Fisher G. Between Empires. Arabs, Romans, and Sasanians in Late Antiquity

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In contrast, Maurice did not seem to have had much difﬁculty in

convincing the Emperor that his condemnation of al-Mundhir should

stand. Al-Mundhir had few reliable allies, with even his ‘patron’

Magnus turning out to be substantially less honest than he had

hoped for. In an Empire where relations with client elites were

conducted between individuals, the reconciliation established at

Res



āfa, which seemed so promising at the time, was doomed after

the patrician Justinian’s death in 577—and, in a piece of remarkably

bad luck, it turned out to be Maurice who took over Justinian’s

duties. After the two fell out over the expedition to the Euphrates,

al-Mundhir was easily outmanoeuvred at the imperial court, and it

was a simple device which deceived him and sealed his fate.

Political considerations form one part of the possible explanation

for what happened to al-Mundhir, but an additional factor is to be

found in the shifting religious identities of the late sixth century.

Essentially, as the divisions between Chalcedonians and miaphysites

solidiﬁed, a process which accelerated after the consecration of Jacob

Baradaeus, the Jafnids—who were popularly identiﬁed with the deci-

sion to provide Jacob to the miaphysites—found that their position

was becoming less and less ﬂexible. As discussed above, the early

ﬂuidity of the situation between the two ‘sides’ in the sixth century

meant that, although the Jafnids were publicly sympathetic to the

opponents of Chalcedon, there was not, as yet, a problem. Justinian

was more focused on the general Christianisation of the periphery as

a means of gaining indirect political control, and it was not too much

of an immediate concern if the Axumites, Nubians, or those around

the remote conceptual peripheries, such as the desert, did not yet

adhere to Chalcedonian orthodoxy. It was more important to draw

them into the Roman political orbit, and keep them from alliance

with the Sasanians. Through this Justinian could also ensure that

Roman ﬁnancial interests in south Arabia were protected, and keep

a watchful eye on the H

imyarites.

However, the promising climate of possible reconciliation before the

end of the sixth century was slowly eroded as the disputes between

Chalcedonians and miaphysites wore on. During the reign of Justin II

(565-78), which coincided with the death of al-H

ārith and the acces-

sion of al-Mundhir, the attempts of the Emperor to achieve some kind

van Rompay, ‘Society and community’, 250–1; Fowden, Empire to Common-

wealth, 126–8.

182 Jafnids, Nas



rids, and Late Antiquity

of lasting unity were continually frustrated. Internal disputes suggested

that the weakened miaphysites might be reconciled with the Chalce-

donians after all, but, especially after the death of Jacob Baradaeus in

578, it became increasingly difﬁcult for the Chalcedonians to ﬁnd an

individual with a credible claim to be the representative of the mia-

physites, and with whom they might negotiate. In consequence, being

associated with the miaphysites no longer conferred the privilege of

involvement with a strong position, but, rather, the embarrassment of

being linked to a divided cause. Al-Mundhir’sfailuretoﬁnd a solution

to the quarrel between those who respectively supported Jacob, Paul,

and the Alexandrians—where, in his failure to anticipate the actions of

Damian, he again showed his vulnerability in dealing with high-level

Roman politics—delivered a crippling blow to his prestige amongst

both the Chalcedonians and the miaphysites who probably saw him,

with good reason, as their advocate.

The timing of these events was fatal to al-Mundhir, as they corres-

ponded with the increased weakening of his political prestige, which

was, in any case, continually hampered by the problem of his physical

separation from Constantinople. The status of the Jafnids depended

to an alarming degree on the maintenance of a precarious status quo,

but, as the situation deteriorated in the late sixth century, the close

link between the Jafnids and the divided miaphysite position

slowly robbed al-Mundhir of his ability to manoeuvre. Eventually,

al-Mundhir’s failure to reconcile the Jacobites, Paulites, and Alexan-

drians as well as his ongoing link to a position increasingly at odds

with Constantinople provided an easy justiﬁcation, if indeed another

one was needed, for him to be removed.

