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58-453: It was one of the six ancient South Arabian kingdoms of ancient Yemen, along with Sabaʾ , Maʿīn , Ḥaḍramawt , Ḥimyar and Awsān . Qatabān was centred around the Wādī Bayhān , and its capital was the city of Timnaʿ . The neighbours of Qatabān were Sabaʾ to the northwest and west, Awsān to the south, and Ḥaḍramawt to the east. At its maximum extent, Qatabān's territory extended from

116-646: A sky deity . The worship of sacred stones constituted one of the most important practices of the Semitic speaking peoples , including Arabs . Cult images of a deity were most often an unworked stone block. The most common name for these stone blocks was derived from the Semitic nsb ("to be stood upright"), but other names were used, such as Nabataean masgida ("place of prostration") and Arabic duwar ("object of circumambulation", this term often occurs in pre-Islamic Arabic poetry ). These god-stones were usually

174-545: A free-standing slab, but Nabataean god-stones are usually carved directly on the rock face. Facial features may be incised on the stone (especially in Nabataea), or astral symbols (especially in South Arabia). Under Greco-Roman influence, an anthropomorphic statue might be used instead. The Book of Idols describes two types of statues: idols ( sanam ) and images ( wathan ). If a statue were made of wood, gold, or silver, after

232-520: A goddess of love. Manāt ( Arabic : مناة) was the goddess of destiny. Al-Lāt's cult was spread in Syria and northern Arabia. From Safaitic and Hismaic inscriptions, it is probable that she was worshiped as Lat ( lt ). F. V. Winnet saw al-Lat as a lunar deity due to the association of a crescent with her in 'Ayn esh-Shallāleh and a Lihyanite inscription mentioning the name of Wadd , the Minaean moon god, over

290-525: A lesser impact in the remainder of the peninsula, but did secure some conversions. With the exception of Nestorianism in the northeast and the Persian Gulf , the dominant form of Christianity was Miaphysitism . The peninsula had been a destination for Jewish migration since Roman times, which had resulted in a diaspora community supplemented by local converts. Judaism had largely grown in South Arabia and

348-444: A pre-Islamic god called Ailiah and is similar to El , Il, Ilah , and Jehovah . They also considered some of his characteristics to be seemingly based on lunar deities like Almaqah, Kahl, Shaker, Wadd and Warakh. Alfred Guillaume states that the connection between Ilah that came to form Allah and ancient Babylonian Il or El of ancient Israel is not clear. Wellhausen states that Allah was known from Jewish and Christian sources and

406-580: Is limited. One early attestation of Arabian polytheism was in 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 ). Strabo stated the Arabs worshipped Dionysus and Zeus . Origen stated they worshipped Dionysus and Urania . Muslim sources regarding Arabian polytheism include

464-624: Is mentioned in the Qur'an in surah al-Maeeda 5:69 , an-Naml 27:15-44 and Sabaʾ 34:15-17. Their mention in surah al-Naml refers to the area in the context of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba , whereas their mention in surah Sabaʾ refers to the Flood of the Dam , in which the historic dam was ruined by flooding. As for the phrase Qawm Tubbaʿ "People of Tubbaʿ", which occurs in surah ad-Dukhan 44:37 and Qaf 50:12-14, Tubbaʿ

522-552: The jinn of west and central Arabia. Unlike jinn in modern times, ginnaye could not hurt nor possess humans and were much more similar to the Roman genius . According to common Arabian belief, soothsayers , pre-Islamic philosophers, and poets were inspired by the jinn. However, jinn were also feared and thought to be responsible for causing various diseases and mental illnesses. Aside from benevolent gods and spirits, there existed malevolent beings. These beings were not attested in

580-618: The Bāb al-Mandab from the Sabaeans. By the 3rd century BCE, Qatabān was challenging the supremacy of Sabaʾ in South Arabia. At one point in the 1st century BCE, Qatabān formed a coalition with Ḥaḍramawt, Radman, Maḏay, and the Arab nomads against the Sabaeans. During this period, the kings of Qatabān adopted the titles of mukarrib ( lit.   ' unifier ' ), used by local hegemons in South Arabia, and of malik ( lit.   ' king ' ). In

