Jabalah IV ibn al-Ḥārith

The Ghassanid emigration, as passed down in the rich oral tradition of Syria, Palestine, Jordan and Lebanon, originated in the city of Ma'rib in Yemen.

There was a dam in this city; however, one year there was so much rain that the dam was carried away by the ensuing flood.

Thus the people there had to leave.

The inhabitants emigrated seeking to live in less arid lands and became scattered far and wide.

The proverb “They were scattered like the people of Saba” refers to that exodus in history.

The emigrants were from the southern Arab tribe of Azd of the Kahlan branch of Qahtani tribes.

Another version of the story refers also to the persecution of the Christian tribes in Ancient Yemen by its rulers and the powerful Jewish tribes.

A reference to that is mentioned in the Quran about "As-haab al-ukhdood" where many Christians were buried alive in mass graves.

Those who were able to flee headed north settling in what is today south of The Levant.

The date of the migration to Syria is unclear; their earliest appearance in records is dated to 473, when their chief, Amorkesos, signed a treaty with the Eastern Roman Empire acknowledging their status as foederati controlling parts of Palestine.

He apparently became a Christian at this time; by around 510, the Ghassanids are no longer Chalcedonian, but Monophysite.

The king Jafna bin ‘Amr had emigrated with his family and retinue north and settled in Hauran, where the Ghassanid state was founded.

From him the Ghassanid line are also sometimes known as the Jafnids.

It is assumed that the Ghassanids adopted the religion of Christianity after they reached their new home.

The Romans had found a powerful ally in the new coming Arabs.

The Ghassanid kingdom serves as the buffer zone against the Lakhmids penetrating Roman territory.

In addition, as kings of their own people, they are also phylarchs, native rulers of client frontier states.

The capital is at Jabiyah in the Golan Heights.

Geographically, it occupies much of Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian Territories, and its authority extends via tribal alliances with other Azdi tribes all the way to the northern Hijaz as far south as Yathrib (Medina).

The Empire is focused more on the East and a long war with the Persians is always their main concern.

The Ghassanids maintain their rule as the guardian of trade routes, police Lakhmid tribes and are a source of troops for the Imeprial army.

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.