Najrān: 40-km-long oasis located along the wādī Najrān in southwest Saudi Arabia. Najrān is also the name of the main city, and that of the tribe which was settled there in the early Christian era. The luxuriance of the oasis and its unique location on the caravan roads fostered the regional development from the first millennium BCE onward. Owing to the strategic location of Najrān, neighboring kingdoms took a keen interest in its control. At around 450 CE, groups of Najrānites converted to Christianity through contact with the Monophysite milieu of Syria and Nestorians from al-Hīra in Iraq. The proselytism of the Monophysite community and their connections to Byzantium led to several waves of persecutions by the Himyarite kings.