Fragment on the Arab Conquests

Fragment on the Arab Conquests are fragmentary notes that were written around the year 636 AD on the front blank pages of a sixth-century Syriac Christian manuscript of the Gospel of Mark.

The fragment depicts events from the early seventh century conflict between the Byzantines and "the Arabs of Muhammad", particularly of the battle of Yarmouk.

On the tenth [of August] the Romans fled from the vicinity of Damascus [and there were killed] many [people], some ten thousand.

On the twentieth of August in the year n[ine hundred and forty-]seven there gathered in Gabitha [a multitude of] the Romans, and many people [of the R]omans were kil[led], [s]ome fifty thousand.

[2] Cook and Crone in Hagarism: The Making of the Islamic World take the fragments to indicate that Muhammad was still alive in 636 at the battle of Yarmouk, contradicting the Muslim accounts of his death.