The four Christian Arab kingdoms centuries before Islam

Wednesday, September 30, 2026 The four Christian Arab kingdoms centuries before Islam

A History Rarely Repeated GamilSinkiLLC

I want to ask you a question. Just one. What’s the first image that comes to your mind when I say to you, the Arabs? before Islam? tents and desert? and tribes? fighting over a camel and a well? Okay, what’s if I said to you that the image is incomplete? Very incomplete. Very much so. Because before Islam, by hundreds of years, there was a four-part Arab kingdom that was a kingdom in the true sense of the word. Palaces, armies, and armies and kings who corresponded with Caesar of Rome and Chosroes of Persia. and coins were minted in their names. and ambassadors would go and come between the capitals. And the strangest thing, the strangest thing is that the kingdoms of the four were all Christian. Yes. You heard right, Christian. There was a monastery and bishops and monks and nuns in Iraq and the Levant and the heart of Najd and today I’m taking you on a journey to across 400 years to the four kingdoms that were not mentioned but whose traces are still speaking and stones are still testifying to Tanukh and Kinda and the Lakhmids and the Ghassanids. and the Ghassanids. and the Ghassanids. Four kingdoms stories whose story is stranger than fiction and each kingdom has a surprise that makes you rethink your calculations about history. And before we start, let me paint you a complete picture. Imagine the world at that time as an empire of two empires that were great. They were fighting over the rule of the world. The West was the empire of Rome and the capital was Constantinople. and armies that were invincible and palaces of kings and the Levant was the empire of the Sassanids and the Persians the Sassanids whose capital was Ctesiphon and armies that were at war and treasures and kings who were titled themselves King of Kings. and between the two empires was the desert of Arabia the Arab and tribes fighting neither Rome can rule the desert nor can Persia. So what did they do? Each empire was choosing Arab tribes and arming them with money and so told them to guard the borders. And it became the Arab tribes kingdoms and there were wars between Rome and Persia that were managed by Arab hands. The chess of the giants and the soldiers were Arab. Yeah. And each kingdom of the four had a secret. It will reveal to you what Tanukh their secret was a queen and Kinda’s secret was a weak city in the sand and the Lakhmids their secret was a palace and like a stone. And the Ghassanids their secret was a general in the Roman army. Okay, let’s start from the beginning. And let’s start from the beginning. from the third century AD. That is, before Islam by more than 300 years. And there are Arab tribes that decided to unite. Not one tribe, but an alliance. An alliance of tribes that called themselves Tanukh. And the meaning of Tanukh is to settle down and stay. in because they decided to leave the nomadic life and settle in They came from the peninsula north and settled on the borders of the Levant and Iraq. between the empire of two great Rome in the west and Persia in the east. And the Romans were smart. They saw the tribes that were fighting and said, why should we fight them? Let them guard our eastern borders against the Persians. And they gave them land and weapons and money and they became allies of Rome officially. The first Arab kingdom to enter the game of the great empires. And they lived and built and converted to many of them Christianity and became they had churches. And do you know how Christianity spread? among them? Not by the sword. No. By the Romans. Romans Arabs. They were living in the desert and were ascetic and austere and the story the tribes used to see their asceticism and be influenced. One of the most famous was

