VOL 5.9

Holders of Power after Ardashlr b. Babak 167

[903]

So ask 'Imran or ask Asd ; then, at the time when [the army]

came, when the morning star was still visible, 424

An army headed by Abu Karib, with their bodies clad in long

coats of mail and with pungent reek.

Then they said, Who is coming along with them, the Banu 'Awf

or al-Najarah?

O Banu al-Najjar, indeed we have a burden of taking vengeance

on them from long ago! 425

Then there went forth to encounter them in battle a body of

lofty warriors ('ashannaqah )* 26 whose extent was like that

of a sheet of falling rain drops. 427

A chief who is on a level of prestige with kings; whoever would

make war on 'Amr does not realize his eminence.

A man of the Ansar, mentioning their fierce resistance to

Tubba', has said:

You impose upon me, among other duties in regard to it,

[defense of] the date palm groves of al-Asawif and al-

Mansa'ah, 428

424. 'Imran is not common in tribal genealogies, but may conceivably refer to

the 'Imran b. Hudhmah, a branch of the tribe of Muzaynah who lived to die south

of Medina; see Ibn al-Kalbi-Caskel-Strenziok, Jamhaiat al-nasab, I, Table 88, n,

357; EP, s.v. Muzayna (F. M. Donner). Asd is, of course, the great tribe of Asd or

Azd fsd being the form in the South Arabian inscriptions), with its two branches

originally centered on Umin and the Sarat mountain chain in 'Asir respectively;

see EP, s.v. Azd (G. Strenziok).

425. The name 'Awf occurs in the genealogies of a large nuumber of Arab tribes,

while al-Najjar b. Tha'labah were a subclan of the Medinan Khazraj; see Ibn al-

Kalbl-Caskel -Strenziok, Jamhaiat al-nasab, I, Table 185, n, 442. What is unclear is whether the Najarah are identical with the Banu al-Najjir of the next line, the

difficulty in identifying them as a single unit being that die 'Awf and the Najarah

are apparendy among the attackers, whereas one would expect the Banu al-Najjar

to be among the defenders of their town.

426. Ibn Hisham, ed. Wustenfeld, 14 - ed. Mustafa al-Saqqa et al., I, 23, has

musayifah, "a body of swordsmen," for this rare word 'ashannaqah, hence probably a lectio facilior.

427. Ibn Hisham, loc. cit., inserts here a line, "Among them is 'Amr b. Jallah;

may God grant him long life for the welfare of his people!" which serves as a link

between the preceding and following verses and elucidates the 'Amr who is subse-

quendy praised.

428. Al-Asawif is the plural, used here for metrical purposes, one assumes, of al-

Aswaf, a place outside Medina but regarded as coming within the Haram estalished by the Prophet around the town. See Majd al-DIn Ibn al-Athir, al-Nihdyah fi gharib al-hadlth, II, 422; al-Bakri, Mu' jam ma ista'jam, I, 151; al-Samhudl, Wafa’ al-wafa, IV, 1125-26. Al-Mansa'ah, on the contrary, would be the singular of a place-name normally found in the plural, al-Manasi', literally "places set apart," i.e., for purposes of fulfilling the needs of nature, outside Medina, specifically for the women of the town to use at night, and figuring as such in the famous \ hadith al-ifk, "affair of the lie," involving 'A’ishah and her calumniators. See Majd al-Din Ibn Athir, op. cit., V, 65; al-Samhudl, op. cit., IV, 1313.

i68

Holders of Power after Ardashir b. Babak

Date palm groves the Banu Malik have protected from the

terrifying cavalry hosts of Abu Karib.

He related: Tubba' and his people were devotees of idols and

worshiped them. He set out toward Mecca, this being on his route

back to Yemen, until when he was at al-Duff in the district of

Jumdan, between 'Usfan and Amaj, a point along his way between

Mecca and Medina, 429 a group of men from Hudhayl 430 met him

and said, "O king, allow us to lead you to an ancient, largely

obliterated treasury which previous monarchs have overlooked

and which contains pearls, chrysoliths, rubies, gold, and silver."

He replied, "Yes, indeed," and they went on to say, "[It is] a temple

in Mecca which its people worship and pray by." 431 The Hudhalis,

[904] however, intended by that Tubba''s destruction, because they

knew full well that if any king had any bad intentions concerning

the Ka'bah or acted deceitfully in regard to it, he would perish.

When he had agreed to their proposal, he sent for the two rabbis

429. These places all lay to the north of Mecca, with 'Usfan in the transition

zone between the coastal plain, the Tihamah, and the Hijaz mountain chain, the

Sarat, and the others on the road to Medina across the mountains. For al-Duff, see

Yaqut, Buldan, II, 458. For Jumdan, see al-Bakri, Mu'jam ma ista'jam, n, 391-92,

and Yaqut, op. cit., n, 1 62, respectively, describing it as a mountain in the territory of Sulaym and a mountain in the harrah, or lava field, of Dariyyah. 'Usfan is frequently mentioned in early Islamic sources as two stages from Mecca, and still exists as a village. See al-Bakri, op. cit., HI, 942-43, placing it in the territory of the Banu al-Mustaliq of Khuza'ah; Yaqut, op. cit., IV, 120-2 1> Thilo, Die Ortsmanen in dei altarabischen Poesie, 109 and Map C; Abdullah Al-Wohaibi, The Northern Hijaz in the Writings of the Arab Geographers 800-1 iso, 284-89. Amaj was an oasis settlement in the territory of Khuza'ah. According to al-Bakri, op. cit., 1 , 190- 92, and according to Yaqut, op. cit., I, 249-50, it was in the region of Medina,- see also Al-Wohaibi, op. cit., 120-22, 186.

430. Hudhayl b. Mudrikah were a tribe, accounted North Arab in genealogy,

from the Khindif branch of Mudar, hence related to Quraysh of Mecca, whose

territory was in the vicinity of Mecca and al-Ta’if. See Ibn al-Kalbi-Caskel-

Strenziok, famharat al-nasab, I, Tables 3, 58, n, 7, 286; EP-, s.v. Hudhayl (G.

Rentz).

43 1 . That is, the Ka'bah, regarded, as is stated below, as having been founded by

Ibrahim (Abraham) and his son Isma'il (Ishmael).

Holders of Power after Ardashir b. Babak

169

and asked them about it. They told him: “The sole intention of

these people is to bring about your destruction and the destruction

of your army. If you do what they are urging you to do, you and

everyone with you will assuredly perish en bloc." Tubba' said,

"What then do you advise me to do when I get to the temple?"

They replied, "When you get there, do as its devotees do: circumambulate

it, venerate and honor it, shave your head in its

presence and behave with humility until you leave its precincts."

He asked them, "What is preventing you yourselves from doing

that?" They retorted, "By God, it is indeed the temple of our

forefather Abraham, and it is just as we have informed you; but the

local people have interposed as obstacles, between us and the temple,

 various idols they have set up around it, and blood they shed

there. They are unclean polytheists," or words to that effect . 432

Tubba recognized the soundness of their advice and the veraciousness

 of their words. He had the group of Hudhalis brought

in, and cut off their hands and feet. Then he proceeded onwards till

he reached Mecca. It was revealed to him in a dream that he

should cover over the temple, so he covered it with sheets of

woven palm leaves. Then in a second dream it was revealed to him

that he should cover it with something better than that, so he

covered it with Yemeni cloth ( al-ma'afii ). Then in a third dream,

that he should cover it with something even better than that, so he

covered it with women's robes and pieces of finely woven Yemeni

cloth joined together ( al-mula’ah wa-al-wa^a'il). According to

what they assert, Tubba* was the first person to put a covering

over the Ka'bah . 433 He also ordered its guardians, from Jurhum , 434

432. According to Muslim lore, the primitive monotheism of Abraham, the

millat Ibrahim , became corrupted after his time by polytheistic practices such as

are mentioned here, so that by Muhammad's time it had become an idol temple.

