigated against Walid (II). They killed him with the sword and held power even though the caliphate was not rightfully theirs. The Arabs, particularly the people of the Jazira, did not submit to them, but instead each remained in his place on guard.

Civil war and depredation reigned in the whole country, in such a way that no one was able to leave his place.”

🧭 Historical Context

This entry reflects the chaotic succession crisis that followed the death of Hishām ibn ʿAbd al-Malik on February 6, 743 CE. Though the Chronicler assigns these events to SE 1055 (Oct 743–Sept 744), Hishām's death technically fell within SE 1054. He acknowledges such calendar mismatches in a separate note, explaining Syriac historians’ preference for chronological simplicity over technical precision—especially in periods of turmoil.

Upon Hishām’s death, the throne passed to his nephew al-Walīd II ibn Yazīd (r. Feb 743–April 744), whose rule was controversial from the outset. Known for his impiety and perceived moral failings, Walīd II was unpopular among the pious faction (qurrāʾ), among Hishām’s sons, and among many Syrian tribal leaders.

In April 744, Yazīd III, son of Walīd I and cousin of Walīd II, rebelled and had him assassinated near Palmyra (possibly the “Qura” mentioned in the Zuqnīn text). Yazīd III assumed the caliphate but ruled only for six months before dying of illness. He was succeeded by his brother Ibrāhīm, who lasted a mere two months before being overthrown by Marwān II, the last Umayyad caliph.

The Zuqnīn Chronicler focuses especially on the regional fragmentation of power, particularly in the Jazīra, where loyalties collapsed and commanders refused to submit to Damascus. This reflects a reality echoed in Arabic sources: Arab tribal leaders in the Jazīra, Khurasān, and elsewhere began to operate autonomously or align with alternative caliphs, laying the groundwork for the Abbasid Revolution (750).

🧠 Interpretation

This passage conveys more than dynastic succession: it is a lament over the disintegration of empire and the moral illegitimacy of power seized through violence.

The Chronicler repeatedly uses the phrase “killed him with the sword,” emphasizing the illegality and impiety of these political murders—especially grave given the caliph’s religious-political role.

The labeling of Yazīd III and his faction as "usurpers" implies the chronicler’s adherence to a worldview where kingship (even of the Muslims) should be legitimately and peacefully transferred—a sentiment drawn perhaps more from biblical kingship narratives than Islamic law.

The focus on the Jazīra underscores the chronicler’s local perspective: while dynasties rise and fall in Damascus, the people of the frontier suffer the consequences in the form of disorder, raiding, and paralysis.

The final lament—“no one was able to leave his place”—evokes social and economic collapse, not merely military disruption. Trade, communication, and pilgrimage would have been disrupted; travelers feared leaving fortified cities.

Ultimately, this is an account of God’s withdrawal of stability—the theme of civil war as divine punishment resonates deeply with Syriac apocalypticism and historical theology.

🔗 Source Comparison

al-Ṭabarī (Vol. VII, 227–232) offers a detailed account of Walīd II’s assassination and Yazīd III’s brief caliphate, confirming the location near Palmyra (reminiscent of the "town of Qura").

“When Walīd came to Qasr Banāt near Palmyra, the troops fell upon him and killed him with the sword.”

al-Yaʿqūbī (II, 337–338) is critical of Walīd II’s impiety and supports Yazīd III's claim, but also notes that the provinces did not obey him fully—confirming the Zuqnīn Chronicler's claim about failure to govern the Jazīra.

Khalīfa ibn Khayyāṭ briefly confirms this series of transitions:

“Walīd ibn Yazīd was killed. Yazīd ibn Walīd reigned after him for six months. Then Ibrāhīm after him, who was deposed by Marwān.”

Syriac sources like the Chronicle of 1234 and Michael the Syrian offer parallel summaries of this chaos, also emphasizing the absence of central authority and the fragmentation of tribal loyalty.

🧩 Final Thought

The Chronicler of Zuqnīn records more than dynastic turbulence—he memorializes a cosmic unraveling. Where once a powerful caliphate imposed order from Damascus to Central Asia, now sons rebel against cousins, rulers are slain “with the sword,” and entire regions, especially the Jazīra, retreat into suspicion and self-defense. This entry marks the beginning of the Third Fitna not only politically, but theologically—as divine displeasure descends on a caliphate divided by ambition and bloodshed. From here, the road leads not to restoration but to revolution.

📉 SE 1055 | AH 125–126 | CE 743–744

🌾 The Sword, the Famine, and the Dogs

📝 Text

“At this time the Lord sent upon us all of the following bad and harsh blows, because of our sins and the evils committed by our hands: sword, captivity, famine and pestilence. (The Lord) said: "Moses and Samuel stood before me, my soul would not delight in this people. Send them out of my sight and let them go! If they say to you, 'Where shall we go?' (you shall tell them:) 'Thus says the Lord: Those who are for death to death, and those who are for the sword to the sword, and those who are for famine to famine, and those who are for captivity to captivity.' I will order over them four blows," says the Lord: "The sword to slay, the dogs to tear, and the birds of the sky and the beasts of the earth to devour and destroy. And I will make them a horror!" Jeremiah, a great visionary, left us these words. And it is he again who says: The painful cry of Jerusalem came up before me. Their nobles sent their poor ones for water; they came to the cisterns and did not find water; they returned with their vessels in vain. They were ashamed and confounded and they covered their heads. For cultivation there was no rain. The farmers were ashamed and they covered their heads. Even the hinds gave birth in the steppe and abandoned their young because there was no grass. The wild asses stood on the roads and sniffed the wind like jackals; their eyes darkened because there was no grass.

All of these words said by the prophet were indeed fulfilled at this time. Behold the sword of the forces of the Arabs that cut through each other! They saturated the ground with their blood, and birds and animals, including dogs, fed themselves with their flesh. People also devastated each other and pestilence fell upon them, so that if one went out to the desert the sword restrained him, and the man who remained at home was struck by pestilence and famine. One used to hear about afflictions and violence from all sides.

First, rain that usually fell in the winter was withheld and did not fall. All vegetation dried out and did not grow at all. A severe famine arose in the whole land to the point that eight or even seven qefiza of wheat were sold for a dinar, when it was available at all! People holding power sent (agents) in search of wheat and wherever they found it, whether in houses or in the field, they seized it and stamped it. People, especially the wheat owners, were afflicted with death because of the famine. They were not confronted unexpectedly by the severe famine, but when the ruler confiscated their wheat they perished of hunger. At this point famine gripped rich and poor alike, overtaking all lands without distinction, so that there was not one region that was better off than another. Rather, affliction ruled everywhere. Even the beasts of the steppe as well as grass-eating domestic animals perished because of lack of grass. People and all other beings were greatly tormented because of the famine that has had no parallel in our time or in that of our fathers. Even sources and springs stopped flowing and rivers dried up.
At the death of Hisham, the country suffered many evils,1 and all the calamities, particularly pestilence and famine, gripped us on account of our many sins.”

🧭 Historical Context

This passage follows the death of Caliph Hishām ibn ʿAbd al-Malik in February 743 CE and documents the devastating climatic and social collapse that unfolded immediately thereafter. The Chronicler situates this crisis in the early stages of the Third Fitna, when the Umayyad realm was torn by rival caliphs, military breakdown, and regional disobedience.

Famine, drought, and plague wracked the Jazīra, where food prices soared and imperial supply systems collapsed.

The mention of confiscation of wheat by officials refers to the desperate policies of local Umayyad governors, who, in the absence of central control, reverted to predatory requisitioning.

The famine was not only economic—it was ecological: springs and rivers dried, animals perished, and vegetation failed across the landscape.

These events are not confirmed in Arabic sources like Ṭabarī or Khalīfa ibn Khayyāṭ—but that silence may reflect a Damascus-centric perspective, whereas this account captures a northern Mesopotamian catastrophe.

The Chronicler’s framing—both historical and prophetic—is more than regional lament. It is an interpretive map of civilizational breakdown.

🧠 Interpretation

This is a theological crescendo in Zuqnīn’s narrative—a full-scale Jeremiad, linking human sin, political chaos, and environmental devastation in a single cosmic sentence.

The Chronicler quotes Jeremiah extensively, using biblical prophecy to frame the Arab civil war and drought as covenantal judgment.

The passage, “those who are for the sword, to the sword... those for famine, to famine,” comes from Jeremiah 15:1–3, invoked to show that even if holy men interceded, God’s judgment could not be averted.

The description of dried rivers, abandoned offspring, and darkened eyes directly parallels Jeremiah 14, painting a land stripped of life and divine favor.

The sword of the Arabs turned upon themselves is both literal (the civil war) and symbolic: an empire imploding from internal corruption, as predicted by the prophets.

The dogs and birds feeding on human corpses is a reference not just to the chaos of war, but to the apocalyptic language of desecration and abandonment, where even burial—the most basic human dignity—is denied.

The economic details—“eight or seven qefiza of wheat for a dinar”—drive home the market collapse, while the mention of elites seizing wheat shows how power turned parasitic, compounding judgment.

The drought, which “withheld the rain” and caused even springs and rivers to cease, is framed as mirroring the spiritual drought: God has withdrawn, and creation itself is reacting.

The climactic line—“all these calamities... gripped us on account of our many sins”—sums up the passage as theological history, not accidental fate.

🔗 Source Comparison

Ṭabarī and Khalīfa ibn Khayyāṭ provide no mention of this famine or environmental disaster, but focus instead on the Umayyad civil war, which this famine paralleled.

Theophanes and Agapius are also silent on this particular event, reinforcing the unique value of Zuqnīn’s perspective as a local Christian voice.

Biblical allusion is central to this passage:

Jeremiah 15:1–3: punishment despite intercession.

Jeremiah 14:3–6: animal suffering, failed agriculture, famine imagery.

Syriac literature frequently draws upon Jeremiah to interpret disasters; Zuqnīn fuses Syriac lamentation traditions with historical commentary, making this one of the most prophetic entries in the entire chronicle.

🧩 Final Thought

In this coda to the reign of Hishām, the Chronicle of Zuqnīn leaves narrative behind and enters the realm of prophetic lament. The fall of the caliph is not just the end of a ruler—it is the withdrawal of divine patience, the unleashing of sword, famine, pestilence, and captivity. The chronicler does not look for causes in policy or economics. He hears only the voice of Jeremiah, and sees the sins of empire ripening into judgment. It is a moment where scripture and history collapse into each other, leaving no doubt: the Umayyad world, like Jerusalem before it, has become “a horror.”

🌍 The Wrath That Pressed the World: The Great Pestilence of SE 1055

The Chronicle of Zuqnīn reaches its emotional and theological zenith in its account of the plague, famine, and civil chaos that engulfed the Near East in SE 1055 / AH 125–126 / CE 743–744. No longer merely recording events, the chronicler becomes a Jeremiah for the Islamic era, invoking the language of biblical lamentation, apocalyptic imagery, and Syriac grief to depict a world staggering under the weight of divine wrath.

This was not simply a pestilence—it was a cosmic affliction, a catastrophe so vast it defied narrative. Villages vanished. Cities turned into mass graves. The rich and poor, servant and noble, priest and layperson—none were spared. And behind it all, the chronicler sees not epidemiology or accident, but judgment: a reaping of the earth like wheat, a pressing of nations like ripe grapes beneath the wrath of God.

Structured around a series of increasingly intense laments, biblical citations, and horrific images of death, this plague narrative unfolds as a theological drama—a funeral oration for a dying world. The chronicler does not merely recount suffering; he weeps, interprets, and leads his reader into mourning. This is history transformed into liturgy.

SE 1055 | AH 125–126 | CE 743–744

A Prophetic Lament for the Great Plague

📝 Text

“Also concerning the severe pestilence that occurred at this time—Here Jeremiah the prophet was of great use to us, because he was exceedingly knowledgeable about lamenting over the afflictions that surrounded us on all sides.

He said: Would that my head were waters and my eyes fountains of tears! I wept day and night over the wound of the daughter of my people.

He also said: I will take up weeping and wailing for the mountains, and lamentation for the settlements that are in the wilderness which became desolate without people passing through.

Let our eyes run down with tears and our eyelids gush with water!

Because of this, O women, hear the word of the Lord and let your ears receive the word of his mouth!

Teach to your daughters laments and each woman to her neighbour a dirge. For death has come up into our windows, it has entered into our palaces to remove the children from the streets and the young men from the squares.

The dead bodies of men are falling like litter upon the face of the earth and like the hay after the harvester, and there is no gatherer.”

🧭 Historical Context

This passage introduces the great plague of 743–744 CE through the voice of Jeremiah, the quintessential prophet of divine wrath, exile, and lamentation. The Zuqnīn Chronicler, writing from northern Mesopotamia under Umayyad rule, draws not from contemporary physicians or Muslim scholars, but from the Old Testament, using it as a lens to interpret catastrophe.

