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ABSTRACT
Combining evidence from Muslim and Christian sources, this paper attempts to offer some plausible readings as to the identity of the mediators who negotiated the submission of the main Byzantine cities in the context of the Arab conquest (mid. 7th. c.). It also explores how later Christian attitudes towards Islamic lordship and the definition of sectarian confessional groups were retrojected into the portrayal of the actors involved in the negotiations. It argues that ecclesiastical hierarchs, supported by local Arab–Christian elites, had to get involved in the negotiations to fill the void left by Constantinopolitan officials as result of Heraclius' foreign policy. It also contends that the involvement of Roman Arab leaders conjured up images of treachery and betrayal in later normative narratives which remodelled them as apostates and collaborators.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 For a summary of this scholarship, see Walter Kaegi, Byzantium and the Early Islamic Conquests (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), pp. 9–11.
2 Antoine Borrut, Entre mémoire et pouvoir : L’espace syrien sous les derniers Omeyyades et les premiers Abbassides [Islamic History and Civilization. Studies and Texts, volume LXXXI] (Leiden: Brill, 2011); Amir Mazor, “The Kitāb futūḥ al-Shām of al-Qudāmi as a Case Study for the Transmission of Traditions about the Conquest of Syria”, Der Islam 84/1 (2007): 17–45; Jens Scheiner, Die Eroberung von Damaskus: Quellenkritische Untersuchungen zur Historiographie in klassisch-islamischer Zeit (Leiden: Brill, 2010); Harald Motzki studies in Analysing Muslim Traditions: Studies in Legal, Exegetical and Maghāzī Ḥadīth, ed. Nicolet Boekhoff van der Voort, and Sean W. Anthony (Leiden: Brill, 2010), pp. 1–229.
3 Carlo Ginzburg, History, Rhetoric, and Proof (Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1999), p. 25.
4 Albrecht Noth, “Futūḥ-History and Futūḥ-Historiography: The Muslim Conquest of Damascus”, al-Qanṭara 10 (1989): 453–52.
5 Albrecht Noth, “Der Charakter der ersten grössen Sammlungen von Nachrichten zur frühen Kalifenzeit”, Der Islam 47 (1971): 168–99.
6 In the past decades, a line of scholarship has re-appraised the credibility of the base content of the pacts stipulated between Christians and the Muslim conquerors: Alexander Beihammer, Quellenkritische Untersuchungen zu den ägyptischen Kapitulationsverträgen der Jahre 640–646 (Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2000); Milka Levy-Rubin, Non-Muslims in the Early Islamic Empire: From Surrender to Coexistence (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011); Ibrahim Zein and Ahmed El-Wakil, “Khālid b. al-Wālid’s Treaty with the People of Damascus: Identifying the Source Document through Shared and Competing Historical Memories”, Journal of Islamic Studies 31/3 (2020): 295–328; Albrecht Noth, Quellenkritische Studien zu Themen, Formen und Tendenzen frühislamischer Geschichtsüberlieferung, volume I: Themen und Formen [Bonner Orientalische Studien, volume XXV] (Bonn: Selbstverlag des Orientalischen Seminars der Universität Bonn, 1973); Wād al–Qāḍī, “Madkhal ilā dirāsat ʿuhūd al-sulḥ al-islāmiyya zaman al-futūḥ”, in Proceedings of the Second Symposium (4th conference) on the History of Bilād al-Shām during the Early Muslim Period up to 40 AH/640 AD, ed. M. A. Bakhit and I. Abbas, volume II (Arabic) (Amman: University of Jordan, 1987), pp. 193–269.
7 Noth, “Futūḥ-History”; Kaegi, Byzantium, 47.
8 Fred Donner, The Early Islamic Conquests (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1981), pp. 128–39.
9 Noth, “Futūḥ-History”.
10 J.M.B. Jones, “Ibn Isḥāḳ”, in Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition, ed. P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C.E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel and W.P. Heinrichs. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1573-3912_islam_SIM_3222.
11 H. Motzki, “al-Ṣanʿānī”, in Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition, ed. P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C.E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel and W.P. Heinrichs. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1573-3912_islam_SIM_6597.
12 Jens Scheiner, “The Conquest of Damascus According to the Oldest Datable Sources”, in The Transmission and Dynamics of the Textual Sources of Islam: Essays in Honour of Harald Motzki, ed. Nicolet Boekhoff van der Voort, Kees Versteegh and Joas Wagemakers (Leiden: Brill, 2011), pp. 153–80.
13 Al-Ṭabarī, Annales quos scripsit Abu Djafar Mohammed ibn Djarir at-Ṭabarī, volume XI: Taʾrīkh al-rusul wa-l-mulūk, ed. Michael Jean de Goeje et al. (Leiden: Brill, 1879–1901), pp. 2145–6; trans. Khalid Yahya Blankinship, The History of al-Ṭabarī, volume XI: The Challenge to the Empires – A.D. 633-635/A.H. 12–13 (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993), p. 160.
14 There is no agreement in the sources as to the commander who led the conquest of Damascus. Some try to reconcile the conflicting data by positing the access to the city from different gates by different commanders. See Noth, “Futūḥ-History”.
15 Kaegi, Byzantium, 107, 167–9.
16 Donner, Early Islamic Conquests, 133; Kaegi, Byzantium, 119.
17 Al-Balādhurī, Kitāb futūḥ al-buldān, in Liber expugnationis regionum, ed. Michael Jean de Goeje (Leiden: Brill, 1866), pp. 121–3; trans. in Philip Khuri Hitti, The Origins of the Islamic State (New York: Columbia University Press, 1916), pp. 186–9.
