to the city of Najran, which siege lasted for six months, and the city taken and burnt on the 15th day of the seventh month (i.e. the lunar month Tishri). The city had revolted against the king and they refused to deliver it up unto the king. About three hundred of the city’s inhabitants surrendered to the king’s forces, under the assurances of an oath that no harm would come to them, and these were later bound, while those remaining in the city were burnt alive within their church. The death toll in this account is said to have reached about two thousand. However, in the Sabaean inscriptions describing these events, it is reported that by the month Dhu-Madra'an (between July and September) there were "1000 killed, 1500 prisoners [taken] and 10,000 head of cattle." Jacques Ryckmans, who deciphered the Sabaean inscriptions, writes in his La Persécution des Chrétiens Himyarites, that Sarah'il Yaqbul-Yaz'an was both the tribal chief and the lieutenant of Yusuf 'As'ar (the king) at the time of the military campaign, and that he was sent out by the king to take the city of Najran, while the king watched for a possible Abyssinian/Ethiopian incursion along the coastal plains of Yemen near Mokhā (al-Moḫâ) and the strait known as Bāb al-Mandab. It is to be noted that the Ethiopian church in Ẓafar, which had been built by the Himyarite King some years earlier following the proselytizing mission of Theophilos the Indian and another church built by him in Aden (see: Ecclesiastical History of Philostorgius, Epitome of Book III, chapter 4), had been seen by Constantius II during the embassage to the land of the Ḥimyarites (i.e. Yemen) in circa 340 CE. This church was set on fire and razed to the ground, and its Abyssinian inhabitants killed. Later, foreigners (presumably Christians) living in Haḏramawt were also put to death before the king’s army advanced to Najran in the far north and took it. King Yusuf Asar Yathar, described in an inscription as "king of all nations," had led the major tribes of Yemen (Hamedan, Madh'hij, Kinda, Murad) and successfully defeated the Abyssinian forces in Ẓafâr, Mokhā and Najran. Dhi Yazan leader, Samu Yafa' (سميفع أشوع), become the successor of Yusuf in 527 and the Abyssinian forces led by Abraha had invaded Yemen again in 531. Najran inscription (518 CE):Jawad al-Ali Sabians p41 The first line : Sabaean: ليبركن