The Ghassanids, also known as the Jafnids, were an Arab Christian kingdom. A confederation of Arab tribes based in the Levant, Genealogies trace their ancestry back to the Azd tribe of Arabia. They became clients of the Roman Empire, serving as foederati responsible for defending the eastern frontier of the empire against Bedouin raids and rival powers.
As Roman allies, the Ghassanids frequently fought against the Lakhmid kingdom, a rival Arab polity allied with the Sasanian Empire, and played a significant role in the Roman–Persian conflicts of late antiquity. During this period, they converted to Christianity and emerged as one of the most prominent Arab Christian groups in the pre-Islamic Near East.
At the height of their power in the 6th century, particularly under the reign of Justinian I, the Ghassanids rose from being one of several Arab allies of Byzantium to exercising collective authority over them all, forming a broad confederation of Arab tribes. This ushered in period of unprecedented Arab statesmanship and leadership. Although relations with Byzantium were occasionally strained, the Ghassanids remained key allies of the empire until the early 7th century, participating in the final Byzantine–Sasanian War of 602–628.
The early Muslim conquests closed the period of Ghassanid power in the Near East, as both Romans and Persians rapidly lost territory. In 636, the Ghassanids faced a decisive military defeat at the Battle of the Yarmuk and fell under the rule of the Rashidun Caliphate. The Ghassanids largely retained their Christian affiliation, dispersing into the Melkite and Syriac churches.
History
Origins
Christian J. Robin's study of pre-Islamic epigraphy has suggested that between the third and fourth centuries CE, the Ghassanids were the main tribal confederation acting in the Hejaz, with a base that may have been stationed at Medina. Additional support for this geography has come from new discoveries. The period of Ghassanid domination of this region ended when the Ghassanids migrated northwards, into the territory of Syria, which would remain their main base of operations until Islamic times.
In the Arab genealogical tradition, which developed during the early Islamic period (7th-10th centuries), the Ghassanids were considered a branch of the Azd tribe of South Arabia. In this genealogical scheme, their ancestor was Jafna, a son of Amr Muzayqiya ibn Amir ibn Haritha ibn Imru al-Qays ibn Tha'laba ibn Mazin ibn Azd, through whom the Ghassanids were purportedly linked with the Ansar (the Aws and Khazraj tribes of Medina), who were the descendants of Jafna's brother Tha'laba. According to the historian Brian Ulrich, the links between Ghassan, the Ansar, and the wider Azd are historically tenuous, as these groups are almost always counted separately from each other in sources other than post-8th-century genealogical works and the story of the 'Scattering of Azd'. In the latter story, the Azd migrate northward from South Arabia and different groups of the tribe split off in different directions, with the Ghassan being one such group. Per the "Scattering of Azd" story, the Ghassanids eventually settled within the Roman limes. The tradition of Ghassanid migration finds support in the Geography of Ptolemy, which locates a tribe called the Kassanitai south of the Kinaidokolpitai and the river Baitios (probably the wadi Baysh). These are probably the people called Casani in Pliny the Elder, Gasandoi in Diodorus Siculus and Kasandreis in Photios I of Constantinople (relying on older sources).
The date of the migration to the Levant is unclear, but they are believed to have first arrived in the region of Syria between 250 and 300, with later waves of migration circa 400. Their earliest appearance in records is dated to 473, when their chief, Amorkesos, signed a treaty with the Byzantine Empire acknowledging their status as foederati controlling parts of Palestine.
Byzantine period
Becoming clients of the Byzantines
After originally settling in the Levant, the Ghassanids became a client state to the Byzantine Empire. The Romans found a powerful ally in the Ghassanids who acted as a buffer zone against the Lakhmids. In addition, as kings of their own people, they were also phylarchs, native rulers of client frontier states. The capital was at Jabiyah in the Golan Heights. Geographically, it occupied much of the eastern Levant, and its authority extended via tribal alliances with other Azdi tribes all the way to the northern Hijaz as far south as Yathrib (Medina).
Military rivalry with the Persians and Sasanians
The Ghassanids fought alongside the Eastern Roman Empire against the Persian Sasanians and Arab Lakhmids. The lands of the Ghassanids also continually acted as a buffer zone, protecting Byzantine lands against raids by Bedouin tribes. Among their Arab allies were the Banu Judham and Banu Amilah.
The Byzantines were focused more on the East and a long war with the Sasanians was always their main concern. The Ghassanids maintained their rule as the guardian of trade routes, policed Lakhmid tribes and was a source of troops for the imperial army. The Ghassanid king al-Harith ibn Jabalah (reigned 529–569) supported the Byzantines against the Sasanians and was given in 529 by the emperor Justinian I, the highest imperial title that was ever bestowed upon a foreign ruler; also the status of patricians. In addition to that, al-Harith ibn Jabalah was given the rule over all the Arab allies of the Byzantine Empire. Al-Harith was a Miaphysite Christian; he helped to revive the Syrian Miaphysite (Jacobite) Church and supported Miaphysite development despite Orthodox Byzantium regarding it as heretical. Later Byzantine mistrust and persecution of such religious unorthodoxy brought down his successors, Al-Mundhir III ibn al-Harith (r. 569–582).
The Ghassanids, who had successfully opposed the Lakhmids of al-Hirah in Lower Mesopotamia, prospered economically and engaged in much religious and public building; they also patronized the arts and at one time entertained the Arab poets al-Nabighah and Hassan ibn Thabit at their courts.
The "Dissolution" period under Maurice (582–585 AD)
As the Ghassanids gained overwhelming power in the second half of the sixth century, having transitioned well past the level of disorganized raiders from earlier centuries, the Byzantine rulers began to see them as a dangerous force that could vie for independence.
