“Have you met your cousin Jabalah?”
He answered, “No.”
Heraclius said, “Then go and meet him.”

He (the envoy) later described his meeting with Jabalah and the abundance of worldly luxury, joy, and delight in which he was living—his clothes, bedding, seating, perfumes, the beautiful maidservants and singing-girls who surrounded him, together with his food, drink, merriment, and the mansion he had taken in exchange for the Abode of Peace (1). He added that he had invited him to embrace Islam once more and return to Syria.

Jabalah replied, “After all the apostasy that has issued from me?” He said, “Yes. Al-Ashʿath ibn Qays also apostatized and fought the Muslims with the sword; yet when he came back to the truth they accepted it from him, and al-Ṣiddīq married him to his sister Umm Furwah.”

He continued: “Jabalah then busied himself with food and drink. They offered me wine but I refused; Jabalah, however, drank some until he became intoxicated. He then ordered his singing-girls to entertain him with lutes, chanting verses by Ḥassān in praise of his kinsmen of Ghassān. The poem—composed for Jabalah’s own father—ran as follows:

Praised be God for that noble band with whom I once caroused,
One day in Jilliq in times long past.
The sons of Jafna gathered round their father’s tomb,
The grave of Maria’s generous, bountiful son.
They pour for all who reach al-Barīṣ beside them
Baradā’s wine that ripples with limpid nectar.
Bright are their faces, illustrious their lineage,
High-nosed, from the very first rank of nobility.
Their hospitality is such that even their dogs do not bark;
They never ask the dark-clad stranger who he is. (2)

Those verses pleased him.

He then said, “This is the poetry of Ḥassān ibn Thābit al-Anṣārī about us and our sovereignty.” After that he asked me, “How is Ḥassān?” I replied, “I left him blind, an aged elder.”

He turned to the girls and said, “Lift my spirits!” so they burst into another poem of Ḥassān:

For whom stands the house deserted at Maʿān,
Between the upper Yarmuk and al-Ṣammān?
Then al-Qurayyāt, from Balās to Dāriyya,
To Sakkā’, and to the neighbouring palaces;
From the pasture of Jāsim to the Meadow of Dhū al-Ṣafr,
Abode of tribes and fleet-footed camels.
That was the dwelling of the mighty after friendly company,
And of kings whose pillars were formidable.
Upon that monastery be the prayers of the Messiah,
The supplication of priest and monk.
It was a resting-place for the House of Jafna through the ages,
As the revolving epochs rightly attest.
There I once beheld assured, enduring honour—
My seat and station beside the crowned king.
May their mothers be bereaved—and indeed they are—
The day they settled with Ḥārith of the Jawlān.
Easter drew near, and the maidens swiftly strung
Their coral necklaces for the feast. (3)