One of the most fascinating features of the late-antique world is the emergence of texts written by and about ethnic groups who held only a peripheral position in earlier Greco-Roman history. In this concise and well-argued study, based on an Oxford dissertation supervised by Averil Cameron, F. explores the elusive history of the Arabs before the rise of Islam. Drawing upon a diffuse corpus of literary, epigraphic and archaeological materials – including texts in Greek, Latin, Syriac and Arabic – F. attempts to stitch together a synthetic overview of the history of the Arabs in the late-antique Middle East.
Three major tribal confederations dominated the northern portions of the Syro-Arabian desert during the century prior to the rise of Islam: the Ghassānids who were based in southern Syria and allied with the Roman Empire; the Lakhmids who were based at Ḥīra in south-western Iraq and closely connected to the court of the Sasanian Empire; and the Kinda who controlled a significant portion of central and northern Arabia. Building on the arguments of C. Robin and M. Whittow, F. replaces the traditional terminology for these tribal confederations with the names of the clans who ruled them. Indeed, he doubts whether these tribal groupings even deserve the term ‘confederation’ (p. 83). I am not persuaded by this part of his argument, but the alternative designations – Jafnids (leaders of the Ghassānids), Naṣrids (leaders of the Lakhmids) and Ḥujrids (leaders of the Kinda) – do have the advantage of highlighting the elite status of the familial dynasties at the head of each confederation. In a world where diplomacy was largely conducted through personal ties, ‘power rested with the individual, not the group’ (p. 45). Roman and Sasanian rulers bestowed titles directly on the individual Arab leaders, who sometimes came to court in person to receive them.
The adoption of Christianity by Arab elites during the fifth and sixth centuries fostered new patterns of diplomacy and cultural exchange. Byzantine and Syriac chronicles and hagiographies preserve multiple vignettes describing the conversion of particular Arab leaders and tribes. F. interrogates each of these intriguing episodes, emphasising how the markers associated with conversion (gifts, titles and new names) seem to have sharpened the social stratification within Arab society. These developments are best documented in the case of the Jafnid leaders al-Ḥārith (r. 529–69) and his son al-Mundhir (r. 569–82), both of whom received the Roman title patrikios. The population in Syria took notice, hailing Jafnid leaders in village inscriptions that combined traditional building dedications with Christian invocations. For instance, a lintel inscription from the village of Sammā' near Bosra echoes Psalm 120 in its invocation of protection by ‘the illustrious phylarch Abū-Karib’, who may have been al-Ḥārith's brother. F.'s discussion and meticulous notes offer an important guide to this epigraphic record. He also tweaks the image of the Jafnids as staunch patrons of Miaphysite (i.e. ‘One nature’ or anti-Chalcedonian) doctrine, a view rooted in the laudatory portrait of the Jafnids in John of Ephesus (d. 588) and other Miaphysite sources. Although he accepts the manifold evidence for these Jafnid connections to the Miaphysite faction, F. sees the Jafnids' Christian allegiances as more flexible and pragmatic than other recent scholarship (esp. Irfan Shahid) has sometimes contended.
The archaeology of Jordan and Syria preserves important evidence for the Jafnids' attention to both secular and ecclesiastical architecture. A stone audience hall built outside the walls of Ruṣafa in northern Syria bears a Greek inscription proclaiming, ‘The fortune of al-Mundhir triumphs’ (+ νικᾷ ἡ [τ]ύχη Αλαμυνδά[ρ]ου). F. accepts E. Fowden's argument that this building functioned both as a church and a place where ‘al-Mundhir could demonstrate his political authority’ (p. 52). Evidence for ecclesiastical patronage is more abundant. The church excavated at Nitl near Madaba in central Jordan includes inscribed floor mosaics with Greek inscriptions honouring Arab leaders (the ‘phylarch Tha‘laba’ and ‘Erethas, the son of Al-Arethas’). While he is cautious on the precise identity of these leaders, F. agrees with the church's excavator, M. Piccirillo, that one or both names likely refer to Jafnid elites. As such, the mosaics of this sixth-century church offer further testimony to Jafnid investment in the ‘architectural and stylistic expressions of Christian affiliation common in the region’ (p. 51). Greek inscriptions from another of the region's monastic sites, Qaṣr al-Ḥayr al-Gharbī in central Syria, explicitly cite al-Ḥārith's authority as phylarch (a late Roman title meaning ‘leader of the tribe’) and commemorate his visit to the monastery.
F. faces still greater challenges in his effort to trace the rise and fall of the other major Arab tribal confederations, the Naṣrids (Lakhmids) and Ḥujrids (Kinda). Pre-Islamic poets associated with the Naṣrid capital of Ḥīra lavish praise on the city's many churches and monasteries, but the site has remained largely inaccessible to archaeologists since the hurried British excavations there in the early 1930s. This dearth of archaeological data is particularly frustrating given the Naṣrids' importance as a client state of the late Sasanian Empire. Japanese excavations on the northern periphery of Ḥīra uncovered two finely decorated churches during the 1960s, but these date to the eighth century and thus can tell us little about the settlement at its height in the sixth century. As F. rather glumly observes, ‘in reality we know remarkably little about al-Ḥīrah, the Naṣrids, or the people over whom they ruled’ (p. 64). One hopes and suspects, however, that there are more insights to be gained from the Arabic and East-Syrian sources. F.'s own analysis also belies this pessimism, since his reading of Malalas and other Byzantine sources allows him to document the Naṣrids' increasing independence in their diplomatic relations with Constantinople (p. 117).
F.'s account underscores how interconnected the different regions of Arabia had become by the late Roman period. The Ḥimyarite inscriptions of South Arabia show, for instance, how the Ḥimyarites used their alliance with the Kinda to challenge Ḥīra's traditional dominance in north-eastern Arabia (p. 87). Ambassadorial reports preserved in the ninth-century Bibliotheca of Patriarch Photius document Roman efforts to counter this Ḥimyarite advance by cultivating direct diplomatic ties to the Kinda leader Qays. F. rightly insists that the emergence of new forms of Arab identity during precisely this period cannot be a coincidence (p. 153). The invention of the Arabic script c. 500 c.e. and the flourishing of pre-Islamic Arabic poetry and military tales both have strong links to the emergence of the Jafnids and Naṣrids as powerful client states of Rome and Iran.
F.'s study presents a skilled synthesis of the major developments in the Arab world on the eve of Islam. The evidence is fragmentary and complex, and F.'s style makes few concessions for non-specialists. But the results are well worth the effort. The editors of the Oxford Classical Monographs are to be commended for including this fine study of the pre-Islamic Arabs in their series.
