Ghassanids الغساسنة | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 220–638 | |||||||||
 | |||||||||
| Status | Vassal of theByzantine Empire | ||||||||
| Capital | Jabiyah | ||||||||
| Common languages | Old Arabic | ||||||||
| Religion | Christianity (official)[1] | ||||||||
| Government | Monarchy | ||||||||
| King | |||||||||
• 220–265 | Jafnah ibn Amr (first) | ||||||||
• 632–638 | Jabala ibn al-Ayham (last) | ||||||||
| History | |||||||||
• Established | 220 | ||||||||
| 638 | |||||||||
| |||||||||
TheGhassanids,[a] also known as theJafnids,[2] were anArab tribe. Originally fromSouth Arabia, they migrated north to theLevant in the 3rd century and established what would eventually become aChristian kingdom under theaegis of theByzantine Empire.[3][4] However, some of the Ghassanids may have already adhered toChristianity before they emigrated from South Arabia to escape religious persecution.[4][5]
As a Byzantine vassal, the Ghassanids participated in theByzantine–Sasanian Wars, fighting against theSasanian-alliedLakhmids, who were also an Arabian tribe, but adhered to the non-ChalcedonianChurch of the East.[3][5] The lands of the Ghassanids also acted as abuffer zone protecting lands that had been annexed by the Romans against raids byBedouins.[citation needed]
After just over 400 years of existence, the Ghassanid kingdom fell to theRashidun Caliphate during theMuslim conquest of the Levant. A few of the tribe's members then converted toIslam, while most dispersed themselves amongstMelkites andSyriacs in what is nowJordan,Israel,Syria,Palestine, andLebanon.[4]
In the Arab genealogical tradition, which developed during the early Islamic period, the Ghassanids were considered a branch of theAzd tribe ofSouth Arabia. In this genealogical scheme, their ancestor wasJafna, a son ofAmr Muzayqiya ibn Amir ibn Haritha ibn Imru’ al Qais ibn Tha’labah ibn Mazin ibn Azd, through whom the Ghassanids were purportedly linked with theAnsar (theAws andKhazraj tribes ofMedina), who were the descendants of Jafna's brother Tha'laba.[6] According to the historianBrian 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'.[7] 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.[8]
Per the "Scattering of Azd" story, the Ghassanids eventually settled within theRomanlimes.[3][9] The tradition of Ghassanid migration finds support in theGeography of Ptolemy, which locates a tribe called the Kassanitai south of theKinaidokolpitai and the river Baitios (probably thewadiBaysh). These are probably the people called Casani inPliny the Elder, Gasandoi inDiodorus Siculus and Kasandreis inPhotios I of Constantinople (relying on older sources).[10][11] 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.[3] Their earliest appearance in records is dated to 473, when their chief, Amorkesos, signed a treaty with theByzantine Empire acknowledging their status asfoederati controlling parts ofPalestine. He apparently became aChalcedonian Christian at this time. By the year 510, the Ghassanids were no longerMiaphysites, but Chalcedonian.[12][failed verification]
The "Assanite Saracen" chief Podosaces that fought alongside the Sasanians duringJulian's Persian expedition in 363 might have been a Ghassanid.[13]
After originally settling in the Levant, the Ghassanids became aclient state to theByzantine Empire. The Romans found a powerful ally in the Ghassanids who acted as a buffer zone against theLakhmids. In addition, as kings of their own people, they were alsophylarchs, native rulers of client frontier states.[14][15] The capital was atJabiyah in theGolan Heights. Geographically, it occupied much of the easternLevant, and its authority extended via tribal alliances with otherAzdi tribes all the way to the northernHijaz as far south as Yathrib (Medina).[16]
The Ghassanids fought alongside the Byzantine Empire against thePersian Sasanians and Arab Lakhmids.[5] 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 theBanu Judham andBanu 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 kingal-Harith ibn Jabalah (reigned 529–569) supported the Byzantines against the Sasanians and was given in 529 by the emperorJustinian 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.[17] Al-Harith was a Miaphysite Christian; he helped to revive theSyrian Miaphysite (Jacobite) Church and supported Miaphysite development despiteOrthodox Byzantium regarding it asheretical. Later Byzantine mistrust and persecution of such religious unorthodoxy brought down his successors,Al-Mundhir III ibn al-Harith (reigned 569–582).
