Years of ash

Khalifa bin Khayyât notes a Year of al-Ramada. This, the Muslims tell us, meant the Year Of Ash when there was drought, and/or a dustbowl. Such Muslims set the end of the year 17 AH to the beginning of the year 18 AH so also December-January AD 638-9... aaaand now you see why I like the AG system. As Elias bar Shenaya notes - possibly from Jacob Edessene - that's AG 950, also indiction XII in Roman territory (what was left of it). May the Old-European-Culture blogger take note: this season is the rainy-season, which we hardly need remind our readers is somewhat important in lower-latitudes next to the freaking SYRIAN DESERT.

Anyway Khalifa puts the Ramada into AH 18 which is when its famine would have hit. (Plague of Emmaus too.) His main chain is: Bakr [bin ʿAtiyya] from an Ibn Ishâq - probably Ibrâhîm but possibly his son Ismâîl whom he cites elsewhere.

Ibn Ishâq had further tagged the fall of Edessa for this ashen year. The same transmitter, possibly in a different lecture, related the whole Jazira futuh in a single account. Khalifa runs with that year into which he dumps the lot.

The 819/846 synopsis likewise tags for the same year, "AG 947" in his case: when Edessa and Harran fell to "Abû Badr"; and ReshʿAyna, Âmid, Dara, and Tella to ʿIyâd. (The 1234 Chronicler agrees concerning Edessa.) The next entry Palmer found hard to read but probably should be AG 953, so we are really looking at a span starting AG 947 and maybe overlapping. Once more Michael the Syrian has ʿIyâd's first whip-'round the north after AG 948, with the fall of Edessa, Dara, and Tella after year - we'll get to that.

ReshʿAyna at AG 947 agrees with good priest Thomas chronicling nearby Mardîn, not naming the conquerer. Zuqnîn and Elias pin AG 948 for Edessa. Zuqnî says, to ʿIyâd; and he assigns AG 952 for Dara. Therefore I take AG 947 as a hard date only for ReshʿAyna, and per Elias I'm agnostic on who took it - although Edessa 948 Abû Badr tempts me. 819/846 is further not offering a sequential order of dominoes. As for Michael: he is doing the best he can with his sources, the main one being Dionysius of TelMahre.

Michael sticks "27 Heraclius", "18 ʿArabs", "6 ʿUmar" at the beginning of the later, full-conquest account; Agapius "6 ʿUmar", "18 ʿArabs", "29 Heraclius" at the end of the former. Except for Michael, this synopsis agrees upon the fall of Antioch belonging earlier. Theophanes put the former as 27 Heraclius but 3 ʿUmar (Antioch for the next year), the Edessa-Tella-Dara side 29/5. This looks like a common source - usually considered Theophilus - who split west from east with "6 ʿUmar" and "18 ʿArabs", and some year of Heraclius we cannot decipher. Dionysius' habit was AG / emperor / Tayy / caliph; I assume the same for Theophilus the Melkite, whom Agapius the Arabophone has flipped. The synopsis does not always transmit all four: here only Michael prepends "AG 951", which 1234 prepends to the whole mess, so we have little handle on Dionysus, therefore nothing for Theophilus.

From the above, I take it that of the *Theophilus synopsis only 1234 cared about ReshʿAyna, with perhaps *Dionysius in between - but at least that "AG" year had dropped out, which Michael replaced with his own schema. Zuqnîn's dates for Edessa and Dara, both, do not contradict the others. The 1234 and Theophanes agree Tella fell in between - a round circa AG 950 shall do for that.

Back in Khalifa's chronicle is some churn about whether Abû Mûsa al-Ansârî was up there - rather than down in Mayshân building Basra. I am inclined to laugh this off.

In other sources, Khalifa reports some Mesopotamians had told "me" - who might just be Khalifa - that their cities owned written treaties with ʿIyâd's seal on them. Not just Âmid but also Harran and even Nisibin. We read the same in the rest. I assume such treaties are what the Syrian chronicles used, ultimately.