Al-Harith ibn Jabalah

Who was Al-Harith ibn Jabalah?

Al-Ḥārith ibn Jabalah, [Flavios] Arethas in Greek sources and Khālid ibn Jabalah in later Islamic sources, was a king of the Ghassanids, a pre-Islamic Arab people who lived on the eastern frontier of the Byzantine Empire. The fifth Ghassanid ruler of that name, he reigned from circa 528 to 569 and played a major role in the wars with Persia and the affairs of the Monophysite Syriac Church. For his services to Byzantium, he was made a patricius and a gloriosissimus.