This was the immediate aftermath of the death of Caliph Hishām ibn ʿAbd al-Malik and during the political chaos of the Third Fitna, but here, the emphasis is not on civil war or succession—it is on a plague that struck indiscriminately and overwhelmed the living.

Rather than offering a chronological or clinical report of symptoms, the Chronicler opens this narrative with a prophetic framework, rooting the disaster in the sacred history of Israel, and projecting biblical categories onto Islamic-era devastation.

🧠 Interpretation

This is one of the most theologically dense passages in the Chronicle of Zuqnīn, serving as a preface of lament for the plague narrative to come. It does several key things:

1. Invokes Jeremiah as a Theological Authority

The Chronicler says: “Jeremiah was of great use to us”—not as a predictor of the future, but as a model for how to grieve the present.

Jeremiah becomes a spiritual companion, whose words give language to pain, legitimizing lament as a form of wisdom.

2. Applies Prophetic Language to the Current Plague

Each quotation from Jeremiah is surgically applied to Zuqnīn’s reality:

“Death has come up into our windows” (Jeremiah 9:21) becomes literal—death invades the interior of the home, the most private and protected space.

“The dead bodies of men are falling like litter upon the earth” is not just metaphorical—it anticipates what will be described later in this chronicle: bodies in streets, houses, fields, left unburied.

3. Prepares the Reader Emotionally and Spiritually

The repeated calls to weep, lament, and teach dirges to daughters signals that what follows is not merely a historical record but a sacred mourning ritual.

The text is not offering information—it is initiating communal grief.

4. Establishes Universal Guilt

There is no attempt here to blame the Arabs, the rulers, or any political faction. The use of Jeremiah universalizes the guilt: “because of our sins.”

It is a collective confession, and the plague is a consequence of cosmic disobedience, not imperial policy.

🔗 Source Comparison

The Biblical passages invoked include:

Jeremiah 8:23 (LXX) / 9:1 (MT):

“Would that my head were waters and my eyes fountains of tears...”

Jeremiah 9:9–11 (MT):

“I will weep and wail for the mountains... because they are desolate.”

Jeremiah 9:17–22:

“Teach your daughters a lament... for death has come through our windows.”

These verses are part of Jeremiah’s temple sermons, often delivered before or during siege, famine, and impending exile. The Chronicler of Zuqnīn uses them to paint the Umayyad world as a second Jerusalem, experiencing the judgment of God for its sins.

This Syriac Christian reading of Jeremiah stands in contrast with Islamic sources. Ṭabarī and Khalīfa ibn Khayyāṭ do not moralize plagues with biblical prophecy—they record events like wars or deaths, not theological responses to pandemics.

🧩 Final Thought

Before describing corpses, disease, or famine, the Zuqnīn Chronicler invites his reader into the prophet’s tears. This isn’t just history—it is sacred grief. By placing Jeremiah at the threshold of the plague, the Chronicler signals that what follows must be interpreted, not merely endured. In a world convulsing with pestilence and civil war, the words of the prophet offer the only adequate response: weeping, wailing, and wondering at the judgments of God.

SE 1055 | AH 125–126 | CE 743–744

From Jerusalem to the Ends of the Earth
📝 Text

“He should come now and cry, not over one single nation or one single city, Jerusalem, but over all nations and many cities which Wrath, so to speak, turned into wine presses, in which it treaded and squeezed all the inhabitants without mercy, as if they were ripe grapes;

over the whole earth because the (divine) decree went out like a harvester to standing crops; it cut down and removed people of various statures, distinctions and ranks together and without exception;

over the stinking corpses that burst open in the streets, everywhere—their pus running down like water into the streets and there was no one to bury them;

over large and small houses, pleasant and attractive, that suddenly became graves for their inhabitants, in which both servants and masters fell suddenly together, and no one remained to remove their corpses from inside the houses;

over deserted roads and many villages whose inhabitants vanished all at once;

over the palaces which used to roar against each other, and over the adorned quarters of the brides, who were suddenly discovered dead inside them;

over the virgins who were kept in private rooms, looking forward to the joy of their weddings, but were suddenly carried off into the grave;

and over many (scenes) like these that are beyond the speech and narration of all eloquent speakers.

Therefore, the prophet would have to cry over them and say: Woe unto me, not on account of the wound of my people's daughter but on account of the destruction of the entire inhabited world and... the entire universe, which the pestilence had destroyed because of its sins.”

🧭 Historical Context
This section continues the Chronicler’s response to the great plague of 743–744 CE, but it elevates the register from local grief to universal devastation. While we remain within the context of the Umayyad collapse, civil war, and ecological crisis, the plague here is no longer just a local affliction—it is a global judgment.
This rhetoric reflects the scope of what was likely one of the last major outbreaks of the First Plague Pandemic (Justinianic Plague), which, as historian Kyle Harper notes, "stretched across two centuries and caused repeated mass mortality events."
The passage references cities, roads, palaces, villages, and bride chambers—indicating a broad swath of society and geography, perhaps stretching from Mesopotamia and Syria to Anatolia and Palestine, as the Chronicler will soon elaborate further.
🧠 Interpretation
This is not mere description. It is apocalyptic theology, rendered in the language of Isaiah, Joel, and Revelation, but refracted through Syriac Christian eyes in the Islamic age.

1. The Winepress of Wrath

The central image—that Wrath “turned nations into wine presses”—is lifted from Isaiah 63:3 and Revelation 14:19–20:

“I have trodden the winepress alone… their blood spattered my garments.”

The Chronicler adapts this image of divine retribution, likening human lives to ripe grapes crushed beneath the weight of sin and judgment.

It is visceral, symbolic, and deeply eschatological.

2. God as Harvester

The metaphor of the decree going out “like a harvester to standing crops” is equally evocative:

This harvest is not of wheat, but of souls—without partiality or mercy.

“Of various statures, distinctions and ranks”— this democratic harvest echoes Joel 3 and Matthew 24: “Two will be in the field; one will be taken.”

3. Collapse of Social Order

The Chronicler collapses the social hierarchy into a shared grave:

Servants and masters, virgins and nobles, all die without distinction.

Houses become graves. Bridal chambers become tombs. Marketplaces become morgues.

The plague thus undoes civilization itself—it reverses creation.

4. The Inadequacy of Language

“Beyond the speech and narration of all eloquent speakers”—the Chronicler admits language fails, even inspired oratory. This is an act of negative theology: horror exceeds human comprehension.

5. From Jerusalem to the Universe

The lament extends beyond Jerusalem to “all nations” and “the entire universe.”

In this reversal, Zuqnīn becomes the Jeremiah of the post-Roman East—not mourning Zion, but the whole world under Islam.

The theological message is chillingly clear: the pestilence is eschatological. It is not merely an affliction; it is a sign of the end of an age.

🔗 Source Comparison

Isaiah 63:3 (LXX):

“I have trodden the winepress alone… and their lifeblood spattered my garments.”

Joel 3:13:

“Put in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe... for the winepress is full.”

Revelation 14:19–20:

“So the angel swung his sickle over the earth... and threw [the grapes] into the great winepress of God’s wrath.”

These biblical images resonate deeply with Syriac apocalyptic motifs. John of Ephesus, in his plague narratives from the 6th century, also employs images of mass death, collapsed order, and divine scourge—but Zuqnīn fuses these tropes with Islamic-era historical consciousness.
Islamic sources, by contrast, do acknowledge plague, but without the theological interpretation or cosmic scope found in Zuqnīn. For instance:

Ṭabarī, in his Annals, mentions that in Year 125 (742–743),

“Hishām b. ʿAbd al-Malik lived at al-Rusāfah... because the caliphs and their sons used to seclude themselves to escape the plague... Do not leave! Caliphs are not touched by plague.” (Ṭabarī, vol. 8, ed. de Goeje, 1970, p. 95)

And in Year 126 (743–744), he records,

“At that time Syria was plague-ridden and the conspirators went out into the desert country.” (Ṭabarī, vol. 8, p. 109)

These notes confirm awareness of an epidemic, especially in Syria, and explain certain political behaviors (e.g., encampment in the desert). However, Ṭabarī’s narrative remains clinical and understated—there is no effort to moralize or frame the plague as a divine judgment. That interpretive role is filled uniquely by Syriac historiography, where the prophet, not the physician, narrates the death of the world.
🧩 Final Thought

This section turns lament into cosmic indictment. The world is not merely suffering—it is being judged. The Chronicler elevates the destruction of SE 1055 into a new Flood, a world-leveling judgment where bride and merchant, slave and noble, prophet and king all fall alike. And yet, the voice is not hysterical—it is liturgical, a lament structured for divine comprehension, even if human words falter.

SE 1055 | AH 125–126 | CE 743–744

A Litany of Judgment Fulfilled

📝 Text

“He would also have to make use of the prophetic words of his colleagues, cite them and say to the remnant of people who survived:

Mourn and lament, O ministers of the altar, go in, pass the night in sackcloth, O ministers of my God—not because flour is consumed in the house of the Lord, but over the people whom (the pestilence) had wiped out in the world; moreover, the earth shall sit in mourning and all its inhabitants shall lament; call for the mourning women and for the skillful women to come that they may raise a wailing together—not over an only son or over one corpse alone, but over nations and kingdoms.

The earth shall totter exceedingly, the earth shall quake vehemently, the earth shall shake violently, the earth shall be utterly laid waste and the earth shall be utterly despoiled, and it shall quiver like a hut and its transgression will prevail over her; it will return and become subject to fire like the terebinth whose leaves have dropped and like the acorn that fell from its cup.

All of these prophecies were fulfilled at this time: severe tremors, powerful earthquakes, together with armies, wars, quarrels of the Arabs among themselves on account of leadership, famine that afflicted people in such a manner that all the southern and eastern peoples moved from their lands and settled in the North and in the West, and civil war along with all other evils: I shall send after them the sword, despoliation, famine and pestilence, says the prophet.

All of these things happened in our days without any omission. Behold the war of the Arabs among themselves! Behold the despoilation to the extent that no one was able to walk without being pillaged and having his possessions taken away! Behold the famine that afflicts inside and outside! If a man goes inside the house, famine and pestilence face him; if he goes out to the steppe, sword and thieves attack him.

Therefore, there was bitter affliction, painful grief, and troubling pain on all sides.”

🧭 Historical Context

This section links the theological diagnosis of pestilence to political and natural catastrophe, describing a world convulsed by:

Civil war among Arabs (i.e., the Third Fitna),

Famine and forced migration from the southern and eastern provinces,

Despoilation and chaos in every direction,

And violent earthquakes—likely referencing both real seismic activity and symbolic upheaval.

The death of Hishām and the succession crisis that followed had already plunged the caliphate into turmoil. The Chronicler now expands the lens, arguing that the entire Umayyad realm—indeed, the entire earth—is under divine siege.

🧠 Interpretation

This is a powerful theological catalogue—an inventory of afflictions drawn from scripture, but updated to fit the 8th-century Near Eastern world. It reveals:

1. A Conflation of Prophets

The Chronicler moves from Jeremiah to “his colleagues”—meaning Joel, Amos, Isaiah, and others:

“Pass the night in sackcloth...” – Joel 1:13.

“Call for the mourning women...” – Jeremiah 9:17–21.

“The earth shall quake, be laid waste...” – Isaiah 24:19–20.

These references are not random: each one is a standard marker of apocalyptic literature in late antiquity, signaling that the age is collapsing.

2. Natural Disasters as Divine Language

Earthquakes and fire are not merely geological; they are God’s speech—a cosmic punctuation of wrath.

The simile “like the terebinth whose leaves have dropped” evokes the scorching of the righteous and the wicked alike.

3. Total War: Nowhere to Flee

The stark line:

“If a man goes inside the house, famine and pestilence face him; if he goes out to the steppe, sword and thieves attack him,”
is an echo of Amos 5:19:
“As if someone fled from a lion and was met by a bear.”

The Chronicler presents a triple bind: there is no inside, no outside, no refuge. Sin has filled the earth, and so punishment is inescapable.

4. Migration and Social Collapse

The note that “all the southern and eastern peoples moved north and west” may reflect actual dislocation, possibly due to famine or civil strife. This suggests a real demographic shift across the Umayyad landscape, felt acutely in places like the Jazīra and Syria.

Famine and war are not only punishments, but agents of transformation, displacing peoples and dissolving identities.

🔗 Source Comparison

Biblical Echoes:

Joel 1:13: “Put on sackcloth, you priests... wail, ministers of the altar.”

Isaiah 24:19–20: “The earth is utterly broken, the earth is split apart...”

Jeremiah 9:17–21: “Call for the mourning women... for death has climbed through our windows.”

Syriac Tradition: These images mirror John of Ephesus’ plague narratives, which also frame pandemics as cosmic signs, not natural events.

