Pre-Islamic Arabia

Nabataean trade routes in Pre-Islamic Arabia

The history of Pre-Islamic Arabia before the rise of Islam in the 630s is not known in great detail. Archaeological exploration in the Arabian Peninsula has been sparse; indigenous written sources are limited to the many inscriptions and coins from Yemen. Existing material consists primarily of written sources from other traditions (such as Egyptians, Greeks, Persians, Romans, etc.) and oral traditions later recorded by Islamic scholars.

The study of Pre-Islamic Arabia is important to Islamic studies as it provides the context for the development of Islam. There are epigraphic Old South Arabian sources from about the 9th century BCE, and Ancient North Arabian ones from about the 6th century BCE. From the 3rd century CE, Arabian history becomes more tangible with the rise of the Himyarite Kingdom, and with the appearance of the Qahtanites in the Levant and the gradual assimilation of the Nabataeans by the Qahtanites in the early centuries CE, a pattern of expansion exceeded in the explosive Muslim conquests of the 7th century.

Bronze Age Arabia

• Ubaid period (could have originated in eastern Arabia)
• Sabr culture
• Umm an-Nar Culture

Early Semitic migrations

The earliest known events in Arabian history are migrations from the peninsula into neighbouring areas.^[1] In the 3rd millennium BCE, Semitic-speaking peoples migrated from the Arabian Peninsula into Mesopotamia, settled in Sumer, and eventually established the Akkadian Empire under Sargon of Akkad (c. 2300 BCE).^[2]

The East Semitic group established itself at Ebla. The Amorites were West Semitic speakers who left Arabia in the late 3rd millennium BCE and settled along the Levant. Some of these migrants established societies that evolved into the Aramaeans and Canaanites of later times.^[3]

Magan and 'ad

• Magan is attested as the name of a trading partner of the Sumerians. It is often assumed to be located in Oman.
• The A'adids established themselves in South Arabia (modern day Yemen), settling to the east of the Qahtan tribe. They established the Kingdom of A'ad around the 10th century BCE to the 3rd century CE.

The 'ad nation were known to the Greeks and Egyptians. Claudius Ptolemy's Geographos (2nd century CE) refers to the place by a Hellenized version of the inhabitants of the capital Ubar.

Thamud

Picture of Thamudi tombs at Mada'in Saleh carved from mountain

The Thamud (Arabic: ثمود‎) were a people of ancient Arabia, either a tribe or a group of tribes, that created a large kingdom and flourished from 3000 BCE to 200 BCE. Recent archaeological work has revealed numerous Thamudic rock writings and pictures not only in Yemen but also throughout central Arabia.

They are mentioned in sources such as the Qur'an, old Arabian poetry, Assyrian annals (Tamudi), in a Greek temple inscription from the northwest Hejaz of CE 169, in a 5th-century Byzantine source and in Old North Arabian graffiti around Tayma.

They are mentioned in the victory annals of the Neo-Assyrian King, Sargon II (8th Century BCE), who defeated these people in a campaign in northern Arabia. The Greeks also refer to these people as "Tamudaei", i.e. "Thamud", in the writings of Aristo, Ptolemy, and Pliny. Before the rise of Islam, approximately between CE 400-600, the Thamud totally disappeared.

Iron Age South Arabia

The Bar'an temple in Ma'rib. Known as Bilqis Throne (the Arabic name for the Queen of Sheba), it was built in the 8th century BCE, dedicated to Wadd (Ilumquh) and performed its function for nearly 1000 years.

Sabaean inscription addressed to the moon-god Almaqah, mentioning five South Arabian gods, two reigning sovereigns and two governors, 7th century BCE.

A Griffin from the royal palace at Shabwa, the capital city of Hadhramaut.

