The Banu Lakhm () was an Arab tribe best known for its ruling Nasrid, or more commonly, 'Lakhmid', house, which ruled as the Sasanian Empire's vassal kings in the buffer zone with the nomadic Arab tribes of northern and eastern Arabia. Iraq The Lakhm is best known for its Nasrid, or more commonly 'Lakhmid', house, which ruled a vassal kingdom of the Persian Sasanian Empire in the 4th–6th centuries from its capital in al-Hira in Iraq (lower Mesopotamia). The founder of the Lakhmids' kingdom was Amr ibn Adi ibn Nasr, who is identified as the 'Amr ibn Lakhm' mentioned in two pre-Islamic inscriptions, one in Pahlavi/Parthian and the other in Coptic. His reign is traditionally dated to CE. Amr's successor, his son Imru al-Qays ibn Amr, initially ruled over the Arab tribes of the upper Euphrates and the Syrian Desert before converting to Christianity and defecting to the Roman Empire. Little is heard again of the Lakhmids of Iraq until the 5th century. Irfan Shahid suspects this part of the tribe either migrated back to Iraq around that time or had remained there, not accompanying their king Imru al-Qays and the rest of the Lakhm to Syria (see below). Lakhmid kings re-emerge in the 5th century as commanders in Sasanian campaigns against the Byzantines, rulers over the Arab tribes of northern Arabia, one-time power players in Sasanian succession politics, and builders of palaces in al-Hira. Lakhmid history in the 6th century was marked by the long reign of king al-Mundhir III (), who helped extend and protect Sasanian influence in southern and western Arabia, and the war with the Byzantines' Arab vassals, the Ghassanids of Syria. The last Lakhmid king, al-Nu'man III () embraced Christianity and was assassinated by the Sasanian emperor Khosrow II. This brought an end to the Lakhmid kingdom, which inadvertently removed the Persians' bulwark against the Arab tribes in the deserts around Iraq and ultimately paved the way for the Arab Muslim conquest of Iraq in the 630s. Syria and Palestine Byzantine period According to the historians Henri Lammens and Irfan Shahid, the Lakhm's arrival to Syria dates to the 4th century, evidencing this on the Namara inscription, the epitaph of Imru al-Qays ibn Amr found in southern Syria, which is dated to 328 CE. The Lakhm of Syria dwelt in the southern parts of the region, near and among the tribes of Judham and Amila,