George Sale, The Koran, commonly called the Alcoran of Mohammed, translated into English immediately from the original Arabic; with Explanatory Notes, taken from the most approved Commentators. To which is prefixed A Preliminary Discource (1734)

The Preliminary Discourse.

the throne and drove out the Ethiopians, but was himself slain by some of them who were left behind. The Persians appointed the succeeding princes till Yaman fell into the hands of Mohammed, to whom Bazan, or rather Badhân, the last of them, submitted, and embraced his new religion 1.

This kingdom of the Hamyarites is said to have lasted 2020 years 2, or as others say above 3000 3; the length of the reign of each prince being very uncertain.

The kingdoms of Ghassân and Hira.
It has been already observed that two kingdoms were founded by those who left their country on occasion of the inundation of Aram: they were both out of the proper limits of Arabia. One of them was the kingdom of Ghassân. The founders of this kingdom were of the tribe of Azd, who settling in Syria Damascena near a water called Ghassân, thence took their name, and drove out the Dajaamian Arabs of the tribe of Salîh, who before possessed the country 4; where they maintained their kingdom 400 years, as others fay 600, or as Abulfeda more exactly computes 616. Five of these princes were named Hâreth, which the Greeks write Aretas: and one of them it was whose governour ordered the gates of Damascus to be watched to take St. Paul 5. This tribe were Christians, their last king being Jabalah the son of al Ayham, who on the Arabs successes in Syria professed Mohammedism under the Khalîf Omar; but receiving a disgust from him, returned to his former faith, and retired to Constantinople 6.

The other kingdom was that of Hira which was founded by Malec of the descendants of Cahlân in Chaldea or Irâk; but after three descents the throne came by marriage to the Lakhmians, called also the Mondars (the general name of those princes) who preserved their dominion, notwithstanding some small interruption by the Persians, till the Khalîfat of Abubecr, when al Mondar al Maghrûr the last of them lost his life and crown by the arms of Khaled Ebn al Walîd. This kingdom lasted 622 years eight months 8. Its princes were under the protection of the kings of Persia, whose lieutenants they were over the Arabs of Irâk, as the kings of Ghassân were for the Roman emperors over those of Syria 9.

Kingdom of the Jorhamites in Hejâz.
Jorham the son of Kahtân reigned in Hejâz, where his posterity kept the throne till the time of Ismael, but on his marrying the daughter of Modad, by whom he had twelve sons, Kidar, one of them,

1 Poc. Spec. p. 63, 64.

2 Abulfeda.

3 Al Jannâbi & Ahmed Ebn Yusef.

4 Poc. Spec. p. 76.

5 2 Cor. xi. 32. Actss ix. 24.

6 V. Ockley’s Hist. of the Saracens. Vol. 1. p. 174.

7 Poc. Spec. p. 66.

8 Ib. p. 74.

9 Ib. & Procop. in Perf. apud Photium. p. 71. &c.

c 2

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George Sale, The Koran, commonly called the Alcoran of Mohammed, translated into English immediately from the original Arabic; with Explanatory Notes, taken from the most approved Commentators. To which is prefixed A Preliminary Discource, C. Ackers in St. John’s-Street, for J. Wilcon at Virgil’s Head overagainst the New Church in the Strand., Consulted online at “Quran Archive - Texts and Studies on the Quran” on 15 Jan. 2025: http://quran-archive.org/explorer/george-sale/1734?page=30