Jabala ibn al-Ayham ( ar, جبلة بن الأيهم) was the last ruler, or
phylarch, of the
Ghassanid dynasty in
Syria in the 7th century. He commanded
Arab Christian tribal contingents on behalf of the
Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...
against Arab Muslim forces during the
Muslim conquest of Syria
The Muslim conquest of the Levant ( ar, فَتْحُ الشَّام, translit=Feth eş-Şâm), also known as the Rashidun conquest of Syria, occurred in the first half of the 7th century, shortly after the rise of Islam."Syria." Encyclopædia Br ...
in the 630s. In the battles of
Dumat al-Jandal in northern Arabia and the decisive battle of
Yarmuk in southern Syria in 636, his forces were defeated. He supposedly converted to Islam, before breaking ties with the faith in protest to indignities he consequently suffered related to Islamic egalitarian principles. Afterward, he left Syria permanently, taking refuge with his tribesmen in Byzantine
Anatolia
Anatolia, tr, Anadolu Yarımadası), and the Anatolian plateau, also known as Asia Minor, is a large peninsula in Western Asia and the westernmost protrusion of the Asian continent. It constitutes the major part of modern-day Turkey. The ...
. Historians are divided on the historicity of Jabala due the lack of contemporary source material, with some arguing his personality was essentially a literary device of later Islamic writers.
Sources
There are no contemporary sources about Jabala, with the narratives of his life derived from
Abbasid
The Abbasid Caliphate ( or ; ar, الْخِلَافَةُ الْعَبَّاسِيَّة, ') was the third caliphate to succeed the Islamic prophet Muhammad. It was founded by a dynasty descended from Muhammad's uncle, Abbas ibn Abdul-Muttalib ...
-era (post-750 CE) literature. However, a seal dated to the late 6th or early 7th century inscribed with the words 'Gabala,
patrikios
The patricians (from la, patricius, Greek: πατρίκιος) were originally a group of ruling class families in ancient Rome. The distinction was highly significant in the Roman Kingdom, and the early Republic, but its relevance waned aft ...
' next to etches of Christian crosses has led to speculative identification with Jabala ibn al-Ayham by the historian
Irfan Shahid.
Life
In the stories of Jabala in the Islamic literature, he is figured as the last
Ghassanid king and a military leader of the
Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...
's Christian Arab contingent during the
Muslim conquest of Syria
The Muslim conquest of the Levant ( ar, فَتْحُ الشَّام, translit=Feth eş-Şâm), also known as the Rashidun conquest of Syria, occurred in the first half of the 7th century, shortly after the rise of Islam."Syria." Encyclopædia Br ...
. He is cited in such a capacity during the siege of
Dumat al-Jandal in , where he commands the Ghassanids and
Tanukhid
The Tanûkhids ( ar, التنوخيون, transl=al-Tanūḫiyyūn) or Tanukh ( ar, تنوخ, translit=Tanūḫ) or Banū Tanūkh (, romanized as: ) were a confederation of Arab tribes, sometimes characterized as Saracens. They first rose to prom ...
tribes against the Muslims, at the
Battle of Yarmouk
The Battle of the Yarmuk (also spelled Yarmouk) was a major battle between the army of the Byzantine Empire and the Muslim forces of the Rashidun Caliphate. The battle consisted of a series of engagements that lasted for six days in August 636, ...
in 636, during which the Muslim Arabs routed the Byzantines and went on to conquer
Syria from them. According to the Abbasid-era authors
Ibn Ishaq,
al-Waqidi
Abu `Abdullah Muhammad Ibn ‘Omar Ibn Waqid al-Aslami (Arabic ) (c. 130 – 207 AH; c. 747 – 823 AD) was a historian commonly referred to as al-Waqidi (Arabic: ). His surname is derived from his grandfather's name Waqid and thus he became fa ...
, and
al-Baladhuri
ʾAḥmad ibn Yaḥyā ibn Jābir al-Balādhurī ( ar, أحمد بن يحيى بن جابر البلاذري) was a 9th-century Muslim historian. One of the eminent Middle Eastern historians of his age, he spent most of his life in Baghdad and e ...
