Justinian is on the sceen again, with the help to constract teh new macca in Sanaa.
Abreha sought to promote Christianity in the predominantly Jewish kingdom while also attempting to antagonize the Kaaba in Mecca, a major religious centre for the adherents of Arab polytheism. Abreha, therefore, ordered the construction of the Al–Qalis Church (also known as Al–Qulays and Al–Qullays, from the Greek Ekklesia)[3] in Sana'a. Letters were sent to both Aksum and the Byzantine Empire, requesting marble, craftsmen and mosaics. The absence of mosaic making tradition in Pre-Islamic Arabia
and Ethiopia at the time, along with the frequent use of mosaicists by
the Byzantines to achieve diplomatic objectives corroborates that the
Byzantines complied. Historian Procopius records that an envoy was dispatched to Abreha during the reign of emperor Justinian I, placing the construction of the church between 527 and the late 560's.[4]
There were recurrences of the plague in Syria–Palestine about every decade between 688/89 and 744/45. [35] "The Umaiyad [sic] dynasty was literally plagued by this disease ", in the words of Dols. [36] The deaths of the Umayyad caliphs Mu'awiya II ( r . 683–684 ), Marwan I ( r . 684–685 ), Abd al-Malik ( r . 685–705 ), Sulayman ( r . 715–717 ) and the Umayyad governors in Iraq al-Mughira ibn Shu'ba ( r . 661–671 ) and Ziyad ibn Abihi ( r . 685–673 ) may all possibly have been caused by the plague epidemics in Syria and Iraq. [37] [21] The caliphs routinely withdrew from the cities to their desert palaces when the plague emerged during the summer months. [36] Notable among them was Caliph Hisham ( r . 724–743 ), who preferred his palace at Rusafa over Damascus because he viewed the latter to be unhealthy. [38]
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