Islamic Sources:

As mentioned earlier, Ṭabarī acknowledges plague in Syria and the caliph’s seclusion at al-Rusāfah (125 AH), and notes general turmoil.

But Islamic chronicles do not moralize the plague in the way this passage does. There is no cosmic earthquake, no fire judgment—only political fact.

🧩 Final Thought

The Chronicler does not merely describe events—he interprets the world as a text, and every tremor, every sword, every emaciated corpse is a word of divine speech. This is the apocalypse read through prophecy: a liturgy of judgment whose scope is not one nation, but nations and kingdoms, and whose echoes will reverberate through every section that follows.

🕯️ SE 1055 | AH 125–126 | CE 743–744

Scenes from the Jazīrah During the Great Plague

📝 Text

“They are drunk but not with wine and staggering but not with fermented drink People started to wander and roam from one city to another and from one region to the next one, confused as though drunken, begging for bread but it was not available, as the prophet said. First, people were stricken by ulcers and abscesses, and most of the heads of households died. This was the case during the whole winter, when people were not able to bury them. People were discarded in streets, porches, towerst, shrines and all the houses, suffering from the severe disease as well as from the very harsh famine. Victims of famine outnumbered the victims of the disease. Those who had bread to fill themselves suffered from this disease more than anyone else. When the weather started to warm up, the bubonic plague was discovered in those who were ill. They began to collapse in the street like litter over the face of the earth and there was no one to bury them.

This pestilence started with the poor people, who were discarded in the streets. They were given funeral rites and were buried, appropriately, by everyone with respect and honour. When the poor people had almost all vanished, the pestilence prevailed and took a turn for the worse with the notables of villages and cities, in such a way that when the priests wanted to go to one litter, fifty, sixty and up to ninety and one hundred litters were gathered in the same spot. The litters were gathered in one place in the morning, each containing two, three or even four youngsters. Thus during the entire day, there was no rest or pause from removing human corpses.

The Arabs dug holes all over the ground, and so did the Jews. As for the graves of the Christians, they were all filled with the result that they had to dig holes in the ground too.People would bring more than five hundred litters a day out of a single gate. All day long they went in and out of the gate, carrying corpses, bringing them out, and casting them away. Then they returned to fetch others, performing funeral rites only for a few. This was due to the rapidity of the deaths, the small number of priests, and the high number of litters that were beyond count. In the morning, the priests used to order anyone who had a deceased relative to bring the deceased one to the nearby tetrapylai. The dead of each place or street were to be gathered in one spot. Thus the priests used to divide themselves in the morning and go to all sides to perform the funeral service and bury the victims group by group. More than one hundred litters used to be removed in one single convoy, and in these litters there were more than two hundred or two hundred and fifty people. Litters met litters without interruption during the whole day.

In the place (where they were gathered), the servant was not different from his master, or the maid from her mistress, or the son of the employee from the son of the employer. One single wine press of perdition and wrath was mixed for everyone. Both servants and masters were devoured alike, without partiality. Common people and nobles were discarded beside each other, and groaned, so that everyone might wonder at the sentence of God and keep on marvelling at and admiring his judgments, which to mortals are inscrutable, incomprehensible and unfathomable: The judgments of God are the great deep.”

🧭 Historical Context

From the solitude of a monastic cell, the chronicler watches the fabric of society unravel. What he sees is not a temporary emergency, but the total disintegration of human order. The year is 743 or 744 CE, and the region is besieged by:

Bubonic plague, which now visibly manifests in grotesque swellings and sudden death;

Famine, so severe that even those with food die of illness;

Funerary chaos, where burial rites break under the weight of death;

Class dissolution, as nobles and commoners are thrown together in death without distinction.

Monasteries like his would have been overwhelmed with both corpses and mourners. The monk—trained in scripture, chant, and liturgy—is now recording history as doxology and lament, trying to impose spiritual meaning on physical horror.

🧠 Interpretation

This passage is more than documentary—it is a theological vision from the heart of the disaster. Every line is soaked with biblical allusion, sensory detail, and spiritual anguish.

1. “Drunk but not with wine” – Disorientation and Spiritual Judgment

This phrase comes from Isaiah 29:9 and Isaiah 51:21:

“They are drunk, but not with wine; they stagger, but not with strong drink.”

The Chronicler uses it to capture total social disorientation: people wander in confusion, not from alcohol, but from hunger, grief, and divine wrath.

The image of people staggering through towns and regions, confused and begging, evokes both the biblical exile and a world literally turned upside down.

2. Ulcers, Abscesses, and the Bubonic Reality

Unlike earlier metaphoric laments, here the Chronicler becomes clinical:

“Ulcers and abscesses” – these are symptoms of bubonic plague.

He notes that famine preceded plague, and winter conditions impeded burial.

He is not ignorant of pathology—he links “bread-filled bodies” with susceptibility, possibly noticing how the better-nourished elite succumbed in different patterns.

3. Burial Infrastructure Collapses

This is where horror becomes logistical:

Over 500 litters daily from a single gate;

Funeral services abbreviated, with group burials performed by overstretched priests;

Arab, Jewish, and Christian burial zones are all overwhelmed.

These are not exaggerations, but the observations of someone trying to remember order in the midst of chaos.

4. The Great Leveller: Class Annihilation

The line:

“The servant was not different from his master... common people and nobles were discarded beside each other.”
echoes Ecclesiastes and Job:
“Naked I came from my mother’s womb... the LORD gives and takes away.”

It also reinforces the plague’s theological impartiality—a point he will return to: even the wealthy could not buy survival.

5. The Winepress of Perdition Returns

The earlier cosmic metaphor resurfaces:

“One single wine press of perdition and wrath was mixed for everyone.”

But now it is localized and personal: not for “nations,” but for this street, this priest, this shrine.

6. Marvelling at God's Judgments

The line:

“The judgments of God are the great deep”
comes from Psalm 36:6.

It is both an affirmation of mystery and a refusal to explain away the horror—a theological silence where interpretation ends and awe begins.

🔗 Source Comparison

Isaiah 29:9 / 51:21: drunkenness without wine as divine bewilderment.

Joel 1–2, Jeremiah 9, Psalm 36, Ecclesiastes: common theological motifs of impartial judgment, vanity of wealth, and lamentation.

John of Ephesus, writing on the 6th-century plague, also describes mass burials, class leveling, and ecclesiastical exhaustion, though never with Zuqnīn’s apocalyptic intensity.

Islamic sources (e.g., Ṭabarī) confirm the existence of plague at this time but do not describe it:

No mention of litters, no burials, no class inversion, no theological framing.

Zuqnīn is not only a unique source—he is a unique voice.

🧩 Final Thought

This passage is the climax of the monk’s lament. It does not simply describe death—it portrays a society that can no longer bury its dead, priests who cannot keep up with litters, a hierarchy leveled by God, and cities filled with staggering, starving, and dying people, drunk not on wine but on the cup of divine wrath. What we read here is not just a historical record—it is the attempt of a Syriac soul to preserve meaning amid the rot of the world.

SE 1055 | AH 125–126 | CE 743–744

When Wealth Meant Nothing

📝 Text

“Then the Destroyer struck those in positions of power, who were renowned because of their wealth, and took delight in their own greatness. Moreover, the houses of many among them remained without heir since neither servant nor master survived in them. They suddenly left their possession, wealth and fields, as well as their splendid houses to their friends!

How many families, large and famous in wealth, and how many tribes perished, without leaving even one heir!

Indeed, the human tongue is incapable of describing the horrors and wonders that happened in the land extending from the Euphrates to the West, and in the cities of Palestine, the North and the South and the region up to the Red Sea, as well as those of Cilicia, Iconia, Asia, Bithynia, Lusonia, Galatia and Cappadocia. This painful and bitter anguish reigned over the entire world.

Just as the rain falls down on the whole earth, or as the rays of the sun spread out over everything equally, so did this plague at this time spread out over the entire world equally.

Nevertheless, it was especially severe in the territories which were singled out earlier.

In these territories, numerous villages and places suddenly became desolate, without people passing by them or settling in them. The stricken bodies, stretched out on the ground like litter on the surface of the earth, were groaning; and there was no one to bury them since not one of them survived.

Thus people were discarded inside those places, swollen, putrid and stinking. Their houses were open like graves, and inside them the owners were rotting from putrefaction. Their furniture, gold, and silver were thrown away, and all their goods were discarded in the streets but there was no one to collect them.

Vile was gold and silver there! Their possessions, scattered everywhere, had no owners!

What is more, old men and women with honourable white hair, who had looked forward to being buried in great splendour by their heirs, were discarded in the streets, houses and palaces, burst open, stinking, and with their mouths open.

Graceful virgins and beautiful young girls, who looked forward to bridal feasts and elegant and precious garments, were discarded, exposed and rotting together. They became a pitiful lesson for onlookers. If only it had occurred inside graves! Rather, it occurred in houses and market-places!

Handsome and cheerful young men turned dark, were discarded and rotted with their fathers. These events occurred in these regions as everywhere.”

🧭 Historical Context

From the perspective of a monk in the Jazīrah, this passage offers the most starkly visual and theologically loaded depiction of the Great Plague’s social collapse. The region was already suffering from civil war, famine, migration, and administrative breakdown. But here, the focus is not on politics—it is on the spiritual irony of wealth undone, beauty corrupted, and human plans nullified.

This passage likely describes plague impact across Syria, Mesopotamia, Anatolia, and Palestine—real geographical areas are named. The detail of “no heirs,” “abandoned homes,” and “gold thrown in the streets” indicates not only mass mortality but also the failure of inheritance, legacy, and identity, central pillars of aristocratic and tribal life.

🧠 Interpretation

This is one of the most morally charged sections of the entire Chronicle—a monastic reflection on God’s overthrow of the proud, in language that fuses biblical tropes with eyewitness horror.

1. “The Destroyer” as Angel of Death

The term “Destroyer” recalls the angel of death in Exodus 12:23, who passed through Egypt to slay the firstborn. Here, he slays not the children—but the powerful, proud, and wealthy.

It is also a literary personification of plague itself—the Destroyer moves with purpose and divine agency.

2. The Great Irony: No One Left to Inherit

“They suddenly left their possessions... to their friends!”

The horror lies not only in death but in ruptured continuity—no son, no servant, no slave remains.

Wealth becomes worthless, not because it is taxed or seized, but because no one survives to claim it.

3. The Geographic Scope: A Universal Judgment

The named regions—Palestine, Cilicia, Bithynia, Cappadocia, Asia, Galatia, Iconium, Lusonia—extend the plague's reach from the Euphrates to the Red Sea, and into Roman Asia Minor.

The analogy:

“As the rain falls... as the sun shines... so did the plague fall on all”
is drawn from Matthew 5:45, but inverted: it is now the judgment of the righteous and the wicked alike.

4. Desolation Imagery

Empty villages, unburied bodies, houses turned into graves, streets filled with putrefied corpses.

A direct reversal of creation: homes meant for hospitality become sepulchers; bridal chambers become tombs.

The rich are rotting beside their gold, which becomes “vile”—a moral inversion of everything once prized.

5. The Death of the Beautiful

The deaths of:

Elderly dignitaries, “with honourable white hair”;

Brides and virgins, “exposed and rotting together”;

Young men, “cheerful... now blackened and discarded.”

These images speak to the aesthetic trauma of death: how even youth and beauty are no match for divine wrath.

🔗 Source Comparison

Biblical allusions:

“The Destroyer” – Exodus 12:23.

“Gold and silver thrown into the streets” – Ezekiel 7:19:

“They will throw their silver into the streets, and their gold will be treated as a thing unclean.”

“No heir remains” – Job 18:19:

“He has neither offspring nor descendant among his people.”

“Desolate cities” – Isaiah 24:10–12.

Syriac precedent:

John of Ephesus, in his plague narrative of the 540s, notes mass mortality, class inversion, and unburied corpses, but does not reach this degree of literary exactitude and apocalyptic judgment.

This passage reflects the culmination of Syriac monastic theology: the vanity of wealth, the certainty of death, and the judgment of the proud.

Islamic sources:

While Ṭabarī acknowledges plague and elite displacement, nowhere in early Islamic historiography is there an account of mass death among nobles, or theological reflections on wealth’s futility.

This silence makes the Chronicle of Zuqnīn uniquely valuable.

🧩 Final Thought

This passage is a monastic theodicy in the form of horror literature. The Chronicle of Zuqnīn doesn't merely document the end of the Umayyad elite—it morally dissects it. Wealth is shown to be a curse in the absence of piety, inheritance a vanity, and the grand homes of the powerful now silent charnel houses, filled with stinking, blackened corpses. It is the Book of Ecclesiastes rewritten with blood.

