131 Isabel Toral-Niehoff Constantine’s Baptism Legend: a ‘Wandering’ Story between Byzantium, Rome, the Syriac and the Arab World Once King Nu c mān had received the approving response [of the Persian King], he sent immediately for Simeon [the bishop of al-Ḥīra], and he came. He announced to him that Kisrā [the Persian king] had given him the permission [to convert]. [Because of this good news], Bishop Simeon and the Christians of al-Ḥīra greatly rejoiced and jubilated, the church bells rang, and the people gathered to witness his baptism. Then Bishop Simeon baptized the king, his wife and his children; and the members of his family and several Arabs went to the church erected by Bishop Simeon which is known as the Cathedral. And Bishop Simeon wrote to the Catho- licos Īšōʿdēnaḥ and told him the good news, namely, that king Nuʿmān had converted to Christianity. 1 This short passage, taken from a larger account about the conversion of the Pre-Islamic Arab king Nuʿmān of al-Ḥīra, forms part of an Islamic Arab historical collection from the late eleventh century in Iraq, the Manāqib al- Mazyadiyya by Abū’ l-Baqāʾ al-Ḥillī. 2 It describes the public baptism cere- mony of the king, which took place in the late sixth century. Nuʿmān was the ruler of a petty kingdom in the Middle Euphrates subordinated to the Sasanians, known as the Arab principality of the Lakhmids. 3 1 Manāqib al-Mazyadiyya, ed. Ṣ. Darādka and M. Ḫuraysāt (Amman, 1984, repr. U.A.E., 2000), p. 270. 2 The whole account is to be found on pp. 268–72. The book (only extant in one manu- script, London, BL MS 23296) is not very well known and does not appear in the current encyclopedias. Its author came from a famous Shii family from al-Ḥilla in Iraq and lived in the late eleventh century, cf. the editors’ introduction to the Manāqib, pp. 5–15. He dedicated his work to the ruler of al-Ḥilla, a beduin ruler called Ṣadaqa b. Manṣūr (reg. 479–501/1086–1108), who was subordinated to the Seljuks but held the title “malik” (king). For this ruler cf. K. V. Zetterstéen, ‘Ṣadaḳa b. Manṣūr b. Dubays b. ʿAlī b. Mazyad, Sayf al-Dawla Abū ‘l-Ḥasan al-Asadī’, in Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2 nd edn, ed. by P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C. E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel and W. P. Heinrichs (Brill, 2010: Brill Online, Freie Universitaet Berlin) [consulted: 14 July 2010]. 3 The classical monograph for the kingdom of the Lakhmids remains the book by Gustav Rothstein, Die Dynastie der Laḫmiden in al-Ḥīra (Berlin, 1899). For the Christians in the