Ancient Arabs

كلمات مفتاحية: أوسان، وادي مرخة، نقوش قديمة، كتابات كلاسيكية، الهمداني

ملخص البحث: نشأت في الألف الأول قبل الميلاد بجنوب الجزيرة العربية، حضارة عريقة. قام بتلك الحضارة ممالك أو كيانات سياسية، اصطُلِح على تسميتها ممالك جنوب الجزيرة العربية. وهذه الممالك عاشت في فترات متداخلة ومتعاقبة؛ وهي معين، سبأ، وقتبان، وحضرموت وحمير، ثم هناك أَوْسَان. وسيقتصر هذا البحث على تناول المصادر الكتابية لدراسة تاريخ مملكة أوسان، التي نشأت في وادي مرخة، ونجحت في فترات مختلفة من تاريخها السياسي في السيطرة على كثير من مناطق جنوب الجزيرة العربية. بما تتضمنه تلك المصادر من نقوش يمنية قديمة (أَوْسَانية، سبئية، قتبانية، معينية)، وكتابات كلاسيكية، علاوة على الكتابات العربية الإسلامية. ويناقش البحث ما تقدمه من معلومات يمكن الاستفادة منها في زيادة الجانب المعرفي عن بعض أنماط الحياة العامة؛ متمثلة في الأوضاع السياسية والدينية والاقتصادية والاجتماعية.

Keywords: Awsan, Wadi Markha, ancient inscriptions, Classic writings, Al- Hamadani

Abstract: An ancient great civilization in Southern Arabia was established in the first millennium BC. This was carried out by several kingdoms or political entities, termed the kingdoms of South Arabia. These kingdoms lived in overlapping and successive periods, which are known as; Saba, Qataban, Hadramout and Himyar, as well as Awsan. This research will be limited to taking the written sources for the study of the history of the Kingdom of Awsan, which originated in the valley of Markha, and succeeded in different periods of its political history of control of many areas of the southern part of Arabia. These sources include ancient Yemeni inscriptions (Awsanite, Sabaean, Qatabanian, Mainaean), and the classical writings, as well as the Arab- Islamic writings.
This research asserts that the information obtained from the aforementioned material can be utilized to increase knowledge about general aspects of life; in light of its religious, political, economic and social conditions.

The arid areas of the Negev and Edom played a prominent role in the socio-economic and cultural development of the Iron Age civilizations of the southern Levant and northwestern Arabia, being at the interface of key trade routes, providing essential resources and developing cultic practices that spread to neighbouring regions. This volume comprises the papers presented at the symposium "Unearthing the Wilderness: Workshop on the History and Archaeology of the Negev and Edom in the Iron Age", held at the W.F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research, Jerusalem, on 12 December 2010, and supplemented with studies from other leading scholars. Research questions include the socio-economic and political fluctuations in the arid margins of the southern Levant, southern Judah, and the northern Hejaz in the Iron Age, the exploitation of the copper mines of Timna under New Kingdom Egyptian and local control, the relationships between the southern Levant and the Arabian world as seen from the archaeological and epigraphic record, and the question of the "Edomite" pottery assemblage in late Iron Age Judah.

Materialismo Storico, n° 1/2017 (vol. II) 382 I primi insediamenti arabi in Calabria Antonio Maurizio Loiacono The first Arabs' settlements in Calabria are a clear and unavoidable consequence of the Islamic expansion that hit the Italian peninsula in IX century. In the light of their origin, structure and later history, all the attacks perpetrated by the Arabs are clearly not just disordered acts of looting, but planned incursions having as a final goal the conquer of Southern Italy. Their settlements became an important part of the economic and political state of the entire region.

The hunting of wild animals for food, sport or for the defence of people and herds, was common in the ancient Near East, especially in early times. This paper gives a survey of hunting practices in pre-Islamic Arabia primarily from the beginning of the first millennium BCE to the eve of Islam in light of the epigraphic evidence and of rock art as well as archaeological discoveries.