18 Referred as commander of the defenders. See al-Ṭabarī, Taʾrīkh al-rusul wa-l-mulūk, 2151, trans. 165.
19 Al-Ṭabarī, Taʾrīkh al-rusul wa-l-mulūk: 2152, trans. 166.
20 Scheiner, “Conquest of Damascus”, 165.
21 Fred Donner, “Sayf b. ʿUmar”, in Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition, ed. P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C.E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel, W.P. Heinrichs, http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1573-3912_islam_SIM_6682.
22 Peter Van Nuffelen and Lieve Van Hoof eds., Clavis historicorum antiquitatis posterioris. An inventory of Late Antique historiography (A.D. 300–800) https://www.late-antique-historiography.ugent.be/database/works/693.
23 Eutychius, “Annals”, in Das Annalenwerk des Eutychios von Alexandrien: Ausgewhälte Geschichten und Legenden kompiliert von Sa'id ibn Baṭrīq um 935 A.D., ed. Michel Breydy [Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium, volume CDLXXI: Scriptores Arabici, volume XLIV] (Leuven: Peeters, 1985), pp. 135–7, trans. Michel Breydy, Das Annalenwerk des Eutychios von Alexandrien: Ausgewhälte Geschichten und Legenden kompiliert von Sa'id ibn Baṭrīq um 935 A.D. [Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium, volume CDLXXII: Scriptores Arabici, volume XLV] (Leuven: Peeters, 1985), pp. 114–16.
24 Eutychius is probably here referring to the Yarmūk battle.
25 Barbara Roggema, “Anastasius of Sinai”, in Christian–Muslim Relations: A Bibliographical History, volume I: (600–900), ed. David Thomas and Barbara Roggema [History of Christian–Muslim Relations, volume XI], eds. David Thomas and Barbara Roggema (Leiden: Brill, 2009), pp. 193–4; Robert G. Hoyland, Seeing Islam as Others Saw It: A Survey and Evaluation of Christian, Jewish and Zoroastrian Writings on Early Islam [Studies in Late Antiquity and Early Islam, volume XIII] (Princeton, NJ: Darwin Press, 1997), pp. 92–103. (check).
26 Bishara Ebeid, “The Melkite-Chalcedonian Reading of History: The Case of Eutychius of Alexandria and his Annals”, Aram 31 (2019): 51–83; Sydney Griffith, “Apologetics and Historiography in the Annals of Eutychios of Alexandria: Christian Self-definition in the World of Islam”, in Studies on the Christian Arabic Heritage in Honour of Father Prof. dr. Samir Khalil Samir S.I. at the Occasion of His Sixty-fifth Birthday, ed. Rifaat Y. Ebied [Eastern Christian Studies, volume V] (Leuven: Peeters, 2004), pp. 65–89.
27 Michel Breydy, “La conquête arabe de l'Egypte: un fragment du traditionniste Uthman Ibn Salih, 144–219 A.H. = 761–834 A.D., identifié dans les annales d’Eutychios d’Alexandrie, 877–940 A.D”, Parole de l'Orient 9 (1979–1980): 379–396. ForʿAbd al-Rahmān ibn ʿAmr al-Awzāʿī see Steven C. Judd, “Ibn ʿAsākir’s Sources for the Late Umayyad Period”, in Ibn ʿAsākir and Early Islamic History, ed. James E. Lindsay [Studies in Late Antiquity and Early Islam, volume XX] (Princeton, NJ: Darwin Press, 2001), pp. 78–99, esp. 79–80. For the treaty, see Zein and El-Wakil, “Khālid b. al-Wālid’s Treaty”, 304.
28 Robert Hoyland, “Eutychius of Alexandria Vindicated: Muslim Sources and Christian Arabic Historiography in the Early Islamic Empire”, in The Historian of Islam at Work, ed. Letizia Osti and Maaike van Berkel [Islamic History and Civilization, volume CXCVIII] (Leiden: Brill), pp. 384–404, esp. 394–9.
29 His son, Sarjūn ibn Manṣūr was a prominent secretary, active at the early Umayyad court, especially under the caliphs Muʿāwiya I and Yazīd I. On him, see Sidney Griffith, “The Mansur Family and Saint John of Damascus: Christians and Muslims in Umayyad Times”, in Christians and Others in the Umayyad State, ed. Antoine Borrut and Fred Donner (Chicago, IL: Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, 2016), pp. 29–52. Dionysius of Tell Maḥre relying on Daniel of Ṭur ʿAbdin presents Sarjūn as a Melkite. See Marianna Mazzola and Peter Van Nuffelen, “A Lost Source for Syriac Christianity in the Umayyad Era: The Ecclesiastical History of Daniel son of Moses of Ṭur ʿAbdin (8th c.)”, Revue d’Histoire Ecclésiastique 118/1–2 (2023): 493–530.
30 Scheiner, “Conquest of Damascus”, 161–7.
31 Marianne Engle Cameron, “Sayf at First: The Transmission of Sayf ibn ʿUmar in al-Ṭabarī and Ibn ʿAsākir”, in Ibn ʿAsākir, ed. Lindsay, pp. 62–77. On al-Ṭabarī’s preference for Ibn Isḥāq on matters of Christian origin, see Sean Anthony, “The Composition of Sayf b. ʿUmar’s Account of King Paul and His Corruption of Ancient Christianity”, Der Islam 85 (2010): 164–202, p. 186–8.
32 For an important assessment about the reliability of his account, see S. Leder, “al-Wāḳidī”, in Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition, ed. P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C.E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel, W.P. Heinrichs, http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1573-3912_islam_SIM_7836.