SE 1055 | AH 125–126 | CE 743–744

The Burial of the Dead, and the Death of Lamentation

📝 Text

“The very few who survived endured. During the whole day they used to remove (corpses) without interruption and go out to cast them away. They were like a person throwing a stone onto a heap, then returning to take another one, and going out to throw it in the same way. Many of the victims lacked relatives; one could see them discarded in the street, being devoured by dogs, with none to bury them. Because each (survivor) could only take care of his own family members, many people were hired for the sole purpose of collecting corpses from houses and streets because of their putrefaction. These prophecies were fulfilled: I made them smell the stink of their putrefaction with their nostrils? and: the earth mourned and lamented From this point onward, there was no cry nor grief nor sadness (over the others) because everyone was already knocking at the door of the grave. Gold and silver were despised like litter. So if there were gold or silvert or precious jewelry on married women or on virgins, no one extended his hand to take anything away from them—not even fathers from their children; on the contrary, they believed that they would go into Sheol along with them, and that they would join them in putrefaction. With what tears should I have cried at that time, O my dear ones? What sighs would have been enough for me? What heartbreak, what mourning, what lamentations, what dirge and what pains would have been enough, at the sight of old men and people of various statures and distinctions, who collapsed and were discarded like cedar trees?

(God's) great mercy was seen even in this plague as it descended first upon the poor, who were discarded tin the streetst of the cities, since the plague everywhere started with them. But when they vanished, this fearful plague turned against all the rich and the lords in the cities. Two things happened and were executed through God's mercy so that both sides could assist each other in the events that took place. The first one concerns the inhabitants of the cities, who showed in themselves zeal for righteousness, and gathered great profit for their souls through their care for the poor; for they took care of them, clothing them, bringing litters for them, escorting them, and burying them with great pain as well as with diligence, fear and zeal. The second one (concerns the poor), who were deprived of care-takers; for if Wrath had mixed them with the rest, how could it be that despite their putrefaction and bare bones they were taken away from the streets? Yet, they were taken first of all, when everyone was healthy, standing and diligent; people carried, escorted and buried those who were deprived of grave-diggers. Then those who looked forward to graves and grave-diggers were left without burial with the result that no one of them had a funeral service. And when the poor vanished, the plague passed on to the wealthy— as long as those whom death could seize were still around—from the small to the great, and no remnant of them ever survived.”

🧭 Historical Context

By this point in the catastrophe, the chronicler is no longer recounting events—he is weighing their meaning. He stands among a decimated society where:

Few survive;

Burials are mechanical;

The distinction between mourning and exhaustion has vanished;

And survivors do not rejoice—they fear they too will join the dead.

This phase aligns with late-stage plague behavior: as elite classes and clergy die off, survivors are left with mass corpse disposal, psychological desensitization, and ritual collapse.

🧠 Interpretation

This passage represents a shift from lamentation to stunned silence. Several profound theological and sociological insights emerge.

1. "Throwing a Stone on a Heap" – Dehumanized Burial

Corpses become anonymous and innumerable.

The metaphor of throwing stones captures both futility and numbness.

Burial becomes labor, not mourning.

2. When Gold Becomes Litter

A repeat of an earlier theme: wealth loses meaning.

The horror deepens—fathers do not strip jewelry from their dead daughters, not out of reverence, but because they too expect to join them in Sheol.

This is the collapse of social instinct—inheritance, possession, and even grief no longer function.

3. The Death of Mourning

“There was no cry nor grief nor sadness... everyone was already knocking at the door of the grave.”

The living mourn not others, but themselves.

This is not apathy, but emotional extinction—lamentation has run out.

4. Twofold Divine Mercy

And yet, amid all this, the Chronicler locates divine compassion in paradox:

The poor, initially exposed, were buried with dignity—while there were still enough healthy people to do so.

The rich, who would normally receive elaborate rites, die alone and unburied.

This inversion is not accidental: it is the moral economy of God at work.

“People took care of the poor... with diligence, fear and zeal.”
This suggests that acts of charity became the last form of righteousness in a world bereft of structure.

🔗 Source Comparison

Scriptural echoes:

Jeremiah 9:22: “The dead bodies of men shall fall as dung upon the open field, and as the handful after the harvestman.”

Isaiah 5:14: “Therefore Sheol has enlarged its appetite...”

Ezekiel 7:19: “They shall cast their silver in the streets...”

Syriac literary themes:

The motif of moral inversion—the poor first to die, the rich last to be buried—is classic Syriac ascetic theology: poverty redeemed, pride punished.

Islamic parallels:

Though al-Ṭabarī references the plague’s existence, there is no moral meditation of this kind.

Early Arabic sources do not treat plague as a spiritual reordering of the social order—Zuqnīn does.

🧩 Final Thought

This is the darkest mercy of the Chronicle: that even amid wrath, the poor were granted honorable death, and the righteous a chance to bury them. The chronicler reveals the paradox of plague: it equalizes, but it also exposes. When mourning dies, when wealth fails, and when prayer becomes silence—what remains is divine judgment, quiet charity, and a monk still writing as the bones are carried past his monastery walls.

SE 1055 | AH 125–126 | CE 743–744

Lingering Disease, Permanent Disfigurement, and the Return of War

📝 Text

“Moreover, those who survived this affliction moved outside the city, as many as they were. But in the end, those who did not die were struck with a terrible disease: the swelling of the groins, some in one and some in both. This took hold of those who were dying as well as of those who survived.

As soon as the swelling of the groins struck a man, at that point he gave up hope accordingly.

What is more, the one who escaped from death suffered a pain worse than a cruel death; for his groins swelled, became distended and burst open, giving way to large and deep abscesses that discharged blood, pus, and water, day and night like a spring.

Afterward, patients suffered exhausting fatigue, some for one month, others for two or five or six months, and up to a year—for many others up to two years—in such a way that many of them never recovered.

Therefore, the prophetic words were fulfilled: ‘All knees will discharge water,’ ‘every man's heart will rot,’ and ‘on every one of their heads there will be baldness.’

It so happened at this period that whoever survived his family or his tribe suffered this degrading condition. Sometimes, both knees discharged water in addition to blood and pus, to the point that the head too became bald.

Afterwards, the few who survived could not be recognised. Unless by their garments, they could not be recognised or distinguished. No one could distinguish the monks from the priests, because all of them grew bald.

Moreover, as the groins swelled so did the armpits and the neck too. Most were slowly released from that disease, after some time, but others never completely recovered.

While this affliction, like the labour pain for a pregnant woman, was hitting the country from all sides, the Arabs did not refrain from waging wars and evils against each other. At that time Marwan left the Gate of the Turks while the whole country was troubled and agitated.”

🧭 Historical Context

This closing passage blends medical testimony, prophetic allusion, and a final gesture toward political instability. The symptoms described are unmistakable:

Bubonic plague, with swellings (buboes) in the groin, armpits, and neck;

Septicemic or glandular complications, with ruptured abscesses, bloody discharge, and lingering pain;

Post-plague fatigue lasting months or years, confirming what modern epidemiology understands about plague recovery.

The reference to Marwān (II) leaving the “Gate of the Turks” refers to his activity on the northeastern frontiers, even as Syria and Mesopotamia languished in disease and civil war. The juxtaposition is deliberate: while the land bleeds, the caliphs still fight.

🧠 Interpretation

This final passage abandons any effort at abstraction. It is biological, gruesome, and unrelentingly intimate. Yet even here, theology is not absent.

1. Suffering That Persists

The monk’s horror is not only that so many died—but that many survived to suffer:

“Pain worse than a cruel death... fatigue for one or two years... some never recovered.”

He understands plague not just as punishment, but as a transformation of the body into a vessel of judgment.

2. Collapse of Identity

“They could not be recognized except by their garments.”

Survivors are so ravaged by disease (baldness, swelling, rot) that all visible identity vanishes.

Even monks and priests are indistinguishable—a powerful image of religious roles dissolving under divine wrath.

3. Prophetic Fulfillment

He again invokes Scripture:

“All knees shall be weak as water” – Ezekiel 7:17

“Every man’s heart shall melt” – Ezekiel 21:7

“Baldness on every head” – Isaiah 15:2, Jeremiah 48:37

But here, these verses are no longer rhetorical—they are clinical observations. The prophecy has entered flesh and hair.

4. Final Theological Irony

He calls the affliction:

“Like the labor pain of a pregnant woman.”

This simile (from Isaiah 13:8, Jeremiah 6:24) typically anticipates rebirth or judgment. But here there is no birth—only groaning and the agony of waiting.

And in this suspended agony, war resumes.

🔗 Source Comparison

Medical parallel: Procopius and John of Ephesus describe buboes, death, and terror—but not the long-term suffering of survivors.

Kyle Harper (Plagues Upon the Earth) highlights how plague survivors could be disfigured for life, with groin, neck, and lymph injuries and extreme fatigue—this matches Zuqnīn perfectly.

Islamic historiography, including Ṭabarī and Khalīfa, acknowledges plague and displacement—but again, offers no pathology, no theology of the body, and certainly no vision of bald monks indistinguishable from dying priests.

🧩 Final Thought

The Zuqnīn Chronicle does not end its plague narrative with resolution or hope. Instead, it offers a vision of lingering pain, irreversible disfigurement, and a society too scarred to return to what came before. Even the survivors carry the marks of divine chastisement—in their bodies, in their hair, and in their inability to mourn. For the chronicler, the plague was not an event. It was a reordering of creation, where flesh itself bore the signature of God’s judgment.

SE 1057 | AH 127–128 | CE 745–746

Blood on the Euphrates, Death in Anjar

📝 Text

“Marwan left the territory of the Turks. It is written in Jeremiah the Prophet as follows: ‘Because of this, thus says the Lord, I shall lay before this people stumbling blocks, fathers and sons together shall stumble against them, and the neighbour and his friend shall perish.’

All of these things happened to the Arabs, for brothers and nephews stumbled against the stumbling blocks of leadership: The partisans of ‘Abbas and those of Hisham, and the sons of Walid (II) and those of Marwan (II), who are brothers, nephews, neighbours and friends. They fought each other and killed and destroyed many people along with them.

Jeremiah also spoke of the departure of Marwan: ‘Behold, a people is coming from the northern land, a great nation is moving from the ends of the earth, they are armed with bows and spears, they are cruel and have no mercy, their voice is like the agitated sea, they ride upon horses, ready like mighty men for battle... Do not go out into the field, nor take the road, because of the sword of the enemies!’

Also Isaiah spoke of them as follows: ‘I stirred up one from the North to come from the rising of the sun and he shall call on my name; the rulers will come and they will be trampled like the clay that the potter treads.’

And also: ‘From the North evil shall invade all the inhabitants of the earth.’

After Marwan marched out to the Jazira, which surrendered to him, he appointed governors for it in all the cities, including Mosul. He gathered a great army and rushed (to the Jazira) along with labourers and craftsmen. Then he crossed over to the West against the partisans of ‘Abbas.

Yazid (III), who killed Walid (II), died six months after, and Ibrahim, his brother, replaced him. When the last-named learned that Marwan had crossed the Euphrates, accompanied by numerous troops, and that the Jazira surrendered to him, he trembled before him: ‘They reeled and staggered like drunken men.’

Ibrahim first sent against him Nuʿaym son of Thābit—it was reported about him that he had seventy sons—along with numerous troops. When they faced each other and waged the battle, the entire army of Thābit was massacred and he was put to flight before Marwan.

When the partisans of Ibrahim realised that Marwan had vanquished them in the first battle, they trembled. So they massed troops so numerous that they could not be counted and even gathered villagers to fight with slings.

Then the armies marched toward each other, and pitched camp facing one another at ‘Ayn Garra. After waging many battles against each other, countless victims falling from both sides, in the end Marwan vanquished them and put them to flight, although Ibrahim and his brothers, as well as Sulayman son of Hisham, fled. A battle like this had never been seen in the world, nor did blood overflow in any other place as it did there.

More than five thousand villagers were also killed.

After his victory, Marwan besieged Emesa, subdued it, and destroyed its wall. He exhumed Yazid (II) from the grave and crucified him, head down, on a stake. He took gold from one Jew, worth four hundred thousand (dinars).”

🧭 Historical Context

This passage is the Zuqnīn Chronicle’s account of the rise of Marwān II during the Third Fitna, the final internecine war of the Umayyads. Following the assassination of al-Walīd II (r. 743–744), a series of rapid successions and rebellions unfolded:

Yazīd III, a son of al-Walīd I, assassinated al-Walīd II in 744 and briefly ruled;

Ibrāhīm, his brother, was proclaimed caliph amid growing opposition;

Marwān II, in Armenia and northern Syria, took advantage of the chaos to assert his own claim, positioning himself as an avenger of Walīd II.

Marwān’s march from Armenia and the Jazīrah down to Emesa (Ḥimṣ) and Anjar (Ayn Garra) was an astonishing logistical and military campaign, marked by:

Rapid city-by-city submission (e.g., Mosul),

Brutal battles (esp. at Anjar),

Desecration of corpses (the exhumation of Yazīd),

And mass killing, including the conscription and slaughter of peasants.