This volume contains a detailed grammatical description of the dialects of Old Arabic attested in the Safaitic script, an Ancient North Arabian alphabet used mainly in the deserts of southern Syria and north-eastern Jordan in the pre-Islamic period. It is the first complete grammar of any Ancient North Arabian corpus, making it an important contribution to the fields of Arabic and Semitic studies. The volume covers topics in script and orthography, phonology, morphology, and syntax, and contains an appendix of over 500 inscriptions and an annotated dictionary. The grammar is based on a corpus of 33,000 Safaitic inscriptions.

تزخر منطقة حائل بالعديد من الكتابات والفنون الصخرية التي تشير إلى معرفة سكانها بالإبل والاستفادة منها؛ حيث تؤكد الكتابات التي تمثل أسماء أعلام لأشخاصٍ، والمدوَّنة إلى جانب الرسومات الخاصة بالإبل على ملكية هؤلاء الأفراد لتلك الإبل. أما الموضوعات الخاصة بالإبل والمصورة في الفنون الصخرية المنتشرة على العديد من جبال منطقة حائل؛ فقد جاءت متنوعة (الأمومة والرعاية، الرعي، القوافل التجارية، الصيد... وغيرها)، كما جاءت كذلك متباينة في طريقة وأسلوب نحتها (حفرها).

The horrors of 9/11 and similar attacks have generated an enormous appetite for knowledge about Islam. Many have sought to understand present preoccupations in light of Islamic origins, and this has created very considerable expansion in popular writing as well as academic research in this area. Much of this output has been characterised by the deployment of a number of clichés, topoi, historical schemata, and other constituents of what came to constitute current commonplaces, generated largely in academic settings, but informing political circles and public opinion more widely. Some of this interest was motivated by hostile curiosity, often conjoined with the elaboration of boundaries, often expressed as generic, or even social-Darwinist divisions, between purportedly Islamic and allegedly Judaeo-Christian civilisations.

Do they not then consider the Qur’an carefully? Had it been from other than Allah, they would surely have found therein much contradiction.'' [4:82]

God created man for a noble purpose: to worship Him and lead a righteous life based on His commands and guidance to mankind. Mankind learned this by God sending Messengers with clear and practical instructions of the meaning of life and how to worship God properly. God also revealed to these Prophets and Messengers knowledge about what will happen after death and the rewards and punishments for one’s actions.

These Prophets and Messengers convey the same prevailing message which is entrusted to them by God. They proclaimed: "…Oh my people! Worship God! (i.e., without associating anything with him) You have no other god but Him. [Qur'an: 7:65]

God sent a Prophet and/or Messenger to every nation throughout the history of mankind.

"And verily, We have sent among every Ummah (community, nation) a messenger (proclaiming): Worship Allah (Alone) and avoid (or keep away from) all false deities" [Qur'an: 16:36]

Some of them we have been informed of and others we have not. These Prophets and Messengers include, but not limited to: Adam, Noah, Abraham, Ismail, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Aaron, Lot, David, Solomon, Elias, Elisha, Hood, Thul-Kifi, Enoch, Jonah, Job Shu’aib, Saalih, Ezra, Zachariyyah, John, Jesus , Muhammad and others peace and blessings be upon them all.

Some of them were sent with Books while others were not. Some of the books that we were informed of are the Scriptures of Abraham, the Torah of Moses, the Zaboor of Dawood, and the Injeel which was revealed to Jesus. All of these scriptures contained the same basic message from God to mankind. Each Prophet brought specific instructions from God addressed to a particular people for certain times in history and particular circumstances although the essential message remained the same.

