A rudimentary search confirms that the Ghassanids were successful and accomplished vassals of the sixth-century Byzantines. In the Oxford History of Byzantium, Robert Hoyland quotes a Ghassanid poet addressing his master: "Do you not see that God has granted you such a degree of power that you will observe every king trembling at your feet; for you are the sun, the kings are stars, and when the sun rises, no star will be seen." Less than a century afterwards the Ghassanids had been crushed in battle and absorbed into the rapidly expanding Islamic empire.

 

According to Wikipedia:         

The Ghassanids (Arabic: الغساسنة) were Arab Christians that emigrated in the year 250 from Yemen to the Hauran (Houran), in southern Syria. The term Ghassan refers to the kingdom of the Ghassanids, and is the name of a spring of water in the Hauran. The Ghassanid emigration has been passed down in the rich oral tradition of southern Syria. It is said that the Ghassanids came from the city of Ma'rib in Yemen. There was a dam in this city, however one year there was so much rain that the dam was carried away by the ensuing flood. Thus the people there had to leave.

Barry Hoberman, studied Islam at Harvard and is now Managing Editor of Biblical Archaologist, wrote on the Ghassanids: “Despite the best efforts of generations of distinguished Arabists, the history of the Arabs before Islam remains exasperatingly obscure. Properly speaking, the Ghassanids were an Arab dynasty whose members belonged to a clan of the south Arabian tribe of Azd, believed to have arrived in the Syrian desert about A.D. 250-300 and, about the year 500, to have become the dominant confederation in the desert east of the Jordan and southeast of Damascus. Scholars admit, however, that any attempt to reconstruct Ghassanid history rests on exceedingly shaky ground until we reach the year 529, when al-Harith ibn Jabala succeeded his father as head of the Bani Ghassan tribal confederation. Written sources contemporary with the Ghassanids—in some cases even contemporary with the reign of al-Harith ibn Jabala—have survived in Greek and Syriac manuscripts, in Epigraphic South Arabian and in documents in Ethiopic, Coptic, Armenian, and Georgian. While they do not explicitly mention Ghassan, they do help elucidate the history of the sixth-century Arabs. By meticulously weaving such shreds of information into the picture 19th-century scholars like Theodor Noeldeke and today's Professor Irfan Shahid of Georgetown University have done much to foster the emergence of Ghassan from the proverbial mists of time.

Unlike many pre-Islamic Arab tribes, the Ghassanids were not pagans but monophysite Christians—members of what later came to be called the Syrian-Jacobite church. It was, in fact, through the personal intervention of al-Harith ibn Jabala that Ya'qub Bar-Addai, better known as Jacob Baradaeus (whence the term "Jacobite"), was consecrated Bishop of Edessa for the provinces of Syria and Mesopotamia, in 542 or 543. The rigidly monotheistic doctrine of Syrian Christianity probably helped to prepare the Arabs of Ghassan for the revelation of Islam, whose Prophet Muhammad was born very soon after al-Harith ibn Jabala's death in 569.

Many Christian families of Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, and Palestine trace their roots to the Ghassanid dynasty, including the Chemor, Gharios, Maalouf , Matar, Ghenem, Makhlouf, Jabara (or Gebara or Gibara), Sweidan, Lahd , Mokdad families. The religious backgrounds of these families tend to be either Greek Orthodox or Greek Catholic and some are Maronite Catholic, despite the Ghassanids' Non-Chalcedonian Syriac Orthodox religion

