A chronicler’s silence on apocalyptic speculation reveals lost confidence in providential history

Evidence

Both eighthcentury chronicles avoid the issue altogether. The Chronicle of 741 ends abruptly with the accession of the caliph Hisham (724–43); it is as if the author, unable to draw any conclusions from his narrative or to see any wider logic in God’s plan for history, simply left the task of completion for a successor. — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 484

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Magical realist narrators somatize historical catastrophe by refusing societal progress narratives — Rob Nixon, Slow Violence and the Environmentalism…, 965