Kingdom of Ma'in (7th century BCE – 1st century BCE)

During Minaean rule the capital was at Karna (now known as Sa'dah). Their other important city was Yathill (now known as Baraqish). The Minaean Kingdom was centered in northwestern Yemen, with most of its cities laying along the Wadi Madhab. Minaic inscriptions have been found far afield of the Kingdom of Ma'in, as far away as al-`Ula in northwestern Saudi Arabia and even on the island of Delos and in Egypt. It was the first of the Yemeni kingdoms to end, and the Minaic language died around CE 100.^[4]

Kingdom of Saba (9th century BCE – CE 275)

During Sabaean rule, trade and agriculture flourished generating much wealth and prosperity. The Sabaean kingdom is located in what is now the Asir region in southwestern Yemen, and its capital, Ma'rib, is located near what is now Yemen's modern capital, Sana'a.^[5] According to South Arabian tradition, the eldest son of Noah, Shem, founded the city of Ma'rib.

During Sabaean rule, Yemen was called "Arabia Felix" by the Romans who were impressed by its wealth and prosperity. The Roman emperor Augustus sent a military expedition to conquer the "Arabia Felix", under the orders of Aelius Gallus. After an unsuccessful siege of Ma'rib, the Roman general retreated to Egypt, while his fleet destroyed the port of Aden in order to guarantee the Roman merchant route to India.

The success of the Kingdom was based on the cultivation and trade of spices and aromatics including frankincense and myrrh. These were exported to the Mediterranean, India, and Abyssinia where they were greatly prized by many cultures, using camels on routes through Arabia, and to India by sea.

During the 8th and 7th century BCE, there was a close contact of cultures between the Kingdom of Dʿmt in northern Ethiopia and Eritrea and Saba. Though the civilization was indigenous and the royal inscriptions were written in a sort of proto-Ethiosemitic, there were also some Sabaean immigrants in the kingdom as evidenced by a few of the Dʿmt inscriptions.^[6][7]

Agriculture in Yemen thrived during this time due to an advanced irrigation system which consisted of large water tunnels in mountains, and dams. The most impressive of these earthworks, known as the Marib Dam was built ca. 700 BCE, provided irrigation for about 25,000 acres (101 km²) of land^[8] and stood for over a millennium, finally collapsing in CE 570 after centuries of neglect.

Kingdom of Hadhramaut (8th century BCE – 3rd century CE)

The first known inscriptions of Hadramaut are known from the 8th century BCE. It was first referenced by an outside civilization in an Old Sabaic inscription of Karab'il Watar from the early 7th century BCE, in which the King of Hadramaut, Yada`'il, is mentioned as being one of his allies. When the Minaeans took control of the caravan routes in the 4th century BCE, however, Hadramaut became one of its confederates, probably because of commercial interests. It later became independent and was invaded by the growing Yemeni kingdom of Himyar toward the end of the first century BCE, but it was able to repel the attack. Hadramaut annexed Qataban in the second half of the 2nd century CE, reaching its greatest size. The kingdom of Hadramaut was eventually conquered by the Himyarite king Shammar Yahri'sh around CE 300, unifying all of the South Arabian kingdoms.^[9]

Kingdom of Awsan (8th century BCE – 6th century BCE)

The ancient Kingdom of Awsan in South Arabia (modern Yemen), with a capital at Hagar Yahirr in the wadi Markha, to the south of the wadi Bayhan, is now marked by a tell or artificial mound, which is locally named Hagar Asfal.

Iron Age North Arabia

Kingdom of Qedar (8th century BCE - ?)

The most organized of the Northern Arabian tribes, at the height of their rule in the 6th century BCE, the Kingdom of Qedar spanned a large area between the Persian Gulf and the Sinai.^[10] An influential force between the 8th and 4th centuries BCE, Qedarite monarchs are first mentioned in inscriptions from the Assyrian Empire. Some early Qedarite rulers were vassals of that empire, with revolts against Assyria becoming more common in the 7th century BCE. It is thought that the Qedarites were eventually subsumed into the Nabataean state after their rise to prominence in the 2nd century CE.