The dissolution of the Ghassanid confederation came during the reign of the emperor Maurice, and materialized as negotiations aimed at settling the differences between the Byzantines and the Ghassanids failed. Upon the accession of Maurice to the Byzantine throne, the phylarch Al-Nu'man travelled to the Byzantine court at Constantinople. The Byzantines demanded Al-Nu'man resume the war against the Persians and accept the Chalcedonian doctrine (as the Ghassanids believed in Monophysitism). Al-Nu'man refused both. As he was travelling back, to the Oriens (Diocese of the East), he was arrested: Al-Nu'man was tried and sentenced for treason.
After the arrest of Al-Nu'man, the Byzantines announced the end of the Ghassanid phylarchate and tribal alliance. The confederation was dissolved into its 15 member tribes, with the tribe of Ghassan losing sway over a once large confederation of loyal tribes. Some of these tribes decided to remain allied with the Byzantines as individuals, whereas other dissatisfied groups joined the Persian constellation of power. Other groups chose other paths.
The restoration under Maurice (585–602 AD)
The dissolution of the Ghassanid phylarcate did not last very long. After two or three years, Maurice came to the realization that he was not able to defend the Oriens without the help of the Ghassanids, who the Byzantines had already relied on for this job for most of the sixth century up until that point. The Ghassanid confederation was restored (even though they remained Monophysite), and the Ghassanids returned to their military ventures against the Persians. Information about the Ghassanids becomes scarce for much of the remainder of the reign of Maurice until his death in 602 AD. The exception is some information about the phylarch Jafnah, brother of Al-Nu'man, active between 587 and 591 AD, preserved by Michael the Syrian. Greek sources no longer mention the Ghassanids after 593/594 AD, although they were still important at this time and begin to appear in Arabic poetry. The poetry of Al-Nabigha says Al-Nu'man was returned to the Ghassanids in the 590s, became active again as a Ghassanid chief, and passed before 600.
The reign of Phocas (602–610 AD)
The accession of Phocas to the Byzantine throne in 602 AD came with an immediate restoration in relations between the Byzantines and the Ghassanids. Al-Mundhir III, the father of Al-Nu'man, was immediately released from his exile in Sicily. Unfortunately, nothing else is known about the return of Al-Mundhir. Towards the end of Phocas' time, relations with the Ghassanids may have soured again, as Phocas became more tyrannically ardent in the Dyophysite doctrine and began to crush Monophysite uprisings in the Oriens. The reaction of the Ghassanids to this episode is unknown, but Shahid mentions that they temporarily withdrew their service to the empire when a similar event took place in 519.
During the reign of Phocas, the Byzantine–Sasanian War of 602–628 broke out, and the Ghassanids played an essential role on the side of the Byzantines. The only surviving record of the role of the Ghassanids in the Byzantine-Sasanian war, during the reign of Phocas, is a long and detailed poem by Hassan ibn Thabit. Eight to ten verses from the poem are about the Ghassanids, providing the name of Ghassanid commanders (ʿAmr and Ḥujr), speaking of the Ghassanid war cry ("Yāla Ghassān iṣbirū": "O Ghassān, endure, stand fast!"), and the weapons they used (including broad swords and spears).
The reign of Heraclius (610–641 AD)
In the time of the emperor Heraclius, relations with the Ghassanids dramatically improved, and they became as good as they were at their height in the time of Justinian I. The three main episodes for the Ghassanids in this time period is the joint Ghassanid-Oriens armies fighting against the invasion of the Persians, and then a withdrawal by the Ghassanids to Anatolia where they fight alongside Heraclius in his counteroffensive to deliver a decisive blow to the Persians at the Battle of Nineveh (627), and lastly their fight against the Muslims in the Oriens where they are defeated at the Battle of the Yarmuk (636).
Early Islamic period
Muslim conquest of the Levant
The nascent Muslim state in Medina, first under the Islamic prophet Muhammad (d. 632) and lastly under the second caliph, Umar (r. 634–644), made abortive attempts to contact or win over the Ghassan of Syria. The last phylarch of the Ghassan, Jabala ibn al-Ayham, stories of whom are shrouded in legend, led his tribesmen and those of Byzantium's other allied Arab tribes in the Byzantine army that was routed by the Muslims at the Battle of Yarmouk in c. 636. After supposedly embracing Islam, Jabala left the faith and ultimately withdrew with his tribesmen from Syria to Byzantine-held Anatolia in 639, by which time the Muslims had conquered most of Byzantine Syria. Unable to make headway with the Ghassan, the Muslim administration in Syria under its governor Mu'awiya succeeded in allying with the Ghassan's old-established Syrian allies, the Banu Kalb. The latter became the cornerstone of Mu'awiya's military power in Syria, and later, when he became head of the Syria-based Umayyad Caliphate in 661, of the Islamic empire in general.
Umayyad and Abbasid periods
Significant remnants of the Ghassan remained in Syria, residing in Damascus and the city's Ghouta countryside. At least nominally and probably gradually, many of these Ghassanids embraced Islam, especially under Mu'awiya's rule. According to the historian Nancy Khalek, they consequently became an "indispensable" group of Muslim society in early Islamic Syria. Mu'awiya actively sought the militarily and administratively experienced Syrian Christians, including the Ghassanids, and members of the tribe served him and later Umayyad caliphs as governors, commanders of the shurta (select troops), scribes, and chamberlains. Several descendants of the tribe's Tha'laba and Imru al-Qays branches are listed in the sources as Umayyad court poets, jurists, and officials in the eastern provinces of Khurasan, Adharbayjan and Armenia.