and they will then hold sway over everything that lies between Abyan and Jarash.
The king exclaimed, “By your father, O Satiḥ, this is truly galling and painful to us! When will it occur—during his lifetime or afterward?”
Satiḥ answered, “Rather, it will be after him, once more than sixty or seventy years have passed.”
The king asked, “Will their dominion last, or will it be cut short?”
He replied, “It will indeed be cut short after some seventy-odd years. They will then be slain and will flee in disorder.”
The king said, “Who will carry out their killing and expulsion?”
He said, “Īram Dhū Yazan will undertake it. He will march against them from Aden and will not leave a single one of them in Yemen.”
The king asked, “Will that rule endure?”
He replied, “No. It will end with a pure Prophet to whom revelation will come from the Most High.”
The king said, “From whose lineage will he be?”
He answered, “From the descendants of Fihr ibn Mālik ibn al-Naḍr. Kingship will remain among his people until the end of time.”
The king asked, “Does time have an end?”
He said, “Yes: a Day on which the first and the last will all be gathered together. On that Day the virtuous will rejoice and the wicked will be wretched.”
The king inquired, “Is what you are telling me really true?”
He replied, “Yes—by the shafaq (glow of twilight), the ghasaq (darkening night), and the falaq (daybreak) when it breaks full—what I have told you is indeed the truth.”
Afterward Shaqq arrived. The king put to him the same questions he had posed to Satiḥ, concealing from him all that Satiḥ had said so that he might see whether the two would agree. Shaqq declared, “Indeed, I saw a pitch-black ember emerge from darkness, fall between a meadow and a mound, and consume from them every living soul.”
When he said this, the king realized that their answers concurred, and fear took hold of him. He therefore dispatched the members of his household to Iraq and wrote on their behalf to a Persian king named Sābūr ibn Kharzādh, who settled them in al-Ḥīrah.
Among the remaining descendants of Rabiʿah ibn Naṣr is al-Nuʿmān ibn al-Mundhir; in Yemeni genealogies his line is given as al-Nuʿmān ibn al-Mundhir ibn al-Nuʿmān ibn al-Mundhir ibn ʿAmr ibn ʿAdī ibn Rabiʿah ibn Naṣr.