The Achaemenids in Northern Arabia

Achaemenid Arabia corresponded to the lands between Egypt and Mesopotamia, later known as Arabia Petraea. According to Herodotus, Cambyses did not subdue the Arabs when he attacked Egypt in 525 BCE. His successor Darius the Great does not mention the Arabs in the Behistun Inscription from the first years of his reign, but mentions them in later texts. This suggests that Darius conquered this part of Arabia.^[11][12]

Nabateans

Al Khazneh in the ruins of Petra (Jordan)

The Nabataeans are not to be found among the tribes that are listed in Arab genealogies because the Nabatean kingdom ended a long time before the coming of Islam. They settled east of the Syro-African rift between the Dead Sea and the Red Sea, that is, in the land that had once been Edom. And although the first sure reference to them dates from 312 BCE, it is possible that they were present much earlier.

Petra (from the Latin petrae, meaning 'of rock') lies in the Great Rift Valley, east of Wadi `Araba in Jordan about 80 km (50 mi) south of the Dead Sea. It came into prominence in the late first century BCE through the success of the spice trade. The city was the principal city of ancient Nabataea and was famous above all for two things: its trade and its hydraulic engineering systems. It was locally autonomous until the reign of Trajan, but it flourished under Roman rule. The town grew up around its Colonnaded Street in the first century and by the mid-first century had witnessed rapid urbanization. The quarries were probably opened in this period, and there followed virtually continuous building through the first and second centuries CE.

Palmyra and Roman Arabia

There is evidence of Roman rule in northern Arabia dating to the reign of Caesar Augustus (27 BCE – 14 CE). During the reign of Tiberius (14–37 CE), the already wealthy and elegant north Arabian city of Palmyra, located along the caravan routes linking Persia with the Mediterranean ports of Roman Syria and Phoenicia, was made part of the Roman province of Syria. The area steadily grew further in importance as a trade route linking Persia, India, China, and the Roman Empire. During the following period of great prosperity, the Arab citizens of Palmyra adopted customs and modes of dress from both the Iranian Parthian world to the east and the Graeco-Roman west. In 129, Hadrian visited the city and was so enthralled by it that he proclaimed it a free city and renamed it Palmyra Hadriana.

The Roman province of Arabia Petraea was created at the beginning of the second century by emperor Trajan. It was centered around Petra, but included even areas of northern Arabia under Nabatean control. Recently has been discovered evidence that Roman legions occupied Madain Salih in the Hijaz mountains area of northwestern Arabia, increasing the extension of the "Arabia Petraea" province.^[13] The desert frontier of Arabia Petraea was called by the Romans the Limes Arabicus. As a frontier province, it included a desert area of northeastern Arabia populated by the nomadic Saraceni.

Qataban & Himyar in South Arabia

Kingdom of Qataban (4th century BCE – 3rd century CE)

Qataban was one of the ancient Yemeni kingdoms which thrived in the Beihan valley. Like the other Southern Arabian kingdoms it gained great wealth from the trade of frankincense and myrrh incense which were burned at altars. The capital of Qataban was named Timna and was located on the trade route which passed through the other kingdoms of Hadramaut, Saba and Ma'in. The chief deity of the Qatabanians was Amm, or "Uncle" and the people called themselves the "children of Amm".

Kingdom of Himyar (2nd Century BCE – CE 525)

Statue of Ammaalay, 1st century BCE, Yemen

The Himyarites rebelled against Qataban and eventually united Southwestern Arabia, controlling the Red Sea as well as the coasts of the Gulf of Aden. From their capital city, Zafar, the Himyarite Kings launched successful military campaigns, and had stretched its domain at times as far east to the Persian Gulf and as far north to the Arabian Desert.

During the 3rd century CE, the South Arabian kingdoms were in continuous conflict with one another. Gadarat (GDRT) of Axum began to interfere in South Arabian affairs, signing an alliance with Saba, and a Himyarite text notes that Hadramaut and Qataban were also all allied against the kingdom. As a result of this, the Aksumite Empire was able to capture the Himyarite capital of Thifar in the first quarter of the 3rd century. However, the alliances did not last, and Sha`ir Awtar of Saba unexpectedly turned on Hadramaut, allying again with Aksum and taking its capital in 225. Himyar then allied with Saba and invaded the newly taken Aksumite territories, retaking Thifar, which had been under the control of Gadarat's son Beygat, and pushing Aksum back into the Tihama.^[14][15]

Aksumite occupation of Yemen (CE 525 – CE 570)

The Aksumite intervention is connected with Dhu Nuwas, a Himyarite king who changed the state religion to Judaism and began to persecute the Christians in Yemen. Outraged, Kaleb, the Christian King of Aksum with the encouragement of the Byzantine Emperor Justin I invaded and annexed Yemen. The Aksumites controlled Himyar and attempted to invade Mecca in the year 570 CE, Eastern Yemen remained allied to the Sassanids via tribal alliances with the Lakhmids, which later brought the Sassanid army into Yemen ending the Aksumite period.

