"Lo, the signs of our Lord are everlasting, None disputes them except the unbeliever. He created Day and Night: unto all men Is their Reckoning ordained, clear and certain. Gracious Lord! He illumines the daytime With a sun widely scattering radiance. He the Elephant stayed at Mughammas So that sore it limped as though it were hamstrung, Cleaving close to its halter, and down dropped, As one falls from the crag of a mountain. Gathered round it were princes of Kinda, Noble heroes, fierce hawks in the mellay. There they left it: they all fled together, Every man with his shank-bone broken. Vain before God is every religion, When the dead rise, except the Ḥanífite.[135]" [Sidenote: Battle of Dhú Qár (circa 610 A.D.).] The patriotic feelings aroused in the Arabs of the Ḥijáz by the Abyssinian invasion--feelings which must have been shared to some extent by the Bedouins generally--received a fresh stimulus through events which occurred about forty years after this time on the other side of the peninsula. It will be remembered that the Lakhmite dynasty at Ḥíra came to an end with Nu‘mán III, who was cruelly executed by Khusraw Parwéz (602 or 607 A.D.).[136] Before his death he had deposited his arms and other property with Háni’, a chieftain of the Banú Bakr. These were claimed by Khusraw, and as Háni’ refused to give them up, a Persian army was sent to Dhú Qár, a place near Kúfa abounding in water and consequently a favourite resort of the Bakrites during the dry season. A desperate conflict ensued, in which the Persians were completely routed.[137] Although the forces engaged were comparatively small,[138] this victory was justly regarded by the Arabs as marking the commencement of a new order of things; _e.g._, it is related that Muḥammad said when the tidings reached him: "This is the first day on which the Arabs have obtained satisfaction from the Persians." The desert tribes, hitherto overshadowed by the Sásánian Empire and held in check by the powerful dynasty of Ḥíra, were now confident and aggressive. They began to hate and despise the Colossus which they no longer feared, and which, before many years had elapsed, they trampled in the dust. CHAPTER III PRE-ISLAMIC POETRY, MANNERS, AND RELIGION "When there appeared a poet in a family of the Arabs, the other tribes round about would gather together to that family and wish them joy of their good luck. Feasts would be got ready, the women of the tribe would join together in bands, playing upon lutes, as they were wont to do at bridals, and the men and boys would congratulate one another; for a poet was a defence to the honour of them all, a weapon to ward off insult from their good name, and a means of perpetuating their glorious deeds and of establishing their fame for ever. And they used not to wish one another joy but for three things--the birth of a boy, the coming to light of a poet, and the foaling of a noble mare."[139]