Casani

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Author:Laxman Burdak, IFS (R)

Casani was an Arabian tribe mentioned by Pliny[1]. They are same as Ghassan or Ghassanids.

Variants

Jat Gotras Namesake

Jat Places Namesake

Mention by Pliny

Pliny[2] mentions Arabia.... We then find the Clari, the shore of Mamæum, on which there are gold mines, the region of Canauna, the nations of the Apitami and the Casani, the island of Devade, the fountain of Coralis, the Carphati, the islands of Calaëu and Amnamethus, and the nation of the Darræ.

History

Ghassanids

The Ghassanids (Arabic: الغساسنة, romanized: al-Ġasāsina, also Banu Ghassān (بنوغسان, romanized as: Banū Ġasān; Latin: Ghassanidae; Greek: Γασσανίδες, Gassanídes), also called the Jafnids,[3]were an Arab tribe which founded a kingdom. They emigrated from South Arabia in the early third century to the Levant.[4][5] Some merged with Hellenized Christian communities,[6] converting to Christianity in the first few centuries, while others may have already been Christians before emigrating north to escape religious persecution.[7]

After settling in the Levant, the Ghassanids became a client state to the Byzantine Empire and fought alongside them against the Sasanian Empire and their Arab vassals, the Lakhmids.[8]The lands of the Ghassanids also acted as a buffer zone protecting lands that had been annexed by the Romans against raids by Bedouins.

Few Ghassanids became Muslims following the Muslim conquest of the Levant; most Ghassanids remained Christian and joined Melkite and Syriac communities within what is now Jordan, Israel, Palestine, Syria and Lebanon.[9]

Traditional genealogy and migration from South Arabia: In the Arab genealogical tradition which developed during the early Islamic period, the Ghassanids were considered a branch of the Azd tribe of South Arabia/Yemen. In this genealogical scheme, their ancestor was Jafna, a son of Amr Muzayqiya ibn Mazin ibn Azd, through whom the Ghassanids were purportedly linked with the Ansar (the Aws and Khazraj tribes of Medina), who were the descendants of Jafna's brother Tha'laba.[10] According to the historian Brian Ulrich, the links between Ghassan, the Ansar, and the wider Azd are historically tenuous, as these groups are almost always counted separately from each other in sources other than post-8th-century genealogical works and the story of the 'Scattering of Azd'.[11] In the latter story, the Azd migrate northward from Yemen and different groups of the tribe split off in different directions, with the Ghassan being one such group.[12]

Per the "Scattering of Azd" story, the Ghassanids eventually settled within the Roman limes.[13][14]The tradition of Ghassanid migration finds support in the Geography of Ptolemy, which locates a tribe called the Kassanitai south of the Kinaidokolpitai and the river Baitios (probably the wadi Baysh). These are probably the people called Casani in Pliny the Elder, Gasandoi in Diodorus Siculus and Kasandreis in Photios I of Constantinople (relying on older sources).[15][16] The date of the migration to the Levant is unclear, but they are believed to have arrived in the region of Syria between 250 and 300 and later waves of migration circa 400.[17] Their earliest appearance in records is dated to 473, when their chief, Amorkesos, signed a treaty with the Byzantine Empire acknowledging their status as foederati controlling parts of Palestine. He apparently became a Chalcedonian Christian at this time. By the year 510, the Ghassanids were no longer Miaphysites, but Chalcedonian.[18]

External links

References

  1. ↑ Natural History by Pliny Book VI/Chapter 32
  2. ↑ Natural History by Pliny Book VI/Chapter 32
  3. ↑ Fisher, Greg (2018). "Jafnids". In Oliver Nicholson (ed.). The Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity. Vol. 2: J–Z. Oxford University Press. p. 804. ISBN 978-0-19-866277-8.
  4. ↑ Saudi Aramco World: The Kind of Ghassan. Barry Hoberman. http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/198302/the.king.of.ghassan.htm
  5. ↑ Bowersock, G. W.; Brown, Peter; Grabar, Oleg (1998). Late Antiquity: A guide to the Postclassical World. Harvard University Press. ISBN 9780674511705. Late Antiquity - Bowersock/Brown/Grabar.
  6. ↑ "Deir Gassaneh".
  7. ↑ Bowersock, G. W.; Brown, Peter; Grabar, Oleg (1998). Late Antiquity: A guide to the Postclassical World. Harvard University Press. ISBN 9780674511705. Late Antiquity - Bowersock/Brown/Grabar.
  8. ↑ bury, john (January 1958). History of the Later Roman Empire from the Death of Theodosius I. to the Death of Justinian, Part 2. courier dover publications. ISBN 9780486203997.
  9. ↑ Bowersock, G. W.; Brown, Peter; Grabar, Oleg (1998). Late Antiquity: A guide to the Postclassical World. Harvard University Press. ISBN 9780674511705. Late Antiquity - Bowersock/Brown/Grabar.
  10. ↑ Ulrich, Brian (2019). Arabs in the Early Islamic Empire: Exploring al-Azd Tribal Identity. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 978-1-4744-3682-3. pp. 29–30.
  11. ↑ Ulrich 2019, p. 13.
  12. ↑ Ulrich 2019, p. 31.
  13. ↑ Hoberman, Barry. The King of Ghassan. Archived from the original on 11 January 2012.
  14. ↑ Encyclopaedia of Islam, Volume II (C-G): [Fasc. 23-40, 40a]. Brill. 28 May 1998. p. 1020. ISBN 978-90-04-07026-4.
  15. ↑ Cuvigny, Hélène; Robin, Christian (1996). "Des Kinaidokolpites dans un ostracon grec du désert oriental (Égypte)". Topoi. Orient-Occident. 6 (2): 697–720. pp. 704–706.
  16. ↑ Bukharin, Mikhail D. (2009). "Towards the Earliest History of Kinda" (PDF). Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy. 20 (1): p.68.
  17. ↑ Hoberman, Barry. The King of Ghassan. Archived from the original on 11 January 2012.
  18. ↑ Irfan Shahid, 1989, Byzantium and the Arabs in the Fifth Century.
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