Whether the \awaf or circumambulation, and the requirement of shaving the head,

part of the ihram, practices mentioned here, were part of the rites of the Ka'bah in

the two or three centuries before the coming of Muhammad, the age of the Tub-

ba's, is unknown; but it seems quite likely that such taboos and ritual practices did

exist well before their formalization under Islam as the maaasik al-bajj. See M.

Gaudefroy-Demombynes, Le piletinage d la Mekke, itude d’histoire religieuse,

3off.; El 2 , s.v. Ka'ba (A. J. Wensinck).

433. For the kiswah or covering, see Gaudefroy-Demombynes, Le pilerinage d

la Mekke, 33; idem, "Le voile de la Ka'ba," 5-21; El 2 , s.v. Ka'ba. 1. |AJ. Wensinck and J. Jomier).

434. Jurhum were an ancient tribe, accounted Yemeni in genealogy, who were

said to have migrated northward to Hijaz and to have taken over Mecca and its

shrine from the Amelekites before being themselves displaced by the local Hijazi

tribe of Khuza'ah. Individuals with the nisbah of al-Jurhumi were still known in

the time of Muhammad. See EP-, s.v. Djurhum or Djurham (W. M. Watt).

170 Holders of Power after Ardashir b. Babak

to look after it and to keep it in a state of ritual purity, not letting

any blood, dead bodies, or milath, that is, [cloth used for] menstruation,

come near it, and he provided it with a door and a key.

Then he set out for Yemen accompanied by his troops and the two

rabbis. When he reached Yemen he summoned its people to enter

into the same religion as he had done, but they refused until they

were able to test it by means of ordeal by fire, which they had in

Yemen. 435

Ibn Humayd related to us — Salamah — Ibn Ishaq — Abu Malik b.

Tha'labah b. Abi Malik al-QurazI, 436 who said: I heard Ibrahim b.

Muhammad b. Talhah b. 'Ubaydallah relate that, when Tubba'

drew near to Yemen in order to enter it, the Himyarites blocked

his way to it, telling him that he could not enter it because he had

abandoned their religion. He invited them to accept his (new)

faith, saying, "It is a better religion than yours." They retorted, "In

that case, come and settle the matter with us by the ordeal of fire,"

and he agreed. He related: According to what the Yemenis assert,

there was in Yemen a fire, by means of which they would settle

matters in dispute among themselves; the fire would devour the

wrongdoer but leave the one who had suffered injury unscathed.

When they told this to Tubba', he replied, "You have made a fair

proposition." So his people (i.e., the Himyarites) went forth with

their idols and with other sacred objects they were accustomed to

utilize in their religion, while the two rabbis went forth with their

sacred codices ( masahifihima ) 437 hanging round their necks until

they halted in front of the fire by the place where it blazed forth.

The fire leapt out toward them, and when it neared them they

withdrew from it in great fear. But those people present urged

them onward and instructed them to stand firm. So they stood

435. This story is also in Ibn Hisham, ed. Wiistenfeld, 14-15 = ed. al-Saqqaet al.,

I, 237, trans. 8-9; idem, Kitab al-TJjan, 294-96; al-Azraqi, Akhbai Makkah, I, 84-

86.

436. Some male members of the Jewish tribe of Qurayzah apparently survived

the massacre mentioned in n. 419 above.

437. These mushafs could have been made up of flat leaves, loose or sewn, or of

rolled-up leaves, both procedures being apparently known in earliest Islam and

doubtless before then. See EP, s.v. Sahifa (A. Ghddira).

Holders of Power after Ardashir b. Babak 17 1

their ground until the fire covered them and consumed the idols

and the sacred objects they had brought along, together with the

men of Himyar who were bearing them. The two rabbis then went

forth with their sacred codices round their necks, with their foreheads

 dripping with sweat but the fire did not harm them at all. At

this, the Himyarites agreed to accept Tubba"s religion; from this

time onward, and because of this episode, was the origin of Judaism

 in Yemen.

Ibn Humayd related to us — Salamah — Ibn Ishaq — one of his

colleagues, that the two rabbis and the Himyarites who went out

with them at that same time only followed the track of the fire in

order to repel it, for they said that whoever was able to drive it

back was the most worthy of credence. When some of the

Himyarites came with their idols near to it in order to drive it

back, the fire came on at them in order to consume them, hence

they retreated and were unable to drive it back. But when the two

rabbis drew near to it after that, and began to recite the Torah, the

fire began to recede until they had driven it back to its place of

origin. Thereupon, the Himyarites adopted the two rabbis'

religion.

Now Ri’am was one of the temples they used to venerate and

where they offered up slaughtered beasts and from which they

used to speak under inspiration, this during the time when they

were polytheists. 438 The two rabbis told Tubba' that it was only a

demon ( shay%an ) that lured them into evil ways and made them

its sport, and they asked him to let them deal with it how they

would. He replied, "Just go ahead with it!." The Yemenis assert

that the two rabbis drew out from it a black dog, which they

438. Al-HamdanI, $ifat jazirat al~ Arab, 268, 363, describes Riyam/Ri’am as one

of the fortresses and castles ( mafyafid , qufui; for the first term, sing, mahfad,

mahfid, see C. Landberg, Glossaiie datinois, 1 , 442-30) of Yemen and as one of the shrines of the Arabs ( mawadi ' al-'ibadah), located in the territory of the Hamdan (i.e., in that part of northern Yemen between $an'a‘ and $a'dah). Ibn al-Kalbi, Kitab al-a$nam, ed. Ahmad Zaki Pasha, in Klinke-Rosenberger, Das G&tzenbuch, text, 7-8, Ger. trans. 35, comm. 87, Eng. trans. Paris, 10-1 1, states that it was a sanctuary of the Himyarites at $an*a’ and that there was an oracle there. The existence of both the place and the shrine at Rym um where the god Ta’Iab was venerated, is confirmed by South Arabian inscriptions. See Fahd, Le pantheon de l’Arabie centiale d la veille de 1 ‘Mgire, 141-43? W. W. Mailer, "Ancient Castles Mentioned in the Eighth Volume of al-Hamdani's Iklil," 154.

172

Holders of Power after Ardashir b. Babak

slaughtered. They also tore down that temple; its remains, according

to what has been mentioned to me, can still be seen today in

Yemen at Ri’am, with traces of the blood that used to be poured

over it. 439

Tubba' composed the following verses about that journey of his;

what he had intended to do at Medina and the Ka'bah; how he

dealt with the men of Hudhayl when they told him what they in

fact told him,- what he did regarding the Holy House when he

came to Mecca, that is, putting a cover over it and purifying it; and

what the two rabbis told him about the Messenger of God's future

role:

Why [O my soul] is your sleep troubled, like that of one with

bleary, diseased eyes, suffering from sleeplessness, as if kept

awake incessantly?

Feeling rage against two Jewish tribes who settled at Yathrib,

who richly deserve the punishment of a day of violence! 440

When I made my dwelling place at Medina, my slumber there

was sweet and refreshing.

I made space for a dwelling place on a hill between al-'Aqlq and

Baqi’ al-Gharqad. 441

We left behind its tract of dark-colored rocks and its plateaux,

and its salt flats extending on a bare plain,

And we descended to Yathrib, with our breasts raging with

anger at the killing of a slaughtered one (i.e., Tubba''s son).

439. This story is also in Ibn Hisham, Shat al-nabi, ed. Wiistenfeld, 17-18 - ed.

al-Saqqa et al., I, 24-28, trans. 10-11, idem, Kitab al-tljan, 37-38.

440. There were, of course, more than two Jewish tribes living in Medina at the

time of the hijrah and almost certainly before then. Their presence there may even

date to the diaspora from Palestine down the Wadi al-Qura in western Arabia after

such cataclysms for the Jewish people as the Roman emperor Titus's sack of

Jerusalem in a.d. 70 and the suppression of the revolt of Bar Kokhba in a.d. 132; the question of the origins of the communities of Jews (or Judaised Arabs?) in such oases of western Arabia as Fadak, Khaybar and Medina has been much discussed, without finality having been reached. For Judaism in South Arabia, see n. 486 below.