The Ghassanids, who had successfully opposed the Lakhmids ofal-Hirah inLower Mesopotamia, prospered economically and engaged in much religious and public building; they also patronized the arts and at one time entertained theArab poetsal-Nabighah andHassan ibn Thabit at their courts.[3]
Thenascent Muslim state inMedina, first under the Islamic prophetMuhammad (d. 632) and lastly under the secondcaliph,Umar (r. 634–644), made abortive attempts to contact or win over the Ghassan of Syria.[18] 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 theBattle of Yarmouk inc. 636. After supposedly embracing Islam, Jabala left the faith and ultimately withdrew with his tribesmen from Syria to Byzantine-heldAnatolia in 639, by which time the Muslims had conquered most of Byzantine Syria. Unable to make headway with the Ghassan, theMuslim administration in Syria under its governorMu'awiya succeeded in allying with the Ghassan's old-established Syrian allies, theBanu Kalb. The latter became the cornerstone of Mu'awiya's military power in Syria, and later, when he became head of the Syria-basedUmayyad Caliphate in 661, of the Islamic empire in general.[19]
Significant remnants of the Ghassan remained in Syria, residing in Damascus and the city'sGhouta countryside.[20] 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.[20] 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 theshurta (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 ofKhurasan,Adharbayjan andArmenia.[21]
When Mu'awiya's grandson, CaliphMu'awiya II, died without a chosen successor amid theSecond Muslim Civil War in 684, Umayyad rule was on the verge of collapse in Syria, having already collapsed throughout the caliphate, where the supporters of a rival caliph, theMecca-basedIbn al-Zubayr, took charge. The Ghassan, along with their tribal allies in Syria, especially the Kalb, supported continued Umayyad rule to secure their interests under the dynasty, and nominated Mu'awiya's distant cousin,Marwan I, as caliph during a summit of the Syrian tribes in the old Ghassanid capital ofJabiyah.[22]Dahhak ibn Qays al-Fihri, the governor of Damascus, meanwhile, threw his backing behind Ibn al-Zubayr. During theBattle of Marj Rahit, which pitted Marwan against Dahhak in a meadow north of Damascus, the scion of the Ghassanid family in Damascus, Yazid ibn Abi al-Nims, led a revolt there and secured control of the city for Marwan, who routed Dahhak and assumed office. In a poem attributed to him, Marwan lauds the Ghassan, as well as the Kalb,Kinda, andTanukh of Syria, for supporting him.[23]
The above tribes thereafter formed theYaman faction, in opposition to theQays tribes which backed Dahhak and Ibn al-Zubayr. TheQays–Yaman rivalry contributed to the downfall of Umayyad rule, with each faction supporting different Umayyad dynasts and governors in what became theThird Muslim Civil War. The Ghassanid Shabib ibn Abi Malik was a leader of the Yaman in Damascus and conspired to assassinate the pro-Qaysi Caliphal-Walid II (r. 743–744). After the latter was killed, the Ghassan marched on Damascus to help install his successor, the Yamani-backedYazid III (r. 744–744).[24] The toppling of the Umayyads and the advent of the Iraq-basedAbbasid Caliphate in 750 "was disastrous for the power, wealth and status of the Arab tribes in Syria", including the Ghassan, according to the historianHugh N. Kennedy. By the 9th century, the tribe had adopted a settled life, being recorded by the geographeral-Ya'qubi (d. 890) to be living in the Ghouta gardens region of Damascus and inGharandal inTransjordan.[25]
Two Damascene Ghassanid families in particular achieved prominence in early Islamic Syria, those ofYahya ibn Yahya al-Ghassani (d. 750s) andAbu Mushir al-Ghassani (d. 833). The former was the son of Caliph Marwan's head of theshurta, Yahya ibn Qays. Upon returning to Damascus after his stint as a governor ofMosul for the Umayyad caliphUmar II (r. 717–720), Yahya ibn Yahya took up scholarship and became known as thesayyid ahl Dimashq (leader of the people of Damascus), transmitting purportedhadiths (traditions and utterances) of Muhammad, which he derived from his uncle Sulayman, who received the transmissions from Muhammad's Damascus-based companion,Abu Darda. Among some traditions sourced to Yahya ibn Yahya by later Muslim scholars are those regarding the discovery ofJohn the Baptist's head in theUmayyad Mosque of Damascus and others which praise the mosque's splendor and theUmayyad dynasty in general. Yahya ibn Yahya's sons, grandsons, great-grandsons and great-great-grandsons continued their ancestor's interests in hadith scholarship and remained part of the Damascene elite into the mid-9th century.[26]