33 Al-Yaʿqūbī, Taʾrīkh, ed., Martijn Theodoor Houtsma, Ibn-Wādhih qui dicitur al-Jaʿqubī Historiae, volume II (Leiden: Brill, 1883), p. 159; trans. Matthew S. Gordon, Chase F. Robinson, Everett K. Rowson and Michael Fishbein, The Works of Ibn Wāḍiḥ al-Yaʿqūbī: An English Translation, volume III [Islamic History and Civilization, volume CLII] (Leiden: Brill, 2018), p. 766.
34 Author of a Book of the Conquests of Syria which is mistakenly ascribed to al-Wāqidī; the authorship and dating remain unclear. Daniel B. Haneberg, “Erörterungen über Pseudo-Wakidi's geschichte der eroberung syriens”, Abhandlungen der königlich-bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-philologische und historische Classe 9/1 (1860): 133–4; Leder, “al-Wāḳidī”. Lawrence Conrad has argued that the work is later than the First Crusade (1096–9). See Lawrence I. Conrad, “Al-Azdi’s History of the Arab Conquests in Bilād al-Shām: Some Historiographical Observations”, in Proceedings of the Second Symposium on the History of Bilād al- Shām during the Early Islamic Period up to 40 A.H./640 A.D, volume I, ed. M. al-Bakhīṭ (Amman: University of Jordan, 1987), pp. 28–61, esp. 33.
35 Pseudo-Wāqidī, “Futūḥ al-Shām”, in The Conquest of Syria: Commonly Ascribed to Aboo ʾAbd Allah Moḥammad ibn ʾOmar al-Wáqidí, ed. W. Lees (Calcutta: Carbery, 1854.1862), p. 151; trans. Simon Ockley, The Conquest of Syria, Persia, and Egypt, by the Saracens (London: Knaplock, 1708), p. 129.
36 See Mathilde Boudier’s thorough inventory in Mathilde Boudier, “L’Église melkite en Syrie-Palestine (VIIe–Xe siècle): Des chrétiens de Byzance à l’islam”, PhD Thesis, Université Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne, 2020.
37 The Anonymous 1234 calls him John ibn Sarjūn, conflating his original name Manṣūr ibn Sarjūn with his monastic name John. Chronicon ad annum Christi 1234 pertinens, volume I, ed. Jean Baptiste Chabot, [CSCO Scriptores Syri, ser. III, volume XIV] (Leuven: Peeters, 1920), p. 248; trans. Jean Baptiste Chabot, Anonymi auctoris Chronicon ad A.C. 1234 pertinens, volume I [CSCO Scriptores Syri, ser. III, volume XIV] (Leuven: Peeters, 1937), p. 194.
38 On John of Damascus, see Reinhold F. Glei, “John of Damascus”, in Christian–Muslim Relations: A Bibliographical History, volume I: (600–900) [History of Christian–Muslim Relations, volume XI], ed]s. David Thomas and Barbara Roggema (Leiden ]: Brill, 2009), pp. 295–301.
39 Griffith, “Mansur Family”; Mazzola and Van Nuffelen, “Lost Source for Syriac Christianity”.
40 Byzantine administration remained in place after the Arab conquest. Arietta Papaconstantinou, “Administering the Early Arab Empire: Insights from the Papyri”, in Money, Power and Politics in Early Islamic Syria, ed. J. Haldon (Farnham: Ashgate, 2010), pp. 57–74.
41 A certain consensus had arisen around the idea that the common source between the Byzantine chronicler Theophanes and Dionysius of Tell Maḥre was the work of Theophilus of Edessa, presumably expanded until 780 and translated into Greek as the basis for Theophanes’s narration. On the reconstruction of Theophilus, see Robert Hoyland, Theophilus of Edessa’s Chronicle and the Circulation of Historical Knowledge in Late Antiquity and Early Islam [Translated Texts for Historians, volume LVII] (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2011). However, Maria Conterno has recently demonstrated that the underlying narratives of Dionysius for Muslim history ultimately drew on a Greek source exposed to contact with the Arabic oral tradition, and potentially active in territories already under Muslim control. Maria Conterno, La “descrizione dei tempi” all’alba dell’espansione islamica: un’indagine sulla storiografia greca, siriaca e araba fra VII e VIII secolo. [Millennium-Studien, volume XLVII] (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2014). See also Arietta Papaconstantinou, “Review of Hoyland, Theophilus of Edessa’s Chronicle”, Le Muséon 126/2 (2013): 459–65.
42 For these sources, see Andy Hilkens, The Anonymous Syriac Chronicle of 1234 and Its Sources [Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta, volume CCLXXII] (Leuven: Peeters, 2018), pp. 281–92.
43 ʿAbdallāh al-Azdī al-Baṣrī (d. 825). For this author. see The Early Muslim Conquest of Syria: An English Translation of al-Azdī’s Futūḥ al-Shām, ed. and annotated by Hamada Hassanein and Jens Scheiner (London: Routledge, 2019), pp. 6–8.
44 Hilkens, Anonymous Syriac Chronicle, 282.
45 Leder, “al-Wāḳidī”.
46 Jens Scheiner, “Writing the History of the futūḥ: The futūḥ-works by al-Azdī, Ibn Aʿtham, and al-Wāqidī”, in The Lineaments of Islam, ed. Paul Cobb [Islamic History and Civilization, volume XCV] (Leiden: Brill, 2012), pp. 151–76.
