The Image of Caliph ‘Ali in the <i>Chronography </i>of Theophanes

Abstract

The article is an attempt to analyse the references used in Theophanes’ Chronography regarding the last rightly guided caliph, ‘Ali. Despite the importance that this ruler ultimately acquired in the historiography of Islam, the Chronography references do not confirm this at all. Theophanes did not even recognize him as a legitimate ruler. He presented ‘Ali as a usurper who had lost the war with Mu‘awiya. Moreover, he appears in these fragments as a man supported either by the “desert people” or by the Persians, elements alien to the core of the new Muslim state, which for Theophanes seems to be Syria and Egypt. The differences in the presentation of Mu‘awiya’s victor by the Byzantine historian and the Abbasid historiography, as well as the contradictions between Theophanes’ version and those presented by Syriac sources, suggest that Theophanes may have presented the Umayyad version of events in certain fragments of his work regarding intra-Islamic conflicts.