🧠 Interpretation

1. Scripture as Mirror of Civil War

The chronicler wraps this entire political history in biblical prophecy, drawing directly from:

Jeremiah 6:21 – “I will lay stumbling blocks before this people...”

Jeremiah 6:22–24 – “A people comes from the north... cruel and merciless.”

Isaiah 41:25 – “I have stirred up one from the north...”

Jeremiah 1:14 – “From the north disaster will be poured out.”

These are not ornamental quotations. They frame the Umayyad civil war as a preordained catastrophe, a punishment for sins, and a fulfillment of eschatological judgment.

“Brothers and nephews stumbled against the stumbling blocks of leadership…”

This is not merely civil war—it is God’s judicial trap, and no one escapes.

2. Marwān as Eschatological Invader

Though an Arab prince, Marwān is cast as the ‘northern invader’, likened to Babylon or Assyria of old. The comparison is chilling:

“Cruel and have no mercy… ride upon horses… anguish like a woman in labor.”

His approach brings dread, not triumph—even though the chronicler tacitly acknowledges his strategic success.

3. The Blood of Anjar

“A battle like this had never been seen in the world… more than five thousand villagers also killed.”

The bloodletting at ‘Ayn Garra (Anjar) stands out for its class-blind carnage. The recruitment of peasants—“villagers with slings”—only to be slaughtered en masse underscores how the poor were fodder in this elite struggle. This is civil war as sacrificial theater.

4. Grave-Robbing and Ritual Vengeance

Marwān’s exhumation and crucifixion of Yazīd II reflects deep cultural rage. Even the dead are not safe in this collapse. The inversion—head down on a stake—symbolizes not just revenge but the cosmic reversal of royal legitimacy.

5. Economic Plunder

The note about the Jewish financier—“gold worth four hundred thousand dinars”—may reflect:

Popular resentment toward wealthy minorities during wartime,

The use of confiscation to fund campaigns,

Or polemical scapegoating by the chronicler, fitting a Syriac Christian anti-Jewish subtext.

🔗 Source Comparison

Al-Ṭabarī, Ta’rīkh al-rusul wa’l-mulūk, records these events extensively:

Marwān’s campaign from Armenia to the Jazīrah;

The battle at Anjar (‘Ayn al-Jarr);

The siege of Emesa;

His actions as a military governor turned monarch.

However, Ṭabarī lacks:

The scriptural framing;

The moral horror;

The focus on peasant losses and ritual desecration.

Where Ṭabarī writes history, Zuqnīn writes apocalypse.

🧩 Final Thought

This entry is a chilling reminder that the collapse of the Umayyads was not simply dynastic—it was cosmic. The monk of Zuqnīn sees in Marwān’s rise not a restoration, but a dark parody of divine justice: the north becomes the hammer, prophecy becomes fact, and brother slaughters brother in a sea of blood. The war was real. But in the monastery, it was also Revelation.

SE 1057 | AH 127–128 | CE 745–746

Deceit, Relocation, and the Waning Legitimacy of the Umayyads

📝 Text

“Concerning the transfer of the caliphal treasure from the West to the Jazira:

Marwan, being aware of the hostility which the people of the West harboured toward him, decided to bring the caliphal treasure to the Jazira. The people of the West strongly opposed him and started to plot against him. When he realised that they would not give the treasure to him without war, he tricked them, saying: ‘I want to transfer it to Damascus, not to the Jazira, because the caliphal court is there.’

This being done, they allowed him to bring it to Damascus, accompanying it. Thus Marwan brought it to Damascus and sent everyone home a few days later. He remained there for two or three months, after which he stole it without the knowledge of the people of the West and brought it to Harran, where he himself came and settled.

Since then, he was not free of wars during all the days of his rule.”

🧭 Historical Context

The relocation of the caliphal treasury marks a key turning point in Marwān II’s strategy to consolidate power. As civil war engulfed the Umayyad realm, Marwān moved swiftly to secure not only military authority but also the financial base necessary to sustain it. The “West” (Maġrib) here refers broadly to Syria and Palestine, the heartland of Umayyad power since the days of Muʿāwiya.

But Syria was no longer the reliable Umayyad stronghold it had once been. In the aftermath of Walīd II’s assassination, Syria was fractured between rival commanders, many of whom were sympathetic to Yazīd III and later Ibrāhīm. Marwān’s base of support was instead in Armenia and the Jazīrah, and his relocation of the treasury from Damascus to Ḥarrān reflects both a symbolic and practical shift of the caliphal axis eastward.

In al-Ṭabarī’s account, after gaining the allegiance of the various Syrian military districts—including Damascus, Ḥimṣ, Jordan, and Palestine—Marwān allowed local leaders to select their own governors. This show of conciliatory politics allowed him to buy time and silence dissent while preparing to relocate the treasury. Al-Ṭabarī does not explicitly mention the trickery noted by Zuqnīn, but the political manipulation is unmistakable.

The relocation to Ḥarrān, a city of classical and theological significance, became Marwān’s new capital—and would be the final Umayyad capital before the fall of the dynasty.

🧠 Interpretation

1. The Theft of the State

In the chronicler’s eyes, Marwān’s maneuver is not political realignment—it is theft:

“He stole it without the knowledge of the people of the West…”

The moral language is unambiguous. This is not the legitimate transfer of authority but a betrayal of public trust, carried out through deception. Marwān’s rhetoric of tradition—claiming to send the treasury to Damascus—disguises his subversion of tradition, relocating power to a periphery.

2. Political Deceit as a Sign of Decay

The chronicler’s framing of this episode echoes earlier biblical and prophetic motifs of falsehood in high places. In Scripture, deceit by rulers is often a precursor to divine judgment (cf. Hosea 10:13, “You have plowed wickedness...”).

In this light, Marwān’s deceit is not a clever stratagem, but a moral and spiritual crime, further alienating him from the Syrian people and accelerating the collapse of Umayyad legitimacy.

3. Ḥarrān as Exile, Not Capital

Although Marwān made Ḥarrān his new seat of power, the chronicler gives it no grandeur. Instead, the shift is equated with exile and instability:

“Since then, he was not free of wars during all the days of his rule.”

This final sentence is damning: no peace, no stability, no legitimacy. Marwān's rule is defined by ceaseless warfare and moral erosion. The treasury—symbol of state continuity—has become an object of deceit, not divine trust.

🔗 Source Comparison

Al-Ṭabarī (Taʾrīkh, vol. 8) narrates the political oath-taking that secured Marwān’s temporary acceptance by the Syrian elite. He notes that the army districts chose their own governors and that Marwān secured “binding oaths” from them. However, Ṭabarī is silent on the issue of deception surrounding the treasury, either out of omission or tradition.

The Zuqnīn chronicler, by contrast, centers the deceit, emphasizing it as a turning point. This may reflect the Syriac monastic worldview, in which loss of moral integrity precedes divine wrath.

🧩 Final Thought

This episode is subtle yet seismic. The relocation of the caliphal treasure is not merely fiscal—it is eschatological in the chronicler’s imagination. It signals the transfer of legitimacy away from the Umayyad heartland and marks the beginning of ceaseless warfare. The caliph is no longer God’s regent on earth but a clever deceiver, seizing power by fraud while the empire crumbles beneath his feet.

SE 1058 | AH 128–129 | CE 746–747

Rebellion in the Jazīra and the Last Stand of the Harurites

📝 Text

“Dahhak joined the Harurites in the Jazīra. After Marwan came to the Jazīra, misfortunes did not abate for him. Furthermore, a bad thorn sprang up for him in the land of the Jazīra, for at this time the usurper Dahhak of Mount Izla, Yaʿqūb, Khaybari as well as Saksaki appeared on the scene. They marched out and launched several battles against Marwan, killing many of his people. As they engaged in many battles everywhere, in the end Marwan launched a ferocious and mighty battle in Tell-Mashritha, in which Dahhak was killed along with all his army. Those who survived were put to flight and they escaped.”

🧭 Historical Context

The chronicler places the Harurite revolt—led by al-Ḍaḥḥāk ibn Qays al-Shaybānī—as a direct threat to Marwān II’s authority in the Jazīra. The Kharijites had long been a source of insurrection across the Islamic world, but this episode is notable for the scale, military organization, and symbolism of the revolt.

Ṭabarī provides a more detailed account: al-Ḍaḥḥāk, claiming leadership of the Najdiyya or Haruriyya (Kharijite sects), seized Kūfa, was welcomed in Mosul, and fielded an army said to number 120,000 troops—an astonishing number for a faction often viewed as marginal.

Al-Ḍaḥḥāk’s forces waged a major campaign through the Jazīra, threatening Umayyad authority from Wasit to Raqqa. Ṭabarī describes the climactic battle at Kafartūthā (Tell-Mashritha?), where Ḍaḥḥāk and his elite soldiers dismounted to fight on foot, likely invoking the example of early Muslim martyrs and righteous warriors. They were slain to the last man.

Marwān’s army retrieved Ḍaḥḥāk’s body, counted over 20 wounds on his face, and paraded his severed head through the towns of Northern Mesopotamia as a symbol of restored Umayyad order.

🧠 Interpretation

1. “A Bad Thorn in the Jazīra”

The Zuqnīn chronicler, though a Christian monk, adopts language strikingly similar to Qur’ānic and biblical metaphor—describing Ḍaḥḥāk as a thorn rising from Mount Izla. This evokes both Judges 9 (“a bramble reigns”) and the Qurʾān's motif of fitna (civil strife) erupting from within.

The chronicler portrays the revolt not as a legitimate rebellion but as a scourge, one sent to further punish the land already ravaged by plague, famine, and celestial signs.

2. A Theological Mirror

Ironically, the Harurites themselves considered the Umayyads heretics and usurpers, while the Zuqnīn chronicler also saw both parties as part of a divine chastisement. Al-Ḍaḥḥāk’s Kharijism—with its apocalyptic moralism, egalitarianism, and rejection of dynastic rule—mirrors in some ways the chronicler’s own framework of divine retribution.

The image of Ḍaḥḥāk’s troops disrobing, dismounting, and preparing for death resonates with both early Muslim martyrdom and Syriac hagiography.

3. Tell-Mashritha as Armageddon

The final battle is stylized almost as a holy war between rival eschatologies: Umayyad caliphal absolutism vs. Kharijite radical egalitarianism. Yet for the chronicler, both are judged. This isn’t a triumph of good over evil—but one faction of judgment sweeping away another.

🔗 Source Comparison

Ṭabarī (Taʾrīkh, vol. 8) offers an unparalleled view into the military campaign, logistics, and political negotiations. He names Marwān’s son ʿAbdallāh as his commander in the Jazīra, notes multiple engagements including at Nasibin and Raqqa, and emphasizes the symbolic recovery of Ḍaḥḥāk’s corpse.
Khalīfa ibn Khayyāṭ briefly notes the event under AH 128, but without detail.
The Zuqnīn Chronicle, although terse, captures the moral-theological lens through which these battles were interpreted: a land under siege by its own sins, rebels and rulers both swallowed in fire.

🩸 Final Thought

The story of al-Ḍaḥḥāk is a theological tragedy in the Chronicle of Zuqnīn. In it, the chronicler sees not a hero or villain but a sign—that rebellion, like tyranny, flows from the same poisoned root. Whether under the banner of caliph or Khārijī imam, the wars of the Arabs become a single lament: the land is judged, the faithful suffer, and no faction escapes the sword of the Lord.

SE 1059 | AH 129–130 | CE 747–748

Earthquake, Lamentation, and the Death of the Righteous and the Sinner Alike

📝 Text

“A powerful and terrible earthquake took place in the Western region: The earth shall shake violently, the earth shall move exceedingly, and it shall swing like a hut. The iniquities, sins and evil doings that are done by us every day bring about these things, similar ones, and others which are much worse.

Where can we show the causes of the earthquakes if these were not brought on by the sins of people? Is it the case that the earth becomes feeble, and then, when she quakes and quivers, does she call upon her Maker to come and strengthen her? I do not believe so! But that she cries for help as she quakes, it is because of the wicked deeds that are on her, as she clearly indicated once in the following event.

A tremor took place during the night, and something like the noise of a roaring bull was heard from a great distance. When the morning came, the bishop emphatically ordered that all must gather and go out for prayer, saying that this happened because of sins. When everyone came to the prayer, they went out of the city altogether to a shrine called Church of the Mother of God, which was located outside the city of Mabbug in the West. Those people were also Chalcedonians and their bishop marched before them.

When they arrived, they all went inside the shrine like goats inside the fold. As they cried out together in prayer, a tremor suddenly occurred. The church collapsed on them, crushing them to death, along with their bishop. None came out alive; all were abruptly crushed in fatal and horrifying fashion, as if in a wine-press. The righteous perished alongside the sinner.”