the monk Moses. who later became a bishop at the request of the queen Mawia. And do you know how Tanukh didn’t start the war? No, they had cities and villages and farms. And they were speaking Arabic and writing it. And there are their remains in Syria and Jordan. And they were proud of their Arabism. Even though they were allies of Rome. They didn’t accept it, they preserved their language and their poetry. and their genealogy. Even but the real story is the story that makes you open your mouth in astonishment starts in the year 365 AD when in that year the king of Tanukh died and died without an heir to the throne. So who took over the rule after him? His wife Queen Mawia What? A woman in the fourth century AD ruling a kingdom of Arabs and warriors What? And the emperor of Rome at that time was Valens was from the sect of Christianity that differs from the sect of the Arabs. So he said, this is my chance to take advantage of the king’s death and impose on the Tanukhids a bishop from my sect by force. Mawia what did she do? Did she surrender? Did she No, my friend. She withdrew to the desert the desert that she knows and the Romans don’t know. And she gathered the tribes and moved and allied with the Arabs of the desert and in the spring of the year 378 AD she led the largest revolution against the Roman Empire at that time. And listen to this carefully. And put it in your ear. The armies of Mawia swept through swept through Palestine and the Levant and reached the outskirts of Egypt. And she shook defeated the Roman armies in every battle. Battle after battle. And with tactics of desert warfare the guerrilla and hit-and-run tactics and surprise attacks. The Romans with their regular armies were unable to deal with the ghosts of the desert. To the point that the historians said the East Roman was all the empire and it’s ruled by an Arab queen. Imagine an empire where an Arab ruled the world and it became a beggar to an Arab queen asking for peace, and Muawiyah was what? What was her condition? Listen. Because this condition shows you the metal of the woman. Not gold, not land, not money. Her condition was to appoint the monk Moses as the bishop of her people. Moses was a monk and an Arab ascetic who accepted Muawiyah’s wars and impressed him with his asceticism and piety, so she converted to Christianity at his hands. So the condition of the peace was that the monk of the desert would become a bishop. And Rome agreed and entered and agreed to it. This indicates, folks, that the first Arab kingdom was Christian. And its queen was a woman. The woman who defeated Rome and imposed her conditions on Caesar. was And to know the size of what she did, Muawiyah listen to the details. The Romans had a system called the foederati which means that allied tribes guard the borders. In exchange for money and weapons. And it was the most famous foederati So when Muawiyah rebelled, it wasn’t a small tribe’s rebellion, it was a rebellion of the strongest ally, and the battles that are recorded by the Romans themselves wrote that Muawiyah’s armies defeated the commanders of the great Romans one after another. And that she was leading the battles herself. Not from a distant tent, no, on the battlefield. with her men. And after Rome surrendered, do you know what happened? Muawiyah’s daughter married Victor the commander in chief of the Roman armies. in the East. Imagine the daughter of the Arab queen became the wife of the strongest general in Rome. As for the monk Moses, he was ordained as bishop of the Tanukhids. Just as Muawiyah had stipulated. And he became the first Arab bishop in the Roman Empire. And the Tanukhids continued for centuries and were later integrated into the other kingdoms but their name remained engraved as the first kingdom and the greatest kingdom and do you know the name of the history that is hidden? in families in Lebanon and Syria to this day that are attributed to Noah? The sons of Noah settled in Mount Lebanon hundreds of years ago, meaning the descendants of the first Arab kingdom that was Christian still lives among us. And also Noah the ancient some of them still exist today. Stones that were prayed in by

generations a thousand years ago. And but Noah was the beginning only. Because in the heart of the island there was another kingdom that was even stranger than that. A kingdom in the middle of the sands. Let’s go south to the house of the heart of the island in the Arabian Peninsula. And there in the middle of the sands that don’t show mercy, a kingdom arose a kingdom of Kinda. And its capital was the city of a complete city called Qaryat al-Faw. No, don’t imagine tents, no, a city with palaces and temples and markets and markets and inscriptions and writings and ruins that are still there today in Saudi Arabia. And the excavations are still revealing new things and kings of Kinda united the tribes of Najd and extended their influence to Hadramaut and Bahrain. And they became a force to be reckoned with a thousand times. And among the most famous kings was Al-Harith ibn Amr who expanded the kingdom and it became known as the shaker of the Arabian Peninsula. And the most famous royal house among them was the Al-Hajar. who was nicknamed their leader “Akel al-Marar”. Why? Why? Because one day we ate each other to prove his courage in front of the tribes. And he became known by the title “the pride of the tribe” that they inherited. And the kings of Kinda were not all Christians from the beginning. No, some of them were on the paganism of the Arabs and some of them converted to Christianity. And some of them converted to Judaism.

And Okay, one kingdom with three religions and it’s not a joke, they are united under one king. And this is showing you that the Arabs before Islam were aware of pluralism and lived it. And one of the most famous names of Kinda is Imru al-Qais Yes, yes. The poet of the Mu’allaqat that we all studied in school. How do we cry over the memory of a lover and a home? Imru al-Qais was a prince of Kinda and his father was a king and he lived the life of kings before he lost his kingdom and lost with it what and the strangest thing is that many of the people of Kinda entered Christianity Imagine with me in the heart of Najd before Islam by centuries in there were Arabs who were Christians They pray and they have churches and they have and Kinda was a kingdom of merchants with caravans of incense and perfume and spices that come from Yemen going to the Levant passing through their lands. So it became a link in the chain. between the south of the peninsula and the north and it became rich and prosperous. And the village of Al-Faw guys, which if you see pictures of the excavations there, you’ll be amazed by a city that is planned with streets and streets and temples and temples and royal tombs and inscriptions in a script called Musnad that tells stories of kings and one of the strongest kings of Kinda Al-Harith ibn Amr this man did something that no one else did He marched with his army and occupied Al-Hirah the capital of the Lakhmid kingdom. And imagine a king from Najd who occupies the capital of a kingdom in Iraq and became Al-Harith ruling from Najd to Iraq and but the world turns and Al-Harith returned to the Lakhmid later and as for Imru al-Qais he his story is a tragedy of a king and after he lost his kingdom, his father decided to go where? and to Constantinople the capital of the Romans and he went to ask for help from the Emperor Justinian so that he could get his kingdom back he crossed thousands of kilometers from Najd to Constantinople so that And the Emperor Justinian welcomed him and helped him but he returned sick and died on the way in Ankara The prince of Kinda died a strange death far away from his land and he was dreaming of regaining his kingdom I saw even even our poet the famous story the story of kings But like all the great kingdoms the end came the war and the wars and the division died and they were scattered the tribes after and they fell the kingdom after but the name of Kinda didn’t die it remained in the poetry and it remained in the lineage the story of the tribe of Kinda is still here today in Yemen and Saudi Arabia And one of the most famous Kinda people after Islam the most famous is Al-Ash’ath ibn Qais Al-Kindi a

