Gulf. Najrān was conquered around 685 BC by the Sabean Mukarrib (King) Karib'il Watar I King of Yemen. The later Sabean king Yithi'amar Bayin destroyed RagHmat around 510 BC. Najrān seems to have been under Minaean or Sabean rule at different times during the next centuries and after that, it was part of Yemen till 1937. The Roman prefect of Egypt Aelius Gallus led a costly, arduous and ultimately unsuccessful expedition to conquer Arabia Felix and won a battle near Najrān in 25 BC. He occupied the city and used it as a base from which to attack the Sabaean capital at Ma'rib. According to Strabo, who called it 'Negrana', Najrān was at this time the northernmost city of the realm of Saba'. When the Ḥimyarites conquered the Sabeans in AD 280 they probably also took control of Najrān. Sometime during the 3rd century, the people of Najrān sided with the Abyssinians who sent a governor named Sqlmqlm" in inscriptions. The Ḥimyar King Ilsharah Yahdib crushed this rebellion. The north Arabian Lakhmid king Imru’ al-Qays ibn 'Amqu attacked Najrān in AD 328. Under the influence of Axum, the Christians in Najrān thrived and started an alliance with Aksum again at the beginning of the 6th century. The town of Najrān was already an important centre of arms manufacture during the lifetime of Muhammad. However, it was more famous for leather rather than iron. Early Christian community Christianity must have been introduced into Najrān, as in the rest of South Arabia, in the 5th century AD or perhaps a century earlier. According to the Arab Muslim historian Ibn Isḥāq, Najran was the first place where Christianity took root in South Arabia. According to the contemporary sources, after seizing the throne of the Ḥimyarites, in ca. 518 or 523, Dhū Nuwās, a Jewish king, attacked the Aksumite (mainly Christian) garrison at Zafar, capturing it and burning its churches. He then moved against Najrān, a Christian and Aksumite stronghold. After accepting the city's capitulation, he massacred those inhabitants who would not renounce Christianity. Estimates of the death toll from this event range up to 20,000 in some sources; a surviving letter (where he is called Dimnon) written by Simon, the bishop of Beth Arsham in 524 AD, recounts Dhū Nuwās's persecution in Najrān (modern al-Ukhdūd in Saudi Arabia). Under the reign of the Caliph ‘Umar, the Christian community of Najrān was deported to