He was the ruler of the Arab Christians. His genealogy is as follows: Jabala b. Ayham b. Jabala b. Ḥārith b. Abī Shimr. The real name of Abū Shimr is Mundhir b. Ḥārith. Mundhir was the son of Mariya with two earrings. His father was Thalaba b. ʿAmr b. Jafna. The real name of Jafna is Abū ʿĀmir b. Ḥāritha b. Imruʾ al-Qays. Mariya was the daughter of Arqam b. Thalaba b. ʿAmr b. Jafna. There are other reports regarding Jabala's genealogy. His kunya was Abū Mundhir al-Ghassānī al-Jafnī. He was the king of Ghassān. The Ghassanids were the Arab Christians during the time of Heraclius. The Ghassanids were cousins of all the Aws and Khazraj among the Anṣār. Jabala was the last king of the Ghassanids. The Messenger of God (peace be upon him) invited him to Islam and sent him a letter with Shujaʿ b. Wahb. Upon this, Jabala became Muslim and informed the Messenger of God (peace be upon him) of his Islam by letter. According to Ibn ʿAsākir, however, Jabala never became Muslim. Wāqidī and Saʿīd b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz also stated this explicitly. However, Wāqidī said: "During the time of ʿUmar, Jabala participated in the Battle of Yarmūk alongside the Byzantines. Later, during the time of ʿUmar, he became Muslim."
While in Damascus, Jabala stepped on the cloak of a man from Muzayna, and the Muzayna man slapped him. Jabala's men seized the Muzayna man and brought him to Abū ʿUbayda, saying:
– This man slapped Jabala. Abū ʿUbayda said:
– Then Jabala should slap him in return. His men replied:
– So, will this man not be killed for slapping Jabala?
– No.
– Will his hand not be cut off?
– No. Allah has only commanded retaliation for retaliation. Upon this, Jabala said:
– Do you think I would equate my own face with that of a Muzayna man from among the supporters of Medina? What a wretched religion this is.
After saying this, he reverted to Christianity and left Damascus with his family for Byzantium. When ʿUmar heard of this, he was greatly saddened, and Ḥassān said to him: "Your friend Jabala has apostatized from Islam." ʿUmar said: "Indeed we belong to Allah, and indeed to Him we will return." Then Ḥassān asked why Jabala had apostatized from Islam. ʿUmar replied:
– He apostatized from Islam because a Muzayna man slapped him.
– Good that he slapped him; he deserved it.
Upon Ḥassān saying this, ʿUmar stood up and struck Ḥassān with a whip."
According to the reports of Ibn al-Kalbī and others, when ʿUmar heard that Jabala had become Muslim, he rejoiced and invited him to Medina to see him. In another report, it is said that Jabala himself came to Medina and asked permission to visit ʿUmar, who granted it. Jabala set out for Medina with 150 or 500 horsemen from his people. ʿUmar sent gifts to him and welcomed him a few stations outside Medina. Jabala's entry into Medina was an important day. When he entered the city, he had necklaces of gold and silver on his horses' necks, and he himself wore a bejeweled crown adorned with pearls and gems. The crown also bore the earrings of his grandmother Mariya. All the people of Medina, men and women, came out of their homes to see him. When Jabala greeted ʿUmar, ʿUmar returned his greeting, welcomed him, and seated him beside himself. That year, Jabala performed the pilgrimage with ʿUmar. While circumambulating the Kaʿba, a man from the Fazāra tribe stepped on his ihram and loosened it. Jabala then raised his hand and struck the man who had stepped on his ihram, breaking his nose. According to some, he gouged out the man's eye. The Fazāra man complained about Jabala to ʿUmar, bringing many of his tribesmen with him. ʿUmar summoned Jabala, who came and confessed his crime. ʿUmar told him that he would apply retaliation (qiṣāṣ) against him, to which Jabala objected:
– How can this be? I am a king, and my adversary is a common man?
– Islam has made you and him equal. You have no superiority over him except in taqwa (God-consciousness). – I thought that by entering Islam I would attain a higher rank than in the time of ignorance.
– Leave such thoughts; if you do not satisfy the man, I will apply retaliation against you for him.
– Then I will return to Christianity.
– If you return to Christianity, I will have your neck struck. Seeing that the legal punishment would be applied to him, Jabala said:
– I will think about it tonight; grant me respite, and he left ʿUmar's presence. When night fell, he departed with his people and those who followed him, first to Damascus, then to Byzantium. He reached Heraclius in Constantinople. Heraclius welcomed him warmly, granted him many cities as fiefs, and provided him with abundant provisions and fine gifts, keeping him in his company at night gatherings. Jabala remained with Heraclius for a long time.
Later, ʿUmar sent a letter to Heraclius through a man named Jusāma b. Musāḥiq al-Kinānī. When Heraclius received ʿUmar's letter, he said to the messenger:
– Have you met your cousin Jabala?
– No.
– Go and meet him.
The envoy Jusāma b. Musāḥiq went and met Jabala, seeing him enjoying comfort and worldly wealth, dressed in fine clothes, sleeping on luxurious beds, sitting in a comfortable gathering, surrounded by slave girls, beautiful servants, and singing women; eating delicious foods and drinking exquisite drinks, remaining in the land of kufr (disbelief) instead of the land of Islam. He invited Jabala to return to Islam and come back to Damascus, but Jabala said:
– How can I return to Damascus and become Muslim again after having apostatized? Is this possible?
– Yes, it is possible. For example, Ashʿath b. Qays apostatized from Islam, fought against the Muslims, but when he returned to the truth, Abū Bakr accepted his Islam and married his sister Umm Farwa to him.