Success in the politics of the borderlands between the Romans and

the Sasanians depended on a talent for balancing conﬂicting and

competing agendas and demands, and ﬁnding a way around the

numerous obstacles which these threw up. As I have stressed

throughout this study, the Jafnids and the Nas



rids both proved

themselves to be adept at managing the competing pressures and

requirements which they faced as elites, but it was in the end an

unfavourable combination of developments in the religious politics of

the Roman Empire, and problems arising from the rapid ascent of the

Jafnids, which proved lethal to al-Mundhir and which capped the

van Rompay, ‘Society and community’, 251–2, 254–5; see as well Allen, ‘The

deﬁnition and enforcement of orthodoxy’, 828–34.

Jafnids, Nas



rids, and Late Antiquity 183

possibilities available to those who came after him. The Jafnids lacked

the depth of power and experience that would have helped them to deal

correctly with the rapidly evolving political realities of the late sixth

century; greater skill in both court and ecclesiastical politics, in parti-

cular, might have provided the ability to survive. Al-Mundhir does not

seem to have had powerful allies, and in John’s account of the allega-

tions which Maurice made against him to Tiberius, al-Mundhir is

conspicuous by his absence.

Both had sent messages to Tiberius

stating their positions, but only Maurice followed up his visit in person.

Whether this is because Maurice wanted to, or simply because he

could—al-Mundhir had only been to the capital for an imperial audi-

ence before as an invitee—this is a revealing comment on al-Mundhir’s

ability to inﬂuence the top echelon of the Roman administration.

THE NAS



RIDS AT THE END OF THE

SIXTH CENTURY

Political concerns certainly played a role in the fate of the Jafnids, and

while we know far less about the way that the Nas



rid dynasty of the

Lakhmids was dismantled, there are some striking similarities. The

Arabic tradition represented by the stories preserved in al-T

abarī

(discussed brieﬂy at the beginning of the previous chapter) implies

that al-Nu mān met his fate because of his treatment of ‘Adī, the

famed poet and favourite of the Sasanian king. In the Syriac tradition,

an alternative and more plausible story asserts that al-Nu mān had

refused to come to the aid of Khusrau during this ﬂight from the

rebellion of Bahrām, and that this betrayal, not forgotten, led to al-

Nu mān’s imprisonment and death after the King lured him to

Ctesiphon under false pretences.

It is impossible to be sure which

story is the more accurate, but both suggest the extreme vulnerability

of al-Nu mān’s position once the Emperor had decided to move

against him. This is not dissimilar to the experience of the Jafnids,

and, like the Jafnids, problems with the Nas



rids had apparently been

slowly building for some years. Al-Mundhir’s receipt of funding from

Joh. Eph. HE 174 (3.3.40).

Chron. Jacob of Edessa, 20; Rothstein, Dynastie, 115–17.

184 Jafnids, Nas



rids, and Late Antiquity

the Romans, which  Amr had tried to re-establish, probably sowed

distrust between the Nas



rids and Khusrau I in very much the same

way as between Rome and the Jafnids. After the death of another al-

Mundhir, the successor to  Amr (himself the successor to the vigorous

al-Mundhir who caused the Romans so much trouble) there seems to

have been a dispute over Sasanian recognition of the Nas



rid succes-

sor, a quarrel which may have ended with the temporary imposition

of a Sasanian governor at al-H

īrah.

There may also have been other

factors. Al-Nu mān’s reported Christianisation was poor political

judgement for one so close to the Sasanian administration, although

his decision may have stemmed from misplaced optimism related to

any rumours he may have heard, arising from Khusrau’s meetings

with Domitian of Melitene and Gregory of Antioch.

At any rate, it is

indicative of the successful policies of his predecessors in avoiding an

outright commitment to any religious position that he was the ﬁrst,

and last, Christian Nas



rid leader. On the other hand, the fact that the

reported successor to al-Nu mān was a Christian member of Taghlib

(who nevertheless ‘ruled’ alongside a Sasanian marzbān) suggests that

al-Nu mān’s conversion was not an overwhelmingly signiﬁcant factor

in his demise, and that, like the Jafnids, his execution was the end

result of the increasing independence of the Nas



rids throughout the

sixth century. Howard-Johnston has plausibly suggested that the

Nas



rids were eliminated in preparation for the extension of Sasanian

power west, around the desert; in such a case, ‘a unitary system of

client-management’ centred on the Nas



rids was unlikely to be of

much use.

If this was the case, or even if it was not, the irritation

which the activities of the Nas



rids caused to the Sasanians probably

had a signiﬁcant inﬂuence on the Sasanian king’s decision to dissolve

the Nas



rid leadership in al-H

īrah.