441. The Wadi al-'Aqiq lay just to the west of Medina and is expressly lauded in

Islamic tradition as "the blessed valley" because of the Prophet's fondness for it.

See EP-, s.v. al-'Akik (G. Rentz). Baqi' al-Gharqad was the first Muslim cemetery in Medina, much venerated in later times because so many of the Prophet's family, the Companions, and other notable figures of early Islam were buried there. See EP-, s.v. Baki* al-Gharkad (A. J. Wensinck and A. S. Bazmee Ansari).

Holders of Power after Ardashir b. Babak

173

I have sworn a deliberate, binding vow, an oath which is, by

your life, not to be rescinded,

"If I come to Yathrib, I will not suffer to remain in its central

parts a single date cluster or any ripe dates."

Until there came to me a learned scholar of Qurayzah, a rabbi

to whom, by your life, the Jews accorded primacy.

He said, "Remove yourself from a settlement which is

preserved [by God] for the prophet of Mecca from Quraysh,

a divinely guided one."

So I forgave them without any reproach, and left them to the

requital of an everlasting day (sc., the Day of Judgment).

And I left them to God, for whose forgiveness I hope on the Day

of Reckoning, [escaping] from the stoked-up flames of Hell.

I left behind at Yathrib for him a group of men from our people,

men of personal achievement and valor, whose deeds are

praised,

A group of men who will bring victory in their train; I hope

thereby a reward from the lord of one worthy of praise. 442

I did not realize that there was a pure house, consecrated to God

in the hollow of Mecca, where He is worshiped,

Until there came to me servile wretches from Hudhayl, at al

Duff of Jumdan above the ascent of the hill ( al-musnad ).

They said, "[There is] at Mecca a house of ancient, forgotten

wealth, with treasures of pearls and chrysoliths."

I wanted to get at them, but my Lord interposed between me

and them, for God repels [profane ones] who would destroy

the house of worship.

Hence I renounced my intentions against it and against the

people of Yathrib, and left them as an example to the

discerning.

Dhu al-Qamayn before me submitted himself [to God], a king to

whom the other kings became humble and thronged [his

court]. 443

442. rabbi muhammadi, which could be taken as presaging the coming of the

Prophet Muhammad.

443 "The man with the two horns" of Qur’an, XVIII, 82-97/83-97, generally

identified in Muslim lore with Alexander the Great, regarded by some authorities

as a proto-Muslim because he spoke to the people of the West about God's punish ment for the wicked and His reward for the righteous, though it was disputed

whether he was a prophet. See El 2 , s.v. al-Iskandar |W. M. Watt). Tubba''s citation here of Dhu al-Qamayn as a predecessor no doubt reflects the elaboration in early Islamic times of South Arabian legends and folk-tales, which assigned to Alexander a place in the glorious past of Yemen, as a counterbalance to the North

Arabs' glorying in the fact that it was from them that the Prophet Muhammad had

arisen. See Tilman Nagel, Alexander der Grosse in der friihislamischen Volks-

literatur, 6off.

174

Holders of Power after Ardashir b. Babak

He reigned over the Eastern and Western lands, yet sought the

means of knowledge from a wise, rightly guided scholar.

He witnessed the setting of the sun in its resting place into a

pool of black and foetid slime.

Before his time, Bilqis was my paternal forebear (literally,

“aunt") and ruled over them until the hoopoe came to

her . 444

There related to us Ibn Humayd — Salamah — Ibn Ishaq, who

said: They assert that, in regard to this tribe (hayy) of the Ansar,

Tubba' was only enraged at them because of the Jews who lived

among them. Tubba' intended to destroy them when he came to

them at Medina, but the Ansar restrained him from them until he

then departed. This was the reason for his saying in his poem,

444. This story is given in Ibn Hisham, Shat al-nabl, ed. Wustenfeld, 12-18 -

ed. al-Saqqa et al., I, 20-28, trans. 7-12, including the text of the whole poem.

Guillaume wondered how Ibn Ishaq came to insert so patently spurious a poem

into a serious historical work. Bilqis was the name given in Muslim lore to the

Queen of Sheba (not actually given a personal name) in Qur’an, XXVII, r 5-45, to

whom the hoopoe ( hudhud ) is said to have brought a letter from King Solomon. See EP-, s.v. Bilkis (E. Ullendorff ) ; J. Briend, in Supplement au dictionnahe de la Bible, s.v. Sheba. I. "Dans la Bible," cols. 1043-46.

It is quite possible that Solomon had some diplomatic contacts with some Arabian queen, though whether these really were with a monarch in South Arabia or

whether the name of Saba, as being that of a well-known, mighty kingdom, was

later attached to the story, is impossible to say. However, there was a historical

Bilqis, and the late Jacqueline Pirenne worked out from genealogical information

in al-Hamdani's Iklil that her husband was in fact a qayl or local prince of Yemen

called Baril or Barig Dhu Bata', known from South Arabian inscriptions and to be

placed in the mid-third century a.d., and that the monarch whom Bilqis and her

husband visited was an Arab king, the famous Odenathus/Udhaynah of Palmyra,

ally of the Romans against the Persians. The identification of the king thus visited

with Solomon would accordingly stem from the existing identification in Jewish

lore and legend of the Old Testament monarch with the city-state of Palmyra. See

Pirenne, "Who Was the Suleyman visited by al-Hamdani's Bilqis, Queen of

Himyar?," 27-45.

Holders of Power after Ardashir b. Babak

175

Feeling rage against two Jewish tribes who settled at Yathrib,

who richly deserve the punishment of a day of violence!

There related to us Ibn Humayd — Salamah — Ibn Ishaq, who

said: Before this, there had come to Tubba' Shafi' b. Kulayb al-

Sadafl, who was a soothsayer ( kahin ). He stayed with Tubba', and

when he signified his intention to say goodbye, Tubba' said,

"What does there remain of your learning?" Shafi' replied, "An

eloquent piece of historical lore — and a veracious item of knowledge ." 445

He said, "Can you find a people with a kingdom equal in

status to mine?" Shafi' replied, "No, except that the king of

Ghassan has numerous offspring {najl}." Tubba' said, "Can you

find any king superior to him in status?" He replied, "Yes." He

said, "Who has such a kingdom?" He replied, "I find it belonging

to a pious and God-fearing man — who has been made strong by

conquests — and who has been described in the Scriptures [al-

zabur, literally "the Psalms of David") 446 — his community is

given a superior status in the sacred books ( al-sufui } — and he will

dispel darkness with light — Ahmad the prophet — blessed be his

community until he comes! — [He is] one of the Banu Lu’ayy — and

then of the Banu Qusayy ." 447 Tubba' sent for a copy of the scriptures and perused them; and lo and behold, he found there the

Prophet's description!

445 . The kahin' s utterance here is, as usual with such gnomic pronouncements,

in assonantal, rhymed prose (sa/’|. See Fahd, La divination aiabe. Etudes re-

ligieuses, sociologiques et folkloriques sur le milieu natif de l’lslam, 151-5 3; EP,

s.v. Sadj'. i. As Magical Utterances in Pre-Islamic Arabian Usage (T. Fahd).

446. This term is used in the Qur’an, in the singular, as here, for the Psalms, but

in the plural al-zubur for written inscriptions in general; A. Jeffery, The Foreign

Vocabulary of the Qur’an, 148-49, see also EI l > s.v. Zabur ( J. Horovitz), derived it from the Christian Orient. However, Mr. F. C. de Blois has pointed out to the present writer that a Sabaean verb zbr, "to write, inscribe," is now attested on the inscribed sticks that have been recently coming to light in Yemen, as described by W. W. MOller, "L'dcriture zabur du Y6men pre-islamique dans la tradition arabe," 35-39/ who traces what appears to be the subsequent usage of the verb zabara in early Classical Arabic, perhaps influenced by Yemeni precursors and influences. It is accordingly possible that one should translate al-Tabari's text here, wa-wu$ifa fi al-zabur, as "and who has been described in the ancient written texts," and the subsequent mention of Tubba"s sending for a copy of al-zabur (here grammatically feminine, as if a collective) as simply for "ancient written documents."

