Ghassanids
Ghassanids الغساسنة | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 220–638 | |||||||||
| Status | Vassal of the Byzantine Empire | ||||||||
| Capital | Jabiyah | ||||||||
| Common languages | Old Arabic | ||||||||
| Religion | Christianity (official) | ||||||||
| Government | Monarchy | ||||||||
| King | |||||||||
• 220–265 | Jafnah ibn Amr (first) | ||||||||
• 632–638 | Jabala ibn al-Ayham (last) | ||||||||
| History | |||||||||
• Established | 220 | ||||||||
| 638 | |||||||||
| |||||||||
| Historical Arab states and dynasties |
|---|
.jpg){kind=link}
The Ghassanids, also known as the Jafnids, were an Arab tribe. Originally from South Arabia, they migrated to the Levant in the 3rd century and established what would eventually become a Christian kingdom under the aegis of the Byzantine Empire. However, some of the Ghassanids may have already adhered to Christianity before they emigrated from South Arabia to escape religious persecution.
As a Byzantine vassal, the Ghassanids participated in the Byzantine–Sasanian Wars, fighting against the Sasanian-allied Lakhmids, who were also an Arabian tribe, but adhered to the non-Chalcedonian Church of the East. The lands of the Ghassanids also acted as a buffer zone protecting lands that had been annexed by the Romans against raids by Bedouins.
After just over 400 years of existence, the Ghassanid kingdom fell to the Rashidun Caliphate during the Muslim conquest of the Levant. A few of the tribe's members then converted to Islam, while most dispersed themselves amongst Melkites and Syriacs in what is now Jordan, Israel, Syria, Palestine, and Lebanon.