A few examples of this would be the fact that Moses' contemporaries were excellent in magic. So his major miracle was to defeat the best magicians of his days. Jesus' contemporaries were recognized as skilful physicians. Therefore, his miracles were to raise the dead and cure the incurable diseases. The Arabs, the contemporaries of the Muhammad, were known for their eloquence and magnificent poetry. So Muhammad's (Peace and Blessings be upon him) major miracle was the Qur’an, the equivalent of which the whole legion of the Arab poets and orators could not produce despite the repeated challenge from the Qur’an itself. [TODAY IS THE WORLD OF SCIENCE, THE QURAN HAS CHAMPIONED THIS WORLD OF SCIENCE TOO.]

However, the beauty and power of Muhammad’s (Peace and Blessings be upon him) major miracle is that it removes the constraints of place and time. It is the permanent miracle for all generations to see.

Muhammad (Peace and Blessings be upon him) is the final Messenger and that his Prophethood is also not limited to time and place, and is for all peoples (after the advent of his Prophethood) in all times until the Day of Judgement.

Now, many who would agree with everything we have stated above may reject this about Muhammad (Peace and Blessings be upon him) his Messengership and the scripture with which he was sent. (The Qur’an)

It is our objective here to prove without a shadow of a doubt that the Qur’an is in fact from God Himself and by extension that Muhammad is in fact a Messenger of God. For we cannot accept the Message and reject the Messenger, or vice versa. Both must be accept or both must be rejected.

We can basically divide the groups of opinions on the Qur’an into three groups:

1. Those who say that Muhammad (Peace and Blessings be upon him) himself wrote the Qur’an.

2. Those who say that the Qur’an was written by someone else and taught to Muhammad (Peace and blessings be upon him).

3. Those who believe that the Qur’an is the pure word of God having no human author.

In this article, we will briefly review the above three arguments based on logic, historical evidence, textual analysis and even scientific data.

Des peuples arabes qui ont précédé l'Islam nous connaissons peu de choses. Les historiens arabes les désignent par « les peuples disparus » et les seules sources sur le monde arabe antique restent les récits rapportés par les historiens de la première période de l'Islam. Ces récits sont demeurés souvent sans preuve directe par manque de matériel archéologique. Il a fallu attendre plus de 70 ans, obtenir un corpus épigraphique important et des témoignages archéologiques significatifs, pour qu'on puisse étudier l'histoire ancienne des Arabes directement et non par le biais des civilisations périphériques. Les inscriptions découvertes à la fin du XIXe siècle, dans l'actuelle Arabie Saoudite, enrichies de trouvailles plus récentes, commencent seulement aujourd'hui à être bien comprises. Le corpus épigraphique actuel permet une ébauche de l'histoire sociale, de la langue et des pratiques cultuelles des Arabes durant le millénaire qui a précédé l'Islam. Ces inscriptions sont non seulement importantes pour l'étude de la langue arabe à son origine, mais aussi pour les cultes dont l'Islam a gardé certaines pratiques. Ce livre est une analyse de l'ensemble des inscriptions dédano-liḥyānites connues à ce jour. Elles ont été découvertes sur les stèles provenant des temples antiques ou sur la paroi des montagnes, dans les oasis d'al-ʻUlâ et Madâ'in Sâlih (nord du Hijâz, Arabie Saoudite). Elles remontent à la seconde moitié du Ier millénaire avant l'ère chrétienne. Elles sont qualifiées de dédano-liḥyānites en référence au titre que portent les rois dans les inscriptions, le nom de la montagne Dédan, cité dans les inscriptions, ou le nom ethnique Liḥyān.

This article provides preliminary remarks on the Aramaic scripts of coins from eastern Arabia. After giving a presentation of the palaeography of some coins from Mleiha, it offers suggestions for the reading of the Aramaic legends and the origin of the Aramaic script on them.