🧭 Historical Context

This entry is situated during the final years of the Umayyad Caliphate, in the broader atmosphere of societal collapse. By 747 CE, the Abbasid revolution had begun in earnest in Khurasan. Marwan II was still contending with internal rebellions (e.g. al-Ḍaḥḥāk and other Kharijites), and the Jazīra was a stage of near-continuous warfare, plague, famine, and displacement.

The city of Mabbug (Hierapolis Bambyce, in modern-day northern Syria) was a historically significant Christian center, home to both Miaphysite and Chalcedonian communities. The mention of a Chalcedonian bishop leading a public act of penitence may reflect a lingering rivalry in ecclesiastical identity, but here the Chronicle instead focuses on collective human guilt—transcending confessional boundaries.

🧠 Interpretation

1. Theological Earthquake

This is not merely a natural disaster; the earth itself is a moral witness. The chronicler evokes Isaiah 24:20 ("the earth staggers like a drunkard and sways like a hut") and presents the trembling soil as a kind of prophetic agent, crying out under the burden of human sin. Earthquakes are not random but divine verdicts, and their violence is the echo of injustice and impiety.

2. Tragic Irony

The most disturbing irony lies in the faithful response to disaster: the Chalcedonian bishop, interpreting the tremor as divine warning, leads his flock out in prayer and repentance—only for all of them to be killed in a second quake. The imagery is brutal: "like goats in a fold," "like a wine-press." The sacred becomes the site of massacre. This resembles classical motifs of sacrificial irony, where even acts of piety are swallowed by divine wrath.

3. The Righteous and the Sinner

Unlike earlier entries where God’s wrath is targeted or sectarian (e.g. Jews betraying cities, Arabs punished in battle), here the righteous die with the guilty. The chronicler makes no attempt to separate them. It is a profound moment of ecclesial humility, hinting that no group—Chalcedonian or Miaphysite—is spared in the collapse of the world. This echoes Ecclesiastes: “the same fate overtakes them all.”

🩸 Final Thought

This tragic entry resonates deeply because it blurs the line between the pious and the condemned. The chronicler, himself a monk, does not gloat or polemicize. He mourns. He sees in the crushed sanctuary a mirror of the age—a world where even prayer is no longer protection, where repentance is offered too late, and where history itself has become a liturgy of death.

The Black-Clad Avenger from the East: The Zuqnīn Chronicle and the Abbasid Revolution

SE 1060–1063 | AH 130–133 | CE 748–751

✒️ Introductory Commentary

With this section, we arrive at the dread climax of the Zuqnīn Chronicle’s fourth part: the fall of the Umayyads and the rise of the Abbasids. To the anonymous West Syriac monk writing in 775 CE, the Abbasid Revolution did not appear as a moment of Islamic renewal or imperial reform. Instead, it was remembered as a cataclysm—an invasion of wild eastern forces, likened to Assyrians and locusts, plagues and bulls, the very instruments of divine wrath sent to punish a sinful world.

What we read in the following entries is not simple history. It is sacred apocalypse, shot through with biblical allusions—particularly to Isaiah and Jeremiah—where history and judgment fuse into a single eschatological horizon. The chronicler weaves together recent horrors with prophetic imagery, seeing in the Persian-led armies of the Abbasid revolution the very fulfilment of Scripture.

As Patricia Crone observed, the Abbasid movement relied heavily on non-Arab converts, often recent ones from the mountains and steppes of Khurasan, Farghana, and Sogdiana—"alien avengers" to the Arab aristocracy. To the Zuqnīn Chronicler, these troops were more than foreign: they were unclean, impious, and violent, a human swarm of flies and bees, beating men to death with studded clubs and unleashing an anti-Arabic vengeance.

What terrified conservative Arab Muslims also terrified Eastern Christians—but for different reasons. These new rulers were not idolaters or Zoroastrians. They claimed Islam. Yet the Zuqnīn Chronicler, like many of his contemporaries, saw in them a monstrous parody of religion: an inversion of all order. They did not reform society; they uprooted it.

This is Part II of our blog series, and it will focus on the revolution itself: the fall of Marwan II, the rise of the Abbasids, and the total transformation of the Islamic world from an Arab caliphate to a Persian-led empire cloaked in black, lit by apocalyptic fire.

The Rod of Wrath from the East

SE 1060 | AH 130 | CE 748–749

📝 Text

“The Persian people invaded the land of Syria, subdued the Arabs and ruled over the land in their place. Isaiah too had formerly prophesied about these ones, saying: Ah, the Assyrian is the rod of my anger, and the sticks of my punishment in their hand; against an idolatrous nation I will send him, and against a wrathful people I will command him.

He also said: It will happen on that day, the Lord will whistle for the flies that are at the sources of the rivers of Egypt, and for the bees that are in the land of Assyria, and they will all rest in the valley of Yathuth and in the rocky clefts.

Indeed, the Persians were ‘the rod of anger and the stick of punishment in their hand,’ as the prophet said. They used to hold with their hands sticks, each studded with iron spikes at its end; and they looked like those who go out to kill dogs. Then he called them ‘flies and bees’; indeed as the buzzing flies settle on everything and breed and produce a foul smell, so did these—who were sorcerers, thieves, adulterers, and bloodthirsty individuals.

Wherever one of them went, he caused evils, in addition to disputes and agitation. They rose up in their land, moving in a large crowd, like a swarm of mean-looking bees that do not turn back. It was in this manner that they gathered and invaded the land.”

🔍 Commentary

This sentence begins with a shock: the Persians, not the Arabs, have taken Syria. This is both factually grounded (the Khurāsānī base of the Abbasid revolution) and theologically charged. In the eyes of a West Syriac monk, Syria had already fallen once—into the hands of the Arabs in the 630s. But now, those Arabs are being overthrown by another eastern force.

This inversion of roles is critical: the Arabs, once seen by some Syriac Christians as the “rod” sent by God against Rome and Persia, are now the targets of divine retribution themselves. The chronicler intentionally calls the Abbasids “Persians”, not Muslims, erasing any notion of Islamic continuity between Umayyads and Abbasids.

“Isaiah too had formerly prophesied about these ones, saying: Ah, the Assyrian is the rod of my anger, and the sticks of my punishment in their hand; against an idolatrous nation I will send him, and against a wrathful people I will command him.”

🔍 Commentary:

Here, the chronicler turns directly to Isaiah 10:5–6, a passage originally about Assyria’s conquest of Israel. But in the 8th-century context, the chronicler sees the Abbasids as the new Assyrians, and the Arabs—perhaps now corrupted by power, luxury, and impiety—as the new Israel, ripe for judgment.

This use of Isaiah reveals a common exegetical strategy in Syriac historiography: reading contemporary geopolitics through the lens of Old Testament prophecy. The “rod” and “stick” are metaphors for foreign domination as divine punishment—a theme that resonates across both Jewish and Christian traditions.

But note how radical this reversal is: the Muslim Arabs, who had overthrown Rome and Persia and were sometimes interpreted by Christians as agents of divine judgment, are now rebranded as idolaters themselves—deserving of wrath.

“He also said: It will happen on that day, the Lord will whistle for the flies that are at the sources of the rivers of Egypt, and for the bees that are in the land of Assyria, and they will all rest in the valley of Yathuth and in the rocky clefts.”

🔍 Commentary:

This is drawn from Isaiah 7:18. In its original context, the “flies” (Egypt) and “bees” (Assyria) are dual threats summoned by God to punish Judah. Here, the chronicler is engaging in an allegorical triple inversion:

Egypt = former imperial (Roman) dominion

Assyria = now embodied by the Abbasids

Judah/Israel = Arab Muslims

The reference to the “valley of Yathuth” and “rocky clefts” (perhaps a distorted or local place-name) symbolizes the inescapability of this swarm. The plague has come to nest in the very bones of the land—there is no high ground left.

“Indeed, the Persians were ‘the rod of anger and the stick of punishment in their hand,’ as the prophet said.”

🔍 Commentary:

This restates and affirms the prophetic logic: the Abbasids are not just conquerors, but cosmic instruments. They are not righteous—they are permitted. Their power is borrowed from God to chastise a sinful people.

And note the tone: this is not admiration. This is fear. This is lament. These are words of someone watching judgment unfold, not cheering a revolution.

“They used to hold with their hands sticks, each studded with iron spikes at its end; and they looked like those who go out to kill dogs.”

🔍 Commentary:

This is a brutal, visceral image. The chronicler is offering an eyewitness or near-eyewitness account of Abbasid fighters in Syria. The clubs with iron spikes reflect not formal weapons of war but tools of terror, designed for street-level policing or executions.

Calling them “those who go out to kill dogs” dehumanizes the Abbasid fighters—and equates their targets (possibly Christians or Umayyad loyalists) with animals. It’s important to note that in Near Eastern tradition, killing stray dogs was associated with impurity and filth—adding to the sense that this was not a clean or noble conquest.

“Then he called them ‘flies and bees’; indeed as the buzzing flies settle on everything and breed and produce a foul smell, so did these—who were sorcerers, thieves, adulterers, and bloodthirsty individuals.”

🔍 Commentary:

This is both exegesis and ethnography. The chronicler interprets the “flies and bees” not as symbols but as descriptions. The Abbasid revolutionaries—many from Khurāsān, converts from diverse backgrounds, including Zoroastrians and others—are painted as unclean, immoral, and irreligious.

The chronicler calls them:

Sorcerers – invoking Zoroastrian associations or occultism

Thieves – attacking their redistributive policies or pillaging behavior

Adulterers – a common slander to delegitimize outsiders

Bloodthirsty – referencing the brutal suppression of resistance and purging of Umayyads

This catalog of sins is not incidental—it mirrors Romans 1 or other biblical catalogs of depravity used in polemic literature.

“Wherever one of them went, he caused evils, in addition to disputes and agitation.”

🔍 Commentary:

The Abbasid conquest wasn’t just a military event. It unleashed social chaos. Tax policies, governor changes, sectarian shifts (like more tolerance for Shiʿa or Persian converts), and purges destabilized urban and rural life alike.

The chronicler’s perspective reflects the Jazīran monastic experience: Christian communities saw the late Umayyads as burdensome but relatively stable. The Abbasid era begins with terror, taxation, and uncertainty. Monasteries were taxed, villages extorted, and local governors emboldened.

“They rose up in their land, moving in a large crowd, like a swarm of mean-looking bees that do not turn back. It was in this manner that they gathered and invaded the land.”

🔍 Commentary:

This is apocalyptic. A swarm that “does not turn back” evokes locust plagues from Joel and Revelation. This is not an army—it is a force of nature, a divine judgment unleashed, unstoppable, and impersonal.

In this, the chronicler may be echoing the Book of Joel:

“A nation has come up against my land, powerful and without number; its teeth are the teeth of a lion...” (Joel 1:6)

Here, the Abbasids are not individuals; they are a judgment clothed in flesh.

🧠 Theological Framework:

This is not just a political lament. The chronicler is recording what feels like the end of the world. The Zuqnīn Chronicle is apocalyptic—not in genre, but in mood. This is the fall of one world and the terrible, ominous beginning of another.

🔗 Crone’s “Alien Avengers”:

As Patricia Crone observed, the Abbasids came from far outside the Arab elite. They were Khurāsānīs, mawlās, non-Arabs—agents of revolution in both religious and ethnic terms. They sought not just power, but moral reversal. Their black banners were a symbol of mourning, eschatology, and vengeance.

The chronicler shares none of their revolutionary joy. For him, these are not liberators. They are the wasps of God, tearing down what remained of order.

🧩 Final Note:

This entry is not an aberration. It is the key to reading the Abbasid Revolution in the Chronicle of Zuqnīn. It is a divine drama, not a political change. The chronicler is not merely chronicling. He is testifying.

And what he testifies to is this:

The caliphate has changed hands, but the sword of judgment has not been sheathed.

SE 1060 | AH 130–131 | CE 748–749

⚔️ The Black-Clad Army and the Fall of al-ʿAqūla (Kufa)

📝 Text

“The Arab army marched down against them near al-ʿAqūla, but it could not withstand them, for they destroyed (most of) it and the rest fled and dispersed. The Persians took away their weapons, horses and a great fortune, because they were all on foot and did not possess anything, except for the sticks they held in their hands.
Joel too said the following about them: Like the early dawn spread upon the mountains, so is a great and powerful people, their like has never been from of old, nor will be after them until the end of generations. Fire devours before them and behind them a flame burns. The land is like the garden of Eden before them, and like a desolate wilderness behind them and nothing escapes from them. Their appearance is as the appearance of the horse, and like horsemen, so they run, The prophet rightly invoked the appearance of the horses: just as the horse has a mane on the head and the neck, they too had long hair like the mane of the horse. He also said: Like horsemen, so they run and like the noise of chariots that rumble on the tops of the mountains, and like the crackling of a fiery flame that devours the straw, and like a powerful nation arrayed for battle. Before them peoples tremble and all faces darken like the blackness of the pot. Like mighty men they run, like men they climb up the walls? Also: They attack the cities, they run upon the walls, they climb upon the houses, they enter through the windows like thieves. The earth shook before them and the heavens trembled Nahum also said: Their appearance is like burning torches, they run like lightning, they lay hold on their rulers, they stumble as they go, they hasten to the wall, the battlements are set up. Also: The faces of all of them are black like the blackness of the pot. Not only were their faces black but all their clothes were also black. Because all their clothes were black they were called Musawwadda, translated into the Syriac language as ukamē (“black ones”).”