447. Qusayy was the semilegendaiy hero of the Banu Lu’ayy of Fihr or Quraysh

who was an ancestor, separated by five generations, of Muhammad/Ahmad. He is

said to have restored the Ka'bah to the primitive monotheistic worship of the

millat Ibrahim after the cult there had lapsed into pantheism under Jurhum (on

whom see n. 434 above). See EP, s.v. Ku?ayy (G. Levi Della Vida).

176

Holders of Power after Ardashir b. Babak

There related to us Ibn Humayd — Salamah — Ibn Ishaq, to

whom someone had transmitted from Sa'id b. Jubayr — Ibn

'Abbas— others of the scholars of Yemen who relate traditions.

Some of them transmitted part of the story, but all of that is

gathered together in this present story, that there was a king from

the Lakhm in Yemen among the Tubba's of Himyar, called

Rabi’ah b. Nasr. Before his period of royal power in Yemen there

had reigned Tubba' I, who was Zayd b. 'Amr Dhi al-Adh'ar b.

Abrahah Dhi al-Manar b. al-Ra’ish b. Qays b. Sayfi b. Saba’ the

Younger b. Kahf al-Zulm b. Zayd b. Sahl b. 'Amr b. Qays b.

Mu'awiyah b. Jusham b. Wa’il b. al-Ghawth b. Qatan b. 'Arib b.

Zuhayr b. Ayman b. Hamaysa' b. al-'Aranjaj Himyar b. Saba’ the

Elder b. Ya'rub b. Yashjub b. Qahtan. 448 Saba"s name was (really)

'Abd Shams, and he was only called Saba’, as they assert, because

[910] he was the first to take captives [saba] among the Arabs. 449 This is

the ruling house of the kingdom of Himyar, among whom were

the Tubba's.

After Tubba' I there came Zayd b. 'Amr and 450 Shamir Yur'ish b.

Yasir Yun'im b. 'Amr Dhi al-Adh'ar his paternal cousin 451 It was

448. The genealogy is here taken back to Qahtan, regarded as the progenitor of

the South Arabs as 'Adnan was of the North ones, Himyar being accounted, with

Kahlan, as one of the two main subdivisions of Qahtan. The name Qahtan was

connected by the Arab genealogists with the Old Testament name Yoqtan/Joktan

(cf. Gen. x. 28; I Chron. i. 20), but this seems phonologically hazardous. See Ibn al- Kalbi-Caskel-Strenziok, Jamharat al-nasab, I, Table 176, II, 31 - 33 / 455 ; EP, s.v. Kahtan (A. Fischer-A. K. Irvine).

449. The Sabaeans were reckoned by the Arab genealogists as stemming from

Saba’, called personally 'Amir b. Yashjub. See Ibn al-Kalbl-Caskel-Strenziok, /amharat al-nasab, I, Table 176, II, 491. In the Old Testament, Saba figures in Gen. x. 7, as the son of Cush, son of Ham, and Shaba in I Chron. i. 9, as a son of Joktan. Briend notes that Saba (with initial samekh, occurring five times in the Old Testament) seems to have a different geographical connotation from Shaba (with initial shin, occurring twenty-three times in the Old Testament), which seems definitely to be placed in southwestern part of Arabia. See Supplement au dictionnaire de la Bible, s.v. Sheba. I, col. 1046.

450. Supplying the "and" from the Cairo text, II, nr.

451. More correctly, Sh.m.r Yuhar'ish (on the form of the first element in the

name, see n. 364 above), as the name appears in South Arabian inscriptions. He and his father Yasir um Yuhan'im were ruling jointly in 385 Himyarite era/A.D. 285-86 as founders of the Himyarite line, since a decade or so before this Sh.m.r Yuhar'ish had taken over Yemen from the kings of Saba’ and Hadramawt in order to consolidate the new united kingdom in South Arabia (see n. 3 14 above). See G. Ryckmans, L’iastitution monarchique en Arabie mfridionale avant 1 'Islam. Ma'in et Saba, a 10- 1 a, Robin, in Supplement au dictionnaixe de la Bible, s.v. Sheba, n, cols. 1 102, 1139-40.

Holders of Power after Ardashlr b. Babak

177

Shamir Yur'ish who raided China, built Samarqand , 452 and laid

out as an encampment ( hayyara } al-HIrah , 453 and it was he who

recited the verses,

I am Shamir Abu Karib al-Yamani; I urged on the horses from

Yemen and Syria,

In order that I might attack the slaves who had rebelled against

us, [when we were] in the lands beyond China, in 'Athm

and Yam , 454

And then we shall inflict judgment in their lands with a just

decision, which not a single youth shall survive.

. . . and so on to the end of the ode.

He related: Then there came after Shamir Yur'ish the son of

Yasir Yun'im, Tubba' the Lesser; namely, Tuban As'ad Abu Karib

b. Malki Karib b. Zayd b. Tubba' I b. 'Amr Dhl al-Adh'ar . 455 It was

he who came to Medina and who took back the two Jewish rabbis

to Yemen, who venerated the Holy House and put a covering on it

and who recited the poetry which is well known . 456 All these

reigned before the royal power of Rabi’ah b. Na§r al-Lakhmi, and

452. See for details of these legendary trans-Asian raids, al-Tabari, I, 890-92, pp.

142-45 above.

453. Virtually nothing is known of the history of al-Hirah before the Lakhmids

built it up into their capital (see nn. 76-79 above), but this story of its foundation

by the Tubba's is pure invention, conceivably influenced, however, by the fact that Lakhm were considered genealogically to be a South Arab tribe (see al-Tabari, I, 834, p. 44 and n. 132 above).

454. The Yam b. A$ba were a component tribe of the South Arabian Hamdan

living in the Najran area and several times mentioned by al-Hamdanl in his geographical work. The Banu Yam gave their name to one of the districts [mikhlaf, pi. makhalif, see n. 462 below) of Yemen, that around their home. See Ibn al-Kalbi- Caskel-Strenziok, Jamharat al-nasab, I, Table 229, n, 47, 590; EP, s.v. Yam (G. R. Smith). The reading 'Athm is uncertain, but al-Maqdisi, Ahsan al-taqasim, 88, registers a place 'Asham in the mikhlaf of the Tihamah; al-Hamdani, $ifat jazirat al-Arab, 259, mentions this also as a mine [ma'din) in the Tihamah of Yemen, while Yaqut, Buldan, IV, 126, has an 'Ashm in the northern Tihamah.

455. See n. 417 above, for his place as founder of the Tubba' line.

456. This tale is given in Ibn Hisham, Siiat al-nabi, ed. Wustenfeld, 12 - ed. al-

Saqqi et al., I, 20, trans. 7? idem, Kitab al-tijan, 294-96; cf. Krenkow, "The Two

Oldest Books on Arabic Folklore," 227.

i 7 8

Holders of Power after Ardashir b. Babak

when the latter died, the whole of the royal authority in Yemen

reverted to Hassan b. Tuban (or Tiban) As'ad Abi Karib b. Malki

Karib b. Zayd b. 'Amr Dhi al-Adh'ar.

There related to us Ibn Humayd — Salamah — Ibn Ishaq, from a

[9 1 1] certain scholar, that Rabi’ah b. Nasr had a dream that alarmed him

and that continued to disquiet him. 457 When he had this dream,

he sent out enquiries among the people of his kingdom and gathered

together in his presence every soothsayer, magician, drawer

of omens from the flight of birds, 458 and astrologer. Then he informed

them, "I have had a dream which has alarmed me and

caused me disquiet, so tell me its interpretation." They replied,

"Recount it to us, so that we might inform you of its meaning."