The historically attested Late Antique nomadic Arab or ‘Saracen’ presence in the Sinai and eastern Delta of Egypt is well known, and is here extended into the Eastern Desert of Egypt. The series of Late Antique ‘enigmatic settlements’ in the Eastern Desert – hitherto identified as anchoritic communities – are interpreted here as semi-permanent Saracen settlements, and explicit parallels are made with analogous settlements in the Late Antique and early Islamic Negev. Causes of this sedentarisation are found in the cycle ‘boom’ and ‘bust’ evident in the fourth through sixth centuries in the Eastern Desert, and a subsistence strategy characterised by opportunistic diversification and clan-based co-operation is proposed. Finally, the role of the Eastern Desert Saracens in the Arab conquest of Egypt is considered.

Rohmer J. (2020), D'Aram à Rome. La Syrie du Sud de l'âge du Fer à l'annexion romaine, Beirut: Presses de l'Ifpo (Bibliothèque archéologique et historique 217). In French, with English summary.
In the vast basaltic region of Southern Syria commonly known as Ḥawrān, the long period spanning the Iron Age to the so-called ‘pre-provincial’ period (12th cent. BC – late 1st cent. AD) remains poorly known, especially compared to the neighboring regions of the Southern Levant. Based on excavations and surveys carried out in the region for nearly forty years, in particular by the French Archaeological Mission in Southern Syria, this study combines an archaeological approach with a critical review of relevant written sources in order to attempt a first comprehensive historical account of these South Syrian "dark ages". Regardless of the conventional division between the Iron Age and the Hellenistic period, it adopts a longue durée approach in order to better characterize the continuities, evolutions and disruptions in the region’s settlement patterns and material culture between the end of the Late Bronze Age and the integration to the Roman Empire. Based on a chronological framework and dating criteria established in Chapter 1, this study provides a catalogue of Iron Age to pre-provincial sites identified in the different areas of Ḥawrān (Chapters 2 to 4), before presenting a first overview of the region’s history, historical geography, settlement cycles and material culture in the Iron Age (Chapter 5) and Hellenistic/pre-provincial periods (Chapter 6).

This article gives an outline of the relations between pre-Islamic Yemen and Bilād al-Shām in the light
of the South Arabian epigraphic evidence. It discusses some aspects of these relations which were primarily trade
and diplomatic relations. Moreover, this article presents a hitherto unknown Qatabanian inscription that proves
trade relations with Bilād al-Shām. This text mentions several places such as cities of al-Shām, Nabatia, Chaldea,
Ionia, Egypt. It mentions also the Semitic name of the Nabataean capital Petra as rqmm.

This paper studies how changes in the Iron Age world-system affected the economy and society of Edom, the Negev and the northern Hejaz. Contrary to traditional studies, which have failed to recognise how different local peoples were from modern nation-states, and the "tribal kingdom" model, which has stressed the tribe as a static, almost non-historical entity, the world-system view has demonstrated that the local, essentially tribal society, evolved through two phases of chiefdom-formation and posterior dissolution. Interrelated political events--military pressure from contemporary empires and neighbouring petty states--and economic factors--the Arabah copper mining and longdistance trade in Arabian aromatics--that had long-lasting impacts on the local tribal groups can be seen under the light of these world-system interactions.

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS: This work is offered in honour of my Ph.D. supervisor, mentor, and colleague John S. Holladay, Jr., who encouraged me to re-examine the Amman Airport structure and provided invaluable advice during my initial examination of it in the mid-1990s.  Following the completion of my doctorate in fall 1998 (Mumford 1998), more recent articles, scholarly input and other considerations have augmented this study into the form presented here (see also Mumford in press).