After the Nas



rids, the Iranians had little control of the desert

fringes west and south of al-H

īrah, and at some point after 604

their armed forces were dealt a stunning blow at a battle which

came to be known in Arabic sources as ‘the day of Dhū Qār’.

Al-T

abarī i. 1017–18. The story is also discussed in Trimingham, Christianity

among the Arabs, 198.

Cf. the discussion in M. Whitby, ‘The successors of Justinian’,inCAH 14,

86–111, at 103.

J. Howard-Johnston, ‘Al-Tabari on the last great war of antiquity’,inEast Rome,

Sasanian Persia, and the End of Antiquity (Aldershot, 2006), 1–22, at 20–1.

Also the opinion of Bosworth, ‘Iran and the Arabs’, 607.

Al-T

abarī, i. 1016, 1032.

Jafnids, Nas



rids, and Late Antiquity 185

Bosworth considers that the Arabs of the southern desert ‘scented

weakness’,

and in hindsight it is straightforward to suggest that

removing the Nas



rids left the route clear for the Muslim armies a

generation later. Did the Romans and Sasanians make a mistake in

disrupting the fortunes of their Arab clients? The failure of the much-

better equipped and manned Sasanian and Roman armies to deal

adequately with the Muslim military threat suggests that they did not,

and that neither the Jafnids nor the Nas



rids and their allies could have

posed a meaningful obstacle to the seventh-century conquests. In-

stead, the removal of the top level of Arab client leadership was, at the

time, simply a matter of expediency for two empires that had far more

signiﬁcant concerns than the well-being of their Arab clients.

THE ECONOMY AND THE JUSTINIANIC

PLAGUE

I have emphasised the political inﬂuences on the affairs of the Jafnids

and Nas



rids here, but it is also worth considering the potential impact

on their activities of the decline which seems to have been experi-

enced by some parts of the Near East in the second half of the sixth

century. The most vigorous proponents of the ‘decline thesis’, most

notably Kennedy, oppose the vitality of distinctive strands of con-

tinuity in economic, political, religious, or social and cultural life

between the sixth and seventh centuries (of which more will be said

in the Conclusion), focusing instead on patterns of change during this

period. Certainly, the sixth-century Roman world was hardly static,

and the decline which some authors point to was not universal, and

may have been taking place alongside any possible continued growth

during the same period. The crux of the debate is thus concerned with

the ﬁner points about what might have caused any changes, in which

parts of the Empire they might have occurred, and why, and how

severe or far-reaching such changes might have been. Kennedy has

recently restated and reinforced opinions ﬁrst aired in two key arti-

cles, pointing to several causal factors in support of his thesis of a

Bosworth, ‘Iran and the Arabs’, 608; this is the opinion too of J. Wiesehöfer,

Ancient Persia: From 550

BC to 650 AD, trans. A. Azodi (London, 1996), 196.

186 Jafnids, Nas



rids, and Late Antiquity

marked socioeconomic and material slowdown during the mid-sixth

century. Such factors include endemic warfare, famine, forced popula-

tion movement (a consequence of war), and recurring episodes of the

bubonic plague, which had broken out in Egypt in 541.

In common

with Kennedy, Liebeschuetz and others have also invoked the plague as

a key cause of decline.

In support, these authors look to the ancient

historical sources, such as Evagrius, Procopius, or the second book of

John of Ephesus’ History, preserved in the later Chronicle of Zuqnīn,

which often describe mass mortality, human misery, and farms and

animals left unattended owing to the deaths of farmers and farm

workers.

Conrad, too, has suggested that the effects of the plague

were widespread and were a contributing factor to the ease of the

seventh-century Muslim invasions, and thus an integral component

of long-term change in the region.

Finally, proponents of the decline

thesis are not, of course, conﬁned to the Near East.