companion and a leader in the military and one of his descendants was a scholar and a leader and I mean, the kingdom of Kinda didn’t end it transformed it transformed from a kingdom to a tribe and the tribe left behind generations and Kinda didn’t it wasn’t a kingdom of the desert but in Iraq on the banks of the Euphrates there was another kingdom there palaces that became proverbial in the kingdom of it was the most famous palace in Arab history Let’s go to Iraq to the banks of the Euphrates in near from Najaf today it’s there that a kingdom of the Lakhmid in and their origin is from the tribe of Lakhm who migrated from the Yemen and settled in Iraq and their capital was and the meaning of Al-Hirah the meaning is the camp because it started as a camp then it became a city then it became the capital of a kingdom and the Persians the empire of the Sassanids the great They did the same thing the Romans did with Tanukh and they said, “Are the Arabs warriors the most suitable people to guard the western borders against the Romans?” So Al-Hirah became the capital of an Arab Christian state under the protection of Persia. And its kings ruled with peace because the wealth and And the kings of the Lakhmids The names are still engraved in history books the Al-Mundhir ibn Ma’ al-Sama’ and Al-Mundhir the Third and Al-Nu’man ibn Al-Mundhir and Al-Mundhir the Third this was a war beast and led the armies of the Lakhmids for years against the Ghassanids and against the Romans. And he reached his raids to the borders of the Levant. And Christian Al-Hirah was they had a name of their own it was called the servants meaning servants of God Imagine a city completely Christian whose people are called the servants because of their piety. And in Al-Hirah there were monasteries famous ones that were visited by monks from everywhere. And the churches were thriving with prayers and worship. before Kufa was built and before Baghdad was built. And Al-Nu’man ibn Al-Mundhir this one has a story with a palace He built a palace called Al-Khawarnaq A palace that became a byword for luxury and magnificence. The Arabs today when they see something magnificent, they say it’s like the Khawarnaq. A palace called Al-Khawarnaq. But do you know the story of the building of Al-Khawarnaq? A story that breaks the heart. And Al-Nu’man brought the most famous engineer of his time Sinmar and told him, “Build me a palace that has no equal. And Sinmar built it a palace called Al-Khawarnaq. What a beauty. And when he finished You can build better than him. He said, Salman, yes, I can. So he did something, Al-Nu’man, that is unimaginable. He ordered and Ram Sinmar from the top of the palace so that he wouldn’t build another palace like the Khawarnaq. And from that day on, it became a proverb “the reward of Sinmar” It’s used for someone who is rewarded with evil for good. Have you seen even the proverbs that we repeat today are derived from the palaces of the Lakhmids. And most of the people of Al-Hirah were Christians. We were churches and monasteries and monks. And Al-Hirah was a beacon of literature and and one of the most famous Christians of Al-Hirah was Adi ibn Zayd. The poet and advisor to the kings and he was a Christian. And he was one of the closest people to Al-Nu’man. And but the story that shook the Arabs all of them came from here. Chosroes Abru Parviz king of the Persians got angry at Al-Nu’man ibn al-Mundhir Why? In there was someone named Zayd ibn Adi the son of Adi ibn Zayd the poet And Al-Nu’man was killed his father so Zayd went to Chosroes and poisoned his heart against Al-Nu’man and incited him against him. And Al-Nu’man felt that the end was near. So he fled. And he entrusted his family and weapons and money to a man named Shuja ibn Hani ibn Mas’ud al-Shaybani then returned and surrendered to Chosroes and Chosroes imprisoned him then killed him. And that was the end of the kingdom of the Lakhmids. with the fall of its king. But the story didn’t end there. Chosroes sent to Hani ibn Mas’ud the deposit of Al-Nu’man. His family and money and weapons. And Hani what did he do? He refused and said these are a trust. And I will