He replied, however, "If I recount it to you, I shall have no confidence

that you will be able to tell me its correct interpretation,- the

only person who will know its correct interpretation is the one

who already knows about the dream without my telling him."

When Rabfah had said all this to them, one of the assembled

group of experts on dreams said, "If the king requires this, then he

should send for Satih and Shiqq, for there is no one more knowledge able

than these two, and they will certainly be able to tell you

what you ask." Satlh's (real) name was Rabi’ b. Rabfah b. Mas'ud

457. What we have here is a story from the South Arabian tradition, meant to

explain the presence of the (genealogically) South Arabian Lakhmids in Iraq and al- Hlrah. The story is traced back to the time of a generation after Shamir Yur'ish/ Yuhar'ish, i.e., the first part of the fourth century, and Rabfah b. Nasr al-Lakhmi is made the father of 'Adi, who in the Lakhmid king lists dependent upon Ibn al-Kalbi (see n. 414 above) is regarded as the progenitor of the line, the first figure in the royal genealogy, father of 'Amr I, the father of Imru’ al-Qays I. At the end of the story of the dream, the Lakhmids are made to migrate from Yemen to al-HIrah in order to escape the prophesied invasion of the Abyssinians, being allowed to settle at al-HIrah by the Persian king Shapur I (see al-Tabari, I, 913-14, p. 182 below, and Rothstein, Lahmiden, 39-40, who states that we know, concerning the origins of the kingdom based on al-HIrah, "so gut wie nichts").

458. See for this person, the 'a% al-Tabari, I, 1058, p. 395 and n. 970 above.

Concerning this series of persons skilled in various types of prognostication, cf . the series of "magicians, enchanters, sorcerers, and the Chaldaeans" whom

Nebuchadnezzar summoned to interpret his dreams in Daniel ii. 2. For the practice of the interpretation of dreams, oneiromancy, a pseudo-science whose literature goes back through Classical Antiquity to Assyrian times and which in the Islamic period produced a considerable number of works on ta'bir al-ru’ya, dream interpretation books, see Fahd, La divination aiabe, 247-367, and El 2 , s.v. Ru’ya (H. Daiber).

Holders of Power after Ardashir b. Babak

179

b. Mazin b. Dhi'b b. 'Adi b. Mazin b. Ghassan, and because of his

genealogical connections with Dhi’b he was called al-Dhi’bL

Shiqq was the son of §a'b b. Yashkur b. Ruhm b. Afrak b. Nadhir b.

Qays b. 'Abqar b. Anmar 459

When they told Rabi’ah that, he sent for the two men. Satih

came to him before Shiqq; there were no soothsayers ( kuhhdn )

like them in their time. So when Satih arrived, die king summoned

him and said, "O Satih, I have had a dream which has

alarmed me and disquieted me, so tell me about it, for if you

comprehend the dream correctly, you will know correctly its interpretation."

Satih replied, "I will do this. You saw in your dream

a skull [jumjumah] (Abu Ja'far [al-Tabari] says: I have found the

rendering of it in other places as . . I saw blazing coals,

humamah ') — which came forth from the darkness — and fell upon

the lowlands descending to the sea — and devoured there everything

with a skull!" The king said, "O Satih, you have got it

exactly right; so what, in your opinion, is the interpretation of it?"

Satih answered, "I swear by the serpent which is between the two

harrahs 460 — the Abyssinians (al-Habash) 461 will certainly swoop

down on your land — and will then rule over all the land from

Abyan to Jurash." 462

459. Safih and Shiqq appear in Arabic lore as legendary personages, often

described as barely human monsters, and they have roles in pre-Islamic history as

diviners: here for the Lakhmid Rabi'ah but also (anachronistically) for al-Nu‘man

(HI) b. al-Mundhir (IV) and Khusraw Anusharwin in predicting the fall of the

Persian kingdom and the triumph of the Arabs (al-Tabari, I, 981-84, pp. 285-89

below). See Rothstein, Ldhmiden, 39; EP, s.w. Satih b. Rabi'a (T. Fahd) and Shikk (B. Carra de Vaux and T. Fahd).

460. The geographers enumerate large numbers of harrahs, basaltic lava fields,

in the region between the Hawran in southern Syria and Medina. See the long

section in Yaqut, Buldan, It, 245-50 (paraphrased and discussed by O. Loth, "Die

Vulkanregionen von Arabien nach Yakut," 365-82); El 2 , s.v. IJarra (ed.). Here the reference, if at all specific, is probably to two of the harrahs in the vicinity of

Medina, which included the Harxat Waqim, site of a famous battle in 63/683 when the Umayyad army under Muslim b. 'Uqbah al-Murri defeated the Medinans there; see Loth, op. cit., 380.

461. This designates here the people of al-Habashah, hbs s t of the later Sabaean

inscriptions. See EP, s.v. Habashat (A. K. Irvine). As observed by Irvine, there is no evidence for the statement in earlier authorities like Glaser and Rossini there that the Hbs 2 t may have been a South Arabian tribe in origin.

462. Abyan was a mikhlaf of the southernmost tip of Arabia, comrprising Aden

and its eastward-stretching hinterland; see EP, s.v, Abyan (6. Lofgren). Jurash, frequently mentioned by al-Hamdani, was an important town and a mikhlaf in

mediaeval Islamic times, situated in northern Yemen to the northwest of Najran.

See al-Bakri, Mu'jam ma ista'jam, n, 376; Yaqut, Buldan, II, 126.

Mikhlaf, used in the early Islamic sources on Yemen in particular (although no

longer used as an administrative term in modem Yemen), is said by the geogra-

phers to be the equivalent of kurah. It may have a tenuous relationship to Sabaean

hlf "vicinity of a town," but a form mhlf has not so far been attested in the

inscriptions. See Beeston et alii, Sabaic Dictionary, 60, • El 2 , s.v. Mi khl af (C. E. Bosworth).

i8o

Holders of Power after Ardashir b. Babak

The king said to Satih, "By your father! O Satih, this is indeed

distressing and painful for us; but when will this take place — in

my own time, or subsequently?" Satih replied, "Nay, indeed, a

good while after it — more than sixty or seventy years will elapse."

The king said, "Will that dominion of theirs endure, or will it be

cut short?" he answered, "Nay, it will be cut short after seventy-

odd years have gone by — and then all of them there will be slain or

will be expelled from it as fugitives." The king said, "Who, then,

will assume that task of killing and expelling them?" Satih re-

plied, "Iram of Dhu Yazan 463 — who will come forth against them

from Aden — and not leave a single one of them in Yemen." The

king enquired, "Will Iram's dominion there endure, or will it be

cut short?" He replied, "It will indeed be cut short." The king said,

"And who will cut it short?" He replied, "A prophet — a pure

one — to whom the inspired revelation ( al-wahy ) will come — from

on high." The king asked, "Who will this prophet spring from?"

He replied, "[He will be] a man from the progeny of Ghalib b.

463. Muslim lore identified Iram with the Biblical Aram, son of Shem (Gen. x.

22-23; 1 Chron, 1 . 17), and made various peoples of Arabia his descendants. When the Qur'an, LXXXIX, 6, speaks of Iram dhat ’imad, it is probably referring to a tribe or people, here linked with the legendary giant race of 'Ad. See al-Hamdani, al- Iklil. al-Juz' al-thamin, 33, trans. Faris, The Antiquities of South Arabia, 29-30, Nashwan al-Himyari, Die auf Sudarabien beziiglichen Angaben NaSwdns im Sams al-ulum, i-, EP-, s.v. Iram (W. M. Watt).

