al-Hira

Al-Hira, near Kufa in central Iraq, was the capital of the Lakhmid dynasty, an Arab Christian kingdom allied to the Sasanian Persians, before the rise of Islam; it was a noted centre of pre-Islamic Arabic poetry and of Nestorian Christianity. It came under Muslim control during the conquest of Iraq, the general Khalid ibn al-Walid receiving its submission around 633.