47 The name of the local governor “Azrael” is clearly a later invention to serve the literary trick of the parallel between the destiny of the governor and the name of the angel of death in the Qur’ān (Q 32:11). See Pseudo-Wāqidī, Futūḥ al-Shām, 68–9; trans. 107–8.
48 Pseudo-Wāqidī, Futūḥ al-Shām, 57–60; trans. 104–5.
49 Note that the unknown Vorlage of al-Kindī’s translation of Pseudo-Wāqidī apparently has Srjs, as he translates the name as Sergius. Al-Wāqidī (al-Imām), The Islāmic Conquest of Syria: A Translation of Futûhushâm: The Inspiring History of the Saḫābah, trans. Mawlânâ Sulaymân al-Kindî (London: Ta-ha, 2005), p. 60.
50 On Manṣūr’s knowledge of Arabic, see Griffith, “Mansur Family”, 31.
51 Pseudo-Wāqidī, Futūḥ al-Shām, 151.
52 Scheiner, “Writing the History”.
53 Walter E. Kaegi, Heraclius, Emperor of Byzantium (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), pp. 232–3; idem, Byzantium, 124.
54 Kaegi, Byzantium, 139.
55 Ibid., 160.
56 On this source, see Conterno, “Descrizione dei tempi”. Conterno maintains that the source was exposed to Muslim oral tradition, because of the presence of linguistic loans from Arabic and the correspondence of some episodes to the Muslim Arab tradition. Though contending that the source was composed relatively close to the events, she dates it late enough to posit the formation of a Muslim oral tradition on these events (late seventh–early eighth century). According to Stephen Shoemaker, the Islamic details may have been introduced by later Syriac dependents of the source. Moreover, starting out from Muriel Debié’s suggestion that Theophanes had two sources at hand: one covering up to 685 and another for the years 685–717 AD, he claims that the dating of the Eastern Source must be brought forward to the late seventh century. Stephen Shoemaker, A Prophet Has Appeared: The Rise of Islam through Christian and Jewish Eyes. A Sourcebook (Oakland: University of California Press, 2021), pp. 227–8; Muriel Debié, “‘Theophanes’ ‘Oriental Source’: What Can We Learn from Syriac Historiography?”, in Studies in Theophanes, ed. Marek Jankowiak and Federico Montinaro (Paris: Association des Amis du Centre d’Histoire et Civilisation de Byzance, 2015), pp. 365–82. Shoemaker could indeed be right in this regard but his hypothesis does not fully account for the correspondence between the Eastern Source and Muslim historiographers. As they could not have used a Greek account but had to rely on eyewitness reports, two options can be considered to offset this incongruence: a) both the Eastern Source and the Muslim tradition relied independently on eyewitness reports; b) as Conterno determined, the development of a Muslim oral tradition is a necessary premise for the formation of the Eastern Source and thus the formation of this oral report must have immediately followed the conquest.
57 W. Kaegi posits 637 as a date. Kaegi, Byzantium, 159.
58 Michael the Great, Chronicle, ed Jean-Baptiste Chabot, Chronique de Michel le Syrien, patriarche jacobite d’Antioche (1166–1199), volume IV (Paris: Ernest Leroux éditeur, 1910), p. 421; trans. Jean-Baptiste Chabot, Chronique de Michel le Syrien, patriarche jacobite d’Antioche (1166–1199), volume IV (Paris: Ernest Leroux éditeur, 1901), p. 426v; Theophanes the Confessor, Chronicle, ed. Karl de Boor, Theophanis Chronographia, volume II (Leipzig: B. G. Teubner, 1883–1885), p. 340, trans. Cyril A. Mango, Roger Scott, and Geoffrey Greatrex, The Chronicle of Theophanes Confessor: Byzantine and Near Eastern History, a.d. 284–813 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997), p. 473; Anonymous, Chronicle to 1234, 256–7, trans. 200–1; Agapius of Mabbug, History, ed. and trans. Alexandre Vasiliev, Kitab al-ʿunvan: Histoire universelle écrite par Agapius (Mahboub) de Menbidj. Seconde partie, Fasc. 2 (Patrologia Orientalis, volume VIII/3) (Paris: Firnim-Didot, 1912), p. 476; Kaegi, Byzantium, 159–67.
59 Al-Balādhurī, Kitāb futūḥ al-buldān, 174–5, trans. 272–3.
60 G̲h̲āzī al-Wāsiṭī, Radd ʿalā Ahl al-D̲h̲imma wa-man tabiʿahum, ed. and trans. R. Gottheil, “An Answer to the Dhimmis”, Journal of the American Oriental Society 41 (1921): 338–457.
61 For an overview of this tradition, see Zein and El-Wakil, “Khālid b. al-Wālid’s Treaty”.
62 N. Elisséeff, “Ibn ʿAsākir”, in Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition, ed. P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C.E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel and W.P. Heinrichs, http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1573-3912_islam_SIM_3086.
63 Levy-Rubin, Non-Muslims, 84–5.
64 Peter Van Nuffelen and Lieve Van Hoof (eds.), Clavis historicorum antiquitatis posterioris. https://www.late-antique-historiography.ugent.be/database/works/365.
66 For the duration of John of Sedre’s patriarchate, see Michael the Great, Chronicle, ed. 414, trans. 419; Elias of Nisibis, “Chronicle”, in Eliae metropolitae Nisibeni opus chronologicum, ed. E.W. Brooks, volume I [Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium, volume LXII: Scriptores Syri, volume XXI] (Paris-Leipzig: Peeters, 1910), p. 130; trans. E.W. Brooks, Eliae metropolitae Nisibeni opus chronologicum, volume I (Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium, volume LXII: Scriptores Syri, volume XXIII] (Paris-Leipzig: Peeters, 1910), p. 63.