However, Jabala paid no heed to these words and devoted himself to eating and drinking. He offered wine to the envoy Jusāma b. Musāḥiq, but Jusāma refused. Jabala himself drank a great deal of wine, became intoxicated, and then ordered the singing slave girls to play the lute and recite the following poem of the poet Ḥassān, who praised his Ghassanid cousins in it. The poem was about Jabala's father:
"May Allah grant good to that company in Damascus, with whom I once kept company and sat at their wine tables.
They were the sons of Jafna, sitting around the graves of their ancestors, standing by the grave of the noble, generous son of Mariya.
They drank from the water of the radiant rose.
A cool water, reminiscent of the stream of Salsabīl.
They were bright-faced, noble, and of high lineage, with aquiline noses of the finest kind. They stayed up until midnight, until their dogs barked.
They did not care for or inquire about the darkness of the night that came upon them."
The singing of the slave girls pleased Jabala. Then he said to the envoy Jusāma: "This is a poem that Ḥassān b. Thābit al-Anṣārī composed about us and our dominion." I replied: "When I left, he was an old, blind man." After this, Jabala told the singing slave girls: "Cheer me up." They began to sing another poem of Ḥassān:
Who is left to dwell in the land between the upper part of Yarmūk and Samman, in the region of Muʿān? The villages of Belāmis and Saka, the declining palaces,
Wait, O Jāsim! The valleys of Ṣafar, the children of the tribes and the slave girls greet me. These great, noble lands, once filled with people, have become desolate and changed.
The Messiah prayed in this church. Monks and priests prayed here.
This once met the needs of the sons of Jafna, but the succession of times has destroyed it.
With the one who wears the crown, you have a place and a gathering. Here, the firm truth has been shown to me.
Let their mothers weep! I made their mothers weep on the day they attacked Ḥārith al-Ḥawlānī. The matter is about to be revealed. The children quickly string the pearls of their coral crowns."
Then Jabala said: "This poem too is by Ibn Fariʿ (i.e., Ḥassān b. Thābit), about us, our property, our homes, and our lands in the Ghūṭa region of Damascus." After this, Jabala fell silent for a long time, then told his slave girls: "Make me weep." They put down their lutes, bowed their heads, and recited this poem:
"Because of the shame of a slap, noble men became Christians. If they had been patient, it would have done them no harm.
At that time, stubbornness and pride surrounded me. I exchanged a seeing eye for a blind one.
Would that my mother had not given birth to me, and that I had followed ʿUmar's advice.
Would that I had herded camels in the desert.
Would that I had been a captive among the tribes of Rabīʿa or Muḍar.
Would that I could have lived in Damascus with the lowest means of subsistence.
Would that I had lived among my people, blind and deaf.
Would that I had adhered to the sharia (the sacred law) to which they adhered.
A great branch, behold, has become wealth and property beyond counting."
After hearing this song, Jabala covered his face with his hand and began to weep, so much so that his tears soaked his beard. I wept with him. Then he ordered 500 Byzantine gold coins to be brought. They were brought, and he gave them to me, saying: "Deliver these to Ḥassān b. Thābit." He ordered another 500 coins to be brought, and when they were brought, he said: "These are for you." I said to him: "I have no need of this gold, nor will I accept anything from you, for you have apostatized from Islam."
It is reported that the second 500 coins he intended for the envoy were also added to Ḥassān's 500, so that 1,000 Byzantine gold coins were sent to Ḥassān b. Thābit, and he told the envoy: "Convey my greetings to ʿUmar b. al-Khaṭṭāb and the other Muslims."
The envoy Jusāma says: When I reached ʿUmar and told him about Jabala's situation, ʿUmar asked me:
– Did you see him drinking wine?
– Yes.
– May Allah distance him from His mercy. He has exchanged the world for the Hereafter, and this is not a profitable trade. What did he send to Ḥassān?
– He sent 500 Byzantine gold coins.
ʿUmar summoned Ḥassān and delivered the gold coins sent by Jabala to him. Ḥassān received the coins and recited the following poem:
"The sons of Jafna who remain from the tribes did not honor their ancestors with generosity.
Even while in Damascus, he did not forget me. No, he became a Christian in Byzantium.
He gives abundant gifts and does not see the one to whom he gives. But he gives as one gives to the deprived.
One day I went to him. He seated me near him in his gathering. He drank and made me drink to satiety of bad wine." Later, in the fifty-third year of the hijra, Muʿāwiya sent ʿAbdullāh b. Masʿada al-Fazārī as an envoy to the Byzantine emperor. ʿAbdullāh met Jabala b. Ayham and saw that he was living in worldly happiness, possessing wealth and property, surrounded by servants and slave girls, and owning many horses and much gold. Jabala said to him: "If I knew that Muʿāwiya would grant me the lands of Basīna, where our residences are, and twenty villages in the Ghūṭa of Damascus, and would give us fine gifts, I would return to Damascus."
ʿAbdullāh b. Masʿada conveyed Jabala's words to Muʿāwiya, who said: "Very well, I will grant him what he asks," and wrote a letter to this effect, giving it to his envoy to deliver to Jabala. However, before the envoy could reach him, Jabala died that year. May Allah curse him. These reports are related by Shaykh Abū’l-Faraj Ibn al-Jawzī in his work "al-Muntaẓam," who also records that he died in the fifty-third year of the hijra.
Ḥāfiẓ Ibn ʿAsākir, in his history, also gives a lengthy and beautiful account of Jabala's biography, and at the end of his biography, he says: According to a report that reached me, Jabala died in the land of Qum after the fortieth year of the hijra, during the caliphate of Muʿāwiya."