Ancient Kings of Arabia

ANCIENT KINGS OF ARABIA

Andrew Crichton

PERENNIAL PRESS

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Copyright © 2015 by Andrew Crichton

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ISBN: 9781518319341

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Subdivision of Arabian History

The Kingdom of Hira

Kings of Gassan

The Lost Kingdom of Petra

Life of Mohammed

2015

SUBDIVISION OF ARABIAN HISTORY

THE HISTORY OF ARABIA naturally divides itself into three periods, the Ancient, the Military, and the Modern. The first carries us down to the age of Mohammed, and is called by the Arabs the Times of Ignorance. The second includes the wars of the Saracens, and the empire of the caliphs. The third embraces the events from the fall of the caliphate to the present day. The native writers who treat of the first period all flourished, as has been observed, posterior to the era of the Prophet. It may seem remarkable that, among an intellectual and opulent people, no historians should have appeared to commemorate the events of their own times; but the causes are to be ascribed chiefly to their national character and habits. To the more civilized tribes the gains of commerce presented higher attractions than literary occupations; while the wandering hordes of the desert were content to devote the solitary hours of their monotonous life to the composition of songs, or the recitation of tales. Nor is it likely that a nation so proud of their independence would be careful to preserve their annals, when these could only record the invasions of their enemies, or an endless succession of domestic feuds, in which the weak constantly received the law from the strong. To have commemorated these inglorious transactions would only have been to perpetuate their own disgrace. It was, doubtless, from this impulse of national vanity, that no Arabian author has ever mentioned the presence of a Roman army in that country.

Little light is thrown on this obscure epoch from foreign sources, except at distant intervals. If we consult the Greek and Roman authors, the information they furnish is far from being exact. Strabo assures us, that Arabia the Happy was divided into four distinct governments, and that the succession of their kings was not fixed by primogeniture or even by royal descent. The right extended to a certain number of privileged families, and the first male child born after the commencement of a new reign was considered heir to the crown. Agatharcides, on the contrary, tells us that their kings were hereditary, and that so long as they remained shut up in their palaces they were greatly respected; but that the people assailed them with stones the moment they appeared in public, and after their death buried them in dunghills. Diodorus has recorded the same peculiarity. Arrian places one kingdom in the western part of Yemen and another to the eastward; the capitals of which he calls Sabbatha and Aphar, evidently the Saba and Dhafar of later writers.

One main difficulty resulting from the want of native or contemporary written records is, that of determining with any tolerable precision the chronological succession of events; for it does not appear that among the Arabs in the Times of Ignorance any particular era was generally adopted. In Yemen, where a regular sovereignty was so long maintained, it is somewhat remarkable that a more exact chronology should not have been observed. Several lists of these ancient kings have been preserved. We are told that they assumed the general name of Tobbaa, a title equivalent to Caesar or Pharaoh among the Romans and Egyptians; but we know little about the nature of their power or their system of administration. This monarchy, according to Jannabi, extended to 3000 years, while Abulfeda restricts it to 2020. But how twenty-six or thirty kings could occupy even the shortest of these periods it is difficult to conjecture. The Mohammedan historians solve the perplexity by making some of them reign three or four hundred years, and live to nearly twice that age. God only knows the truth! is the constant exclamation of the pious Nuvairi, on finding it impossible to reconcile these computations with the ordinary limits of mortality. We rather agree with Pococke and M. de Brequigny, that it was only those princes who swayed the undivided sceptre of Yemen, or were conspicuous as tyrants or conquerors, whose names have been preserved; and that the intervals, being filled up with usurpations, or not marked by any memorable events, have been passed over in studied silence. Hamza says expressly, that the twenty-six kings who flourished for so long a period were only those descended from the family of Hamyar.

Besides that of Yemen, there were two other principal dynasties in Arabia, of which we shall give some account in the following order:

I. The kingdom of the Homerites or Hamyarites, so called from the fifth monarch of that name, who possessed the whole or the greater part of Yemen, the several petty princes who reigned in other districts being mostly, if not altogether, dependent on this sovereign, whom they called the Great King.

II. The kingdom of Hira, or the Arabian Irak, whose capital stood on the Euphrates.

III. The kingdom of Gassan on the borders of Syria. Its sovereigns were a kind of viceroys to the Roman emperors, as those of Hira were to the monarchs of Persia.

