Context :Yemen was conquered in 570 from the kingdom of aksum. by a small expeditionary aswaran force led by the Sasanian veteran Vahrez−the Himyarite prince Sayf ibn Dhi-Yazan was then appointed as a vassal king of the Sasanians in the country, whilst Vahrez went back to the Sasanian capital of Ctesiphon.
One of the main reasons behind the Sasanian conquest was due to their interest in dominating the trade route from Constantinople to India and the Far East, which was now possible with their authority established in Yemen.
However, in 575 or 578, Sayf was killed by the Ethiopians during an uprising, which forced Vahrez to return to Yemen with a force of 4,000 men, and expel the Ethiopians once again.
He then installed Sayf’s son Ma’di Karib as the new king of Yemen. A large Iranian garrison was this time established in Yemen, with Vahrez as its governor. The Iranian soldiers and bureaucrats started intermarrying with the local population; their offspring became known as the al-Abna’ (“the sons”).It is uncertain whether they kept practicing Zoroastrianism, or had been influenced by the South Arabian paganism and the local Christianity.
-According to al-Tabari, Vahrez’s successors were; his son Marzban; his grandson Binagar; his great-grandson Khurrah Khosrow;
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It’s because of this war that we can somewhat reliably date the Prophet Muhammad’s birth – at the time, the Arabs didn’t have a consistent calendar, but they did record that Muhammad as being born in the “Year of the Elephant”, when the Ethiopians sent war elephants to try and conquer Arabia.
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Context :Yemen was conquered in 570 from the kingdom of aksum. by a small expeditionary aswaran force led by the Sasanian veteran Vahrez−the Himyarite prince Sayf ibn Dhi-Yazan was then appointed as a vassal king of the Sasanians in the country, whilst Vahrez went back to the Sasanian capital of Ctesiphon.
One of the main reasons behind the Sasanian conquest was due to their interest in dominating the trade route from Constantinople to India and the Far East, which was now possible with their authority established in Yemen.
However, in 575 or 578, Sayf was killed by the Ethiopians during an uprising, which forced Vahrez to return to Yemen with a force of 4,000 men, and expel the Ethiopians once again.
He then installed Sayf’s son Ma’di Karib as the new king of Yemen. A large Iranian garrison was this time established in Yemen, with Vahrez as its governor. The Iranian soldiers and bureaucrats started intermarrying with the local population; their offspring became known as the al-Abna’ (“the sons”).It is uncertain whether they kept practicing Zoroastrianism, or had been influenced by the South Arabian paganism and the local Christianity.
-According to al-Tabari, Vahrez’s successors were; his son Marzban; his grandson Binagar; his great-grandson Khurrah Khosrow;
It’s because of this war that we can somewhat reliably date the Prophet Muhammad’s birth – at the time, the Arabs didn’t have a consistent calendar, but they did record that Muhammad as being born in the “Year of the Elephant”, when the Ethiopians sent war elephants to try and conquer Arabia.