The practice of polytheistic religion dominated in pre-Islamic Arabia until the fourth century. [1] Inscriptions in various scripts used in the Arabian Peninsula including the Nabataean script, Safaitic, and Sabaic attest to the practice of polytheistic cults and idols until the fourth century, whereas material evidence from the fifth century onwards is almost categorically monotheistic. [2] It is in this era that Christianity, Judaism, and other generic forms of monotheism (variously described as "gentile monotheism", "pagan monotheism", "Himyarite monotheism", "Arabian monotheism", "hanifism", "Rahmanism" and so on) become salient among Arab populations. [3] In South Arabia, the ruling class of the Himyarite Kingdom would convert to Judaism (though a more neutral form of monotheism was maintained publicly) and a cessation of polytheistic inscriptions is witnessed. Monotheistic religion would continue as power in this region transitioned to Christian rulers, principally Abraha, in the early sixth century.
Early attestations of Arabian polytheism include Esarhaddon's Annals, mentioning Atarsamain, Nukhay, Ruldaiu, and Atarquruma. Herodotus, writing in his Histories, reported that the Arabs worshipped Orotalt (identified with Dionysus) and Alilat (identified with Aphrodite). [4] Strabo stated the Arabs worshipped Dionysus and Zeus. Origen stated they worshipped Dionysus and Urania. [4] Similarly, late Nabataean, Safaitic, and Sabaic inscriptions attest to the veneration of a broad array of sacred stones and polytheistic deities until the fourth century. [3]
The first Roman emperor to convert to Christianity was Constantine the Great. The first recorded attempt to convert a region of Arabia into monotheistic faith is attributed to Constantius II, his successor. According to the Greek historian Philostorgius (d. 439) in his Ecclesiastical History 3.4, Constantius sent an Arian bishop known as Theophilus the Indian (also known as "Theophilus of Yemen") to Tharan Yuhanim, then the king of the South Arabian Himyarite Kingdom to convert the people to Christianity. According to the report, Theophilus succeeded in establishing three churches, one of them in the capital Zafar. [5] However, Tharan did not convert to Christianity. Several decades later, the ruling class of the Himyarite Kingdom would convert to Judaism during the reign of Malkikarib Yuhamin, potentially motivated by a wish to distance themselves from the Byzantine Empire. [6] It is in the mid-fourth century that inscriptions suddenly transition from polytheistic invocations to ones mentioning the high god Rahmanan (whose name means "The Merciful One"). [7] A Sabaic inscription dating to this time, titled Ja 856 (or Fa 60) describes the replacement of a polytheistic temple dedicated to the god al-Maqah with a mikrāb (which might be the equivalent of a synagogue or an original form of organization local to Himyarite Judaism [8] ). The evidence suggests a sharp break with polytheism, coinciding with the sudden appearance of Jewish and Aramaic words (‘ālam/world, baraka/bless, haymanōt/guarantee, kanīsat/meeting hall) and personal names (Yṣḥq/Isaac, Yhwd’/Juda), Yws’f/Joseph). [6]
Soon after and prompted by the massacre of the Christian community of Najran during the reign of the militant Jewish ruler Dhu Nuwas in the early sixth century, the Kingdom of Aksum in Ethiopia would invade, leading to an ousting of Jewish leadership over the region. [9] Sumyafa Ashwa came into power, but he was soon overthrown by his rival Abraha, initiating a period of Ethiopian Christian rule over southern Arabia in 530. [10] During the Ethiopian Christian period, Christianity appears to have become the official religion. [11] Many churches began to be built. [12] For example, the inscription RIÉ 191, discovered in Axum, describes the construction of a church off the coast of Yemen. The Marib Dam inscription from 548 mentions a priest, a monastery, and an abbot of that monastery. [13] As in the Himyarite period, Christian inscriptions continue to refer to the monotheistic deity using the name Rahmanan, but now these inscriptions are accompanied with crosses and references to Christ as the Messiah and the Holy Spirit. For example, one (damaged) inscription, as for example in Ist 7608 bis. Another extensive inscription, CIH 541, documents Abraha sponsoring the construction of a church at Marib, besides invoking/mentioning the Messiah, Spirit, and celebrations hosted by a priest at another church. Later Islamic historiography also ascribes to Abraha the construction of a church at Sanaa. Abraha's inscriptions bear a relatively low Christology, perhaps meant to assuage the Jewish population, and their formulae resemble descriptions of Jesus in the Quran. [14] (The Jabal Dabub inscription is another South Arabian Christian