The Maronite Chronicle is an anonymous annalistic chronicle in the Syriac language completed shortly after 664. It is so named because its author appears to have been a Maronite. It survives today only in a single damaged 8th- or 9th-century manuscript in London, British Library Add. 17,216. Owing to the damage, portions of the chronicle are lost.
The original "Chronicle" began with Creation and continued down to 664. It was written shortly after this date, since the author writes that there was no Arab attack in a particular region after 664 up to the present. The author shows the Maronites winning a debate with the Syrian Orthodox and is sympathetic to the Byzantines, whose victories over Abd al-Rahman ibn Khalid in Anatolia it dutifully reports. He must have been writing before the Sixth Ecumenical Council (680–681), when the Maronites broke with the pro-Byzantine Melkites.
The beginning of the chronicle is lost; the surviving text begins with Alexander the Great. The part covering the late fourth century through the mid-seventh is also lost, but the last part from 658 on survives. It is the only Syriac chronicle to cover the years 660–664. It correctly names the days of week for particular dates, suggesting that many of its passages written shortly after the events.
The "Maronite Chronicle" provides some unique information on the early Umayyad Caliphate. In general it favours the Umayyad Muawiyah over the Caliph Ali in the First Arab Civil War. It is the earliest source to record the Islamic battle cry, "God is great". It reports with disdain the Syrian Orthodox had accepted the status of "dhimma" and paid the "jizya". It is also the only literary witness to Muawiyah's minting of gold and silver coin, which now has some archaeological confirmation.
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