Kahtan, the founder of their race, is honoured by the Arabs as the first that wore the crown of Yemen.

Yarab, his son, they regard as the first that spoke their language. Saba built the capital called after himself; and hence the inhabitants got the name of Sabaeans. Tables of these kings have been drawn up by various historians; but they differ so much in their calculations as to satisfy us that they are not to be trusted as infallible guides. Those given by Pococke have been generally followed, as being more complete, and at the same time more consonant with probability, than any to be found in a single Mohammedan author:

  I. Table.—Kings of Yemen,—Reigned 2020 years

The history of these ancient kings is little else than a mere register of names. On the death of Hamyar, the family of his brother Cahlan disputed the throne, and divided the monarchy; one branch continuing to reign at Saba, and the other at Dhafar in Hadramaut. After a lapse of fifteen generations, these were united in the person of Hareth, surnamed Alrayish, or the Enricher, from the abundance of spoils he collected in his various expeditions. Having recovered the entire sovereignty of Yemen, he assumed the title of Tobbaa, or Successor. Dulkarnain, who has been erroneously identified with Alexander of Macedon, is a celebrated personage in oriental story. He pushed his conquests to the remotest regions of the earth, vanquished nations of colossal stature, and subdued towns whose walls and towers were of brass and copper, so brilliant that the inhabitants were obliged to wear masks to protect them from total blindness. This apocryphal prince is mentioned in the Koran (chap, XVIII.), but it seems doubtful to what character in real history his achievements are to be ascribed. They certainly bear some resemblance to the romantic exploits of the all-subduing son of Philip. Dulmenaar, his successor, carried his arms westward into the unexplored regions of Nigritia, where he is said to have constructed a chain of lighthouses over the desert to guide his march; hence his name, which means Lord of the Watchtowers. His son extended his conquests as far as Tangier, and is said to have given his name to Africa. Duladsaar, or the Lord of Terror, is renowned as the conqueror of the Blemmyes or Pigmies, a nation of monsters without heads (Acephali), and having eyes and mouths in their breasts, whom Herodotus and Mela placed in Abyssinia and Southern Africa. His subjects threw off their allegiance, and raised Shaerhabil, a descendant of Wathel, to the throne, who, after several bloody battles, became undisputed master of the kingdom.

Belkis, according to the Arabs, was the famous Queen of Sheba or Saba, who visited and afterward married Solomon in the twenty-first year of her reign. Tabiri has introduced her story with such gorgeous embellishments, as to resemble a fairy tale rather than an episode in serious narrative. She is said to have been subdued by the Jewish monarch, who discovered her retreat among the mountains between Hejaz and Yemen by means of a lapwing, which he had despatched in search of water during his progress through Arabia. This princess is called Nicolaa by some writers. The Abyssinians claim the distinction for one of their queens; and have preserved the names of a dynasty alleged to have been descended from her union with Solomon.

Yasasin, surnamed Nashirelnaim, or the Opulent, from his immense wealth, has the reputation of being a magnificent and warlike prince. His ambition carried him into the unknown deserts of the West; but the whirlwinds of moving sands compelled him to return, after losing a great part of his army, which he had rashly ordered to advance. To commemorate this disaster, he caused a brazen statue to be erected on a pedestal of stone, with an inscription in the Hamyaric character, importing that here was the limit of his progress; and that none, but at the peril of destruction, could attempt to go beyond it.

The military achievements of Shamar, called Yaraash, or the Tremulous, from a disease to which he was subject, resemble those of his predecessors. He is recorded to have made various expeditions to Persia. He subdued KhoraSan and other provinces; and, traversing Sogdiana, he laid siege to the capital, which he completely destroyed. From him Samarcand is alleged to have taken its name, according to an inscription said to have been engraven on one of the gates. This monarch with his whole army perished by a stratagem while attempting to penetrate the desert towards Chinese Tartary, of which he meditated the conquest.

On the death of Abimalec the throne of the Hamyarites was usurped by the descendants of Cahlan; and accordingly the two brothers, Amran and Amru, are not recognised by some historians as kings of Yemen. They are omitted in the lists of Hamza, Nuvairi,