Jabalah, the son of Ghassanid ruler Al-Harith…

Jabalah, the son of Ghassanid ruler Al-Harith (Arethas in Greek sources) and grandson of the sheikh Tha'laba, first appeares in the historical sources in 498 during the reign of Eastern Roman emperor Anastasius I, when, according to Theophanes the Confessor, the Diocese of the East suffered from large-scale Arab raids.

The head of one of the Arab groups invading imperial territory was Jabalah, who raided Palestine before being defeated and driven back by the Imperial dux, Romanus.

Romanus then proceeded to evict the Ghassanids from the island of Iotabe (modern Tiran), which controlled trade with the Red Sea and which had been occupied by the Arabs since 473.

After a series of hard-fought engagements, the island returned to Imperial control.

Anastasius had concluded a treaty of alliance in 502 with the Kindaites and Ghassanids, turning them into imperial allies (foederati).

With the outbreak of the Anastasian War against Sassanid Persia, the Ghassanids had fought on Constantinople’s side, although only one operation, an attack against the Lakhmid capital of Hirah in July 513, is explicitly attributed to them.

The Ghassanids have settled deep inside the Roman limes, and in a Syriac source for July 519 they are attested as having their "opulent" headquarters at al-Jabiya (Gabitha) in the Gaulanitis (Golan Heights), where Jabalah had succeeded his father as king over his tribe.