“The Arab army marched down against them near al-ʿAqūla, but it could not withstand them, for they destroyed (most of) it, and the rest fled and dispersed.”

🧠 Commentary:

This is a summary of the collapse of the Umayyad defense near al-ʿAqūla—a village near Kufa. The chronicler deliberately refers to the defending force as “the Arab army,” distinguishing it from the Abbasid army, which he immediately casts as non-Arab. This framing is crucial: it implies that the Arabs—the former scourge of Rome and Persia—are now the ones being overrun, by a foreign and morally polluted host.

The disintegration of the Umayyad army is not just military defeat; it is divine unmaking. The dispersal evokes the curse of Babel or the scattering of Israel in exile—God’s judgment manifest in fragmentation.

“The Persians took away their weapons, horses and a great fortune, because they were all on foot and did not possess anything, except for the sticks they held in their hands.”

🧠 Commentary:

Here, the term “Persians” is a deliberate ethnic and theological provocation. The chronicler refuses to call the Abbasids Muslims, and instead identifies them with the enemies of old—Persia, the former Zoroastrian Empire.

Their weaponry—or lack thereof—is emphasized: “sticks… in their hands.” This recalls the irony of divine inversion in biblical narratives, where seemingly weak instruments become vehicles of God’s wrath. Think of:

Samson’s jawbone of a donkey (Judges 15:15)

David’s sling against Goliath (1 Samuel 17:49)

Moses’ staff turning into a serpent (Exodus 4:3)

In all cases, meager tools are empowered by God to topple the mighty.

“Joel too said the following about them: ‘Like the early dawn spread upon the mountains, so is a great and powerful people, their like has never been from of old, nor will be after them until the end of generations.’”

🧠 Commentary:

This reference to Joel 2:2 equates the black-clad army with Joel’s apocalyptic locust horde—a devastating, divine force. The "dawn upon the mountains" creates a terrifying visual: an advancing army like the rising sun—beautiful in formation but terrifying in consequence. It reflects the inevitability of their rise, mirroring the day of judgment.

This verse also establishes cosmic stakes. The chronicler reads the Abbasid Revolution not as politics, but as eschatology.

“Fire devours before them and behind them a flame burns. The land is like the garden of Eden before them, and like a desolate wilderness behind them, and nothing escapes from them.”

🧠 Commentary:

This is a stark image of total destruction. The invading army leaves no remnant: before them is order and beauty, symbolized by Eden; behind them is chaos, a scorched world.

This mimics the Biblical "Day of the Lord"—a time of reckoning that renders creation back into formlessness. For the chronicler, the Abbasids have this apocalyptic function: they burn away the old world, not to save, but to judge.

“Their appearance is as the appearance of the horse, and like horsemen, so they run.”

🧠 Commentary:

This verse likens the invaders to horsemen—swift, coordinated, and militarily terrifying. But the Zuqnīn chronicler seizes on the symbolism of the mane, drawing a visual parallel between horses and men with long, flowing hair.

This image critiques Abbasid (or Khurāsānī) warriors in two ways:

Their appearance is unnatural—long hair resembling wild beasts, not pious men.

Their movement is inhuman—swift and inescapable, evoking fear rather than order.

“Just as the horse has a mane on the head and the neck, they too had long hair like the mane of the horse.”

🧠 Commentary:

This detail enhances the dehumanization. The chronicler paints the invaders as bestial, unnatural. Hair—often a symbol of dignity in certain cultures—is here a mark of wildness. The point is not just cultural, but theological: these men are outside God’s ordained human order.

“He also said: ‘Like horsemen, so they run and like the noise of chariots that rumble on the tops of the mountains, and like the crackling of a fiery flame that devours the straw, and like a powerful nation arrayed for battle.’”

🧠 Commentary:

This language continues the apocalyptic tone. The sound of their advance—thundering like chariots and fire—evokes terror. In biblical language, God’s judgment is often heard before it is seen: thunder, trumpets, earthquakes. This army comes with that same foreboding soundscape.

This is not just a military description—it’s a liturgical crescendo of dread.

“Before them peoples tremble and all faces darken like the blackness of the pot.”

🧠 Commentary:

The phrase “all faces darken” (from Joel and Nahum) has a dual function:

Literal: blackened by soot, battle, or grief.

Symbolic: faces lose radiance, suggesting loss of divine favor or moral clarity.

And crucially, it transitions us into the passage’s climax: the imagery of blackness.

“Not only were their faces black but all their clothes were also black. Because all their clothes were black they were called Musawwadda, translated into the Syriac language as ukamē (‘black ones’).”

🧠 Commentary:

Here is the theological and visual climax. The black garb of the Abbasids—intended by them to signal mourning for the Prophet’s family (ahl al-bayt), and revolution against Umayyad corruption—is interpreted here as apocalyptic dread.

In Syriac literature:

Blackness signifies judgment, death, and mourning.

Ukamē, from the root ܐܘܟܡ (dark/black), also connotes spiritual gloom.

Thus, the chronicler subverts the Abbasid iconography. What they wear as symbols of justice, he reads as uniforms of judgment—the robes of God’s wrath.

🧭 Historical Grounding: The Battle for Kufa

The battle near al-ʿAqūla was pivotal. According to Islamic sources like al-Ṭabarī, the Abbasid army led by Qaḥṭabah ibn Shabīb al-Ṭāʾī confronted Yazīd ibn Hubayra, the Umayyad governor of Iraq, in late 749 CE. Though Qaḥṭabah was killed, the Abbasid victory was decisive, paving the way for their entry into Kufa—a city that had once symbolized resistance to tyranny (notably at Karbalāʾ), now becoming the launchpad for Abbasid rule.

The Zuqnīn Chronicler does not mention names or strategy. He is uninterested in political specifics. He sees only the signs of judgment, fulfilled in black-clad strangers descending like fire upon the plains.

🧩 Final Reflection: Apocalypse Wears Black

The chronicler does not merely record a battle. He performs an exegetical transformation: a political event becomes a cosmic theophany. The Abbasid army, with its:

foreign origins,

black uniforms,

rudimentary weaponry,

and swift victory,

becomes the Joelian swarm, the Nahumic fire, the rod of Isaiah—God’s judgment, incarnate.

Where others saw revolution, the monk saw reversal.
Where others hoped for justice, he foresaw desolation.

His lens is not Islamicate, but biblical; not dynastic, but eschatological.
And in that vision, history is no cycle. It is a descent—punctuated by fire, darkness, and the terrifying hoofbeats of an army sent from the edge of the world.

SE 1061 | AH 131–132 | CE 749–750

⚔️ The Day of the Zab: The Collapse of the Umayyad Caliphate

📝 Text

“After the conquest of the lower land (by the Persians), Marwan dispatched the son of Hubayrah to Nisibis against them. He could not resist them either, and they routed him. Then ʿAbd-Allah, son of Marwan, went against them but he too was vanquished. Then Marwan went too. After waging many battles, the result was numerous casualties on both sides. In the end, they fought such a ferocious and mighty battle that the ground between the two Zab rivers was saturated with the abundant blood which was shed on it. Marwan was routed and fled; his army was scattered and he himself fled and crossed the Euphrates. But all the cities were closed to him, and even the people in the West wanted to fight against him. At this point, he and his followers disappeared and could not be found. Some of those who had been captured were put to death, but the others were held in prisons.”

📍 Historical Context: The Battle of the Great Zab (January 25, 750 CE)

This battle marks the definitive end of the Umayyad Caliphate—a regime that, in the space of a century, had expanded Islamic rule from the Iberian Peninsula to the Indus Valley. It was fought near the Great Zab River, a tributary of the Tigris, in northern Iraq.

The Abbasid forces, led by ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAlī, uncle of the soon-to-be Caliph al-Saffāḥ, represented a new religious and ethnic coalition—one forged in Khurāsān, fueled by anti-Umayyad resentment, and bearing a millenarian fervor. The Umayyad caliph Marwan II led the last vestiges of the old regime—primarily Arab-Syrian troops weakened by years of revolts.

Where Muslim historians like Ṭabarī recount logistical brilliance, night-time river crossings, and swift cavalry maneuvers, the Zuqnīn Chronicler provides something very different: a cosmic obituary for an age.

📖 Theological Commentary: “A Mighty Battle Saturated with Blood”

1. “After the conquest of the lower land (by the Persians)...”

The term “lower land” refers to southern Iraq, already in Abbasid hands before Zab. The chronicler continues to refer to the Abbasids as “Persians”, refusing to dignify them with Islamic or Arab identity. This is consistent with his earlier Isaiah-laden depiction: they are not mujahidīn—they are foreign tools of wrath.

2. “Marwan dispatched the son of Hubayrah to Nisibis…”

Nisibis (modern Nusaybin), once a Roman frontier city, had become a border of the new Islamic civil war. Marwan’s decision to send Yazīd ibn Hubayrah’s son reflects desperation; these were final moves in a losing game. Each named commander—Yazīd’s son, ʿAbd Allāh ibn Marwan, and then Marwan himself—is swiftly routed, reinforcing a motif of divinely ordained defeat. The chronicler offers no strategic analysis. The collapse is assumed—preordained.

3. “They fought such a ferocious and mighty battle that the ground between the two Zab rivers was saturated with… blood.”

This is the dramatic climax—the blood-saturation of the land. Here, the chronicler evokes imagery similar to:

Isaiah 63:3: “I have trodden the winepress alone… their blood spattered my garments.”

Revelation 14:20: “And the winepress was trodden outside the city, and blood flowed... as high as a horse's bridle.”

This sacrificial imagery suggests that the ground itself bears witness to divine punishment. The rivers—symbols of life—now border a battlefield soaked in judgment. The land between the Greater and Lesser Zab becomes a kind of biblical Valley of Decision (Joel 3:14).

4. “Marwan was routed and fled… But all the cities were closed to him.”

This is no mere military retreat—it is cosmic exile. The phrase “all the cities were closed to him” recalls:

Genesis 4:12, where Cain becomes a wanderer.

Jeremiah 14:8, where the rejected king is denied shelter.

The people—even in the West—reject him. His legitimacy is erased, not just politically, but spiritually. The world he ruled turns its back on him.

5. “He and his followers disappeared and could not be found.”

This is not literal reporting. Marwan was captured and killed in July 750, likely in Abusir, Egypt. His head was sent to al-Saffāḥ.

But the chronicler prefers biblical poetics: Marwan is not killed—he is erased. His vanishing echoes:

Psalm 37:10: “A little while, and the wicked will be no more; though you look for them, they will not be found.”

Job 20:7: “He will perish forever like his own dung; those who have seen him will say, ‘Where is he?’”

In this Syriac historiographical imagination, defeat = disappearance. God doesn’t just kill. He un-makes.

6. “Some of those who had been captured were put to death, but the others were held in prisons.”

This line brings us back to earth: political aftermath. The Abbasids, now victors, begin the cleansing of Umayyad loyalists. While some are imprisoned, others are executed. In Ṭabarī, this is followed by a systematic purging: the massacre at al-ʿAbbāsiyya, where dozens of Umayyads were tricked into safety, then bludgeoned to death beneath rugs.

But the Zuqnīn Chronicler does not linger on the horror—because for him, the horror is not man-made, but God-ordained.

🔎 Comparison: Ṭabarī vs. Zuqnīn

Aspect Ṭabarī Zuqnīn Chronicler
Emphasis Tactical brilliance, betrayal, historical detail Divine judgment, biblical typology
Language Political-military Prophetic-theological
Tone Historian Mourner, theologian, prophet
Perspective Islamic Christian, eschatological
The Zuqnīn Chronicle is not a neutral record. It is a lamentation, a Syriac echo of the biblical prophets who mourned over Jerusalem or Nineveh.

Aspect	Ṭabarī	Zuqnīn Chronicler
Emphasis	Tactical brilliance, betrayal, historical detail	Divine judgment, biblical typology
Language	Political-military	Prophetic-theological
Tone	Historian	Mourner, theologian, prophet
Perspective	Islamic	Christian, eschatological

🧠 Interpretation: The End of an Age

The fall of Marwan II is not just dynastic; it is cosmic. For a Syriac monk who had watched a century of Umayyad dominance, the caliphate’s collapse is like the fall of Assyria, Babylon, or Rome before it. But the replacement is no better.