67 Michael the Great, Chronicle, 417, trans. 427.
68 Chronicle of Zuqnin has 960–1 AG ( = 648/9 AD). Anonymous, Chronicle of Zuqnin, ed. Jean Baptiste Chabot, Incerti auctoris Chronicon pseudo-dionysianum vulgo dictum, volume II [Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium, volume CIV: Scriptores Syri, volume LIII] (Paris: Peeters, 1933): 151, trans. Robert Hespel, Chronicon anonymum pseudo-Dionysianum vulgo dictum, volume II [Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium, volume DVII: Scriptores Syri, CCXIII]. (Leuven: Peeters, 1989), p. 113; Michael reports 961–2 AG (649–650 AD).
69 Bernard Flusin already remarked that the Church of the Chalcedonians remained in their hands after the conquest. Bernard Flusin, “Église monophysite et Église chalcédonienne en Syrie à l’arrivée des Arabes”, in Cristianità d’Occidente e cristianità d’Oriente (secoli VI–XI) [Centro Italiano di Studi sull’Alto Medioevo, Settimana di Studio, volume LI] (Spoleto: Fondazione Centro Italiano di Studi sull’Alto Medioevo, 2004), pp. 667–705, esp. 697.
70 Michael the Great, Chronicle, 409, trans. 412; Anonymous, Chronicle to 1234, 237, trans. 185. Cf. Theophanes, Chronicle, 328–9, trans. 459.
71 Anonymous, Chronicle to 1234, 236–7, trans. 185.
72 Agapius of Mabbug, History, 467.
73 This is especially true as Agapius himself relates a forced conversion of the Miaphysite Edessene notables in the previous section. Ibid., 466–7.
74 On the role of Arcadius of Cyprus as arbiter of Heraclius’s religious accommodation of anti-Chalcedonians, see Phil Booth, Crisis of Empire: Doctrine and Dissent at the End of Late Antiquity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2014), pp. 219–20.
75 On the projection of later break-up between Miaphysites and Chalcedonians back to Heraclius policy, see Phil Booth, “Images of Emperors and Emirs in Early Islamic Egypt”, in The Good Christian Ruler in the First Millennium: Views from the Wider Mediterranean World in Conversation, ed. Philipp M. Forness, Alexandra Hasse-Ungeheuer, and Hartmut Leppin [Millennium-Studien, volume XCII] (Berlin: De Gruyter 2021), pp. 397–420. On the successful achievement of the union in Egypt, see Booth, Crisis of Empire, 402–6. On the reception of the Monoenergism and Monothelitism doctrine in Syriac Miaphysite circles, see Maria Conterno, “Byzance hors de Byzance: La controverse monothélite du côté syriaque”, in Les controverses religieuses en syriaque, ed. Flavia Ruani [Études Syriaques, volume XIII] (Paris: Geuthner, 2016), pp. 157–79; Jack Tannous, “In Search of Monotheletism”, Dumbarton Oaks Papers 68 (2014): 29–67.
76 Abū Yūsuf, Kitāb al-Kharāj, trans. Edmond Fagnan, Le livre de l’impôt foncier (Abou Yousof Yakoub) (Paris: Geuthner, 1921), pp. 62–3.
77 Alfred Butler, The Arab Conquest of Egypt and the Last Thirty Years of the Roman Dominion (Oxford: Clarendon Press; New York: Henry Frowde, 1902).
78 Al-Balādhurī, Kitāb futūḥ al-buldān, 217; al-Ṭabarī, Taʾrīkh al-rusul wa-l-mulūk, 2580–93.
79 Phil Booth, “The Muslim Conquest Reconsidered”, Travaux et Mémoires du Centre de Recherche d'Histoire et Civilisation de Byzance 17 (2013): 639–70.
80 Butler, Arab Conquest, 508–26.
81 Hoyland, Seeing Islam, 574–9. Note that also Abū ʿUbayd al-Qāsim (d. 837) relates a tradition stemming from ʿAlī b. Rabāḥ relating that Muqawqas/Cyrus was paying tribute to the Arabs before ʿAmr invaded Egypt. Al-Qāsim, Kitāb al-Amwāl, trans. Imran Ahsan Khan Nyazee, The Book of Revenue (Reading: Garnet, 2003), p. 143.
82 On Cyrus’s recall from exile see Phil Booth, “The Last Years of Cyrus, Patriarch of Alexandria (†642)”, in Mélanges Jean Gascou, ed. J.-L. Fournet and A. Papaconstantinou, Travaux et Mémoires 19 (2016): 509–55, pp. 520–7. The Eastern Source does not provide dates for the reinstatement but reports that Cyrus was recalled to renew the truce with the Arabs after Manuel’s defeat. Nicephorus instead claims that he was reinstated by Heracleonas upon his ascent to the throne as sole emperor (April/May 641) to negotiate the evacuation of Alexandria.
83 Hoyland, Seeing Islam, 581–2.
84 Booth, Crisis of Empire, 250–1; Hoyland, Seeing Islam: 589–90.
85 Kaegi, Byzantium, 167–9.
86 Anonymous, Chronicle to 1234, 252–3; trans. 197–8; Michael the Great, Chronicle, 418–9; trans. 424-5V; Agapius of Mabbug, History, 471–2; Theophanes, Chronicle, 338–9; trans. 470.
87 Michael the Great, Chronicle, 422–3, trans. 432–3; Anonymous, Chronicle to 1234, 253, trans. 197–8.
88 Anonymous, Chronicle to 1234, 251, trans. 197; Michael the Great more generically mentions ‘stories’. Michael the Great, Chronicle, 422, trans. 432v.
