Now coming to that Anonymous Syriac Chronicle at 1234.. That is already year 1234., some 600 years after the death alleged Prophet of Islam and all that hadith stories in Arabic were freely floating around .. I say the further you go from the time of death of Alleged Prophet of Islam *
Debié p.373:
It seems taken for granted in recent scholarship that the now lost chronicle of Theophilus of Edessa (695–780) is the common source shared by Theophanes—who supposedly had access to it through a translation into Greek—, by the Syriac chronicle of Michael the Syrian (Mich. Syr.) and the anonymous Chronicle of 1234 (Chron. 1234), and by Agapius of Menbidj (Agap.) who read it in Syriac and integrated it in his Arabic chronicle.
You see that Chron. 1234 does not take its information in 1234. But from Theophilus (d.780-85) via and Dionysius of Tell-Mahre (d.845).
She adds the topic of the paper which is not "from where Theophilus got his informations about Islam ":
Their topic is to see if one can reconstruct the Theophilus text and his Roman-Syriac sources. Not Muslims:
A reconstruction of Theophilus’ text and even a tentative study of its sources has been attempted, and countless publications on the period talk about Theophilus and his chronicle as if we knew his text, its sources and posterity and could get a reasonable idea of what it looked like and of the historical material it transmitted.
The question: from where Theophilus got his informations about Islam (which is my topic) is not their topic, because it is evident that it is Muslims which provide them.
Andy Hilkens, p.8.:
Excerpts from Chron. 1234 have also been translated in various modern European languages (English, French and Russian) and published in reconstructions of the History of Dionysius of Tell-Mahre, in collections of material attributed to Theophilus of Edessa, in monographs on the history of the Crusades,11 and various other events.
p.12.:
The reader should keep in mind that the chronicle was written from the Syriac Orthodox perspective. Appropriating material from other sources, some (ultimately) written by authors of other cultures (Jewish and Muslim) or other confessions (e.g. Theophilus of Edessa,a Maronite), the Syriac Orthodox author of created his own version of history, his own, Syriac Orthodox, interpretation of events, by emphasising certain aspects and diminishing others. Incorrect information could also be added, or inconsistencies or inconvenient truths could be filtered out.
n.12:
Theophilus of Edessa. was a source for Dionysius of Tell-Mahre whose History was used by the Anonymous Chronicler, the account of the Trojan war (see chapter 25.5) may also have come from Theophilus of Edessa.
p.13:
the Anonymous Chronicler had a wide range of sources at his disposal, not only chronicles and histories, but also apocryphal writings and saints’ lives, letters and literary texts. For this reason, the bulk of this volume is devoted to an analysis of the sources of Chron. 1234
p.423.
The same process of intercultural exchange and parallel transmissions of historical information is visible in the case of Chron. 1234’s Syriac and Arabic sources. Though some Islamic Arabic historical material reached Chron. 1234 via the History of Dionysius of Tell-Mahre, the Anonymous Chronicler also had direct access to an Arabic Islamic source on the Muslim-Arab conquest of Syria and information about certain caliphs, and may have known of certain Arabic texts, such as the Dialogues of Theodore Abu Qurra, the writings of the poet al-Mutanabbi, and an astronomical work written by the caliph al-Ma’mun.
p.424:
These trends (fusing material from different sources, staying true to sources, but sometimes paraphrasing longer narratives) are visible in the Anonymous Chronicler’s use of now lost sources, such as the History of Dionysius of Tell-Mahre.
p.425:
Lastly, some words must be devoted to two subjects which have taken up the majority of this dissertation (together Andronicus): the influence of the Book of Jubilees on Chron. 1234, and the hypothesis that a now lost seventh-, eighth, or early ninth-century Greek historical source was used by Theophanes and a Syriac chronicler, possibly Ignatius of Melitene, whose work was used by Michael the Great and the Anonymous Chronicler.
Let us recapitulate the latter theory first. Firstly, I have shown that the fragments of the early sixth-century Ecclesiastical History of Theodore Lector in Michael’s Chronicle and in Chron. 1234 could not have been transmitted into Syriac via John of Ephesus, because they passed through the seventh-century Epitome of Church Histories first. Secondly, I have suggested that these fragments of the Epitome reached Michael and the Anonymous Chronicler via the same Syriac source as the fragments of the Ecclesiastical History of Philostorgius. Thirdly, the presence of this material in Theophanes’ Chronographia, in similar combinations with material from the Epitome, indicates that the author of this unknown Syriac source found this material in a Greek source and was not personally responsible for the fusion of material from Philostorgius and the Epitome. Fourthly, on the basis that at least one fragment of Philostorgius survives in the Syriac chronicles, but not in Theophanes’ Chronographia, I have suggested that Michael’s and the Anonymous Chronicler’s common source was dependent on Theophanes’ source, not on Theophanes, as has previously been suggested. Fifthly and lastly, I have attempted to (partially) reconstruct this Greek and this Syriac source by isolating common material in Theophanes’, Michael’s and Chron. 1234’s description of the fourth, fifth and sixth centuries, and tracing this material back to Socrates, Priscus and other unknown sources. On the basis of these findings I have hypothesised that Chron. 1234 is dependent on a Syriac history or chronicle, written between the middle of the seventh and the latter half of the twelfth century and based on a Greek history that was written between the early seventh and the early ninth century. Though I have refrained from identifying the Greek intermediary, which presumably was also Theophanes’, source, I have suggested that this Syriac historian may be Ignatius of Melitene. I hope my hypotheses will function as a catalyst for future research to further investigate the relationship between Theodore, the Epitome, and Theophanes, and will take the Syriac witnesses into account.
p.427:
These are but a few concrete examples of the results that this research has produced. Questions that were raised decades ago have been answered, but some of these answers have raised more questions. Despite the fact that the major Syriac chronicles have been edited and translated and have attracted a considerable amount of interest in recent years, and one, including at one point the present author, may believe that research in this field would not yield any more valuable results, the present volume shows otherwise. On the contrary, a close-reading and textual comparison of Greek, Syriac and Arabic chronicles allows us to reconstruct now lost Syriac, Greek and Arabic sources.
Topic: Qur'anic studies today