graffito dating to the sixth century and containing a pre-Islamic variant of the Basmala. [15] ) Whereas Abraha's predecessor more explicitly denoted Jesus as the Son of Rahmanan and as "Victor" (corresponding to Aksumite description under Kaleb of Axum), and made use of Trinitarian formulae, Abraha began to only describe Jesus as God's "Messiah" (but not Son) and, in aligning himself more closely with Syriac Christianity, replaced Aksumite Christian with Syriac loanwords. More broadly, the separation of Abraha's Himyar from the Akumsite kingdom corresponded to its greater alignment with the Christianity espoused in Antioch and Syria. Inscriptions from this region disappear after 560. [11] Abraha's influence would end up extending across the regions he conquered, including regions of eastern Arabia, central Arabia, Medina in the Hejaz, and an unidentified site called Gzm. [16]
With a few exceptions, all inscriptions from the fourth to sixth centuries are not polytheistic: [17] among over one hundred monumental inscriptions that could testify to a polytheistic cult, only two of them do, along with less than ten inscriptions from wood remains. [18] Similarly, of 58 extant Late Sabaic inscriptions that mention the theonym Rahmanan from the period of Jewish rule in south Arabia, none of them can be labelled as pagan or polytheistic. Invocation of alternative deities was rare, though it suggests the cult surrounding Rahmanan was henotheistic as opposed to purely monotheistic. Once Christian rule initiates in South Arabia in the early sixth century, extant inscriptions become purely monotheistic. [19]
Epigraphic evidence further attests to the spread of Judaism beyond South Arabia, into northwestern Arabia, [20] [21] as well as Christianity into all major regions of Arabia [2] including northern Arabia and the southern Levant, southern Arabia, western Arabia, [22] and across the gulf of eastern Arabia. [23] [24] All Paleo-Arabic inscriptions from the fifth and sixth centuries, which have been found in all major regions of the Arabian peninsula and in the southern Levant, are either monotheistic or explicitly Christian. [25] These inscriptions also demonstrate a penetration of monotheism into previously thought holdouts or surviving bastions of paganism or polytheism, such as Dumat al-Jandal and Taif (which ibn al-Kalbi held to be the centre of the cult of Al-Lat in the sixth century). [25] These inscriptions refer to God with the use of terms like Allāh, al-Ilāh (ʾl-ʾlh), and Rabb ("Lord"). The uncontracted form Al-Ilāh/ʾl-ʾlh is thought to have among Christians as an isomorphism or calque for the Greek expression ho theos, which is how the Hebrew ʾĕlōhîm is rendered in the Septuagint. [26] This uncontracted form continued to be used by Christians until the tenth century, even as the form ʾllh appeared in the Quran with two consecutive lāms without a hamza. [27] One Islamic-era example of the uncontracted form is in the Yazid inscription. [28]
Muslim-era historiographical sources, such as the eighth-century Book of Idols by Hisham ibn al-Kalbi as well as the writings of the Yemeni historian al-Hasan al-Hamdani on South Arabian religious beliefs continue to depict pre-Islamic Arabia as dominated by polytheistic practices until the sudden rupture brought about by the coming of Muhammad and his career between 610 and 632. [29] However, Islamic-era compilations of pre-Islamic poetry only sporadically describe idols or polytheistic practice and principally evince monotheistic or henotheistic beliefs. [30] [31] The Quran may also occasionally refer to vestiges of polytheistic deities in two separate verses, but its better-attested descriptions of the "associators" (mushrikūn) have been increasingly understood, since originally being posited by Julius Wellhausen, to be references to monotheistic/henotheistic individuals who did not dispute the supremacy of Allah but instead believed in other beings (such as angels) that acted as intermediaries in the devotion to the one high God. [32] [33] [34]
Ibn Hazm (d. 1064) attempts to describe the broad landscape of pre-Islamic religious belief in his Jamharat ansāb al-ʿArab (Compilation of Arab Genealogy): [35]
all of [Mesopotamian tribes] Iyād and Rabīʿah and Bakr and Taghlib and Namar and [the eastern] ʿAbd al-Qays are Christian, so too is [Syrian] Ghassān, and [the southern] Banū Ḥārith ibn Kaʿb in Najrān, and [the northern] al-Ṭayyiʾ, Tanūkh, many of [the Syrian] Kalb, and all those from [Najdi] Tamīm and [Iraqi] Lakhm residing in Ḥīrah. Ḥimyar were Jewish, as were many from Kindah. Khathʿam had no religion at all (lā tadīn bi-shayʾ aṣlan). Zoroastrianism (al-majūsiyyah) appeared among Tamīm, and it is said that Laqīṭ ibn Zurārah had converted to Zoroastrianism (qad tamajassa). The rest of the Arabs worshipped idols.
Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia included indigenous Arabian polytheism, ancient Semitic religions, Christianity, Judaism, Mandaeism, and Zoroastrianism.
The Himyarite Kingdom 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.
Abraha, was the Ethiopian viceroy for the Kingdom of Aksum who ruled the Himyarite Kingdom of Yemen and much of the Arabian Peninsula in the 6th century. He is famous for the tradition of his attempt to destroy the Kaaba, a revered religious site in Mecca, using an army that included war elephants, an event known as Year of the Elephant.
Pre-Islamic Arabia, referring to the Arabian Peninsula before Muhammad's first revelation in 610 CE, is referred to in Islam in the context of jahiliyyah, highlighting the prevalence of paganism throughout the region at the time.
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.
It is believed that Jews began migrating to the Arabian Peninsula in as early as the 6th century BCE, when the Babylonian conquest of Judah triggered a mass Jewish exodus from Judea in the Land of Israel. Over time and through successive exiles, the local Jewish tribes, who were concentrated in the Hejaz and partly in South Arabia, established themselves as one of the most prominent ethno-religious communities of pre-Islamic Arabia. Likewise, Judaism, which had been introduced as one of the few monotheistic religions in the region, stood as a deviation from the typical polytheistic practices of Arabian paganism. These Jewish tribes continued to have a presence in Arabia during the rise of Muhammad, who founded Islam in the 7th century CE. Muhammad's interaction with the Jewish community is documented to a considerable degree in Islamic literature, including in many ahadith. The Jewish tribes of the Hejaz are seen in Islam as having been the offspring of the Israelites/Hebrews. Two of Muhammad's wives were Jewish: Safiyya bint Huyayy and Rayhanah bint Zayd, both of whom belonged to the Banu Nadir by birth, though Rayhanah's status as a wife is disputed.
The phrase false god is a derogatory term used in Abrahamic religions to indicate cult images or deities of non-Abrahamic Pagan religions, as well as other competing entities or objects to which particular importance is attributed. Conversely, followers of animistic and polytheistic religions may regard the gods of various monotheistic religions as "false gods", because they do not believe that any real deity possesses the properties ascribed by monotheists to their sole deity. Atheists, who do not believe in any deities, do not usually use the term false god even though that would encompass all deities from the atheist viewpoint. Usage of this term is generally limited to theists, who choose to worship some deity or deities, but not others.
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 Book of Idols, written by the Arab scholar Hisham ibn al-Kalbi (737–819), is one of the most important Islamic-era works to describe and present the Islamic conception of the gods and rites of pre-Islamic Arab religions. The book portrays pre-Islamic Arabian religion as predominantly polytheistic and guilty of idol worship (idolatry) before the coming of Muhammad, including at the Kaaba, the pre-eminent shrine of Mecca. This, for Al-Kalbi, was a degraded state of religious practice since the pure monotheism that, in Islamic religion, was instituted by Abraham when the Kaaba was founded.
Christianity was one of the prominent monotheistic religions of pre-Islamic Arabia. Christianization emerged as a major phenomena in the Arabian peninsula during the period of late antiquity, especially from the north due to the missionary activities of Syrian Christians and the south due to the entrenchment of Christianity with the Aksumite conquest of South Arabia. Sites of Christian organization such as churches, martyria and monasteries were built and formed points of contact with Byzantine Christianity as well as allowed local Christian leaders to display their benefaction, communicate with the local population, and meet with various officials. At present, it is believed that Christianity had attained a significant presence in Arabia by the fifth century at the latest, that its largest presence was in Southern Arabia (Yemen) prominently including the city of Najran, and that the Eastern Arab Christian community communicated with the Christianity of the Levant region through Syriac.