89 As suggested in Jan Van Ginkel, “The Perception and Presentation of the Arab Conquest in Syriac Historiography: How Did the Changing Social Position of the Syrian Orthodox Community Influence the Account of Their Historiographers?”, in The Encounter of Eastern Christianity with Early Islam, ed. Emmanouela Grypeou, Mark Swanson, and David Thomas [The History of Christian-Muslim Relations, volume V] (Leiden: Brill, 2006), pp. 171–84, esp. 179.
90 Conterno, “Descrizione dei Tempi”, 44–5.
91 Ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥakam, Futūḥ Miṣr wa-akhbāruhā, ed. Charles C. Torrey (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1922), p. 58.
92 Eutychius, Annals, 143–5, trans. 122–5.
93 The two reports converge on the figure of Muqawqas as negotiator of the surrender, the three surrender options offered by ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀṣ and the three conditions laid down by Muqawqas, including the reference to the church burial. Al-Balādhurī, Kitāb futūḥ al-buldān, 215, trans. 339–40.
94 Breydy, “La conquête arabe de l’Egypte". Note that Eutychius could not rely on ʿUthmān b. Ṣāliḥ’s dependent Ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥakam (d. 257/871). See Charles Torrey, History of the Conquest of Egypt, North Africa and Spain. Also known as kitaab futuuh Miss by Bin 'Abd al Hakam (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1922), pp. 1–24. Note that the segment on the conquest of Egypt considered here seems to be the same in both the Antiochian and the Alexandrian redactions of Eutychius’s Annals, thus the distinction between the two versions and their debated authorship will not be considered here. For a summary and reassessment of the status questionis, see Maria Conterno, “The Recensions of Eutychius of Alexandria’s Annals: Ms Sinai 582 Reconsidered”, Adamantius 25 (2019): 383–404.
95 Through ʿUthmān b. Ṣāliḥ (d. 834).
96 Al-Ṭabarī, Taʾrīkh al-rusul wa-l-mulūk, 2584–5; trans. Gautier H. A. Juynboll, The Conquest of Iraq, Southwestern Persia, and Egypt: The Middle Years of ‘Umar’s Caliphate A.D. 636–642/A.H. 15–21 (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989), pp. 166–9. In this tradition, the Arab commander ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀṣ offers to take the interests of the “Copts” because they have ties of kinship with the Arabs.
97 Al-Yaʿqūbī, Taʾrīkh II: 169; trans. 777–8.
98 Al-Qāsim, Kitāb al-Amwāl, trans. 99, 144.
99 Booth, “Last Years of Cyrus”, 553.
100 Booth, “Last Years of Cyrus”.
101 Edward Zychowicz-Coghill, “Minority Representation in the Futuh Misr of Ibn ʿAbd al-Hakam: Origins and Roles”, in The Late Antique World of Early Islam: Muslims among Christians and Jews in the East Mediterranean, ed. Robert Hoyland (Princeton, NJ: Darwin Press, 2015), pp. 9–35.
102 On this ḥadīth tradition, see Hussein Omar, “‘The Crinkly Haired People of the Black Earth’: Examining Egyptian Identities in Ibn Abd al-Hakam’s Futuh”, in History and Identity in the Late Antique Near East, ed. Philip Wood (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), pp. 157–61.
103 Al-Ṭabarī, Taʾrīkh al-rusul wa-l-mulūk, 2585–7, trans. 166–70.
104 Note that the manuscripts diverge as to the inclusion of this name as well as its vocalisation.
105 This identification is still debated. Michael Johan De Goeje, Memoires d’histoire et de géographie orientales (Leiden: Brill, 1900), pp. 61–2, posits the misrendering of the word tribunus. According to Caetani it is the distortion of the name “Aretion”, identifying him with the governor of Jerusalem who took shelter in Egypt right after the conquest of the city. In this hypothesis, he is followed by Butler, Conquest of Egypt, 215. Kaegi identifies him with Wardan. Kaegi, Byzantium, 99.
106 Al-Ṭabarī, Taʾrīkh al-rusul wa-l-mulūk, 2587–9, trans. 170–2.
107 Butler, Arab Conquest of Egypt, 513–5.
108 Hoyland, Seeing Islam, 134. For later attestation of this name see Butler, Arab Conquest of Egypt, 514.
109 On this line of tradition, see Maged S. A. Mikhail, From Byzantine to Islamic Egypt: Religion, Identity and Politics after the Arab Conquest [Library of Middle East History, volume XLV] (London: I. B. Tauris, 2014), pp. 19–20.
110 Hoyland, Seeing Islam, 132–5.
111 Alfred Joshua Butler, The Treaty of Miṣr in Ṭabari: An Essay in Criticism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1913), pp. 57–60.
112 On the references to Miṣr as a city see John of Nikiu, Chronicle, trans. Robert Henry Charles, The Chronicle of John, Bishop of Nikiu (London-Oxford: Williams & Norgate), pp. 180, 187; Anonymous, Chronicle up to 1234, 253, trans. 198.
113 Theodore I, Bishop of Miṣr, appointed during the patriarchate of Michael I (r. 744–69), Mawhūb ibn Manṣūr, History of the Patriarchs, ed. and trans. Basil Thomas Alfred Evetts, History of the Patriarchs of the Coptic Church of Alexandria: Peter I to Benjamin I [Patrologia Orientalis, volume I] (Paris: Firmin-Didot, 1907), p. 104. Other bishops of Miṣr in the eighth century: Constantine: 126; Theodore II: 210.
