The Death of a Prophet. Stephen J. Shoemaker
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Chronicle of Siirt, written in Arabic during the tenth century, also depends on Theophilus’s lost Chronicle for its knowledge of many early seventh-century events, including the rise of Islam in particular.101 Although many details found in Dionysius’s account do not appear in the Chronicle of Siirt, the latter similarly indicates Muhammad’s leadership during the initial assault on the Roman Near East in a report that almost certainly depends on Theophilus’s earlier Chronicle. The Chronicle of Siirt begins its account of the rise of Islam by introducing Muhammad’s appearance among the Arabs and briefly describing his religious teachings. Then it continues to relate the events of the conquests: “And Muhammad ibn ʿAbdullah was a strong and powerful leader. In the eighteenth year of Heraclius [627/28], Emperor of the Greeks, the year in which Ardasir the son of Siroe the son of Khosro Parvez reigned [629/30], the Arabs began their conquests, and Islam became powerful. And after that Muhammad no longer went forth in battle, and he began to send out his companions.”102 This passage is obviously much more terse than the account in Dionysius’s Chronicle, but it is sufficient to confirm that the Chronicle of Theophilus, which was their common source, described Muhammad as initiating Near Eastern conquests and then withdrawing, entrusting the command during further expansions to others among his followers.
It would seem that Theophilus has perhaps here also combined two separate traditions about Muhammad’s relation to the Near Eastern conquest: one reporting his direct involvement, as indicated in the first section, and a second that remembered Muhammad as remaining behind, sending forth his followers instead to assault the Roman and Persian empires. Quite possibly, this structure reflects an effort to merge the divergent accounts of the Christian historical tradition with the early biographies of Muhammad that were just beginning to emerge at this time. As Conrad has demonstrated, Theophilus appears to have had access to the nascent Islamic historical tradition in some form, and one would imagine that this was the source of his second tradition separating a still-living Muhammad from later events of the conquests.103 Thus, in a schema that offers an intriguing parallel to the Spanish Eastern Source, which also seems to have had knowledge of the early Islamic historical tradition, Theophilus has possibly harmonized these disparate memories according to a two-stage narrative of the Islamic conquests that begins with Muhammad’s leadership of the initial attacks on Palestine and then is followed by his withdrawal to Medina and a more extensive conquest of the Near East after his death under the leadership of Abū Bakr. Like the Spanish Eastern Source, Theophilus achieves this structure by advancing the onset of the Islamic conquests several years in order to place the initial Islamic attacks on Palestine within the traditional lifespan of Muhammad, that is, before 632, a date that Theophilus may also have learned from his Islamic sources.104
Theophilus’s Chronicle is certainly not free from polemic in its description of the rise of Islam, at least if the Chronicle of 1234 at all represents his account accurately. The earliest followers of Muhammad are depicted as being interested only in plunder, and their successful conquest of the Near East is ultimately accredited to their excessive greed. Moreover, Muhammad’s early travels to Palestine as a merchant are clearly linked with a greater narrative having an apologetic agenda. These trips introduced him to the monotheistic beliefs of the Jews and Christians living there, and the chronicle identifies these as the source of his religious inspiration. The clear implication seems to be that Islam represents nothing more than a rehashing of the Judeo-Christian monotheistic traditions that Muhammad picked up during his visits to Palestine. Nonetheless, Muhammad’s leadership during the conquest of Palestine plays no discernable role in this polemical narrative of Islamic origins: only Muhammad’s travels to Palestine as a merchant are enlisted to mark Islam as derivative of Judaism and Christianity. Moreover, in contrast to his followers, Muhammad does not act out of greed but instead because of his devotion to the monotheistic traditions that he encountered in Palestine. Thus, his leadership of the initial attacks on Palestine is not ascribed to the covetous motives of his followers but instead to a prophetic call to lead them to the land of divine promise. In any case, Theophilus’s identification of Muhammad as alive and leading the initial assaults on Palestine is clear, and the fact that he preserves this tradition perhaps in the face of new information issuing from the nascent Islamic historical tradition is a testament to how deeply engrained the tradition of Muhammad’s leadership during the Palestinian campaign remained in Christian historiography approximately one century after the events.
The Short Syriac Chronicle of 775 (ca. 775 CE)
Among several short Syriac chronicles from the eighth century is an anonymous chronicle sometimes known by the title that it bears in the unique manuscript preserving it: “An Account of the Generations, Races, and Years from Adam until the Present Day.” This chronicle runs very quickly through the main events and figures of the Bible, following these with a list of Roman emperors and the length of their reigns. When it reaches the seventh century, the chronicle interrupts the reign of Heraclius with a brief mention of the Islamic conquests; then it continues to give a list of the early Islamic rulers and the number of years that each reigned, up until the accession of the caliph al-Mahdi in 775, which is the likely date of the chronicle’s completion. The chronicle’s transition from Roman and Muslim authorities, which hinges on the Islamic conquests, is related as follows:
Maurice, 27 years and 6 months; Phocas, 8 years; Heraclius, 24 years. In the year 930 of Alexander, Heraclius and the Romans entered Constantinople. And Muhammad and the Arabs went forth from the south and entered the land and subdued it [
Unfortunately, the chronicler’s knowledge of early seventh-century chronology was rather poor. As Palmer writes, “This text is full of oddities. Of the Byzantine emperors only Phocas reigned for a period approximately equivalent to that shown here. Of the Arab caliphs Abū Bakr is curtailed and ʿUmar I is prolonged.”106 Perhaps the most peculiar item of all, however, is the implication that the Islamic conquest of Palestine took place in the year 618/19. While some of the Christian historical sources place the Islamic conquests before 632, none of them locates it this early: the date precedes even the hijra by three years. Strangely enough, however, a Syriac inscription from a north Syrian church dated to 780 bears the same information: “In the year 930 the Arabs came to the land.”107 Although Palmer and Hoyland both speculate as to possible explanations for this date, it remains a mystery. Nonetheless, for the present purposes the text is clear: in spite of its rather idiosyncratic dating, this short chronicle identifies Muhammad as leading the Islamic invasion of the Roman Near East. While the source of this information is completely unknown, it is conveyed without polemic and in the absence of any sort of apologetic agenda or totalizing explanation.
The Zuqnin Chronicle (ca. 775 CE)
Roughly contemporary with the preceding text is an anonymous chronicle written at the monastery of Zuqnin near Amida (modern Diyarbakır) sometime around 775. Unfortunately, these two chronicles have more in common than just their date of composition: the Zuqnin Chronicle’s chronology is also very weak during the period of the Islamic conquests. In fact, its author warns his readers that he was unable to find reliable sources for most of the seventh and eighth centuries: “From that point (574 CE) up to the present year (775 CE) … I have not found [a history] concerning events which is composed on such solid foundations as the former ones [that is, Eusebius, Socrates, John of Ephesus].”108 In view of the author’s own awareness of the rather poor sources at his disposal, one can hardly fault him for his mistakes in chronology.109 In describing the rise of Islam, the Zuqnin chronicler, in spite of his expectedly weak chronology, nevertheless maintains the tradition of Muhammad’s leadership during the invasion of Palestine:
In 621 the Arabs conquered the land of Palestine all the way to the Euphrates River, and