Judaism has been practiced as a religion in the Arabian Peninsula since at least the first century BCE. It is also the first monotheistic religion of Arabia. Arabian Jews were linguistically diverse and would have varied in their practice of the religion. The presence of Jews is best attested in Northwestern and Southern Arabia. Judaism would briefly become politically relevant in the fourth century, when the rulers of the Kingdom of Himyar converted to Judaism.
Sumyafa' Ashwa al-Yazani, also known as Esimiphaios in Syriac and Greek sources, was a vassal king of Himyar, ruling in the 6th century CE under the Aksumite Empire. He was also the viceroy of the Aksumite king Kaleb, who had invaded Himyar and defeated Dhu Nuwas. Sumyafa' Ashwa was a native convert to Christianity.
Raḥmānān was an epithet and theonym predominantly used to refer to a singular, monotheistic God from the fourth to sixth centuries in South Arabia, beginning when the ruling class of the Himyarite Kingdom converted to Judaism and replacing invocations to polytheistic religions. The term may have also been monolatrous until the arrival of Christianity in the mid-sixth century.
The Jabal Ḏabūbinscription is a South Arabian graffito inscription composed in a minuscule variant of the late Sabaic language and dates to the 6th century, notable for the appearance of a pre-Islamic variant of the Basmala. It was found on a rocky facade at the top of the eastern topside of mount Thaboob in the Dhale region of Yemen and first published in 2018 by M.A. Al-Hajj and A.A. Faqʿas.
The Ḥimà Paleo-Arabic inscriptions are a group of twenty-five inscriptions discovered at Hima, 90 km north of Najran, in southern Saudi Arabia, written in the Paleo-Arabic script. These are among the broader group of inscriptions discovered in this region and were discovered during the Saudi-French epigraphic mission named the Mission archéologique franco-saoudienne de Najran. They were the first Paleo-Arabic inscriptions discovered in Saudi Arabia, before which examples had only been known from Syria. The inscriptions have substantially expanded the understanding of the evolution of the Arabic script.
Ja 1028 is a Sabaic inscription dating to the late Himyarite Kingdom. It was commissioned by an army commander of Dhu Nuwas named S²rḥʾl Yqbl in which he celebrated massacring the Christian community of Najran and the burning of their church with the army in a move against the Abyssinian Christians of the Kingdom of Aksum based in Ethiopia.
'Abd-Kulāl al-Ḥimyarī, or simply 'Abdkulāl or 'Abd-kalal, was a governor of Himyar who lived in the 5th century CE. He was a convert to Nontrinitarianism, but kept his religious beliefs confidential. 'Abd-Kulal also held the power of regent rule temporarily during his time in office.
The Dhu Yazan also known as Al-Yazanin were a prominent Arab tribal clan and elite ruling family of Yemen that were affiliated with the Sabaean Kingdom and later on, the Himyarite Kingdom. They were ultimately deprived from their elite status and ruling by the Sasanian Empire, which controlled Yemen from 570 CE until 678 CE. The Arabian genealogists and historians trace their lineage to a man named 'Amir ibn Aslam who was given the title Dhu Yazan and was a contemporary of the Himyarite ruler Abu Karib, although the Dhu Yazan clan has existed way back during the time of Dhamar Ali Yahbur.
Kitāb al-Tījāni also known more commonly as The Book of Crowns on the Kings of Himyar, is a historical and biographical work by the Yemeni historian Wahb ibn Munabbih, an 8th AD century Israʼiliyyat author. The book is also known as Kitāb al-Tījān li ma'rifati muluk al-zamān fi akhbar Qahtān(The Book of Crowns, on the kings of yesteryear in the accounts of the Qahtānites).
CIH 6, also known as RES 2637C, is a pre-Islamic South Arabian inscription. It dates back to the 5th century CE, and commemorates the completion of the construction of a house or palace by the Himyarite regent 'Abd-Kulal and his family. A scanned picture of the inscriptions were first provided by Johannes H. Mordtmann and Eugen Mittwoch in their work Sabäische Inschriften. Rathjens-v. Wissmannsche Südarabischen-Reise. This inscription is also written in the Sabaic language and shows an instance of monotheism in pre-Islamic Arabia.