114 Giorgio Fedalto, Hierarchia ecclesiastica orientalis: series episcoporum ecclesiarum christianarum orientalium: Patriarchatus Constantinopolitanus (Padova: Edizioni Messaggero, 1988), pp. 614–15; K. A. Worp, “A Checklist of Bishops in Byzantine Egypt (A.D. 325–c. 750)”, Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 100 (1994): 283–318, p. 297. An additional attestation of a bishop of Babylon is found in the Coptic papyrus P.Col. inv. 552a (sixth–eighth century). See Jennifer Westerfeld, “A Coptic Letter Referring to the Bishop of Babylon”, Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists 50 (2013): 171–81.
115 Nikolaos Gonis, “Abū and Apa: Arab. Onomastics in Egyptian Context”, Journal of Juristic Papyrology 31 (2001): 47–9.
116 Marie Legendre, “Perméabilité linguistique et anthroponymique entre copte et arabe: Exemple de comptes en caractères coptes du Fayoum fatimide, en Annexe: Répertoire des anthroponymes arabes attestés dans les documents coptes”, in Coptica Argentoratensia, Conférences et documents de la 3e université d’été en papyrologie copte, ed. Anne Boud’hors, Alain Delattre, Catherine Louis, and Tonio Sebastian Richter (Paris: De Boccard), pp. 325–440, esp. 398–437.
117 Tax collector from the tribes. Saleh A. el- Ali and Cl. Cahen, “ʿArīf”, in Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition, ed. P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C.E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel, and W.P. Heinrichs, http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1573-3912_islam_SIM_0723.
118 On the expected tribal association for converts to Islam, see Petra M. Sijpesteijn, Shaping a Muslim State: The World of a Mid-Eighth-Century Egyptian Official (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), p. 165; Yossef Rapoport, “Invisible Peasants, Marauding Nomads: Taxation, Tribalism and Rebellion in Mamluk Egypt”, Mamlūk Studies Review 8 (2004): 1–22.
119 A ḥadīth reported by Al-Qāsim states that it was the governor of Egypt Muqawqas (Cyrus) who offered Māriyya as a gift to Muḥammad. Al-Qāsim, Kitāb al-Amwāl, trans. 256. See also Zychowicz-Coghill, “Minority Representation”, 20–1.
120 Zychowicz-Coghill, “Minority Representation”, 13.
121 For an overview, see Sean W. Anthony, “Composition of Sayf b. ʿUmar 's Account”; Ella Landau-Tasseron, “Sayf Ibn ʿUmar in Medieval and Modern Scholarship”, Der Islam 67/1 (1990): 1–26.
122 Nicephorus relies on Constantinopolitan sources. The Eastern Source seems to be better informed on the events of Syria and Palestine. Conterno, “Descrizione dei tempi”, 74.
123 Booth, “Muslim Conquest of Egypt”, 659.
124 The Eastern Source has Manuel. Al-Ṭabarī has Arṭabūn. See Agapius, History, 472; Anonymous, Chronicle 1234, 252, trans. 197; Michael the Great, Chronicle, 419t, 425v; Theophanes, Chronicle, 338, trans. 470. Al-Ṭabarī, Taʾrīkh al-rusul wa-l-mulūk, 2404, trans. 190.
125 John of Nikiu, Chronicle, trans. 194.
126 Different dates are proposed in Heribert Busse, “Omar b. al-Hattab in Jerusalem”, Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 5 (1984): 73–119, pp. 111–16; Kaegi, Byzantium, 67, 146.
127 On the importance of Jerusalem and how this is discernible in Christian and Jewish witnesses on early Islam, see Shoemaker, A Prophet Has Appeared. On ʿUmar’s visit to the religious sites in Jerusalem, see Busse, “Omar b. al-Hattab”.
128 Heribert Busse, “Omar’s Image as the Conqueror of Jerusalem”, Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 8 (1986): 149–68, pp. 151–3.
129 Ibid., 153–6.
130 Al-Balādhurī, Kitāb futūḥ al-buldān, 139, trans. 214.
131 Busse, “Omar’s image”.
132 Busse, “Omar b. al-Hattab”, 111–16.
133 Agapius, History, 215; Michael the Great, Chronicle, 419–20, trans. 425–6; Anonymous, Chronicle to 1234, 199–200, trans. 254–5; Theophanes, Chronography, 339, trans. 471–2.
134 Glen W. Bowersock, The Crucible of Islam (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2017), pp. 120–3; Maria Conterno “‘L'abominio della desolazione nel luogo santo’: L’ingresso di’Umar I a Gerusalemme nella ‘Cronografia’ di Teofane Confessore e in tre cronache siriache”, Quaderni di Storia religiosa 17 (2010): 9–24; Shoemaker, A Prophet Has Appeared, 224–34.
135 Sophronius, Homily on the Nativity; Homily on the Epiphany, ed. Hermann Usener, “Die Weihnachtspredigt des Sophronios”, Rheinisches Museum für Philologie 41 (1886): 500–16; Athanasios Papadopoulos, Ανάλϵκτα Ιϵροσολυμιτικής σταχυολο- γίας [Analekta Hierosolymitikēs Stachyologias, volume V] (St. Petersburg: Kirsbaum, 1898).
