Pre-Islamic Period
The earliest Arab Christians belong to the pre-Islamic period. There were many Arab tribes that adopted Christianity. These included the Nabateans and the Ghassanids, who were of Qahtani origin and spoke Yemeni Arabic as well as Greek. These tribes received subsidies and protected the south-eastern frontiers of the Roman and Byzantine Empires in north Arabia.
The tribes of Tayy, Abd Al-Qais, and Taghlib were also known to have included a large number of Christians prior to Islam.
The southern Arabian city of Najran was also a center of Arab Christianity. Letters exist in Syriac that record the persecution of believers by the king of Yemen in the 6th century, when the latter had adopted Judaism. Cosmas Indicopleustes records the launch of a punitive expedition from Ethiopia in response. The leader of the Arabs of Najran during the period of persecution, Al-Harith, was canonized by the Roman Catholic Church as St. Aretas.
No literature has been preserved in Arabic from this period.
Read more about this topic: History Of Arab Christians
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