, in Yarmouk, Jabala led 12,000 men of the Ghassanids and the other Christian tribes of
Lakhm,
Judham
The Judham ( ar, بنو جذام, ') was an Arab tribe that inhabited the southern Levant and northwestern Arabia during the Byzantine and early Islamic eras (5th–8th centuries). Under the Byzantines, the tribe was nominally Christian and fough ...
, and groups of the
Quda'a
The Quda'a ( ar, قضاعة, translit=Quḍāʿa) were a confederation of Arab tribes, including the powerful Kalb and Tanukh, mainly concentrated throughout Syria and northwestern Arabia, from at least the 4th century CE, during Byzantine rule, ...
tribe, such as the
Balqayn and
Bali.
The Islamic literature abounds with stories of Jabala's conversion to Islam sometime after Yarmouk, then leaving Islam and taking refuge under Emperor
Heraclius. There are different versions of the stories, but they generally have Jabala arrive to the Muslim capital at
Medina
Medina,, ', "the radiant city"; or , ', (), "the city" officially Al Madinah Al Munawwarah (, , Turkish: Medine-i Münevvere) and also commonly simplified as Madīnah or Madinah (, ), is the second-holiest city in Islam, and the capital of the ...
with his entourage, set off for the
Hajj pilgrimage with Caliph
Umar
ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb ( ar, عمر بن الخطاب, also spelled Omar, ) was the second Rashidun caliph, ruling from August 634 until his assassination in 644. He succeeded Abu Bakr () as the second caliph of the Rashidun Caliphate ...
, have an altercation with a lowly pilgrim whose he ultimately breaks, threaten to leave Islam, and finally make a nightly escape which ends with his relocation to Byzantine territory.
Jabala's flight to Byzantium supposedly occurred in and he made the trek through
Raqqa
Raqqa ( ar, ٱلرَّقَّة, ar-Raqqah, also and ) (Kurdish: Reqa/ ڕەقە) is a city in Syria on the northeast bank of the Euphrates River, about east of Aleppo. It is located east of the Tabqa Dam, Syria's largest dam. The Hellenistic, ...
(Byzantine Callinicum) with tens of thousands of his or allied Christian Arab tribesmen, thereafter taking abode in the
Khersana region of Byzantine
Anatolia
Anatolia, tr, Anadolu Yarımadası), and the Anatolian plateau, also known as Asia Minor, is a large peninsula in Western Asia and the westernmost protrusion of the Asian continent. It constitutes the major part of modern-day Turkey. The ...
. The geographer
al-Istakhri mentions the descendants of these tribesmen in that region during the 10th century. According to the historian
Walter Kaegi, the purported flight of so many Arab tribesmen was a motivating factor for the Muslims to conquer Raqqa and
Upper Mesopotamia
Upper Mesopotamia is the name used for the uplands and great outwash plain of northwestern Iraq, northeastern Syria and southeastern Turkey, in the northern Middle East. Since the early Muslim conquests of the mid-7th century, the region has been ...
in general, so as to prevent such nomadic exodus from the conquered lands to Byzantium; such exodus contravened caliph
Umar
ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb ( ar, عمر بن الخطاب, also spelled Omar, ) was the second Rashidun caliph, ruling from August 634 until his assassination in 644. He succeeded Abu Bakr () as the second caliph of the Rashidun Caliphate ...
's policy of subjugating all nomadic Arab tribes under the Caliphate's rule.
Assessment
Shahid considers the existence of Jabala as possible "evidence" for the Byzantines' revival of the Ghassanid
phylarchate following its destruction during the
Sasanian Persian invasion of Byzantine Syria in 614. In the view of historian Julia Bray, Jabala's references in the Islamic liteature represents "the archetype" of the bygone era "of , Christianity, and kingship" in Arab history, and the transition to the new Islamic era. The historian Greg Fisher assesses Jabala as "a semi-mythical figure" used in the literature to "test the purity of the new
uslimfaith, celebrate the greatness of the empire that the
uslim conquerorssupplanted, and serve all kinds of other useful literary and rhetorical purposes".
References
Bibliography
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Further reading
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Jabala ibn Ayham
640s deaths
7th-century Ghassanid kings
Converts to Oriental Orthodoxy from Islam
Generals of Heraclius
Legendary Arab people
People of the Muslim conquest of the Levant
Year of birth unknown