136 For a discussion, see Shoemaker, A Prophet Has Appeared, 232–4.
137 For the dating of this source see footnote n. check
138 Paul M. Cobb, “A Note on ʿUmar’s Visit to Ayla in 17/638”, Der Islam 71 (1994): 283–8.
139 H. Busse and P. Cobb read the symbolic references to the Christian liturgy and messianic expectations as a ground for Christian origin of the tale. Busse, “Omar b. al-Hattab”, Cobb, “Note on ʿUmar’s Visit”. Shoemaker endorses this interpretation. Shoemaker, A Prophet Has Appeared: 224–34. Conterno posits instead the influence of Arab oral tradition on the source, though she does not rule out that the original report was Christian. Conterno, "Descrizione dei Tempi": 75.
140 See above for Damascus and Egypt.
141 Pseudo-Wāqidī, Futūḥ al-Shām, trans. 213.
142 Eutychius does not include any of the synoptic episodes of the other Eastern Source’s dependents.
143 Pseudo-Wāqidī, Futūḥ al-Shām, trans. 213.
144 Hoyland, “Eutychius of Alexandria”.
145 Probably Theodore sacellarius.
146 Al-Ṭabarī, Taʾrīkh al-rusul wa-l-mulūk, 2404, trans. Yohanan Friedmann, The History of al-Ṭabarī, volume XII: The Battle of al-Qadisiyyah and the Conquest of Syria and Palestine A.D. 635–637/A.H. 14–15 (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991), p. 190.
147 Kaegi, Byzantium, 67.
148 Scheiner, Early Muslim Conquest, 246 n. 485.
149 Al-Azdī, Futūḥ al-Shām, (Irbid: Muʾassasat Ḥammāda 2004), p. 366, trans. Hassanein and Scheiner, Early Muslim Conquest, pp. 259–60.
150 Ibn Aʿtham al-Kūfī, Kitāb al-futūḥ, ed. M. Khān (Haydarabad: Maṭbūʿāt Dāʾirat al-Maʿārif al-ʿUthmānīya, 1968–1975), p. 227.
151 Anonymous, Chronicle to 1234, 255, trans. 199.
152 On Ibn Aʿtham and Anonymous 1234’s use of Al-Azdī, see Lawrence Conrad, “Ibn Aʿtham and His History”, al-ʿUṣūr al-Wusṭā 23 (2015): 87–125; Hilkens, Anonymous Syriac Chronicle, 281–92.
153 Pseudo-Wāqidī, Futūḥ al-Shām, traans. 203-4; See also Al-Wāqidī, Islāmic Conquest, trans. al-Kindî, 358–60. The drowning of the Byzantine army during the Battle of Yarmūk Battle is also reported in Theophanes, Chronography, 338, trans. 470.
154 Al-Wāqidī, Islāmic Conquest, trans. al-Kindî, 400–1.
155 Irfan Shahīd, “Ṭayyiʾ or Ṭayy”, in Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition, ed. P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C.E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel and W.P. Heinrichs, http://doi.org/10.1163/1573-3912_islam_SIM_7471.
156 Al-Qāsim, Kitāb al-Amwāl, trans. 155.
157 Ahmad Shboul and Alan Walmsley, “Identity and Self-Image in Syria- Palestine in the Transition from Byzantine to Early Islamic Rule: Arab Christians and Muslims”, Mediterranean Archaeology 11 (1998): 255–87, p. 264.
158 J.H.W.F. Liebeschuetz, East and West in Late Antiquity: Invasion, Settlement, Ethnogenesis and Conflicts of Religion [Impact of Empire, volume XX] (Leiden: Brill, 2015), pp. 288–322; Irfan Shahīd, Byzantium and the Arabs in the Sixth Century, volume II, part 1 (Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 2002), pp. 21–75.
159 For the geographic distribution, see ibid., 76–115. For their connection to the Holy Land and the building program of Ghassānid rulers in Jerusalem see ibid., 146–7; II, part 2: 69–70.
160 Levy-Rubin, Non-Muslims, 52.
161 Claudia Rapp, Holy Bishops in Late Antiquity: The Nature of Christian Leadership in an Age of Transition [The Transformation of the Classical Heritage] (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), pp. 23–55.
162 Jean Durliat, “Les attributions civiles des évêques byzantins: L’exemple du diocèse d’Afrique (533–709)”, Jahrbuch der Öterreichischen Byzantinistik 32/2 (1982): 73–83; John Hugo Wolfgang Gideon Liebeschuetz, “The Rise of the Bishop in the Christian Roman Empire and the Successor Kingdoms”, in Donum amicitiae: Studies in Ancient History Published on the Occasion of the 75th Anniversary of the Foundation of the Department of the Ancient History of the Jagiellonian University, ed. Edward Dabrowa (Krakow: Jagiellonian University Press, 1997), pp. 113–25; Armin Hohlweg, “Bischof und Stadtherr im frühen Byzanz”, Jahrbuch der Österreichischen Byzantinistik 20 (1971): 51–62; Rita Lizzi, Il potere episcopale nell’Oriente romano: Rappresentazione ideologica e realtà politica (iv-v sec.) (Rome: Edizioni dell’Ateneo, 1987), pp. 57–84; John C. Lamoreaux, “Episcopal Courts in Late Antiquity”, Journal of Early Christian Studies 3/2 (1995): 143–67; Rapp, Holy Bishops, 155–207.
163 See e.g. plenty of examples in the context of the Byzantine–Persian Wars (363–630). Geoffrey Greatrex and Samuel N.C. Lieu, eds., The Roman Eastern Frontier and the Persian Wars, Part II: AD 363–630, A Narrative Sourcesbook (London: Routledge, 2002), pp. 43, 103, 146, 168, 173, 177, 193.
164 Shboul and Walmsley, “Identity and Self-image”, 263–9.
165 Jack Tannous, The Making of the Medieval Middle East: Religion, Society, and Simple Believers (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2018), pp. 11–200.