Yawm Halima () is the name given to a battle fought between the rival

Ghassanid The Ghassanids, also known as the Jafnids, were an Arab tribe. Originally from South Arabia, they migrated to the Levant in the 3rd century and established what would eventually become a Christian kingdom under the aegis of the Byzantine Empi ...

and

Lakhmid The Lakhmid kingdom ( ), also referred to as al-Manādhirah () or as Banū Lakhm (), was an Arab kingdom that was founded and ruled by the Lakhmid dynasty from to 602. Spanning Eastern Arabia and Sawad, Southern Mesopotamia, it existed as a d ...

Arabs in the 6th century. Considered " e of the most famous battles of

pre-Islamic Arabia Pre-Islamic Arabia is the Arabian Peninsula and its northern extension in the Syrian Desert before the rise of Islam. This is consistent with how contemporaries used the term ''Arabia'' or where they said Arabs lived, which was not limited to the ...

", it was named after Halima, a Ghassanid princess who assisted the warriors of her tribe in the battle. The exact identity of the Ghassanid king who fought the battle is not certain, but he is commonly identified with

al-Harith ibn Jabalah Al-Ḥārith ibn Jabalah (; known in Byzantine sources as Flavios Arethas (Greek: ) and Khālid ibn Jabalah () in later Islamic sources), was a king of the Ghassanids, a pre-Islamic Arab Christian tribe who lived on the eastern frontier of the Byz ...

(), a major

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived the events that caused the fall of the Western Roman E ...

client ruler A client state in the context of international relations is a state that is economically, politically, and militarily subordinated to a more powerful controlling state. Alternative terms for a ''client state'' are satellite state, associated sta ...

who waged frequent conflicts with the Lakhmids under their respective king

al-Mundhir III ibn al-Nu'man Al-Mundhir III ibn al-Nu'man (), also known as Al-Mundhir ibn Imri' al-Qays () (died 554) was the king of the Lakhmids in 503/505–554. Biography His mother's name was Maria bint Awf bin Geshem. The son of al-Nu'man II ibn al-Aswad, he succeed ...

(). The Lakhmids in turn were clients of the

Sassanid Persia The Sasanian Empire (), officially Eranshahr ( , "Empire of the Iranian peoples, Iranians"), was an List of monarchs of Iran, Iranian empire that was founded and ruled by the House of Sasan from 224 to 651. Enduring for over four centuries, th ...

ns, and the perennial tribal warfare between them and the Ghassanids was combined with the larger rivalry between Byzantium and Persia, with the Arabs fighting as auxiliaries for the two great empires. Yawm Halima is now commonly identified with a battle fought in June 554 near Chalcis (modern

Qinnasrin Qinnašrīn (; ; ; ), was a historical town in northern Syria. The town was situated southwest of Aleppo on the west bank of the Queiq (historically, the Belus) and was connected to Aleppo with a major road during Roman times. Some scholars p ...

), where the Ghassanids confronted one of Mundhir's raids. The Lakhmids were defeated and their king Mundhir fell on the field, but Harith also lost his eldest son Jabalah.

References

Sources

* * * *{{cite book, last=Shahîd, first=Irfan, authorlink=Irfan Shahîd, title=Byzantium and the Arabs in the Sixth Century, Volume II, Part 2: Economic, Social and Cultural History, location=Washington, DC, publisher=Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, year=2009, isbn=978-0-88402-347-0, url=https://books.google.com/books?id=js30HODt2aYC 554 550s in the Byzantine Empire 550s conflicts Battles involving the Ghassanids Battles involving the Lakhmids Pre-Islamic Arabia