The new rulers wear black and bring no peace. The Persians—once seen as defeated pagans—have become the divine avengers. Their revolution is not deliverance, but conflagration.

This reading fits with Christian C. Sahner’s observation that the early Abbasid era marks not the flourishing of Christianity under Islam, but its slow constriction—through taxation, humiliation, conversion, and martyrdom.

🪦 The Vanishing of Marwan: From History to Legend

Muslim sources tell us:

Marwan was defeated, fled to Egypt, and was killed.

His family was almost entirely wiped out.

His death was brutal, his body desecrated.

But the chronicler writes:

“He and his followers disappeared and could not be found.”

Why?

Because he has no interest in Marwan the man—only in Marwan the sign. His disappearance is not a mystery. It is a divine deletion.

🧩 Conclusion: A Curtain Falls

This entry closes the first book of Islamic imperial history, as recorded by the Zuqnīn Chronicler. The Rashidun have passed. The Umayyads have crumbled. Now, the Abbasids enter the stage—but not in light, and not with glory.

They come cloaked in black, carrying the flames of judgment, not the olive branch of renewal.

For the chronicler, Zab is not the dawn of a golden age. It is the opening of the seventh seal. The sun is darkened. The rivers run red. And the world turns—not toward paradise, but toward a deeper exile.

SE 1061 | AH 131–132 | CE 749–750

🔥 The Wolves of the Evening: After the Zab and the Triumph of the Black Flags

📝 Text

“As for the Persians, after they had routed Marwan, they flew across the land like evening wolves and like eagles hungry for food, about whom Habakkuk also prophesied, saying: For lo, I am raising up the Chaldeans, a bold and violent nation, who march through the breadth of the earth to seize habitations that are not their own. Strong and terrible are they, their justice proceeds from themselves. Indeed they used to march through the breadth of the earth! Their horses are swifter than leopards, more fierce than the evening wolves, they fly like the eagle hungry for food. They all come for the plunder.

This prophet rightly likened them to the evening wolves, because the wolf is not visible and cannot be found by people and dogs during the whole day. By the evening time he is hungry, because he does not eat during the entire day. When the sun rises they are restrained and lie down in their dens. Man goes forth to his work and to his labour until the evening. As wolves howl when they are hungry, so did the Persians howl, and as the eagle screams when he is hungry, so did they scream. Hence, wherever they arrived, they plundered the property of people like wolves, as it is said: They all come for the plunder, and at kings he scoffs and rulers he mocks and he laughs at all the fortresses.

How is it not appropriate that the prophecy says: He laughs at fortresses, since all the walls of the cities were torn down with their own hands? What had been built by strong and wise kings at the cost of much gold for protection from enemies was destroyed by the Persians! It says: He scoffs at kings and rulers he mocks. How could he scoff and mock if not through destroying their fortresses?

The first governor of the Jazīra was ʿAkkī. An order was issued that all Muslims be clad in black.”

📍 Historical Context: After the Zab—From Revolution to Rule

The Battle of the Zab had ended the Umayyad caliphate in blood and ignominy. But victory was not the end—it was merely the pivot from destruction to domination. The Abbasids now began their imperial consolidation: replacing governors, implementing symbolic reforms, and recasting the theological image of the caliphate.

The Jazīra, a region between the Tigris and Euphrates—long contested, deeply Christian, and filled with monastic centers—was one of the first to fall under Abbasid reorganization. The chronicler mentions “ʿAkkī” as the first Abbasid governor—a probable reference to Muqātil ibn Ḥakīm al-ʿAkkī, though the historical record also places ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad (al-Manṣūr) in an early role here.

But the chronicler is not concerned with administrative accuracy. His focus is theological: this new regime is not restoration—it is devastation with a new face.

📖 Theological Commentary: “They Flew Across the Land Like Evening Wolves…”

🐺 “Evening Wolves” and Habakkuk’s Prophecy (Habakkuk 1:6–10)

The chronicler invokes Habakkuk—one of the most intense prophetic texts about divine judgment through empire. In Habakkuk, God raises the Chaldeans (i.e., Babylonians) as instruments of wrath. They are not righteous—they are terrifying. And yet, God uses them.

The Chronicler draws a 1:1 parallel:

Chaldeans = Abbasids (Persians)

Judah = Umayyad Caliphate

Prophetic Woe = Syriac Christian Witness

➤ “They fly like the eagle hungry for food... more fierce than evening wolves”

This imagery paints the Abbasid army not as ordered liberators, but as famished predators. In biblical tradition:

Wolves are symbols of greed, violence, and stealth (Jeremiah 5:6; Zephaniah 3:3).

Eagles often symbolize imperial aggression (Deuteronomy 28:49; Ezekiel 17:3).

Evening wolves evoke a time when restraint disappears and hunger becomes feral.

The Chronicler elaborates in a vivid moral zoology:

“The wolf is not visible... he is hungry... he howls...”

The Abbasids, he argues, pretended silence by day, but when power was ripe, they howled into conquest. This hunger is not literal. It is spiritual predation.

⚔️ “They All Come for the Plunder…”

The Chronicler’s choice of this line from Habakkuk 1:9 underscores his judgment against Abbasid motives. These are not defenders of the faith, not restorers of justice. They are raiders, interested only in loot, humiliation, and vengeance.

In this, he anticipates later Christian critiques of Muslim rulers as "robbers in robes", clothed in claims of righteousness but driven by greed.

He continues:

“They plundered the property of people like wolves...”

Here the simile becomes reality. The Abbasids, like wolves, disrupt human settlement, devour security, and leave nothing behind but broken walls and empty dens.

🏰 “He Scoffs at Kings and Laughs at Fortresses…”

This is the Chronicler’s apocalyptic commentary on the destruction of civilizational order. Cities, walls, and kings—symbols of continuity—are reduced to rubble.

“What had been built by strong and wise kings... was destroyed by the Persians.”

The phrase brims with nostalgia. It recalls:

The walls of Nineveh, once proud but toppled.

The fortifications of Edessa and Amida, painstakingly rebuilt under Justinian and his successors.

The now-meaningless labor of Christian kings and emperors.

By invoking this line from Habakkuk, the Chronicler asserts: the Abbasids are not empire-builders—they are empire-breakers, “mockers of kings” and “levelers of fortresses.”

🖤 Blackness and the Uniform of Judgment

“An order was issued that all Muslims be clad in black.”

This single sentence carries enormous symbolic weight.

To Abbasid ideologues, black signified mourning—especially for the martyred al-Ḥusayn at Karbalāʾ. It was meant to contrast Umayyad white, which symbolized worldly pomp and Qurayshite elitism. But to the Zuqnīn Chronicler, black means curse, sackcloth, ashes, and doom.

In Syriac Christianity:

Black is worn in mourning, monastic humility, and public repentance.

In prophetic literature, it is associated with darkened skies, plague, and the absence of divine favor (cf. Joel 2:6, Nahum 2:10).

That an empire should make it their color is, to him, not reform—it is confirmation of divine wrath.

The Musawwada (lit. the blackened ones) are not God's elect. They are agents of purgation, of fire, and of grief.

🔗 Broader Literary and Apocalyptic Framing

The Chronicler’s passage fuses together multiple genres:

Prophetic typology (Habakkuk = template for judgment)

Natural allegory (wolves and eagles = political predators)

Biblical lament (tearing down of fortresses and cities)

Moral disgust (plunder, howling, scorning kings)

This isn't a chronicle—it’s a dirge, a Jeremiad from the ruins of Mesopotamia. For the chronicler, history is not cyclical—it is spiraling, downward, into ever-deeper phases of judgment.

Every successive empire is worse than the last:

Rome was arrogant.

Persia was pagan.

The Arabs brought the sword.

The Abbasids bring the flame.

🧩 Conclusion: Plunderers of Thrones, Heralds of Judgment

The image of the Abbasids as “evening wolves” captures the moral climax of the chronicler’s vision. These are not righteous rulers come to restore a golden age. They are hungry beasts, drawn not by justice, but by scent of blood. Their justice “proceeds from themselves,” as Habakkuk said—self-justifying, self-glorifying, detached from divine truth.

They do not rebuild. They unmake.

The Chronicler's world, seen through his Syriac lens, has entered a new dusk. The black flags are not signs of hope. They are omens, heralding an empire not of light, but of smoke.

The Umayyads were wicked, yes—but the chronicler does not trade one sorrow for celebration. Instead, he moves from eulogy to foreboding, standing at the crossroads of history and watching the wolves descend.

🧩 Conclusion: The End of One Judgment, the Beginning of Another

With the Battle of the Zab in 750 CE, and the flight and eventual death of Marwān II, the Umayyad Caliphate—which had stretched from Narbonne to Transoxiana—was brought to a bloody and ignominious end. The black banners of the Abbasid Revolution, raised in Khurāsān and steeped in apocalyptic fervor, now flew triumphantly over Kufa, Wasit, and Damascus. But where some saw redemption, the Chronicler of Zuqnīn saw only retribution.
For him, this was no dawn of justice, no prophetic restoration of the house of the Prophet. It was the onset of another night. If the Umayyads had been a rod of punishment against Rome and Persia, the Abbasids—called “Persians” with theological intent—were a new and more terrifying rod, raised not to redeem but to destroy. He reaches, as always, for Scripture: the “rod of anger” from Isaiah, the “flies and bees” from Assyria, the “wolves of the evening” from Habakkuk—predators sent not by Satan, but by God Himself to purge a sinful world.
The chronicler’s depictions are anything but subtle. He describes the Abbasids as dog-killers, sorcerers, and adulterers—brutal, base, and utterly unredeemed. They are not successors; they are scavengers. Their weapons are not swords of justice, but sticks with iron spikes, wielded like clubs to break bodies and spirits alike. Their victory at Zab is not a coronation—it is a plague. The Euphrates, like the Red Sea, has seen an army drown, but this time, no song of deliverance follows.
Yet while the Zuqnīn Chronicler wrote in anguish, history was, as it so often is, moving on. As Christian C. Sahner observes, the Abbasid revolution was not just the fall of a dynasty—it was “the making of the Muslim world.” The Umayyad empire had been ethnically Arab and tribally aristocratic. The Abbasid caliphate, emerging from the eastern periphery, would become broader, more ideologically inclusive, and religiously more integrated. Arabic would become not merely a military tongue but a lingua franca of law, theology, and empire.
This meant profound change for the region's non-Muslim communities, particularly the Syriac Christians of the Jazīrah. Under the Umayyads, life for dhimmīs had become increasingly restricted, yet still bearable. Under the Abbasids, however—especially in the early decades—the situation became far more precarious. Apostasy trials increased. Fiscal exactions deepened. Boundaries between communities hardened. As hagiographies and legal records from the 8th and 9th centuries show, Christians who once lived in the shadows of empire now found themselves living in its direct glare—policed, taxed, and in some cases, executed for blasphemy, resistance, or refusal to convert. Martyrdom reemerged—not as memory, but as immediate reality.
The Chronicler of Zuqnīn was not silent in the face of this. But neither did he despair. Instead, he interpreted. For him, history was not chaos—it was chastisement. The whirlwinds of conquest, plague, flood, and revolution were not merely human misfortune; they were divine messages. Every star that blazed, every city that fell, every caliphate that rose was a trumpet blast from the heavens. The world was not spinning without meaning—it was being judged.
And so, the first part of our series closes. We have followed the Zuqnīn Chronicler through the age of Muḥammad, the Rāshidūn, and the Umayyads—from brief notations of Arab conquests to agonizing laments over civil wars, famines, and false caliphs. We have seen him quote Isaiah, Joel, Habakkuk, and Nahum with a prophet’s precision. We have stood beside him as fortresses crumbled, monasteries emptied, and stars fell from the heavens. We have heard his voice: part monk, part prophet, all witness.
But the story does not end with Marwān’s flight. It deepens.
The final entries of the Chronicle will lead us into this shadowed age: into stories of starvation and forced conversion, of governors more feared than raiders, of cosmic signs and unbearable sorrow. It is an age that does not forget the past, but bleeds into it, layer upon layer of lamentation.

The world, for him, has not ended. But for the Christians of northern Mesopotamia, it surely felt as if it had.

THE END.

Works Cited

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Primary Sources

Agapius. Universal History: Al-‘Unwan (Kitāb al-‘Unwān). Translated by Roger Pearse, edited by A. Vasiliev, 2021.
al-Azdī. The Early Muslim Conquest of Syria: An English Translation of al-Azdī’s Futūḥ al-Shām. Translated and annotated by Hamada Hassanein and Jens Scheiner, Routledge, 2020.
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