1877.] C. J. Lyall —Translations from the Hamaseh and the Arjhani. 489 
About half the tribe were Christians, and maintained their faith stoutly against the 
proselytizing Jew King of el-Yemen, Bu-Nuwas, who in 523 A. D. led an army 
against the city of Nejran and besieged it. The story of the Martyrdom of the 
Christians of the Benu-l-Harith will be found told by a contemporary writer, Simeon 
the Syrian bishop of Beth-Arsham, in Vol. I of Assemani’s Bibliotheca Orientalis, 
pp. 359 sqq ;* their prince is therein called Hareth bar Kaleb, who with his wife 
Euma suffered death for the faith, and has become known in the Church as S. Arethas 
the son of Caleb ; it seems probable that “ Hareth son of Kaleb” is really the tribal 
name, el-Harith ibn Ka‘b : in Syriac the l eyn of Ka‘b and the lam of Kaleb differ only in 
size. The sequel of this deed of Bu-Nuwas is well known ; the rule of the Himyerites 
in el-Yemen was overthrown by the Abyssinians under Ary at, sent by the king of 
^Ethiopia at the instigation of the Emperor of Constantinople to avenge the slaughter 
of the Christians of Nejran. The Christian Church at Nejran was still flourishing in 
the time of the Prophet, who in the ninth year of the Hijrah was visited at el- 
Medineh by a deputation of forty ecclesiastics ( ahbdr ), headed by a bishop, and twenty 
laymen from that place. The conversation which ensued is told in the Aghani, 
X, 144; in the end the Christians of Nejran obtained from Mohammed a treaty 
securing to them, on the payment of tribute, the free exercise of their religion, and 
the portion of the tribe which had remained pagan in the same year gave in its 
adhesion to el-Islam. The treaty with the Christians was renewed by Abu-Bekr after 
the death of Mohammed, but ‘Omar, in pursuance of the Prophet’s dying injunction 
that none but Muslims should be left to dwell in Arabia, removed them to Syria, where 
they received lands in exchange for those they surrendered in Nejran. (A. H. 13.) 
The most noble family of the Christian Harithis was the house of ed-Dayyan, to 
which belonged the author of the fourth of the pieces given below. The son of ed- 
Dayyan was ‘Abd-el-Madan, who had three sons, Yezid, ‘Abd-el-Mesih, and Qeys. 
Yezid was one of the most noble and generous Arabs of his day; and ‘Abd-el-Mesih 
and Qeys were two of the leaders of the deputation which visited Mohammed in A. H. 9. 
The three brothers built a church ( bVah ) or, as some say, set up a great tent made of 
three hundred skins of red leather (one of the chief products of el-Yemen), at Nejran, 
which was called “ the Ka‘beh of Nejran” ; it was a sanctuary where all who were in 
need found help and refuge. All three were friends and patrons of Meymun el-A‘sha, 
who praises them in his poems, and learned from them the many Christian precepts 
which occur in his verse. 
* The latest contribution to the history of the persecuted Monophysite Christians 
of Nejran will be found in the Zcitsch. d. Deutsch. Morg. Gesellsch., Yol. XXXI, p. 360. 
A Syriac letter of comfort addressed to them by Jacob of Sarug, exhorting them to 
patience and faith under their trials, is there given with a translation and commentary 
by Dr. E. Schroter, who has added a Syriac version of a Greek hymn by Johannes 
Psaltes, Abbot of Beth Aphthonius, on the subject of the martyrdom of those slain by 
Bu-Nuwas. The latter must have been composed within a year or two of the event; 
for it was translated from Greek into Syriac by Bishop Paul of Edessa, who died in 
527 A. D. From it we learn (1) the name of the Jew-king, who is called Masruq, the 
same in Syriac as Bu-Nuwas in Arabic (“ Long-locks”): (2) the number of the slain, 
something over two hundred ; and (3) the name of their teacher, Hareth. 
Br. Schroter has not referred to the Adlthiopic poems in which the constancy of the 
martyrs of Nejran is praised. 
