Al-Ḥīrah was similarly a Bedouin tribal kingdom, the kings of which are commonly designated the Lakhmids. According to tradition, the founder of the dynasty was ʿAmr, whose son Imruʾ al-Qays died in 328 ce and was entombed at Al-Nimārah in the Syrian desert. His funerary inscription is written in an extremely difficult type of script. Recently there has been a revival of interest in the inscription, and a lively controversy has arisen over its precise implications. One thing that is certain is that Imruʾ al-Qays claimed the title “king of all the Bedouin” and claimed to have campaigned successfully over the entire north and centre of the peninsula, as far as the border of Najrān. In Muslim sources it is said that he was given by the Sāsānian king Shāpūr II a “governorship” over the Bedouin of northeast Arabia, being charged with the task of restraining their incursions into Sāsānian territory. Later kings of the dynasty settled themselves definitively in that area, at Al-Ḥīrah (near modern Kufah). They remained influential throughout the 6th century, and only in 602 was the last Lakhmid king, Nuʿmān ibn al-Mundhir, put to death by the Sāsānian king Khosrow II (Parvīz) and the kingdom swept away. In the 6th century Al-Ḥīrah was a considerable centre of Nestorian Christianity. Ghassān
The dynasty of the Ghassānids, though often called kings, were in fact Byzantine phylarchs (native rulers of subject frontier states). They had their headquarters well within the Byzantine Empire, a little east of the Sea of Galilee at Jābiyyah in the Jawlān (Golan) area, but they controlled large areas of northwestern Arabia, as far south as Yathrib, serving as a counterpoise to the Sāsānian-oriented Lakhmids in the northeast. The Ghassānids were Monophysite Christians and played an important part in the religious conflicts of the Byzantine church. Their influence spanned the 6th century ce, and their most prominent member, al-Ḥārith ibn Jabalah (Greek: Aretas), flourished in mid-century. The last three phylarchs fell out with Orthodox Byzantium because of their Monophysite creed; in 614 the power of Ghassān was destroyed by a Persian invasion. Quraysh
According to Muslim tradition, Mecca had at one time been in the hands of Jurhum, a people living on the central west coast recorded in Greco-Latin sources as Gorrhamites. But sometime about 500 ce (“five generations before the Prophet Muhammad”) Quṣayy ibn Kilāb, called al-Mujammiʿ (“The Unifier”), is credited with having brought together scattered groups of Bedouin and installed them in Mecca. They took over a role that had long before been played by Minaeans and Nabataeans, controlling the west coast trade routes; they sent annual caravans to Syria and Yemen. Authority in Quraysh was not royal but was vested in a mercantile aristocracy, not unlike the Venetian republic. Their trading contracts ensured them considerable influence, and, when in the opening years of the 7th century the collapse of the Ḥimyarites, Lakhmids, and Ghassānids had left a power vacuum in the peninsula, Quraysh remained the only effective influence. There is, however, little doubt that the ancient traditions of Yemenite civilization contributed substantially to the consolidation of the Islamic empire. Alfred Felix L. Beeston Arabia since the 7th century Arabian and Islamic expansion
In the 6th century Quraysh—the noble and holy house of the confederation of the Hejaz controlling the sacred enclave (ḥaram) of Mecca—contrived a chain of agreements with the northern and southern tribes that opened the highways of Arabia to commerce. Under Quraysh aegis, caravans moved freely from the southern Yemen coast to Mecca and thence northward to Byzantium or eastward to Iraq. Another agreement made trade with Axum (in what is now Ethiopia) and the African coast secure, as was also the Arabian coastal sea route. Furthermore, members of the Quraysh house of ʿAbd Manāf concluded pacts with Byzantium, Persia, and rulers of Yemen and Ethiopia, promoting commerce outside Arabia. The ʿAbd Manāf house could effect such agreements because of Quraysh’s superior position with the tribes. Quraysh had some sanctity as lords of the Meccan temple (the Kaʿbah) and were themselves known as the Protected Neighbours of Allah; the tribes on pilgrimage to Mecca were called the Guests of Allah.
In its ḥaram Quraysh was secure from attack; it arbitrated in tribal disputes, attaining thereby at least a local preeminence and seemingly a kind of loose hegemony over many Arabian tribes. Temple privileges held by Quṣayy, who established the rule of Quraysh, passed to his posterity, the ʿAbd Manāf house of which collected the tax to feed the pilgrims. The Kaʿbah, through the additions of other cults, developed into a pantheon, the cult of other gods perhaps being linked with political agreements between Quraysh—worshipers of Allah—and the tribes. The life of Muhammad
Muhammad was born in 570 of the Hāshimite (Banū Hāshim) branch of the noble house of ʿAbd Manāf; though orphaned at an early age and, in consequence, with little influence, he never lacked protection by his clan. Marriage to a wealthy widow improved his position as a merchant, but he began to make his mark in Mecca by preaching the oneness of Allah. Rejected by the Quraysh lords, Muhammad sought affiliation with other tribes; he was unsuccessful until he managed to negotiate a pact with the tribal chiefs of Medina, whereby he obtained their protection and became theocratic head and arbiter of the Medinan tribal confederation (ummah). Those Quraysh who joined him there were known as muhājirūn (refugees or emigrants), while his Medinan allies were called anṣār (supporters). The Muslim era dates from the Hijrah (Hegira)—Muhammad’s move to Medina in 622 ce. (For more detail about the life of Muhammad and the rise of Islam, see Islam; Islamic world.)
The Prophet's Mosque, site of the tomb of Muhammad, Medina, Saudi Arabia.© Mawardibahar/Dreamstime.com
Muhammad’s men attacked a Quraysh caravan, thus breaking the vital security system established by the ʿAbd Manāf house, and hostilities broke out against his Meccan kinsmen. In Medina two problems confronted him—the necessity to enforce his role as arbiter and to raise supplies for his moves against Quraysh. He overcame internal opposition, removing in the process three Jewish tribes, whose properties he distributed among his followers. Externally, his ascendant power was demonstrated following Quraysh’s failure to overrun Medina, when he declared it his own sacred enclave. Muhammad foiled Quraysh offensives and marched back to Mecca. After taking Mecca he became lord of the two sacred enclaves (al-ḥaramayn). However, even though he broke the power of some Quraysh lords, his policy thenceforth was to conciliate his Quraysh kinsmen. The rise of Islam
After Muhammad’s entry into Mecca the tribes linked with Quraysh came to negotiate with him and to accept Islam; this meant little more than giving up their local deities and worshiping Allah alone. They had to pay the tax, but this was not novel because the tribal chiefs had already been taxed to protect the Meccan ḥaram. Many tribesmen probably waited to join the winner. Doubtless they cared little for Islam—many tried to break away (the so-called apostasy) on Muhammad’s death.