The Arab Jewish tribes are the Arab tribes professing the Jewish faith that inhabited the Arabian Peninsula before and during the advent of Islam. It is not always clear whether they were originally Israelite in ancestry, genealogically Arab tribes that converted to Judaism, or a mixture of both. Jewish tradition records the existence of nomadic tribes such as the Rechabites that converted to Judaism in antiquity.
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Some of the Arab Jewish tribes historically attested include:
Contemporary researchers have pieced together a mosaic of Judaized Arabian Tribes but we have little evidence of them being Sadducee, Boethusian, Nazirite or otherwise. Judaism found its place in the Arabian Peninsula by immigration of Jews into it. This immigration took place mainly during five periods—
The Sanaite Jews have a legend that their ancestors settled in Yemen forty-two years before the destruction of the First Temple. According to the Prophet Jeremiah some 75,000 Jews, including priests and Levites, traveled to Yemen.[7] The Banu Habban in southern Yemen have a legend that they are the descendants of Judeans who settled in the area before the destruction of the Second Temple. These Judeans supposedly belonged to a brigade dispatched by King Herod to assist the Roman legions fighting in the region.[8] Contemporary scholars suggest that the Sadducees, Boethusians, Nazirites and Essenes spread throughout the Arabian Peninsula, and western Persia, with their co-religionists, the Pharisees, who did not stay in Yavne.
The Sadducee Himyarite royal family in exile commanded vast wealth and resources, particularly the Nabatean bedouin with whom they had controlled the market of trade by Land from North-East Africa for centuries.
By the close of the fifth century, the Banu Aus and Banu Khazraj had become masters of Yathrib. During these events, or possibly in coordination with them, Yathrib was host to a noble visitor. In 470 CE, Persian King Firuz was attempting to wipe out the Exilarchate. The Exilarch Huna V, who was the son of Mar-Zutra bar Mar-Zutra, whisked his daughter and some of his entourage to Yathrib (Medina) for safety.
In abt 400 CE, Himyarite King tubba Abu Karib As'ad Kamil (385-420 CE),[9] a convert to Sadduceean Judaism, led military expeditions into central Arabia and expanded his empire to encompass most of the Arabian Peninsula.[10] His army had marched north to battle the Aksumites who had been fighting for control of Yemen for a hundred years. The Aksumites were only expelled from the region when the newly-Jewish king rallied Jews together from all over Arabia, with pagan allies. The relationship between the Sadducee Himyarite Kings and the polytheistic Arab tribes strengthened when, under the royal permission of Tubba' Abu Karib As'ad, Qusai ibn Kilab (400–480 CE) reconstructed the Ka'aba from a state of decay, and had the Arab al-Kahinan (Cohanim) build their houses around it.[11] Qusai ibn Kilab was the great-great- grandfather of Shaiba ibn Hashim (Abdul-Mutallib, who had a Jewish wife). Shaiba ibn Hashim was fifth in the line of descent to Muhammad, and attained supreme power at Mecca. Qusai ibn Kilab is among the ancestors of Sahaba and the progenitor of the Banu Quraish. When Qusai came of age, a man from the tribe of Banu Khuza'a named Hulail (Hillel) was the trustee of the Kaaba, and the Na'sa (Nasi)—authorized to calculate the calendar. Qusai married his daughter and, according to Hulail's will, obtained Hulail's rights to the Ka'aba. Hulail, according to Arabian tradition was a member of the Banu Jurhum. Banu Jurhum was a sub-group of the Banu Qahtani from whom the Himyarites originally descend.
Around 455 CE, the last Himyarite King is born—the last of the Hasmoneans. He was referred to as a Sadducean King with Sidelocks, Zur'ah Yusuf Ibn Tuban As'ad Abu Kaleb Dhu Nuwas Dhu Nuwas. He died in 510. His zeal for Judaism, albeit in a Sadducee flavor, brought about his fall. Having heard of the persecutions of Jews by Byzantine emperors, Dhu Nuwas retaliated by putting to death some Byzantine merchants who were traveling on business through Himyara. He didn't simply kill them with hanging—he burned them in large pits—earning him the title "King of the burning pit".
These killings destroyed the trade of Yemen with Europe and involved Dhu Nuwas in a war with the heathen King Aidug, whose commercial interests were injured by these killings. Dhu Nuwas was defeated. Dhu Nuwas then made war against the Christian city Najran, in Yemen, which was a dependency of his kingdom; and on its surrender, he offered the citizens the alternative of embracing Judaism, under coercion, or being put to death. As they refused to renounce their faith, he executed their chief, Harith ibn Kaleb, and three hundred and forty chosen men.[12] Many scholars suspect that the Hamyarite Kings, in their display of violent recruitment, lend the greatest weight to any explanation of "why contemporary Jews do not proselytize"—in fact Contemporary Judaism actively discourages conversion and converts even after conversions have occurred.
Four-hundred ninety years (70x7)[13] years had passed from the destruction of Bar Kochba's armies until the year 622 CE. Bar Kochba was a failed Messiah and now, according to Daniel, "would come the true warrior Messiah". "A warrior with 'the helmet of deliverance on His head' and clad in armor". "He will don garments of vengeance (as his) clothing and will put on a cloak of zealousness". "He will fight the battle of Gog ha-Magog and against the army of Armilos (Heraclius)". Most of the Jewish tribes of Arabia were on alert for a new Messiah—anxious to usher his arrival.
In 622 CE, Mohammed leveraged Jewish-Arab despondency at successive military defeats, abandonment by Persian Jews, loss of Jerusalem (again), the Murder of the Exilarch Nehemiah ben Hushiel, and the renewed opposition of the Banu Quraish, set out for Taif. Mohammed was working hard to turn the hearts of the Jewish-Arabian and Pagan tribes from their esoteric Jewish Prophesies and Pagan believes respectively—he succeeded in stimulating the Messianic fervor of Jews and coercing the Pagan tribes. Against this back-drop, Mohammed capitalized upon a confluence of events that rendered the Jewish Arab tribes hopeful for redemption at the hands of a Messiah.
When Mohammed arrived in Taif, and called upon the Jewish tribes to hear his teachings, he was rejected.
In late 622 CE, Shallum ben Hushiel (a/k/a "Salman al-Farsi", "Shallum the Persian", "Salman the Good", "Abu Bakr al-Chaliva al-Saddiq", Hanamel the 37th Exilarch") son of the Exilarch Hushiel, went to visit Mohammed in Medina, and offered his submission (desiring conversion to Islam).[14][15] With the submission of an Exilarch, Mohammed found resistance to submission, by Judaized Arab tribes, begin to wane.
Some of these tribes, or some of their members, were conquered and converted to Islam, some lived as crypto-Jews, while others remained Jews living among Muslims though protected by the Constitution of Medina.
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