Ghassanid Kings

  1. Jafnah I ibn `Amr(220-265)
  2. `Amr I ibn Jafnah(265-270)
  3. Tha'labah ibn Amr(270-287)
  4. al-Harith I ibn Th`alabah(287-307)
  5. Jabalah I ibn al-Harith I(307-317)
  6. al-Harith II ibn Jabalah "ibn Maria"(317-327)
  7. al-Mundhir I Senior ibn al-Harith II(327-330) with...
  8. al-Aiham ibn al-Harith II(327-330) and...
  9. al-Mundhir II Junior ibn al-Harith II(327-340) and...
  10. al-Nu`man I ibn al-Harith II(327-342) and...
  11. `Amr II ibn al-Harith II(330-356) and...
  12. Jabalah II ibn al-Harith II(327-361)
  13. Jafnah II ibn al-Mundhir I(361-391) with...
  14. al-Nu`man II ibn al-Mundhir I(361-362)
  15. al-Nu`man III ibn 'Amr ibn al-Mundhir I(391-418)
  16. Jabalah III ibn al-Nu`man(418-434)
  17. al-Nu`man IV ibn al-Aiham(434-455) with...
  18. al-Harith III ibn al-Aiham(434-456) and...
  19. al-Nu`man V ibn al-Harith(434-453)
  20. al-Mundhir II ibn al-Nu`man(453-472) with...
  21. `Amr III ibn al-Nu`man(453-486) and...
  22. Hijr ibn al-Nu`man(453-465)
  23. al-Harith IV ibn Hijr(486-512)
  24. Jabalah IV ibn al-Harith(512-529)
  25. al-Harith V ibn Jabalah(529-569)
  26. al-Mundhir III ibn al-Harith(569-581) with...
  27. Abu Kirab al-Nu`man ibn al-Harith(570-582)
  28. al-Nu`man VI ibn al-Mundhir(582-583)
  29. al-Harith VI ibn al-Harith(583)
  30. al-Nu'man VII ibn al-Harith Abu Kirab(583- ?)
  31. al-Aiham ibn Jabalah(? -614)
  32. al-Mundhir IV ibn Jabalah(614- ?)
  33. Sharahil ibn Jabalah(? -618)
  34. Amr IV ibn Jabalah(618-628)
  35. Jabalah V ibn al-Harith(628-632)
  36. Jabalah VI ibn al-Aiham(632-638)

 

The family Gharios of Cheyah (according to entry in Wikipedia) is formally called “Gharios Habbaki Chemor” due to the village of Beit Habbak in the region of Byblos. This Habbaki family is issued from the prestigious “Chemor” family of Kfarhata-Zgharta.

The Chemors of Kfarhata have the title of Sheiks. They were the governors of Akoura in the mountains of Byblos between 1211 and 1633 and the rulers of Zgharta-Zawiya between 1641 and 1747. Their ancestors were the Ghassanids, a Christian tribe that dwelled in the Arabian Peninsula. After being displaced from Yemen because of a natural disaster, they settled in the Houran region of Syria. They have allied themselves to the Byzantines as protectors of the South. Past the Islamic conquest of the region, they sought refuge in Lebanon. Their first stay was in Akoura (Byblos district) then they moved to Kfarhata in 1641.

At the beginning of the eighteenth century, some troubles occurred between the Sheiks Chemor and the Daher family. As a result a member of the Chemors was compelled to flee the village and take refuge in a small over sighted village in the uphill of Byblos, Beit Habbak. He went there with his four sons and his unique daughter. The latter got married with the son of the concierge although her family did not accept it. Her brothers had killed her husband and were once again obliged to run away from the village.

The first one went to the mountainous village of Baskinta and because he was coming from Beit Habbak, he was called “Habbaki” which with time became “Hobeika”. The second one, Ferjane Chemor, had the courage to stay in Beit Habbak. Today, his offspring is known as the family “Ferjane”. The last two brothers, Farhat and Gharios went to the suburbs of Beirut where water is available and citrus trees are abundant. Farhat Chemor is today survived by a large family in Hadath today known as the family “Farhat”. Gharios Chemor went to Chiyah in 1757. His son Antoun took the name of his father as his family name like his uncles. We don’t know if Antoun had brothers or sisters but we are sure that he had two sons: Fares (confirmed on the 19 April 1849) and Youssef (confirmed in 1852).