The debate continues, however, over the nature of any decline, the

severity of the plague, and the difﬁculties involved in accurately

H. Kennedy, ‘Justinianic plague in Syria and the archaeological evidence’,in

L. K. Little (ed.), Plague and the End of Antiquity: The Pandemic of 541–750 (Cambridge,

2007), 87–98, arguing against the more optimistic view of Foss, ‘Syria in transition’,

259–60, and restating the decline thesis ﬁrst aired in H. Kennedy, ‘From polis to

madina: urban change in late antique and Early Islamic Syria’, Past and Present, 106

(1985), 3–27, as well as id., ‘The last century of Byzantine Syria: a reinterpretation’ ,

Byzantinische Forschungen, 10 (1985), 141–84; recently, M. Meier, Das andere

Zei talter Justinians. Kontingenzerfahrung und Kont ingenzbewältigu ng im 6. Jahr-

hunder t n. Chr. (Göttingen, 2003), 325–41, 423–6, has also taken a ‘catastrophist’

line, emphasising the impact of the plague .

J. H. W. G. Liebeschuetz, The Decline and Fall of the Roman City (Oxford, 2001),

esp. 52–4, 409–10; H. Kennedy and Liebeschuetz, ‘Antioch and the villages of northern

Syria in the ﬁfth and sixth centuries

A.D.: trends and problems’, Nottingham Medieval

Studies, 32 (1988), 65–90, esp. 90 n. 144. See the collected articles in Little (ed.), Plague and

the End of Antiquity,aswellastherecentworkofD.Ch.Stathakopoulos,Famine and

Pestilence in the Late Roman and Early Byzantine Empire (Aldershot, 2004), esp. 140–54.

e.g. Evag. HE 4.29, Proc. BP 2.22.1–39. For the second book of John of Ephesus’

HE see the third part of the Chronicle of Zuqnīn (¼ Chronicle of Dionysius of Tel-

Mah

rē). Citations here are to Chabot’s edition. Parts 3 and 4 have also recently been

translated as The Chronicle of Zuqnīn, Parts III and IV,

A.D. 448–775 (trans. with notes

and introduction by A. Harrak) (Toronto, 1999), and critically assessed by Wita-

kowski, The Syriac Chronicle of Pseudo-Dionysius of Tel-Mah

rē.

L. Conrad, ‘The plague in Bilād al-Shām in pre-Islamic times’, in M. A. Bakhit

and M. Asfour (eds.), Proceedings of the Symposium on Bilād al-Shām during the

Byzantine Period, Muharram 9–13 1040.

A.H./November 15–19 1983, 2 vols (Amman,

1986), ii. 143–63, at 156–7.

e.g. B. Ward-Perkins, The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilization (Oxford,

2005), for a recent strong statement.

Jafnids, Nas



rids, and Late Antiquity 187

assessing the ancient source material. It is not clear, for example, to

what extent the effects of the plague are exaggerated in the ancient

literary sources. Durliat has suggested that they are of limited value,

partly because of the sensationalism attached to descriptions of such

events, but Sarris has plausibly suggested that the non-literary sources

provide some corroboration, and argues that scholars have been

overly sceptical in their approach to contemporary testimony of the

effects of the plague.

The archaeological data also provide major

interpretative challenges. Kennedy’s recent discussion of the per-

ceived correlation between the archaeological and non-archaeological

data for slowdown clearly shows how the interpretation of such data

can lead to quite different conclusions; and Ward-Perkins and Sartre

have shown the difﬁculty of extrapolating a linear relationship be-

tween building inscriptions and population levels, meaning that the

absence of such inscriptions does not necessarily mean a drop in

population.

Finally, both Howard-Johnston and Whitby have con-

vincingly argued (against Conrad) that the plague did not exercise a

signiﬁcant pressure on army recruitment, and so was not a material

cause in the defeat of the Roman armies in the seventh century. This

implies that population decline or a drop in economic activity related

to a devastating event, such as the plague, cannot necessarily be cited

as a major cause of the ‘end’ of Roman Late Antiquity, itself a concept

which favours a distinctly catastrophist perspective.

There is therefore no consensus, and the debate will continue. It is,

however, important to note that the two positions are not necessarily

J. Durliat, ‘La peste du VI

siècle, pour un nouvel examen des sources byzan-

tines’, in C. Abadie-Reynal (ed.), Hommes et richessess dans l’Empire byzantin,

i. (Paris, 1989), 107–19; P. Sarris, ‘The Justinianic plague: origins and effects’ ,

Continuity and Change, 17/2 (2002), 169–82.

Kennedy, ‘Justinianic plague in Syria and the archaeological evidence’,87–98;

B. Ward-Perkins, ‘Land, labour and settlement’,inCAH 14, 315–45, at 324; M. Sartre,

‘Le peuplement et le développement du H

awrān antique à la lumière des inscriptions

grecques et latines’ , in Dentzer (ed.), Hauran I, 189–202, at 196.

