Anonymous Guidi

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As anonymous Guidi (also: Guidi Chronicle or Khuzistan Chronicle ) is an anonymous East Syriac Chronicle called that emerged in the second half of the 7th century and perhaps in Khuzistan was written. It is named after its discoverer and first editor, the Italian orientalist Ignazio Guidi .

The writing was written by an East Syrian Nestorian author after the middle of the 7th century and covers the end of the Sassanid Empire : from the fall of the Persian king Hormizd IV in 590 to the middle of the 7th century. Both church-historical and profane-historical matters are dealt with in chronological order; after the end of the Sassanid Empire, however, profane history fades into the background. It was originally part of a more extensive work that has not been preserved. This is indicated by the abrupt beginning of the work, there it says: Something from Ekklesiastike, ie church history, and from Kosmostike, ie world history, from the death of Hormizd, son of Chosrau, to the end of the Persian Empire.

The presentation repeatedly refers to events in the area of Nisibis and in southern Mesopotamia , about which the author was well informed. The presentation is rather concise, enriched with a few anecdotes, and should above all ensure a quick overview. The author presumably held a high ecclesiastical office. Sometimes Elias von Merw is identified as the author , but this must remain speculation. In recent research it is also increasingly assumed that the original work was supplemented by additions shortly after completion. The chronicle is an important and quite reliable source for the final years of the Sassanid Empire, which was to collapse before the onslaught of the Arabs (see Islamic expansion ).

Translations

  • Nasir al-Ka'bi (Ed.): A Short Chronicle on the End of the Sasanian Empire and Early Islam 590-660 AD Gorgias Press, Piscataway (NJ) 2016. [extensively commented edition with English translation]
  • Theodor Nöldeke : The Syrian Chronicle published by Guidi, translated and commented . In: Meeting reports of the Imperial Academy of Sciences, phil.-hist. Class . Volume 128, 9th Vienna 1893, pp. 1ff. ( Digitized version of the University and State Library of Saxony-Anhalt, Halle )

literature

  • Sebastian P. Brock: Guidi's Chronicle . In: Encyclopædia Iranica . Volume 11 (2003), p. 383.
  • James Howard-Johnston : Witnesses to a World Crisis. Historians and Histories of the Middle East in the Seventh Century . Oxford University Press, Oxford 2010, pp. 128ff.
  • Robert G. Hoyland : Seeing Islam as Others Saw It. A Survey and Evaluation of Christian, Jewish and Zoroastrian Writings on Early Islam . Darwin Press, Princeton NJ 1997, pp. 182ff.
  • John W. Watt: The Portrayal of Heraclius in Syriac Historical Sources . In: Gerrit J. Reinink and Bernard H. Stolte (Eds.): The Reign of Heraclius: Crisis and Confrontation . Peeters, Leuven 2002, pp. 63–79, here p. 64f.

Remarks

  1. ↑ Presented at the Stockholm Orientalist Congress in 1889 and published with a Latin translation in 1903.
  2. ↑ See Johannes Karayannopulos, Günter Weiss: Quellenkunde zur Geschichte von Byzanz . Wiesbaden 1982, No. 139 (670s or 680s); Nöldeke had already considered 670/680 to be the likely drafting period: Nöldeke, The Syrian Chronicle published by Guidi , p. 3. Hoyland, Seeing Islam , p. 185, however, assumes a drafting in the 660s. Brock, Guidi's Chronicle , also estimates around 660.
  3. ↑ Nöldeke, The Syrian Chronicle published by Guidi , p. 5.
  4. ↑ Cf. for example: Ṭabarī. The Sāsānids, the Byzantines, the Lakhmids, and Yemen . Translated and commented by Clifford Edmund Bosworth. Albany / NY 1999, p. 312, note 729; Pierre Nautin: L'auteur de la 'Chronique Anonyme de Guidi': Élie de Merw . In: Revue de l'Histoire des Religions . Volume 199, 1982, pp. 303-314.
  5. ↑ See Howard-Johnston, Witnesses to a World Crisis , pp. 131ff.