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)

in the middle of their discourse, the Arab appeared. The king, admiring the man’s generosity, in offering himself to certain death, which he might have avoided by letting his surety suffer, asked him, what was his motive for his so doing? to which he answered, that he had been taught to act in that manner, by the religion he professed; and al Nooman demanding what religion that was, he replied the Christian. Whereupon the king desiring to have the doctrines of Christianity explained to him, was baptized, he and his subjects; and not only pardoned the man and his surety, but abolished his barbarous custom ¹. This prince, however, was not the first king of Hira who embraced Christianity; al Mondar; his grandfather, having also professed the same faith, and built large churches in his capital ².

Since Christianity had made so great a progress in Arabia, we may consequently suppose they had bishops in several parts, for the more orderly governing of the churches. A bishop of Dhafâr has been already named, and we are told that Najrân was also a bishop’s see ³. The Jacobites (of which sect we have observed the Arabs generally were) had two bishops of the Arabs subject to their Mafriân, or metropolitan of the east; one was called the bishop of the Arabs absolutely, whose seat was for the most part at Akula, which some authors make the same with Cûfa ⁴, others a different town near Baghdâd ⁵. The other had the title of bishop of the Scenite Arabs, of the tribe of Thaalab in Hira, or Hirta, as the Syrians call it, whose seat was in that city. The Nestorians had but one bishop, who presided over both these diocesses, of Hira and Akula, and was immediately subject to their patriarch ⁶.

These were the principal religions which obtained among the ancient Arabs; but as freedom of thought was the natural consequence of their political liberty and independance, some of them fell into other different opinions. The Koreish, in particular, were infected with Zendicism ⁷, an error supposed to have very near affinity with that of the Sadducees among the Jews, and, perhaps, not greatly different from Deism; for there were several of that tribe, even before the time of Mohammed, who worshipped one god, and were free from idolatry ⁸, and yet embraced none of the other religions of the country.