GHASSAN

Arabian kingdom prominent as a Byzantine ally (symmachos) in the 6th century AD. From its strategic location in portions of modern Syria, Jordan, and Israel, it protected the spice trade route from the south of the Arabian Peninsula and acted as a buffer against the desert Bedouin. The Ghassanid king al-Harith ibn Jabalah (reigned 529569) supported the Byzantines against Sasanian Persia and was given the title patricius in 529 by the emperor Justinian. Al-Harith was a Monophysite Christian; he helped to revive the Syrian Monophysite Church and supported Monophysite development despite the disapproval of Orthodox Byzantium. Subsequent Byzantine distrust of such religious unorthodoxy brought down his successors, al-Mundhir (reigned 569582) and Nu'man. The Ghassanids, who had successfully opposed the Persian-oriented Lakhmids of al-Hirah, prospered economically and engaged in much religious and public building; they also patronized the arts and at one time entertained the poets Nabighah adh-Dhubyani and Hassan ibn Thabit at their courts. Ghassan remained a Byzantine vassal state until its rulers were overthrown by the Muslims in the 7th century.