Maronite Chronicle

The Maronite Chronicle is an anonymous annalistic chronicle in the Syriac language completed shortly after 664. It is so named because its author appears to have been a Maronite. It survives today only in a single damaged 8th- or 9th-century manuscript in London, British Library Add. 17,216. Owing to the damage, portions of the chronicle are lost.[1]

The original Chronicle began with Creation and continued down to 664.[2] It was written shortly after this date, since the author writes that there was no Arab attack in a particular region after 664 up to the present.[3] The author shows the Maronites winning a debate with the Syrian Orthodox[2] and is sympathetic to the Byzantines, whose victories over Abd al-Rahman ibn Khalid in Anatolia it dutifully reports. He must have been writing before the Council in Trullo (680), when the Maronites broke with the pro-Byzantine Melkites.[1]

The beginning of the chronicle is lost; the surviving text begins with Alexander the Great.[2] The part covering the late fourth century through the mid-seventh is also lost, but the last part from 658 on survives.[4] It is the only Syriac chronicle to cover the years 660–664.[5] It correctly names the days of week for particular dates, suggesting that many of its passages written shortly after the events.[1]

The Maronite Chronicle provides some unique information on the early Umayyad Caliphate.[2] In general it favours the Umayyad Muawiyah over the Caliph Ali in the First Arab Civil War.[1] It is the earliest source to record the Islamic battle cry, "God is great".[2] It reports with disdain the Syrian Orthodox had accepted the status of dhimma and paid the jizya.[1] It is also the only literary witness to Muawiyah's minting of gold and silver coin, which now has some archaeological confirmation.[4]