The article argues for the Sabaic sryt, cognate with Arabic sariyya (war expedition) as the basis for the verb asra (أسرى) in Quran 17. It examines three sources: South Arabian inscriptions, early chronicles (al-Waqidi, Khalifa, and al-Tabari), and a poetic exchange between Hijazi and Yemeni poets (this last serving as evidence for military interaction between the Hijaz and Yemen in the pre-Islamic period, the basis on which military terminology would have been exchanged).