Dhu Yaz’an or Yazan was one of the Himyarite kings of the first half of the sixth

century, and father of Sayf b. Dhi Yazan who secured the help of Khusraw Anusharwan to expel the Abyssinians from Yemen; see al-Tabari, I, 946ff., pp. 236ff. and n. 585 below. The component dhu in his name is the South Arabian relative pronoun d l, often used to indicate clan or group affiliation, thence "the chief [of such a group]," as here. See Biella, Dictionary of Old South Arabic, Sabaean Dialect, 89- 90; Beeston, Sabaic Grammar, §27:2. The Muslim Arabs regarded names thus compounded as so characteristic of South Arabian monarchical terminology that they used dhu, pi. adhwa', as a generic term for South Arabian rulers. See Nashwan al-Himyari, Die auf Sudarabien beziiglichen Angaben NaSwans, 39. 116; EP-, s.v. Adhwa’ (O. Lofgren).

Holders of Power after Ardashir b. Babak 181

Fihr — son of Malik b. al-Nadr 464 — his dominion over his people

shall last until the end of time." The king said, "O Satih, will time

( al-dahr } have an end?" He replied, "Yes, a day on which the first

generations and the last generations wil be assembled — the righteous

will be joyful on it — but the evildoers shall be made

wretched." The king said, "Is what you are informing us true, O

Satih?" the latter replied, "Yes, by the redness of the dying sun at

evening — and the beginning of the darkness of night — and the

dawn when it is complete — what I have told you is undoubtedly

true."

When Satih had finished, Shiqq arrived, so the king summoned

him. He said, "O Shiqq, I have had a dream that has alarmed and

disquieted me, so tell me about it, for if you comprehend the

dream correctly, you will know correctly its interpretation," just

as he had said to Satih. But he concealed from him what Satih had

said in order that he might see whether the two interpretations

agreed or differed. Shiqq said, "Yes, you saw a skull — which came

forth from the darkness — and fell upon all the land, meadows, and

thickets — and devoured everything there with living breath."

When that king perceived that the words of the two soothsayers

agreed with each other totally, he said to Shiqq, "O Shiqq, you

have got it exactly right, so what, in your opinion, is the interpre-

tation of it?" Shiqq replied, "I swear by the men living between

the two harrahs — the blacks will certainly come down on your

land — and will seize custody of every tender one from your

hands — and will then rule over all the land from Abyan to

Najran." 465

The king exclaimed, "By your father! O Shiqq, this is indeed

distressing and painful for us; but when will this take place — in

my own time, or subsequently?" Shiqq answered, "Nay indeed, a

stretch of time after you — then a mighty one, lofty of status, shall

rescue you from it — and will make them taste the deepest abase-

ment." The king said, "Who is this person mighty of status?"

464. That is, from Quraysh, these being persons figuring in the genealogy of the

tribe back to Ma'add b. 'Adnan. See Ibn al-Kalbl-Caskel-Strenziok, Jamharat al-

nasab, I, Table 4; EP, s.v. Kuraysh (W. M. Watt).

46$. Again implying the wholelength of Yemen, since Najran lay on its north-

eastern fringes. See al-Bakri, Mu' jam ma ista'jam, IV, 1298-995 Yaqut, Buldan, V, 266-7 1; BP, s.v. Nadjran (Irfan Shahid).

182

Holders of Power after Ardashlr b. Babak

Shiqq retorted, "A youth neither base nor inadequate for what he

attempts — he will issue forth from the house of Dhu Yazan." The

king said, "Will his dominion endure, or will it be cut short?" He

replied, "Indeed, it will be ended by a prophet who will be sent —

who will come with right and justice — among the people of religion

and virtue — the dominion will remain among his people

until the Day of Separation. One may ask, 'What is the Day of

Separation?' 466 — The reply is, the day on which those near to God

will be recompensed — invocations from the heavens will be

made — which both the quick and the dead shall hear — and on

which the people will be gathered together at the appointed

place 467 — on which there will be salvation and blessings for those

who fear God." The king said, "Is what you say true, O Shiqq?"

The latter replied, "Yes, by the lord of heaven and earth — and the

highlands and the lowlands which lie between them — what I have

communicated to you is indeed the truth, in which there is no

dissimulation."

When the king had finished questioning the two men, there

came into his mind that what the two of them had told him

regarding the invasion of the Ethiopians was really going to take

place, so he fitted out his sons and other members of his house for

the journey to Iraq, together with what they needed, and wrote on

their behalf to one of the kings of Persia called Shabur, son of

Khurrazad, 468 who allowed them to settle at al-Hlrah. Al-Nu'man

b. al-Mundhir, the king of al-Hirah, was a descendant of Rabi’ah b.

Nasr; he is al-Nu'man b. al-Mundhir — b. al-Nu'man b. al-

Mundhir b. 'Amr b. 'Adi b. Rabi’ah b. Nasr, that same king in the

genealogy and the lore of the scholars (ahl) of Yemen. 469

466. Echoing the Qur’anic usage of the eschatological concept of the yawm al-

fa$l, the day of separation or distinction between those who will be saved and those who will be damned, as expounded n XXXVII, 21, etc., and especially in LXXVn, 13, 14, 38.

467. That is, the hashr or "crowding together" for the Last Judgment. See £P,

s.v. Kiyama (L. Gardet).

468. Presumably the reference is to Shabur I, since his father Ardashlr I's mother

was Khurrazad. See Justi, Namenbuch, 96-97.

469. This story is in Ibn Hisham, Shat al-nabi, ed. Wiistenfeld, 9-12 - ed. al-

Saqqa et al., I, i5-r9, trans. 4-6, and Ibn al-Athlr, Kamil, 1 , 418-20, andcf. Fahd, La divination arabe, 250-52. As noted in n. 457 above, the dream described thus

becomes an explanation for the movement of a South Arabian group like the Lakhmid family from Yemen to Iraq.

Holders of Power after Ardashir b. Babak 183

There related to us Ibn Humayd— Salamah — Ibn Ishaq, who

said: When Satih and Shiqq told that to Rabi’ah b. Nasr, and

Rabi’ah did with regard to his sons and other members of his

house what he in fact did, the mention of all this spread among the

Arabs, and they talked about it extensively until his fame and his

reputation for knowledge became widely disseminated among

them. Hence when the Ethiopians occupied Yemen, and the

events which they had previously been talking about, including

the interpretations of the two soothsayers, came to pass, al-

A'sha — that is, al-A'sha of the Banu Qays b. Tha'labah al-

Bakri 470 — said in some of the poetry he recited, mentioning the

events involving those two soothsayers Satih and Shiqq:

A woman with her eyelids never looked forth like with a look

full of penetration, as when al-Dhi’bi made

pronouncements when he spoke in saj’.

Satih used only to be called al-Dhi’bi by the Arabs because he

came from the progeny of Dhi’b b.'Adl. When Rabi’ah b. Nasr died

and the royal power in Yemen became concentrated into the

hands of Hassan b. Tuban As'ad Abi Karib b. Malki Karib b. Zayd

b. 'Amr Dhi al-Adh'ar, 471 one of the factors involving the eruption

of the Ethiopians, the transfer of the royal power from Himyar,

and the ending of their period of dominion— and there is a cause

for everything— was that Hassan b. Tuban As'ad Abi Karib led an

expedition with the army of Yemen, aiming at overrunning the

land of the Arabs and the land of the Persians, just as the Tubba's

had been wont to do previously. But when the expedition reached

470. The celebrated poet al-A'sha Maymun b. Qays, often ranked for his poetic

genius with the authors of the Seven Mu'allaqat, came from the Qays b. Tha'labah

of Bakr b. Wa’il (d. after 3/625), grew up in the Christian environment of al-HIrah and eulogized inter alios Iyas b. Qabisah, the appointee of the Persians to the governorship of al-HIrah after the deposition and death of al-Nu'man V b. al-

Mundhir II (see al-Tabari, I, 1029-30, p. 359 below). His life was much bound up

with political and military events along the desert frontiers of Iraq. The verse is

from his qa$idah beginning with the formulaic hemistich Banat Su'ad wa-amsa

habluhd inqafa'a, in Diwdn, ed. Geyer, Gedicbte von 'Abil Ba$ir Maimrin ibn

Qais al-A'Sd, 74, no. 13, v. 16. See on the poet Blachfere, Histoire de la literature

arabe, II, 321-25; EP, s.v. al-A'sha, Maymun b. Kays (W. Caskel).