J. Howard-Johnston, ‘Pride and fall: Khusro II and his regime, 626–628’,in

G. Gnoli (ed.), La Persia e Bisanzio (Atti dei Convegni Lincei 2001) (Rome, 2004),

93–113, at 98, arguing that the Romans could still muster a signiﬁcant force under

Heraclius, suggesting military resources were not weakened sufﬁciently to prevent the

campaigns of the seventh century: M. Whitby, ‘Recruitment in Roman armies from

Justinian to Heraclius’, in Cameron (ed.), The Byzantine and Early Islamic Near East,

iii. 61–124, who, while accepting that recruitment was probably affected, suggests, at

122, that ‘the Arabs took over territory by energetic conquest, not by default on the

part of their opponents.’

188 Jafnids, Nas



rids, and Late Antiquity

mutually exclusive. For example, Whittow’s argument (broadly con-

tra Kennedy) that the drop in the prominence of the curiales in the

Roman cities in Late Antiquity masked a continued and underlying

prosperity reﬂects the fact that continuities could themselves be

embedded in processes of change.

It will remain difﬁcult to apply

a single continuist or catastrophist paradigm to the Near East in the

mid-sixth century.

The Jafnids are rarely integrated into the framework of this debate,

but it is hard to imagine that any economic decline in the parts of the

Empire where they were most active would not have had some kind of

effect on their fortunes. Most recently, Zvi Ma oz has conjectured on

very ﬂimsy grounds that a decline in manpower, resulting from the

plague, affected the military power of ‘Ghassān’ and led to the

cancellation of the agreement between the Jafnids and the Emperor.

Certainly the association of the Jafnids with rural areas did not,

probably, give them much protection from the plague,

and Conrad

notes references to fear of the pestilence in the poems of the jahiliyya

poet Thābit, whose writings (in Conrad’s view) reﬂect attacks of the

plague on the Golan and the H

aurān, populous rural areas associated

with the Jafnids. Ma oz supports Conrad’s interpretation, but it must

be stressed that there is no other reliable contemporary source, and

Conrad himself admits that there are unavoidable problems in relying

on Thābit’s poetry.

The material evidence does not provide much help either because,

while there is fairly ample archaeological information for the

coastal areas of the Mediterranean and the towns and villages of

northern Syria, which can aid in rebuilding a picture of the state of

the economy during the second half of the sixth century, the data

M. Whittow, ‘Ruling the Late Roman and Early Byzantine city: a continuous

history’, Past and Present, 129 (1990), 3–29.

Z. U. Ma oz, The Ghassānids and the Fall of the Golan Synagogues (Qazrin,

2008), 45–6, 83. Ma oz’s argument is that the plague severely weakened Ghassān, for

which there is no evidence at all.

See dramatically Joh. Eph. HE II ¼ Chron. Zuq. 87, 88, 92, 95, on the devastation

of rural areas, as well as Joh. Eph. Vitae (PO 17, 261). See too L. K. Little, ‘Life and

afterlife of the ﬁrst plague pandemic’,inPlague and the End of Antiquity,3–32, at 24–

5; Conrad, ‘The plague in Bilād al-Shām’, 151.

Ma‘oz, The Ghassānids,81–2; L. Conrad, ‘Epidemic disease in central Syria in

the late sixth century: some new insights from the verse of Hassan ibn Thābit’, BMGS,

18 (1994), 12–58, esp. 15 (source problems) and 29, 52, 54–5.

Jafnids, Nas



rids, and Late Antiquity 189

for the H

aurān and southern Syria are incomplete and inconsistent.

For example, dated building inscriptions in Bostra came to an end

after the 540s, suggesting a decline in prosperity in the H

aurān, but in

the countryside there was an upsurge in the dedication of churches.

The increase in church dedications might be connected to a post-

epidemic population recovery, or might equally re ﬂect a continuation

in local prosperity, which may have nothing to do with the effects of

the plague or any decline in the rest of Syria.

Sartre concedes that

the drop in building activities in Bostra might even be the simple

result of the sheer number of buildings erected in the decades before-

hand, with the end of new buildings dated by inscription in the city

thus providing a misleading picture, prompting us to look for a

catastrophic explanation where none may in fact exist.

