So king succeeded king with the usual rapidity of oriental countries, until in 478 A.D. a certain Lakhnia (or Lakhtiaa) Tanú usurped the throne, whose cruelties to the surviving members of the royal family are recorded by more than one historian. However, it remained for one of these, a youth by name Asaad abou Karib, or Dhu Nowas, to revenge his relations by stabbing the usurper with a dagger, he himself being unanimously elected to the throne. He embraced Judaism, and adopted the name of Yusef (Joseph). However, like many converts, he became a fanatic, and his cruelties toward the Christians are perhaps unparalleled in history. Dhu Nowas attacked them in Nejrán, and having foully broken his promise that no harm should befall them, gave them the choice between death or Judaism. Twenty thousand, it is said, were burned alive in huge pits filled with blazing wood. The Koran commends these people who died for their religion, and calls a curse upon their persecutor.[16] But the cruelty of Dhu Nowas was to reap its reward. A few Christians who escaped fled to the Court of the Christian emperor of the East, who presented them with letters to the Christian king of Abyssinia, requesting him to punish the perpetrator of these cruel outrages. In A.D. 525, accordingly, the Abyssinians invaded the Yemen, and Dhu Nowas was defeated, being drowned, purposely, it is said, after the first battle. From that moment the Abyssinian general Aryat met with but futile resistance, and pushed into the heart of the country, destroying and razing the cities as he went along. Thus was overthrown, never to rise again, the Himyaric dynasty, which had held the throne of the Yemen for over two thousand years. Many of the kings had been celebrated both for war and culture, but their ancestors were now, on account of their fanatical persecution of the Christians, in return to suffer from cruelties and oppression as severe as any they themselves had ever practised. It is but one of the many examples of the terrible bloodshed consequent upon diversity of opinion on religious subjects,—for with bloodshed did Christianity force itself into the Yemen, and with bloodshed was it destined a few years later to disappear. Aryat, having conquered the Yemen, was appointed Viceroy of the King of Abyssinia in that country, and reigned until nearly the middle half of the sixth century, being succeeded by Abrahá, in fighting with whom Aryat was slain.