Yawm Halima ( ar, يوم حليمة, , Day of Halima) is the name given to a battle fought between the rival

Ghassanid The Ghassanids ( ar, الغساسنة, translit=al-Ġasāsina, also Banu Ghassān (, romanized as: ), also called the Jafnids, were an Arab tribe which founded a kingdom. They emigrated from southern Arabia in the early 3rd century to the Levan ...

and

Lakhmid The Lakhmids ( ar, اللخميون, translit=al-Laḫmiyyūn) referred to in Arabic as al-Manādhirah (, romanized as: ) or Banu Lakhm (, romanized as: ) was an Arabs, Arab kingdom in Sawad , Southern Iraq and Eastern Arabia, with al-Hirah as ...

Arabs in the 6th century. Considered " e of the most famous battles of

pre-Islamic Arabia Pre-Islamic Arabia ( ar, شبه الجزيرة العربية قبل الإسلام) refers to the Arabian Peninsula before the History of Islam, emergence of Islam in 610 CE. Some of the settled communities developed into distinctive civilizati ...

", it was named after Halima, a Ghassanid princess who assisted the warriors of her tribe in the battle. The exact identity of the Ghassanid king who fought the battle is not certain, but he is commonly identified with

al-Harith ibn Jabalah Al-Ḥārith ibn Jabalah ( ar, الحارث بن جبلة; ''FlaviosArethas () in Greek sources; Khālid ibn Jabalah () in later Islamic sources), was a king of the Ghassanids, a pre- Islamic Arab Christian tribe who lived on the eastern frontie ...

(), a major

Byzantine 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 ...

client ruler A client state, in international relations, is a state that is economically, politically, and/or militarily subordinate to another more powerful state (called the "controlling state"). A client state may variously be described as satellite state, ...

who waged frequent conflicts with the Lakhmids under their respective king

al-Mundhir III ibn al-Nu'man Al-Mundhir III ibn al-Nu'man ( ar, المنذر بن النعمان), also known as Al-Mundhir ibn Imri' al-Qays () (died 554) was the king of the Lakhmids in 503/505–554. Biography His mother's name was Mawia bint Awf bin Geshem. The son of a ...

(). The Lakhmids in turn were clients of the

Sassanid Persia The Sasanian () or Sassanid Empire, officially known as the Empire of Iranians (, ) and also referred to by historians as the Neo-Persian Empire, was the last Iranian empire before the early Muslim conquests of the 7th-8th centuries AD. Named ...

ns, and the perennial tribal warfare between them and the Ghassanids was combined with the larger rivalry between Byzantium and Persia, with the Arabs fighting as auxiliaries for the two great empires. Yawm Halima is now commonly identified with a battle fought in June 554 near Chalcis (modern

Qinnasrin Qinnasrin ( ar, قنسرين; syr, ܩܢܫܪܝܢ, ''Qinnašrīn'', lit=Nest of Eagles), also known by numerous other romanizations and originally known as ( la, Chalcis ad Belum; grc-gre, Χαλκὶς, ''Khalkìs''), was a historical town in ...

), where the Ghassanids confronted one of Mundhir's raids. The Lakhmids were defeated and their king Mundhir fell on the field, but Harith also lost his eldest son Jabalah.

References

Sources

* * * *{{cite book, last=Shahîd, first=Irfan, authorlink=Irfan Shahîd, title=Byzantium and the Arabs in the Sixth Century, Volume II, Part 2: Economic, Social and Cultural History, location=Washington, DC, publisher=Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, year=2009, isbn=978-0-88402-347-0, url=https://books.google.com/books?id=js30HODt2aYC 554 550s in the Byzantine Empire 550s conflicts Battles involving the Ghassanids Battles involving the Lakhmids Pre-Islamic Arabia