Sassanid period (CE 570 – CE 630)

The Persian king Khosrau I, sent troops under the command of Vahriz (Persian: اسپهبد وهرز) who helped the semi-legendary Sayf ibn Dhi Yazan to drive the Ethiopian Aksumites out of Yemen. Southern Arabia became a Persian dominion under a Yemenite vassal and thus came within the sphere of influence of the Sassanid Empire. After the demise of the Lakhmids another army was sent to Yemen making it a province of the Sassanid Empire under a Persian satrap. Following the death of Khosrau II in 628, then the Persian governor in Southern Arabia, Badhan, converted to Islam and Yemen followed the new religion.

Qahtanite expansion to the north

In Sassanid times, Arabia Petraea was a border province between the Roman and Persian empires, and from the early centuries CE was increasingly affected by South Arabian influence, notably with the Ghassanids migrating north from the 3rd century.

Ghassanids, Lakhmids and Kindites

The Ghassanids, Lakhmids and Kindites were the last major migration of non-Muslims out of Yemen to the north and southwestern borders.

• The Ghassanids revived the Semitic presence in the then Hellenized Syria. They mainly settled the Hauran region and spread to modern Lebanon, Palestine and Jordan. The Ghassanids held Syria until engulfed by the expansion of Islam.

Coin showing the Roman Emperor, Philip the Arab.

Greeks and Romans referred to all the nomadic population of the desert in the Near East as Arabi. The Greeks called Yemen "Arabia Felix" (Happy Arabia). The Romans called the vassal nomadic states within the Roman Empire "Arabia Petraea" after the city of Petra, and called unconquered deserts bordering the empire to the south and east Arabia Magna (Larger Arabia).

• The Lakhmids settled the mid Tigris region around their capital Al-Hirah they ended up allying with the Sassanid against the Ghassanids and the Byzantine Empire. The Lakhmids contested control of the central Arabian tribes with the Kindites, eventually destroying Kindah in 540 after the fall of Kindah's main ally at the time, Himyar. The Sassanids dissolved the Lakhmid kingdom in 602.
• The Kindites migrated from Yemen along with the Ghassanids and Lakhmids, but were turned back in Bahrain by the Abdul Qais Rabi'a tribe. They returned to Yemen and allied themselves with the Himyarites who installed them as a vassal kingdom that ruled Central Arabia from Qaryah dhat Kahl (the present-day Qaryat al-Fāw) in Central Arabia. They ruled much of the Northern/Central Arabian Peninsula until the fall of the Himyarites in 525 CE.

Bedouin tribes

Approximate locations of some of the important tribes and Empire of the Arabian Peninsula at the dawn of Islam (approximately 600 CE / 50 BH).

Much of the information available relating to the early lineages of the predominantly desert-dwelling Bedouin Arabs is based on biblical genealogy. The general consensus among 14th century Arabic genealogists was that Arabs are of three kinds:

1. "Perishing Arabs": These are the ancients of whose history little is known. They include 'ad, Thamud, Tasm, Jadis, Imlaq and others. Jadis and Tasm perished because of genocide. Ad and Thamud perished because of their decadence. Some people in the past doubted their existence, but Imlaq is the singular form of 'Amaleeq and is probably synonymous to the biblical Amalek.
2. "Pure Arabs": They allegedly originated from the progeny of Ya‘rub bin Yashjub bin Qahtan so were also called Qahtanite Arabs.
3. "Arabized Arabs": They allegedly originated from the progeny of Ishmael, son of the biblical patriarch, Abraham (Ibrāhīm), and were also called Adnan.

