Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia included indigenous Arabian polytheism, ancient Semitic religions, Christianity, Judaism, Mandaeism, and Zoroastrianism.
The Himyarite Kingdom or Himyar, historically referred to as the Homerite Kingdom by the Greeks and the Romans, was a polity in the southern highlands of Yemen, as well as the name of the region which it claimed. Until 110 BCE, it was integrated into the Qatabanian kingdom, afterwards being recognized as an independent kingdom. According to classical sources, their capital was the ancient city of Zafar, relatively near the modern-day city of Sana'a. Himyarite power eventually shifted to Sana'a as the population increased in the fifth century. After the establishment of their kingdom, it was ruled by kings from dhū-Raydān tribe. The kingdom was named Raydān.
Dhū Nuwās,, real name "Yūsuf Asʾar Yathʾar", "Yosef Nu'as", or "Yūsuf ibn Sharhabīl", also known as "Masruq" in Syriac, and Dounaas (Δουναας) in Medieval Greek, was a Jewish king of Himyar between 517 and 525–527 AD, who came to renown on account of his persecutions of peoples of other religions, notably Christians, living in his kingdom.
The ʿām al-fīl is the name in Islamic history for the year approximately equating to 570–571 CE. According to Islamic resources, it was in this year that Muhammad was born. The name is derived from an event said to have occurred at Mecca: Abraha, the Abyssinian, Christian king of Himyarite marched upon the Ka‘bah in Mecca with a large army, which included war elephants, intending to demolish it. However, the lead elephant, known as 'Mahmud', is said to have stopped at the boundary around Mecca, and refused to enter. It has been mentioned in the Quran that the army was destroyed by small birds that carried pebbles that destroyed the entire army and Abraha perished. Surah Fil in Quran illustrates the incident clearly. The year came to be known as the Year of the Elephant, beginning a trend for reckoning the years in the Arabian Peninsula. This reckoning was used until it was replaced with the Islamic calendar during the times of ‘Umar.
Abraha, also known as Abrahah al-Ashram, was an Abyssinian viceroy of South Arabia for the Kingdom of Aksum. Abraha ruled parts of southern Arabia including much of what is now Yemen from around 531–547 CE to around 555–570 CE. The royal title adopted by Abraha is similar to that of his immediate predecessors and to that of Kaleb of Axum, "King of Saba' and dhü-Raydän and Hadhramaut and Yamanat and of their Arabs on the plateau and the lowland".
Najran, is a city in southwestern Saudi Arabia near the border with Yemen. It is the capital of Najran Province. Designated as a new town, Najran is one of the fastest-growing cities in the kingdom; its population has risen from 47,500 in 1974 and 90,983 in 1992 to 246,880 in 2004 and 505,652 in 2017. The population mostly originates from the ancient tribes of Yām, Mákram, and Hamdan.
Kaleb, also known as Saint Elesbaan, was King of Aksum, which was situated in modern-day Eritrea and Ethiopia.
South Arabia is a historical region that consists of the southern region of the Arabian Peninsula in Western Asia, mainly centered in what is now the Republic of Yemen, yet it has also historically included Najran, Jizan, Al-Bahah, and 'Asir, which are presently in Saudi Arabia, and the Dhofar of present-day Oman.
Pre-Islamic Arabia refers to the Arabian Peninsula before the emergence of Islam in 610 CE.
The Banu al-Harith is an Arabian tribe which once governed the cities of Najran, Taif, and Bisha, now located in southern Saudi Arabia.
The ancient history ofYemen or South Arabia is especially important because it is one of the oldest centers of civilization in the Near East. Its relatively fertile land and adequate rainfall in a moister climate helped sustain a stable population, a feature recognized by the ancient Greek geographer Ptolemy, who described Yemen as Eudaimon Arabia meaning Fortunate Arabia or Happy Arabia. Between the eighth century BCE and the sixth century CE, it was dominated by six main states which rivaled each other, or were allied with each other and controlled the lucrative spice trade: Saba', Ma'īn, Qatabān, Hadhramaut, Kingdom of Awsan, and the Himyarite Kingdom. Islam arrived in 630 CE and Yemen became part of the Muslim realm.
The Jewish tribes of Arabia were ethnic groups professing the Jewish faith that inhabited the Arabian Peninsula before and during the advent of Islam. In Islamic tradition, the Jewish tribes of the Hejaz were seen as the offspring of the ancient Hebrews.
The Kingdom of Aksum, also known as the Kingdom of Axum, the City-State of Axum, or the Aksumite Empire, was a kingdom in East Africa and South Arabia from Classical antiquity to the Middle Ages. Based in what is now Northern Ethiopia and Eritrea, and spanning present day Djibouti and Sudan, it extended at its height into much of Southern Arabia during the reign of Kaleb, King of Aksum.
The existence of a Christian community in the city of Najran in present-day southwestern Saudi Arabia is attested by several historical sources of the Arabian Peninsula, where it recorded as having been created in the 5th century AD or perhaps a century earlier. According to the Arab Muslim historian Ibn Ishaq, Najran was the first place where Christianity took root in South Arabia.
The Aksumite–Persian wars were a protracted series of armed engagements between the Sasanian Persian Empire and the Aksumite Empire for control over South Arabia in the 6th century CE. After a decisive victory at the Battle of Hadhramaut in 570, the Sasanian military marched on and besieged Sana'a, following which the Aksumites were largely expelled from the Arabian Peninsula, however they still had direct control of Najran. The Persians instated the former Himyarite king Sayf ibn Dhī Yazan as the governor of the new Sasanian province of Yemen. However, Yazan was murdered by his Ethiopian servants four years into his reign, after which the Aksumites re-established their power in the region. Following the death of Yazan, the Sasanian army mounted a second invasion and re-conquered Yemen by 575–578, marking the end of Axumite rule in Arabia. After Sasanian control was firmly established in the region, the Persian military general Wahrez was installed as the direct governor of Yemen.
SumyafaʿAshwaʿ was the king of Ḥimyar under the Aksumite Empire from 525/531 until 535.
Khath'am was an ancient and medieval Arab tribe which traditionally dwelt in southwestern Arabia. They took part either in cooperation or opposition to the 6th-century expedition of the Aksumite ruler Abraha against Mecca. After initial hostility, they embraced Islam and a played a role in the early Muslim conquests of the 630s. The tribe of Shahran in Yemen and Saudi Arabia is a principal clan of the Khath'am.
Gregentios was the purported archbishop of Ẓafār, the capital of the kingdom of Ḥimyar, in the mid-6th century, according to a hagiographical dossier compiled in the 10th century. This compilation is essentially legendary and fictitious, although a few parts of it are of historical value. Written in Greek, it survives also in a Slavonic translation. The three works in the dossier are conventionally known as the Bios (Life), Nomoi (Laws) and Dialexis (Debate). The whole dossier is sometimes known as the Acts of Gregentios.
The Book of the Himyarites is an anonymous Syriac account of the persecution and martyrdom of the Christian community of Najran in the Kingdom of Himyar around 523 AD and the ensuing Aksumite interventions. It was written sometime between the sixth and tenth centuries in a Syriac Orthodox milieu.
The Aksumite invasion of Himyar consisted of a series of two invasions from 518 to 525 fought between the Christian Kingdom of Aksum and the Jewish Himyarite Kingdom. The wars functioned as proxy wars waged by the former on behalf of the Roman Empire during the Roman-Persian Wars with the ultimate goal of establishing an anti-Sasanid bloc in Arabia Felix.