not betray the trust even if it costs me my neck. Chosroes went crazy and prepared an army of soldiers. Thousands of Persians and with them Arab loyalists to him and marched with them to Dhi Qar. And there in the year 600 and 9 AD, yeah, the Battle of the battle happened. On one side, the army of Chosroes the Great with Bakht leading his armor and elephants and on the other side, the tribes of Bani Shayban and Bakr ibn Wa’il Arabs but their swords and their courage and listen to the result. Because it’s going to make you get up from your seat you the victory of the Arabs won the owner of the truth the first time in history the Arabs defeated the emperor of Persia the Persian yeah the day of Dhi Qar the day that they said the Arabs to the world that we are here and we can and all this is before Islam. And so that you know the value of the battle listen to this in an inscription on stone discovered in the Emirate of Syria it says on it listen to the text this is the grave of Imru al-Qays ibn Amr king of all the Arabs King of all the Arabs in the year 300 and 28 AD, yeah here an inscription considered one of the oldest Arabic texts in history And a stone that testifies that there was an Arab king before Islam by 300 years who was called himself king of all the Arabs And Imru al-Qays this is not a poet no, this is Imru al-Qays the innovator the first of the kings of the great Lakhmid dynasty and Al-Hirah in its glory was the Paris of its time.

The story of this It was a lighthouse of affliction for Al-Nu’man who was gathering the poets and Al-Nabigha Al-Dhubyani the most famous poet of the Arabs was a poet of the court who praised Al-Nu’man and received gifts and the city was full of Su’ad and others and the monks would forget they were copying books and the scholars would translate and Christianity in Al-Hirah was widespread to the point that the Persians themselves used to respect its bishops and imagine an Arab city that is Christian and independent and prosperous on the Euphrates before Islam by centuries. And the court of Al-Hirah was not a policy and war only, it was a culture and a city of poetry and singing and literature and poets competing and the singer would enchant and Al-Hirah was the Paris of the Arabs before there was a Paris and its markets were a meeting place for merchants from Persia and the Levant and Yemen and the goods of the world passed through Al-Hirah and today the land after the victory became a holiday The Arabs every year they remember the day they defeated the Persians and it became a day of pride like the highest for dignity and dignity and courage and loyalty and trustworthiness and here Ibn Mas’ud who refused to hand over the trust became a symbol of a symbol that the Arab dies but does not betray the trust Have you seen the greatness of the lighthouse? A kingdom that left behind palaces and examples and inscriptions and a day of the greatest days of the Arabs but in the Levant there was a kingdom that was the fourth competing with the Lakhmids and fighting with it a kingdom a kingdom that was Rome’s shield and the last of the kingdoms and the most famous and the strongest and the Ghassanids the Ghassanids and their origin is from Yemen from the tribe of Azd and they migrated north after the collapse of the Marib Dam and settled in the Levant and their capital was Al-Jabiya Al-Jabiya in the Golan Heights and the Romans said, to them, the magic word you are our shield a shield against the Persians and against the Lakhmids allies of the Persians So the Ghassanids became the strongest Arab ally for the empire of Rome And the kings of their kings were named names that shook history Al-Harith bin Jabalah and Al-Mundhir bin Al-Harith and Al-Mundhir bin Al-Harith the story of which shows the loyalty of the Ghassanids The emperor Maurice betrayed him accused him of treason and exiled him Imagine imagine a king who served Rome for years fighting its enemies and in the end he is exiled by the Ghassanids They didn’t betray them, they remained loyal until the very last moment and this is the difference between them and

