Jadhíma was a wise and warlike prince. In one of his expeditions he defeated and slew ‘Amr b. Ẓarib b. Ḥassán b. Udhayna, an Arab chieftain who had brought part of Eastern Syria and Mesopotamia under his sway, and who, as the name Udhayna indicates, is probably identical with Odenathus, the husband of Zenobia. This opinion is confirmed by the statement of Ibn Qutayba that "Jadhíma sought in marriage The story of Zabbá. Zabbá, the daughter of the King of Mesopotamia, who became queen after her husband."80—According to the view generally held by Muḥammadan authors Zabbá81 was the daughter of ‘Amr b. Ẓarib and was elected to succeed him when he fell in battle. However this may be, she proved herself a woman of extraordinary courage and resolution. As a safeguard against attack she built two strong castles on either bank of the Euphrates and connected them by a subterranean tunnel; she made one fortress her own residence, while her sister, Zaynab, occupied the other.
Having thus secured her position she determined to take vengeance on Jadhíma. She wrote to him that the sceptre was slipping from her feeble grasp, that she found no man worthy of her except himself, that she desired to unite her kingdom with his by marriage, and begged him to come and see her. Jadhíma needed no urging. Deaf to the warnings of his friend and counsellor, Qaṣír, he started from Baqqa, a castle on the Euphrates. When they had travelled some distance, Qaṣír implored him to return. "No," said Jadhíma, "the affair was decided at Baqqa"—words which passed into a proverb. On approaching their destination the king saw with alarm squadrons of cavalry between him and the city, and said to Qaṣír, "What is the prudent course?" "You left prudence at Baqqa," he replied; "if the cavalry advance and salute you as king and then retire in front of you, the woman is sincere, but if they cover your flanks and encompass you, they mean treachery. Mount al-‘Aṣá"—Jadhíma's favourite mare—"for she cannot be overtaken or outpaced, and rejoin your troops while there is yet time." Jadhíma refused to follow this advice. Presently he was surrounded by the cavalry and captured. Qaṣír, however, sprang on the mare's back and galloped thirty miles without drawing rein.
When Jadhíma was brought to Zabbá she seated him on a skin of leather and ordered her maidens to open the veins in his arm, so that his blood should flow into a golden bowl. "O Jadhíma," said she, "let not a single drop be lost. I want it as a cure for madness." The dying man suddenly moved his arm and sprinkled with his blood one of the marble pillars of the hall—an evil portent for Zabbá, inasmuch as it had been prophesied by a certain soothsayer that unless every drop of the king's blood entered the bowl, his murder would be avenged.
Now Qaṣír came to ‘Amr b. ‘Adí, Jadhíma's nephew and son by adoption, who has been mentioned above, and engaged to win over the army to his side if he would take vengeance on Zabbá. "But how?" cried ‘Amr; " for she is more inaccessible than the eagle of the air." "Only help me," said Qaṣír, "and you will be clear of blame." He cut off his nose and ears and betook himself to Zabbá, pretending that he had been mutilated by ‘Amr. The queen believed what she saw, welcomed him, and gave him money to trade on her behalf. Qaṣír hastened to the palace of ‘Amr at Ḥíra, and, having obtained permission to ransack the royal treasury, he returned laden with riches. Thus he gradually crept into the confidence of Zabbá, until one day he said to her: "It behoves every king and queen to provide themselves with a secret passage wherein to take refuge in case of danger." Zabbá answered: "I have already done so," and showed him the tunnel which she had constructed underneath the Euphrates. His project was now ripe for execution. With the help of ‘Amr he fitted out a caravan of a thousand camels, each carrying two armed men concealed in sacks. When they drew near the city of Zabbá, Qaṣír left them and rode forward to announce their arrival to the queen, who from the walls of her capital viewed the long train of heavily burdened camels and marvelled at the slow pace with which they advanced. As the last camel passed through the gates of the city the janitor pricked one of the sacks with an ox-goad which he had with him, and hearing a cry of pain, exclaimed, "By God, there's mischief in the sacks!" But it was too late. ‘Amr and his men threw themselves upon the garrison and put them to the sword. Zabbá sought to escape by the tunnel, but Qaṣír stood barring the exit on the further side of the stream. She hurried back, and there was ‘Amr facing her. Resolved that her enemy should not taste the sweetness of vengeance, she sucked her seal-ring, which contained a deadly poison, crying, "By my own hand, not by ‘Amr's!"82
In the kingdoms of Ḥíra and Ghassán Pre-islamic culture attained its highest development, and from these centres it diffused itself and made its influence felt throughout Arabia. Some account, therefore, of their history and of the circumstances which enabled them to assume a civilising rôle will not be superfluous.83
About the beginning of the third century after Christ a number of Bedouin tribes, wholly or partly of Yemenite origin, who had formed a confederacy and called themselves The foundation of Ḥíra. collectively Tanúkh, took advantage of the disorder then prevailing in the Arsacid Empire to invade ‘Iráq (Babylonia) and plant their settlements in the fertile country west of the Euphrates. While part of the intruders continued to lead a nomad life, others engaged in agriculture, and in course of time villages and towns grew up. The most important of these was Ḥíra (properly, al-Ḥíra, i.e., the Camp), which occupied a favourable and healthy situation a few miles to the south of Kúfa, in the neighbourhood of ancient Babylon.84 According to Hishám b. Muḥammad al-Kalbí (õ 819 or 821 a.d.), an excellent authority for the history of the Pre-islamic period, the inhabitants of Ḥíra during the reign of Ardashír Bábakán, the first Sásánian king of Persia (226-241 a.d.), consisted of three classes, viz.:—
(1) The Tanúkh, who dwelt west of the Euphrates between Ḥíra and Anbár in tents of camel's hair.
(2) The ‘Ibád, who lived in houses in Ḥíra.
(3) The Aḥláf(Clients), who did not belong to either of the above-mentioned classes, but attached themselves to the people of Ḥíra and lived among them—blood-guilty fugitives pursued by the vengeance of their own kin, or needy emigrants seeking to mend their fortunes.
Naturally the townsmen proper formed by far the most influential element in the population. Hishám, as we have seen, calls them 'the ‘Ibád.' His use of this The ‘Ibád. term, however, is not strictly accurate. The ‘Ibád are exclusively the Christian Arabs of Ḥíra, and are so called in virtue of their Christianity; the pagan Arabs, who at the time when Ḥíra was founded and for long afterwards constituted the bulk of the citizens, were never comprised in a designation which expresses the very opposite of paganism. ‘Ibádmeans 'servants,' i.e., those who serve God or Christ. It cannot be determined at what epoch the name was first used to distinguish the religious community, composed of members of different tribes, which was dominant in Ḥíra during the sixth century. Dates are comparatively of little importance; what is really remarkable is the existence in Pre-islamic times of an Arabian community that was not based on blood-relationship or descent from a common ancestor, but on a spiritual principle, namely, the profession of a common faith. The religion and culture of the ‘Ibád were conveyed by various channels to the inmost recesses of the peninsula, as will be shown more fully in a subsequent chapter. They were the schoolmasters of the heathen Arabs, who could seldom read or write, and who, it must be owned, so far from desiring to receive instruction, rather gloried in their ignorance of accomplishments which they regarded as servile. Nevertheless, the best minds among the Bedouins were irresistibly attracted to Ḥíra. Poets in those days found favour with princes. A great number of Pre-islamic bards visited the Lakhmite court, while some, like Nábigha and ‘Abíd b. al-Abraṣ, made it their permanent residence.