Page:Early Christianity in Arabia.djvu/150

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
138
EARLY CHRISTIANITY

which was followed by a truce, it lasted forty years.[1] This war ended about the period of the birth of Muhammed, during the reign of Amru ben Hind,[2] and was followed by many wars and battles between the Amerites, Ghafanidites, Absites, Keisites, and other tribes, which originated in as many petty, perhaps often imaginary, injuries.[3] Many of these conflicts took place within the bounds of the Roman and Persian provinces, and one is recorded to have happened at Ras-el-Ain, or Theodosiopolis, only fifteen farsangs, or forty-five miles, from Nisibis.[4]

The Taglabites, or Arabs of Ghassan, were always celebrated for their personal bravery.[5] Between

  1. Rasmussen, Hist. Præcip. Arab. Regn. pp. 83–88.
  2. Id. ib. p. 89.
  3. Id. pp. 89–110. The following may be cited as an instance of the trifling causes of these hostilities. "Dies Fagar secundus fuit inter Koreischitas et Havazenitas: juvenes nempe aliquot Koreischitæ mulieri cuidam e beni Amer ben Dsâdsâh (معمعه‎) [Havazenitis] in foro Ocads consederunt. Complures subinde adolescentes Cananitæ eam circumdederunt, rogantes, ut vultum, velo demto, retegeret; quod cum negasset, aliquis eorum, a tergo subrepens, indusium ejus dorso spina affixit, unde factum, ut cum incauta surrexit, in conspectum data esset pars ejus postica. In risum effusi juvenes ei dixere: conspectum faciei tui nobis denegasti, sed conspiciendam partem adversam nobis præbuisti. Convocavit in auxilium mulier tributes Ameritas, unde orta altercatio leviorque conflictio; mox tamen rem composuit Harb filius Omijah." Nuweir, in Rasmussen, p. 75.
  4. Rasmussen, p. 103.
  5. Vullers, Prolegom. ad Hareth, Moallaca, p. ii.