Ближний Восток и его соседи

g 90 h Vassilios Christides APPENDIX B The Reliability of the Chronicle of Michael the Elder (Michael the Syrian) (d. 1199). New Evidence The most important information we can glean concerning the activities of the Andalusian fugitives in Alexandria appears in the Chronicle of Michael the Elder, patriarch of the Syrian Church (1166–1199). It is a Syriac universal chronicle covering the period from the creation to the year 1195/6. A large number of studies have been written about this monumental Syriac work which has been translated into French. 127 It is beyond the scope of the pre- sent article to extensively discuss the reliability of this work. A succinct account about its main characteristics, adding a short but significant fragment from the description of the activities of the Andalusians in Alexandria is sufficient. Michael the Elder, who was thoroughly educated, used an immense quanti- ty of Greek, Arabic, Syriac and Armenian sources, a number of which are now lost. 128 Michael is frequently accused of having a negative attitude towards the Byzantines and being biased to the Muslims, 129 but as Van Ginkel points out, it is difficult to make a distinction between his ideas and those transmitted uncritically from the original sources. 130 I believe that although the fluidity of boundaries between the material taken from the original sources and Michael’s does not allow us to draw any indispu- table conclusions, certain valuable historical elements reported by Michael the Elder are plainly delineated and his own ideas are clearly manifested. Thus, the description of the expulsion of the Andalusians from Alexandria is a shining example of Michael the Elder’s impartiality. As reported above, he mentions that ‘Abdallāh b. Ṭāhir was a distinguished Arab general and a fair governor who treated all his subjects equally, Muslims and Christians. 131 Of course, in general Michael the Elder’s narration concerning the occupa- (Manglī), Marḍī ibn ‘Alī ibn Marḍī al-Ṭarsūsī and Ibn Akhī Ḥīzām (or Ḥazām)”, Chinese transla- tion by Prof. Lin Ying, University of Zhongshan (forthcoming). 127 J.-B. Chabot, ed. and trans., Chronique de Michel le Syrien, III, 59–61. For an extensive bi- bliography see W. Witakowski, “Syriac Historiographical Sources”, in Proceedings of the British Academy, 132 (2007), 269–282 (article: 253–282); see also Dorothea Weltecke, “Les trois grandes chroniques syro-orthodoxes des XII e et XIII e siècles”, in L’Historiographie syriaque , ed. M. De- bié, Paris 2009 ( Études syriaques 6), 107–135. 128 Weltecke, “Les trois grandes chroniques syro-orthodoxes”, 113. 129 Witakowski, “Syriac Historiographical Sources”, 261. 130 J. J. Van Ginkel, “Mihael the Syrian and his Sources: Reflections on the Methodology of Michael the Great as a Historiographer and its Implications for Modern Historians,” Journal of the Canadian Society for Syriac Studies 6 (2006), 57 (article: 53–60). 131 See note 86 above.