others they were men of their word and Al-Harith bin Jabalah the Romans gave him the title that no Arab was given before him the title of Patrician which means General of the empire of Rome and commander in chief Imagine imagine an Arab becoming a general in the Roman army And the Ghassanids were Christians and they built churches and monasteries throughout the Levant and the ruins of their churches are still there today in Jordan and Syria and they were people of generosity and poetry poets used to praise them and compete to be at the doors of their Hassan bin Thabit the poet of the Prophet later used to praise the Ghassanids before Islam and but their relationship with the Lakhmids was a continuous war for years and years and why? Because it wasn’t a war of Arabs against Arabs only, but it was a war by proxy Rome against Persia by Arab hands The Ghassanids fought on behalf of Rome and the Lakhmids fought on behalf of Persia and the most famous days of the war was the day of Halima the Battle of the mill between the Ghassanids and the Lakhmids and the Ghassanids won the battle with a great victory. And the Lakhmid king Al-Mundhir III was killed, the king of the Lakhmids. Imagine the scene a kingdom of Arabs fighting each other, both Christian, fighting and each one fighting on behalf of an empire that is foreign. This was the game of nations before 1400 years ago. And to know the status of the Ghassanids with the Romans, listen. I am Al-Harith bin Jabala, I was not an ordinary ally. The emperor Justinian himself gave him the title of Patrician and its meaning is a great leader. And Al-Harith became the leader of the Roman armies. And in the Battle of Chalcis, Al-Harith defeated Al-Mundhir III, the king of the Lakhmids, in a crushing defeat. And the spoils were countless. But there is a strange paradox. The Ghassanids were Christians and but from a different sect than the emperor of Rome. So their relationship was a love and hate relationship. And Rome needed them to guard the borders but they differed with them on doctrine. And with that, the Ghassanids built churches and protected Christianity in the Levant to the point that many of the Christians of the Levant to this day are of Ghassanid origin. Islam praises the kings of Ghassan and lives on their generosity. And he says in them poetry that is still preserved to this day. And it continued the kingdom of the Ghassanids to be strong and powerful and powerful until the year 600 and 36 AD. That’s when Yarmouk the battle that changed the map of the world. And after that, Sham entered a new era. And it ended the kingdom of the Ghassanids. Just as the kingdom of their sisters before them ended. But their story didn’t end. And what happened after we learned their stories let’s ask you who is stronger? Who is greater? Let’s compare. What is older? Tanukh or from the third century? Or the first kingdom? And the first experience? The strangest? Was it Kinda? A kingdom in the heart of the desert? No, it’s not rivers or just men The richest? The rarest? Al-Hirah? Al-Hirah? It was the richest Arab city and the walls and markets and palaces And the strongest militarily the Ghassanids the Ghassanids a shield for Rome the armies of a regular army and a leader with the title of emperor but there’s something common between them all. All of them are Arabs. And all of them are Christians. And all of them played the chess of the empire. And all of them ended. Why? Because they were pawns in the game of the big players. Rome and Persia used them and when the winds of change came, they flew away. But there’s a difference between the endings. Tanukh merged with and dissolved and Kinda scattered as tribes. And the Lakhmids fell with the killing of the queen. And the Ghassanids ended with the killing of the battle that changed the world. Four endings for four kingdoms. But the lesson is one. The lesson is that whoever builds their glory on the shoulders of others their glory will not last. Kingdoms the strongest of the four built their glory on the alliances of the empire. But when the empire fell, the empires or the game changed, they fell with it. But the glory of their culture remained. Poetry and proverbs and proverbs and inscriptions

and inscriptions and churches The stones are more truthful than politics. Four kingdoms Tanukh that ruled by Mawia defeated the empire of Rome. And imposed terms on Caesar. And Kinda the kingdom of the desert and poetry that protected the village of Al-Faw still has its ruins telling the story. And the Lakhmids kings of Al-Hirah that built the Khawarnaq and left behind the reward of fire and saw the day of Dhi Qar the first Arab victory over the Persians. And the Ghassanids a state that was a shield for Rome and the kings of the Levant whose leader became a general of the empire and four Arab kingdoms that were Christian ruled the region for more than 400 years before Islam. And okay, what’s left of them? What’s left are the names of the tribes that are still around today. And what’s left are the ruins of the churches and monasteries that are still under the soil in Iraq and the Levant and And what’s left is the poetry that praised their kings and what’s left are the proverbs that were repeated and we don’t know they are from their palaces. And what’s left is the lesson that is most important. The lesson is that the Arabs before they were united by one message and united the kingdoms and that they played in the big leagues of the Romans and Persians. And that the history is more complex and richer and more beautiful than the simple picture in our minds. Four Arab kingdoms that were erased from memory. But today we brought them back And if you liked the journey, the story isn’t over. This was the beginning. And there’s still more kingdoms and peoples and peoples and stories that make you see history with new eyes. And you want to see it with their own eyes. And go to the village of Al-Faw in Saudi Arabia and see the city of Kinda And go to Najaf and ask about Al-Hirah and stand on the ruins of the capital of the Lakhmid dynasty. And go to the Golan and look for the Jabiya capital of the Ghassanid dynasty. And look for the inscription of Namara that says “The king of all Arabs History is not just in books. History is under our feet. Stay close.