Our conceptions regarding the date-range, function and overall role of the Amman Airport structure within the Levant and East Mediterranean in general have evolved since its accidental discovery and salvage work in 1955 (Harding 1958: 10; Hennessy 1966a: 155–62). Further excavations took place within and beside it in 1966 (Hennessy 1985) and 1976 (Herr 1983a), while significant portions of its material culture assemblage, surviving in records and the Amman Museum collections, have been published over the past few decades (Hankey 1974a; idem 1974b; idem 1995; Hennessy 1985; Ward 1964).  Although the building contains artefacts spanning the Early through Late Bronze Ages, the bulk of the published material places it firmly in the Late Bronze Age, particularly LB 2B (ca. 1300–1200 BC).  The site’s function has received less universal acceptance, having been posited as a tribal league centre serving a semi-nomadic population (Campbell and Wright 1969: 104–116), a fire temple (Wright 1966: 351–7), a temple for human sacrifice (Hennessy 1966a: 161; idem 1985), a Hittite mortuary complex with cremation burials (Herr 1983b: 225, 228; idem 1997a: 103), a cultic installation/temple (Harding 1958: 12; Gonen 1992: 229; Hankey 1995: 171), a military watchtower, or “magdalu” (Fritz 1971: 140–52; Burke 2007: 46–7), a “governor’s residency” associated with trade (Mazar 1990: 257), or a somewhat more complex fortified trading post and elite centre (Holladay 2001: 163–7).  Published November, 2015.

South-Arabian inscriptions contain multiple types of sins. In addition to those public sins that arise between members of the community , including; for example the attack on the facilities of irrigation-agriculture systems and murders…. etc. There were other types; represented in the assault directly on the gods and their temples property or by Downplay indirectly those gods through the commission of some of the things that can be considered as detracting from the right of the idol; such as: perjury, and sometimes default in the performance of various acts of worship and ritual purity and other things which require public recognition and provide penitential offering. This research will deal only with those sins which represent a kind of desecration of temples and infringed upon, through three elements; gods' disrespect, the attack on the temples and the theft of property, and assault on the temples clerks service (priests) in the light of South Arabian inscriptions.

Abb. 11: Palmblattrippe (Länge: 23 cm, Breite: 2,8 cm) mit einer Inschrift in alt-südarabischer Schrift und sabäischer Sprache. Der Text enthält den Bericht einer sabäischen Frau über eine Wallfahrt. Gefunden in Jawf al-Sawdāʾ (Je-men). Heute in einer Privatsammlung in S. anʿāʾ (M-SAS = Maraqten-South Arabian Sticks 1). Datierung: 1. Jahrhundert n. Chr.

Imperio sasánida SUMARIO Si bien el Imperio romano sería siempre el enemigo tradicional y más importante del Imperio sasánida, éste nunca fue el único y, en determinados momentos, tampoco el más importante ni el que, a la postre, acabaría con tan importante imperio iranio. Sobre los menos conocidos enemigos que, a lo largo de su historia, supusieron un serio problema para el Imperio sasánida, tratará este breve texto que pretende mostrar cómo los sasánidas se vieron casi permanentemente acosados, a lo largo de sus extensas fronteras, contra poderosos enemigos a los que tuvieron que hacer frente con mayor o menor éxito, contribuyendo a debilitar el poderío militar de este imperio hasta provocar su desaparición.

This study examines the evidence for three small but prominent groups of Arabs in the fi fth and sixth centuries-the Jafnids, allied to the Roman Empire, the Naṡ rids, allied to the Sasanians, and the Ḣ ujrids, client rulers of the kingdom of Ḣ imyar, but equally subject to pressure from the Romans and Sasanians. It explores the numerous problems that have impeded eff orts to produce a balanced assessment of these peoples, including source-critical, historiographical, and ideological pressures. It also highlights the longheld attachment of each group to a "people," the Jafnids to Ghassān, the Naṡ rids to Lakhm, and the Ḣ ujrids to Kinda, connections that have produced a misleading impression of kingdoms or stable polities under each name. The evidence only allows us to describe family dynasties composed of small groups of individuals. Finally, highlighting the importance of the framework of imperial power in any analysis of the late antique east, it off ers some thoughts on what the evidence discussed here suggests for our understanding of Arab identities before Islam. The historical dominance of the Muslim Arabs after the mid-seventh century has, perhaps inevitably, overshadowed the history of the Arabs in the pre-Islamic period. For much of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the role and place of the Arabs in the fi fth and sixth centuries remained an overlooked topic, and only a very small number of highly-specialised works were dedicated to it. 2 This situation has now changed somewhat, a product of an eff ort

