Yemen

Himyar, modern Yemen during the 6th Century was an area where Christianity, Judaism and paganism competed for religious allegiance and where Ethiopia, Persia and the eastern Roman Empire competed for political advantage. The kingdom of Abyssinia– Axum – had a presence on the Arabian coast from the 3rd century. In the early 300s, they invaded Himyar in the Yemeni region, holding it until 378. Between 320-360, Axum became Christian under King Ezanes. During the 6th Century Christianity had become fairly widespread in Yemen but encountered strong opposition from the region's long-established Jewish community and from local nationalists. In 521 A.D. the Christian Ma'adikarib Ya'fur became king and, supported by the Aksumites, began a series of military expeditions against the Central Arabian tribes in order to reinforce his power and prepare a war against the Lakhmids of al-Hira (or Nasrids, Northern Arabian vassals of the Sasanians). After his death,  the Judaist Yusuf As'ar Yath'ar ascended to the throne, mortal enemy of the Aksumites and their Christian allies. In 523 Yusuf Asar Dhu Nuwas (518-525) (also known as Masruq) King of the Himyar and a recent convert to Judaism, (it is believed his mother was a Jewish slave girl) began removing foreign influences from his realm and some Roman and Axumite merchants were killed. Whether  he planned to establish an explicitly Jewish state is debatable -- many of his followers were pagan or Nestorian -- but most of his enemies were Christian, and his war to establish Himyar's full independence from Axum took on a distinctly religious character and into confluct with the regions Christians and Axumite. The king of Axum, Ela Atzheba (Ela-Asbeha) also known as Elesboas (in Malalas), Hellesthaeus (in Procopius) and sometimes as Kaleb which may have been his Christian name, sent an army to Yemen to punish Dhu-Nuwas driving him in to the hills, but once Ela-Asbeha's army retired he regains his kingdom and in retaliation Churches are burned and Arab Christian civilians are massacred, most famously at Nagran; In October of 523 believing the Najran Christians collaborated with the Axumites Dhu-Nuwas tears down all their churches and burns alive those who refuse to apostatize. These martyrs are commemorated in the liturgies of the Greek, Latin and Oriental Churches. Dhu Nuwas is said to have justified such atrocities by referring to the horrendous persecution of Jews in the Roman Empire.

It appears that a Christian from Najran escaped and brought news of the massacre to Ela Atzheba along with a half-burnt copy of the Gospel. Ela-Asbeha outraged by the actions of Dhu Nuwas was determined to return to Yemen and had the troops with which to intervene but no ship transports; he got in touch with Byzantine emperor Justin I through the patriarch of Alexandria, Timothy III. It should be noted that both Ela Atzheba and Timothy were both Monophysite Christians whereas Justin was a devout Chalcedonian, nevertheless Justin offered the use of 60 ships for the Ethiopian army (Although his support was provided officially to protect the persecuted Christians of Yemen, it is probably more likely that it was an attempt  to control one of the passages of goods from India destined to Byzantium.). The campaigns which Caleb (Ela Atzheba) led in person and under the spiritual guidance of the celebrated Axumite monk Pantaleon were eventually victorious in a great battle on the seashore at Zabid, where Dhu Nuwas himself fell in the surf. Once Dhu-Nuwas was dead South Arabia was turned into a province of the Axumite monarchy.

News of the Ethiopian emperor's rescue of the Christians of Himyar spread throughout the Orthodox world, and Caleb (who eventually abdicated his throne to become a monk, sending his gold crown to be kept near the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem) is venerated as a saint not only in the Ethiopian Church but also, as St. Ellasbaan (i.e. Ella Asbeha), by the Greek Orthodox and Roman Catholics. South Arabia, however, remained a restless province, and Caleb soon granted it de facto independence under the Christian prince Abraha who between 535-570 was the most powerful man in Yemen. In, the year of Muhammad's birth, Abraha's army elephant corps attacked Mecca, giving that famous year the name "Year of the Elephant" in Arab history. Another Islamic echo of the wars of Caleb may be in Sura 85 of the Koran, which describes how those who burn the Saints burn themselves; this is thought by many commentators to refer to Dhu Nuwas and the Martyrs of Nagran.

The Axumite viceroy, Abraha invasion of Mecca, is eventual stopped by pestilence which wipes out his army. Still, by 575 he was enough of a threat that Mecca had to ask Persia for assistance, at which point they lost their independence to Persian dominance. Around this time Abu Morra Sayf b. Dhu Yazan of the royal Himyarite house asked for an external intervention to overthrow the Christian/Aksumites. The Byzantines and the Lakhmids refused to send their troops but not the Persians bringing about the first encounter between Persia and Africa during the reign of Khusru (Khosrow) I when he expelled the Christian Aksumites (or Abyssinians) from Yemen in c. 570 A.D. According to al-Tabari, Khosrow I Anoshirvan armed eight ships with eight hundred released Daylamite prisoners, leaded by a certain Vahrez [Exactly as for many other Sasanian names, it is not clear if this was a personal name or a high-rank title, and with this army he defeated 'Abraha's son Masruq. Sayf b. Dhu Yazan was proclaimed chief of the reign, now a Sasanian protectorate known as Samaran, but after few years he died during a revolt that probably happened between 575 and 578. Vahrez intervened once more but this time with a more numerous army.