The several different Bedouin tribes throughout Arabian history are traditionally regarded as having emerged from two main branches: the Rabi`ah, from which amongst others the Banu Hanifa emerged, and the Mudhar, from which amongst others the Banu Kinanah (and later the Prophet Muhammad's own tribe, the Quraysh) emerged.

Religion

There is very little material on which to base a description of pre-Islamic religion, particularly in Mecca and the Hejaz. The Qur'an and the hadith, or recorded oral traditions, give some hints as to this religion. Islamic commentators have elaborated these hints into an account that, while coherent, is doubted by academics in part or in whole.

Many of the tribes in Arabia had practiced Judaism. Christianity is known to have been active in the region before the rise of Islam, especially unorthodox, possibly gnostic forms of it.^[16]

Rise of Islam

The rise of Islam started with the Conquest of Mecca in 630. The initial Muslim conquests (632–732) began after the death of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. He established a new unified polity in the Arabian Peninsula which, under the subsequent Rashidun and Umayyad Caliphates, rapidly expanded well beyond the Arabian Peninsula in the form of a vast Muslim Arab Empire with an area of influence that stretched from northwest India, across Central Asia, the Middle East, North Africa, southern Italy, and the Iberian Peninsula, to the Pyrenees.

In an article published in 1999^[17], Andrey Korotayev and colleagues suggest that the origins of Islam should be viewed against the background of a 6th century CE Arabian socioecological crisis, whose model is based by Korotayev et al. on the study of climatological, seismological, volcanological and epidemiological records of the period. Korotayev et al. claim that most Arabian sociopolitical systems reacted to this socioecological crisis by discarding rigid supratribal political structures (kingdoms and chiefdoms) that otherwise posed a real threat to their survival. They argue that decades of fighting that led to the destruction of the most of the Arabian kingdoms and chiefdoms (reflected in Ayyam al-`Arab tradition) led to the elaboration of a definite "antiroyal" ethos amongst Arab tribes. According to this theory, at the beginning of the 7th century a tribe which saw itself as based upon a terrestrial supratribal political authority risked losing its honour. However, this purported phenomenon seems not to be applicable to the authority of another type - the "celestial" one. In this regard, the early 7th century is seen by Korotayev et al. as evidencing the merging of the Arabian tradition of prophecy, on the one hand, and the Arabian Monotheist "Rahmanist" tradition on the other, to produce "the Arabian prophetic movement". Such Monotheist "Rahmanist" prophets are seen in this theory to have represented a supratribal authority of just the type many Arab tribes were looking for to emerge successfully from the aforementioned socioecological crisis, thus providing in part an explanation for the political successes of such prophets (including the extreme political success of Muhammad).

See also

• History of Saudi Arabia
• History of the United Arab Emirates
• History of Yemen
• Romans in Arabia
• Women in Arab societies#Arab women before Islam
• Incense Route
• Arab (etymology)
• History of the Arabic alphabet
• Ancient Near East
• Jahiliyyah
• Soviet Orientalist studies in Islam

References

Further reading

• Berkey, Jonathan P. (2003), The Formation of Islam, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-0-521-58813-3 
• Bulliet, Richard W. (1975), The Camel and the Wheel, Harvard University Press, ISBN 0-674-09130-2 
• Crone, Patricia (2004) [1987], Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam, Blackwell Publishing, republished by Gorgias Press, ISBN 1-59333-102-9 
• Donner, Fred (1981), The Early Islamic Conquests, Princeton University Press, ISBN 0-691-10182-5 
• Hawting, G. R. (1999), The Idea of Idolatry and the Emergence of Islam: From Polemic to History, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-0521651653 
• Hoyland, Robert G. (2001), Arabia and the Arabs: From the Bronze Age to the Coming of Islam, Routledge, ISBN 978-0415195355 
• Korotayev, Andrey (1995), Ancient Yemen, Oxford: Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-922237-1 
• Korotayev, Andrey (1996), Pre-Islamic Yemen, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, ISBN 3-447-03679-6 
• Yule, Paul Alan (2007), Himyar–Die Spätantike im Jemen/Himyar Late Antique Yemen, Aichwald: Linden, ISBN 978-3-929290-35-6