The Short Chronicle is an eyewitness report on the demise of the Sasanian and Byzantines Empires and the beginning of the Islamic period. It uses official Sasanian sources and Syriac church documents and mentions for the first time new Arab cities, including Mosul, Kufa, and Baṣra.

The Chronicle of Zuqnin is a universal history beginning with the Creation according to the biblical account and ending with the time of the Chronicler, the years 775-776 AD. The author is most probably Joshua the Stylite, a contemporary of the Caliphs al-Mansur and al-Mahdi, who lived in the monastery of Zuqnin that was located near Amid, the Diar-Bakr of modern Turkey. Parts I and II contain compiled sources some of which survived only in this Chronicle. Sources include the Bible, Cave of Treasures, the Sleepers of Ephesus, Eusebius of Caesarea, Socrates, and the short Chronicle called Pseudo-Joshua the Stylite that deals with Sassanian-Byzantine warfare at the begging of the 6th century. Parts III and IV cover the years 488 and 775 AD. In this volume, Parts I and II, including the author’s dedicatory letter, are now published in an updated edition of the Syriac text and the first English translation.

Muslims, Jews and Pagans examines in much detail the available source material on the 'Āliya area south of Medina on the eve of Islam and at the time of the Prophet Muḥammad. It provides part of the necessary background for the study of the Prophet's history by utilizing in addition to the Prophet's biographies, various texts about the history, geography and inhabitants of this area.

As the oldest organized religion in Sassanian Iraq, Judaism serves as a kind of model for other religious organizations in the region. After considering the growth of Judaism in Iraq during the Sassanian period, Morony notes the connections between the Jewish and Aramaean populations as well as the intermixed ethnic communities in which Jews played a part. Social, administrative, and religious issues are all considered. Messianic expectations as they continued to develop in the Jewish community in diaspora round out this discussion of Judaism as a fully developed religion in Iraq under Islamic rule.