47 1 . Nashwan al-Himyari, Die auf Sirdar abien beziiglicben Angaben NaSwans,

38, has a fanciful explanation for the princely name Dhu al-Adh'ar.

1 84 Holders of Power after Ardashlr b. Babak

a certain spot in the land of Iraq, Himyar and the tribes of Yemen

refused to go on further with him and wanted to return to their

own homeland and families. Hence they approached and spoke

with one of Hassan's brothers, who was with him in the army,

called 'Amr, saying, "Kill your brother Hassan, and we will make

you king over us in his stead and you can lead us back to our

homeland." He agreed to their plan, and Hassan's brother and his

followers from Himyar and the tribes of Yemen agreed to kill

[915] Hassan, except for Dhu Ru'ayn al-Himyari, who forbade 'Amr to

do this and told him, "You are the ruling house of our kingdom; do

not kill your brother and thereby dissolve the uniting bonds of our

house," or something like that. But 'Amr rejected his words, al-

though Dhu Ru'ayn was a leading noble of Himyar. 472 Hence Dhu

Ru'ayn obtained a leaf of writing material and inscribed on it:

O who would buy sleeplessness for sleep? The one who passes

his nights in a calm and peaceful state is indeed fortunate.

And although Himyar has acted treacherously and faithlessly,

God will hold Dhu Ru'ayn blameless.

Then he sealed the piece of writing and gave it to 'Amr, telling

him, "Keep this document by you on my behalf, for there is in it

something which I desire earnestly and have need of" (i.e., for his

eventual exculpation), so 'Amr did that. When Hassan got news of

what his brother 'Amr, Himyar, and the tribes of Yemen had resolved

upon, that is, his death, he recited to 'Amr:

O 'Amr, do not hasten my deathly fate, but take the royal

power without using armed force.

But 'Amr was set on killing him, and in fact did the deed. He then

returned to Yemen with his accompanying army. A certain poet of

Himyar recited:

When, [I pray] to God, has anyone ever seen, in previous long

spans of years, the like of Hassan, as a slain one?

472. That Dhu Ru'ayn were a noble family of Himyar is confirmed by Nashwan

al-Himyari, Die auf Siidaiabien beziiglichen Angaben NaSwans, 4 6, cf. 41, apparently claiming a connection for them with the previous ruling house of Saba’.

Holders of Power after Ardashir b. Babak 185

The princelets ( aqyal ) slew him out of fear lest they be kept at

military service, while assuring him, "No harm, no harm!"

[lababi lababi ). 473

Your dead one was the best of us and your living one is lord

over us, while all of you are chiefs.

When 'Amr b. Tuban As'ad Abi Karib established himself in

Yemen, he was unable to sleep and suffered permanent insomnia,

according to what they assert. He found it impossible to sleep. It

reduced him to a state of exhaustion, so he set about asking the

physicians, and the soothsayers and diviners who work by examining physiognomy, what was the matter with him, saying, "I am

deprived of sleep, and can get no rest, and insomnia has reduced

me to a state of exhaustion." One of them told him, "By God, no

man has ever killed his brother or a blood relation wrongfully, as

you killed your brother, without losing his sleep and incurring

sleeplessness." On being told this, 'Amr set about killing all those

members of the nobles of Himyar and tribes of Yemen who had

urged him to kill his brother Hassan, until finally he came to Dhu

Ru'ayn. When 'Amr expressed his intention of killing him, Dhu

Ru'ayn said, "You have in your possession a document exonerating

me from what you propose to do with me." 'Amr said, "What

is this exculpating document in my possession?" He replied,

"Fetch out the paper which I entrusted to you and left with you."

The king fetched out the paper, and lo and behold, there was

written on it those two verses of poetry:

O who would buy sleeplessness for sleep? The one who passes

his nights in a calm and peaceful state is indeed fortunate.

473. Nashwan b. Sa'id, Die auf Siidaiabien beziiglichen Angaben NaSwans, 89,

defines qayl as meaning "king" among the Himyarites. It seems to have a fairly

late usage in South Arabia in the explicit form qyl, mainly in the fifth and sixth

centuries, and to bear the meaning "prince," a potentate subordinate to a malik or

king, as well as the meaning of "tribal chief." See G. Ryckmans, "Le Qayl en

Arabie m6ridionale pr6islamique," 144-55; Biella, Dictionary of Old South Arabic, Sabaean Dialect, 453-54,- EP-, s.v. Kayl (A. F. L. Beeston).

The word lababi/labab in is said by Ibn Ishaq, in Ibn Hisham, Sirat al-nabi, ed.

Wiistenfeld, 19 - ed. al-Saqqa et al., I, 29, trans. r3, to mean in the Himyarite

language la ba's.

1 86 Holders of Power after Ardashir b. Babak

And although Himyar has acted treacherously and faithlessly,

God will hold Dhu Ru'ayn blameless.

When 'Amr read these two verses, Dhu Ru'ayn told him, "I

forbade you to kill your brother, but you would not listen to me; so

when you refused thus to listen to me, I left this paper with you as

proof of my innocence in regard to you and as exoneration of me

vis-a-vis you. I feared that, if you killed him, you would be afflicted

 as you have in fact been afflicted; and if you intend to

inflict on me what I see you have inflicted on those who urged you

to kill your brother, this paper will serve as a means of preserving

me from your intentions." Hence 'Amr b. Tuban As'ad left him

alone and did not include him among the nobles of Himyar whom

he executed; he recognized that Dhu Ru'ayn had given him wise

counsel, if only he had followed it.

'Amr b. Tuban As'ad recited, when he executed those guilty

men of Himyar and the people of Yemen who had urged him to

kill his brother Hassan:

We purchased sleep, when tendons in the neck were drawn

tight with what causes sleeplessness and knotting of sinews

which will not go away.

They called out together at the time of their treacherous action,

"No harm!" when the exculpation of Dhu Ru'ayn had

already been expressed.

We have now executed those responsible for this betrayal, as an

act of retaliation for Ibn Ruhm, which does not entail

responsibility for a blood feud.

We have executed them in requital for Hassan b. Ruhm, for

Hassan was the one murdered by the ones who stirred up

trouble.

We have executed them, so that none of them now remains,

and every eye feels refreshed at their fate.

The eyes of the lamenting women are weeping with grief for the

noble women, women of the two armies.

Gentle maidens at nightfall, who are dark eyed when the upper

parts of Sirius and Procyon rise.

Hence we are known by our fidelity when our lineage is traced

back, and we disassociate ourselves strongly from the one

who acts treacherously.

Holders of Power after Ardashir b. Babak 187

We surpass in eminence all other people, just as pure gold is

superior to silver.

We exercise royal power over all other peoples; we have the

connections of nobility and power, after the two Tubba's.

We assumed royal power after Dawud (David) for a lengthy

period, and we made the kings of East and West our

slaves. 474

We wrote down in Zafar the ancient writings of glory, so that

the chiefs of the two towns ( al-qaryatdn , sc., Mecca and al-

Ta’if ) 47S might read them.

We are the ones who pursue every burden of revenge when the

eloquent ones cry out, "Where, O where [is vengeance to be

taken]?"

I shall quench my thirst of [the blood of] the treacherous ones,

for treachery has entailed perdition for them and for me

(i.e., through his brother's murder).

I obeyed them (i.e., in their evil counsels) and was not well

guided; they were seducers into evil ways, who have

destroyed my noble reputation and handsome qualities.

He related: Not long afterward, 'Amr b. Tuban died. 476

Hisham b. Muhammad related: This 'Amr b. Tubba' was called

Mawthaban because he sprang upon ( wathaba ) his brother Hassan

4.74. The king and prophet Dawud/David (whose reign over the Children of

Israel is given by al-Tabari in I, 554-72 above, trans. W. M. Brinner, The History of al-Tabari. III. The Children of Israel, 135-51) is presumably adduced here to

connect the Tubba's with early prophetic history. For David in Islamic lore, see

EP, s.v. Dawud (R. Paret).