Complicat-

ing the picture is the evidence from two sites in the H

aurān, Rihab,

where mosaics were laid down in the late sixth century, and Sammāʾ,

where Foss notes a building inscription dated to 624. It would be

overly bold to suggest that these isolated activities constitute proof for

normal building activities continuing into the seventh century,

although they do at least show that not all activity had ceased.

The difﬁculty of course lies in correctly explaining these data, and

there is no compelling evidence either for or against a socioeconomic

slowdown in the H

aurān in its entirety. Magness’s recent work on

southern Palestine, where she speciﬁcally responds to Kennedy’s

catastrophe thesis, makes a compelling argument for economic and

demographic vibrancy in some parts of the area, and certainly sug-

gests that a picture of universal decline should not be accepted.

For what very little can be suggested, see Villeneuve, ‘L’économie rurale’, 128–9,

who suggests that at some point changes were under way which saw the establishment

of small, poor villages and monasteries, and what he vaguely calls ‘le retour en force

des nomades’.

M. Sartre, Bostra: Des origins à l’Islam (Paris, 1985), 135–9.

Kennedy, ‘ Justinianic plague in Syria’, 95; Sartre, ‘Le peuplement’, 197, who

notes, ‘la ﬂoraison d’églises que l’on observe tout à coup une dizaine d’années après la

peste prouve que la prospérité est revenue et que l’importance de la population n’est

pas sérieusement diminuée.’ See too R. Cormack, ‘The visual arts’, CAH 14, 884–917,

at 912, noting that events such as plague outbreaks can provide an impetus for acts of

private patronage like church endowments.

Sartre, Bostra, 127–8.

Foss, ‘Syria in transition’, 252–4; cf. Sartre, Bostra, 138.

J. Magness, The Archaeology of the Early Islamic Settlement in Palestine (Winona

Lake, Ind., 2003), 195–214.

190 Jafnids, Nas



rids, and Late Antiquity

We can therefore only speculate about the effect of any of this on

elites like the Jafnids and their supporters. On the strength of the

literary sources, though, it is noteworthy that al-H

ārith and al-Mundhir

maintained their leadership during this period, and lived through

the numerous visitations of the plague, as did al-Mundhir’s son, al-

Nu mān. There were enough of the people led by the Jafnids to lay

siege to Bostra under the direction of al-Nu mān in the 580s. It is also

interesting to note that in his description of this event John speciﬁ-

cally describes what they plundered: among the usual gold and silver

booty, they took cotton, corn, wine, oil, troops of baggage animals,

ﬂocks of sheep, goats, and oxen. He also writes that they extracted

plunder from the regions nearby.

John felt great indignation at what

happened to al-Mundhir, and some exaggeration in this part of his

work is to be expected; but any exaggeration is likely to be in the

numbers, and not the objects, and it is signiﬁcant that the majority of

the items plundered were animal and agricultural products which

were taken from people, not found wandering around untended or

growing idly in the ﬁelds.

Of course, the attack on Bostra and the

plundering of food and animals may have happened during a period

of recovery from any decline, and until the Sasanian invasions of the

seventh century, southern Syria does not seem to have been affected

as directly by the wars between the two empires, in some contrast to

the north. In short, there is no way of knowing if the prosperity

reﬂected by John’s description of the revolt is the result of continued

prosperity in the face of decline elsewhere, or a short-term recovery

from any impact of the plague—or, indeed, any other factor.

On the other hand, even if the plague failed to claim the senior

Jafnid leadership or affect their ability to pursue their activities, it is

possible that their income might have been affected. If imperial

revenues were down, either as a result of the impact of the plague

on the agricultural tax base or because of other reasons, such as the

ongoing war with Iran, it is possible that the stipends in kind support-

ing the Jafnids, such as the corn subsidy, were affected. Certainly

the disruption of the corn subsidy is given as a point of contention in

Joh. Eph. HE 176 (3.3.42).

Note that Ma oz, The Ghassānids, 83, argues that the ‘grain barns’ of southern

Syria were empty, since John of Ephesus does not say that they raided the region of

Nuqraʾ, which Ma oz considers critical. John is, however, quite clear that not only did

they seize agricultural products, but also that they raided far aﬁeld in Arabia and Syria.

Jafnids, Nas



rids, and Late Antiquity 191