In our collective memory there still lies the Queen of Sheba, her journey to Jerusalem to meet the wise King Salomon, or the Arabia Felix with its fame associated in the classical world with frankincense and other precious aromas. Nevertheless the history of the Arabia Felix, the country of the Queen of Sheba, is not well known to a wider public.
At the beginning of the 1st millennium BC, in south-western Arabia, in the region that today corresponds to the Republic of Yemen, some kingdoms were formed. Their history deserves to be better known.
Its desert and ocean protected Arabia Felix from the invasions of hostile armies. Its inhabitants did not remain isolated on their mountains and in their valleys. Their caravans crossed the desert, their ports hosted foreign ships, they had commercial and cultural contacts, by land and by sea, with the whole world.
The history of this culture was very long; from the 8th century BC to the 6th century AD: from the Assyrian expansion into the Levant to the Roman empire, from the expedition only planned before his death by Alexander the Great to the failed expedition of Augustus, from Hellenism to the wars between Byzantium and the Persia, and from polytheism to Judaism and Christianity.
The events, the characters, the history of art, together with the beliefs of the ancient inhabitants of South Arabia, will be recounted in this book starting from direct written sources: the wealthy corpus of ancient South Arabian epigraphic public texts.

ROAMING TRIBES - TRIBES ON THE MOVE

The epos of al-Azd and Qudaa

TALES
1. 'Amr b 'Amir leaves Ma'rib with al-Azd before the dam fall
2. The introduction of horses among the Arabs
3. The battle of Salut
4. Qudaa and Tanuh reach Iraq
5. The fall of Hatra

Bibliographical references

Mascitelli Daniele

Anno di Edizione: 2017
Edizione: L'ERMA di BRETSCHNEIDER
Collane:
Quaderni di Arabia antica, 5
ISBN: 978-88-913-1293-8
Pagine: 74

Abstract: Characteristics and Underlying Reasons of Some Ethical Behaviours of Arabian
People at Pre-Islamic Age of Ignorance; The current study investigates some good behaviour of
Arabian people living in the Hijaz at Pre-Islamic Age. Arabs appreciated some ethical behaviours
such as generosity, fidelity (loyalty) and honesty at Pre-Islamic Age of Ignorance; and they also
praised the people for displaying such behaviours. When there was a rivalry among tribes, each
tribe was proud of having individuals who were famous for displaying these ethical behaviours.
Such eulogies on their own tribes or satire on other rival tribes about the lack of such ethical principles also played a key role in poetry, which was the most important cultural element of PreIslamic Age of Ignorance. Psycho-social reasons such as announcing the fame of individuals or
tribes and getting superiority over others can be argued to be as the underlying motivation for such
ethical behaviours of Pre-Islamic Arabian people. The characteristics of such behaviours should be
analysed and evaluated one by one in the same way as misbehaviours. Therefore, it seems unlikely
to claim that such behaviours were the common feature of all Arabian people at that age.

The horrors of 9/11 and similar attacks have generated an enormous appetite for knowledge about Islam. Many have sought to understand present preoccupations in light of Islamic origins, and this has created very considerable expansion in popular writing as well as academic research in this area. Much of this output has been characterised by the deployment of a number of clichés, topoi, historical schemata, and other constituents of what came to constitute current commonplaces, generated largely in academic settings, but informing political circles and public opinion more widely. Some of this interest was motivated by hostile curiosity, often conjoined with the elaboration of boundaries, often expressed as generic, or even social-Darwinist divisions, between purportedly Islamic and allegedly Judaeo-Christian civilisations.