475. The royal city and capital of the Himyarites appears in South Arabian

inscriptions as zfr, but was known as such to classical authors from die time of

Pliny the Elder (his regia Sapphar ) onward. Its ruinous site now lies to the southwest of Yarim in southern Yemen. It remained of some significance into early Islamic times, and al-Hamdani describes it both in his Iklil, 25-29, trans. Faris, 20- 26, and in his $ifat jazirat al-'Arab, 365, as one of the great fortresses of Yemen. See Yaqut, Buldan, IV, 60; Shahid, "Byzantium and South Arabia," 29, 43-47, El 1 - s.v. Zafar (J. Tkatsch).

Mecca and al-fa'if are usually taken as the referents of "the two towns" in the

Qur’amc passage that this echoes, XLm, 30/31, speaking of a rajul min al-

qaryatayn* ’azim, "a man of the two towns, a respected one," but the context is

somewhat obscure and the identification by no means certain. See for this question of the "two towns," Buhl, Das Leben Muhammeds, 1 14-15.

476. This story appears in Ibn Hisham, Sirat al-nabi, ed. Wiistenfeld, 26-28 - ed.

al-Saqqa et al., I, 28-30, trans. 12-13. Cf. also idem, Kitab al-tijan, 297-98.

i88

Holders of Power after Ardashir b. Babak

at the gap of Nu'm and killed him. 477 He related: The "slope of

Nu'm (furdat Nu'm)" was the desert tract of Tawq b. Malik; Nu'm

was the concubine of the Tubba' Hassan b. As'ad. 478

The narrative returns to that of Ibn Ishaq. 479

He related: The affairs of Himyar fell into disorder at this point,

and the people became split up. A man of Himyar who did not

stem from the royal house of Himyar, called LakhFathah (?) Yanuf

Dhu Shanatir, rose up against them, seized power over them,

[918] killed the choicest men of Himyar, and treated with scorn the

ruling families of the kingdom. 480 Hence a certain man of Himyar

477. Other Arabic sources give an alternative etymology for the cognomen

Mawthaban: that rulers were thus called in the language of Himyar because they

"sat down" and did not engage in raiding and warfare. See Ibn Hisham, Kitab al~

tijan, 298-99 (with a brief version of the preceding story), and Nashwan al-

Himyari, Die auf Siidarabien beziiglichen Angaben NaSwdns , 113. The confusion stems from the fact that in South Arabian, the prime signification of wtb was, as in Hebrew, "to sit down," with mwtb(n) thus meaning "seat, shrine of a god," as opposed to Classical Arabic wathaba "to rise, spring up," although another range of meanings for South Arabian wtb does exist, "to attack, assault," to which the cognomen given here by al-Tabari of Mawthaban could be attached. See Beeston et al., Sabaic Dictionary, 165-66; Biella, Dictionary of Old South Arabic, Sabaean Dialect, 153-54. The confusion that could arise out of the two opposing senses of the root forms the basis of favorite anecdotes in the sources in which a man dies or is killed through misunderstanding the South Arabian sense of the word. See al- Hamdani, Iklil, 32, trans. Faris, 28; Nashwan al-Himyari, loc. cit. ; Robin, in L’Arabie antique de Karib'il d. Mahomet. Nouvelles donnees sur l’histoire des Arabes grace aux inscriptions, 108.

478. According to the geographers, the furdat Nu'm lay in Jazirah, in the tract of

land along the Euphrates, where, so Yaqut says, Hassan b. Tubba' had built a palace for this umm walad of his. See al-Bakri, Mu' jam ma ista'jam, IV, 12 ii; Yaqut, Buldan, IV, 251.

479. Noldeke's translation resumes here. He regarded the following material as

still essentially legendary and fabulous, but considered that it was connected with

such historical events as the persecution of the Christians of Yemen, the resultant

Abyssinian occupation, and the eventual Persian conquest, hence as such worthy

of translation; see his trans. 172 n. 4.

480. The episode of Lakhl'athah or Lakhnx'athah is somewhat mysterious. The

name is variously written in the Arabic sources, e.g., Lakhni'ah in Ibn Hisham,

Sirat al-nabi, ed. Wustenfeld, 19 = ed. al-Saqqa et al., I, 30), but Ndldeke, trans. 173 n. 1, suggested the form Lakhl'athah on the basis of its form in the South Arabian inscriptions known at that time, in which Ynf is likewise attested. Professor Christian Robin has suggested (personal communication) that it is a corruption of a very common personal name Lhy 'tt, often shortened to Lhy't, which would mean "'Atht[ar] illuminates" (after Ge'ez lahaya "to be shining, to gleam"); it would seem that h was only feebly aspirated in Himyaritic speech, since the name passed into Classical Arabic as LahTah.

Ma'di Karib, probably the last of the Tubba's (al-Tabari's "the royal house of

Himyar" ) is attested in inscriptions as ruling in 6 3 1 Himyarite era/A.D. 5 a 1 -22 . We have therefore only a year or so for Lakhf athah's inscription and the accession of Dhu Nuwas. One suggestion for resolving this tight chronology was put forward by Altheim and Stiehl, DieAiabeiin deiAlten Welt, V/i, 377-78: that the title Ma'di Karib Ya'fur was the throne-name assumed by the usurping Lakhi’athah, just as his successor Dhu Nuwas was to assume the throne-name of Yusuf As’ar Yath’ar (see n. 488 below). But this suggestion does not seem to have found much favor. At all events, one can only treat the tale of Lakhi'athah's sodomitical proclivities as a pretext for his murder with caution.

Concerning Lakhi'athah's nickname or cognomen, Nashwan al-Himyari, Die

auf Siidaiabien bezuglichen Angaben NaSwans, 58, says that sbuntuz means "finger" in the Himyari language. But when linked with dhu, one would more naturally expect a place-name; none like Shanatir is, however, so far attested.

Holders of Power after Ardashir b. Babak 189

mentioned what was destroying the fabric of Himyar, rending

apart its unity and getting rid of its choicest men:

Himyar is massacring its own sons and expelling its own

princes, and creating humiliation for itself with its own

hands.

Destroying its own worldly prosperity with light-headed

fantasies of its own, but what it destroyed of its religion

was even greater.

In the same way, earlier generations brought down evil on

themselves, through their oppression and profligacy, and

then perished. 481

Lakhi’athah Yanuf Dhu Shanatir brought about all that for

them. He was an evildoer, being allegedly a practitioner of sodomy.

In addition to the killing and oppression he inflicted upon

them, when he heard that a youth from the royal family had

reached the age of puberty, he sent for him and ravished him in an

upper chamber he had had constructed for this purpose, so that the

youth could never rule after him (i.e., because of the dishonor). He

would then go out from that upper chamber to his guards and

those of his army who were present — these people being at a lower

level — with a toothpick ( siwak ) he had placed in his mouth, 482

481. As noted by Noldeke, trans. 174 n. 1, the wording of the poem, with such

words in it as dayya'at, zulm, i&iaf, takhsaru, etc., is very reminiscent of Qur’anic

phraseology and concepts.

482. That is, a piece of wood with the end incised for use as a toothbrush. It has

been suggested that the use by the Arabs of such a primitive toothbrush or tooth

pick was influenced by the similar Persian religious custom, and that the Arabic

term may stem from MP *sawak, "scraper," from the verb Sudan, "to scrape, rub."

See Shaked, "Some Iranian Themes in Islamic Literature," 149 and n. 35, citing

Goldziher,- EP-, s.v. Miswak (A. J. Wensinck).

190 Holders of Power after Ardashir b. Babak

that is, in order to let them know that he had acomplished his

purpose with the youth. Then he would release the youth and go

forth and appear before the guards and the people, having com-

pletely disgraced the youth.