Abu Mushir's grandfather, Abd al-A'la, was a hadith scholar and Abu Mushir studied under the famous Syrian scholar Sa'id ibn Abd al-Aziz al-Tanukhi. He became a prominent hadith scholar in Damascus, with special interest in the administrative history of Syria, its local elite's genealogies and local scholars.[27] During theFourth Muslim Civil War between the Abbasid dynasts, an Umayyad,Abu al-Umaytir al-Sufyani, took power in Syria in 811, in a bid to reestablish the Umayyad Caliphate. Abu Mushir, whose grandfather was killed by the Abbasids in 750, disdained the Iraqis represented by the Abbasids and supported the restoration of Umayyad rule. He served as Abu al-Umaytir'sqadi (chief jurist), but was imprisoned by the Abbasids in the years following the rebellion's suppression in 813.[28] His great-grandsons Abd al-Rabb ibn Muhammad and Amr ibn Abd al-A'la also attained fame as Damascene scholars.[27]
Medieval Arabic authors used the term Jafnids for the Ghassanids, a term modern scholars prefer at least for the ruling stratum of Ghassanid society.[2] Earlier kings are traditional, actual dates highly uncertain.
The Ghassanids reached their peak under al-Harith V and al-Mundhir III. Both were militarily successful allies of the Byzantines, especially against their enemies the Lakhmids, and secured Byzantium's southern flank and its political and commercial interests in Arabia proper. On the other hand, the Ghassanids remained fervently dedicated toMiaphysitism, which brought about their break with Byzantium and Mundhir's own downfall and exile, which was followed after 586 by the dissolution of the Ghassanid federation.[29] The Ghassanids' patronage of the Miaphysite Syrian Church was crucial for its survival and revival, and even its spread, through missionary activities, south into Arabia. According to the historianWarwick Ball, the Ghassanids' promotion of a simpler and more rigidly monotheistic form of Christianity in a specifically Arab context can be said to have anticipatedIslam.[30] Ghassanid rule also brought a period of considerable prosperity for the Arabs on the eastern fringes of Syria, as evidenced by a spread ofurbanization and the sponsorship of several churches, monasteries and other buildings. The surviving descriptions of the Ghassanid courts impart an image of luxury and an active cultural life, with patronage of the arts, music and especially Arab-language poetry. In the words of Ball, "the Ghassanid courts were the most important centres for Arabic poetry before the rise of theCaliphal courts under Islam", and their court culture, including their penchant for desert palaces likeQasr ibn Wardan, provided the model for theUmayyad caliphs and their court.[31]
After the fall of the first kingdom in the 7th century, several dynasties, both Christian and Muslim, ruled claiming to be a continuation of the House of Ghassan.[32] Besides the claim of the Phocid or Nikephorian Dynasty of the Byzantine Empire being related. The Rasulid Sultans ruled from the 13th until the 15th century in Yemen,[33] while the Burji Mamluk Sultans did likewise in Egypt from the 14th to the 16th centuries.[34]
The last rulers to claim the titles of Royal Ghassanid successors were the Christian SheikhsAl-Chemor inMount Lebanon ruling the small sovereignprincipality of Akoura (from 1211 until 1641) and Zgharta-Zwaiya (from 1643 until 1747)[35] fromLebanon.[36][37][38]
Late Antiquity - Bowersock/Brown/Grabar.
.jpg)
{{cite book}}:ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)Cultural area ofChristian traditions that developed sinceEarly Christianity in theMiddle East,Eastern Europe,North andEast Africa,Asia Minor,South India, and parts of theFar East. | ||||||||
| Main divisions |
| |||||||
| History |
| |||||||
| Scriptures | ||||||||
| Theology | ||||||||
| Worship | ||||||||