638-403: The Bāb al-Mandab in the southwest to the Ṣayhad desert to the north, and the western limits of Ḥaḍramawt to the east. The earliest human occupation in the region of Qatabān dates to around the 20th century BCE and consisted of a Neolithic population. The earliest settlements in the area of Qatabān are from 11th to 10th centuries BCE. Later, several waves of Semitic -speaking immigrants from

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696-586: The Kaaba with them, erected them, and circumambulated them like the Kaaba. This, according to al-Kalbi led to the rise of idol worship. Based on this, it may be probable that Arabs originally venerated stones, later adopting idol-worship under foreign influences. The relationship between a god and a stone as his representation can be seen from the third-century Syriac work called the Homily of Pseudo-Meliton where he describes

754-764: The Old South Arabian languages . In the region of modern-day Yemen , the Sabeans founded the Kingdom of Sheba (Arabic: سَبَأ , romanized:  Saba' ), which played an important role in the Hebrew Bible , was mentioned in the Quran , and was "the oldest and most important of the South Arabian kingdoms". The historical dating of the foundation of Sabaʾ is a point of disagreement among scholars. Kenneth Kitchen dates

812-580: The Sinai Peninsula . Allāt ( Arabic : اللات) or al-Lāt was worshipped throughout the ancient Near East with various associations. Herodotus in the 5th century BC identifies Alilat ( Greek : Ἀλιλάτ) as the Arabic name for Aphrodite (and, in another passage, for Urania ), which is strong evidence for worship of Allāt in Arabia at that early date. Al-‘Uzzá ( Arabic : العزى) was a fertility goddess or possibly

870-538: The failed expedition of Aelius Gallus to South Arabia in 26 BCE, the Qatabānians were proficient warriors. The kingdom of Qatabān finally came to an end when Ḥaḍramawt and Ḥimyar divided its territories among themselves and annexed them in the late 1st century CE. While Sabaʾ and Ḥaḍramawt were mentioned in the Table of Nations of the Hebrew Bible , Qatabān's name was not recorded anywhere within it, probably because it

928-451: The "Lord of heaven and Earth". Aaron W. Hughes states that scholars are unsure whether he developed from the earlier polytheistic systems or developed due to the increasing significance of the Christian and Jewish communities, and that it is difficult to establish whether Allah was linked to Rahman. Maxime Rodinson , however, considers one of Allah's names, "Ar-Rahman", to have been used in

986-447: The 2nd century BCE, Qatabān lost the south-western part of its territory when the tribal confederation of the Ḥimyarites seceded from it around 110 BCE and joined Sabaʾ to form the kingdom of Sabaʾ and Ḏū-Raydān. Qatabān soon started to decline, bringing an end to the prominence it had enjoyed since the 5th century BCE. The Greco-Roman author Pliny the Elder recorded that, at the time of

1044-414: The 6th century BCE, Qatabān had come under the control of Sabaʾ. Qatabān regained its independence in the late 5th century BCE, after which it rejected the hegemony of Sabaʾ and became one of the dominant states of the South Arabian region along with Maʿīn and Ḥaḍramawt . Qatabān was able to conquer Maʿīn, and soon embarked on a successful expansionist policy against Sabaʾ and captured territories until

1102-798: The Islamic Sharia. They, for example, did not marry both a mother and her daughter. They considered marrying two sisters simultaneously to be the most heinous crime. They also censured anyone who married his stepmother, and called him dhaizan. They made the major hajj and the minor umra pilgrimage to the Ka'ba , performed the circumambulation around the Ka'ba tawaf , ran seven times between Mounts Safa and Marwa sa'y , threw rocks and washed themselves after sexual intercourse. They also gargled, sniffed water up into their noses, clipped their fingernails, removed all pubic hair and performed ritual circumcision. Likewise, they cut off

1160-511: The Levant and Mesopotamia arrived into South Arabia, bringing several new cultural elements, including early pottery which similarly appear to have been derived from various sources. The local and incoming cultures eventually gave rise to the ancient South Arabian culture to which Qatabān belonged. Qatabān had developed into a centralised state centred around Timnaʿ by the late 7th or early 6th century BCE. At one point during this early period, Qatabān

1218-632: The Meccans and the other settled inhabitants of the Hejaz worshiped their gods at permanent shrines in towns and oases, the Bedouin practiced their religion on the move. In South Arabia, mndh’t were anonymous guardian spirits of the community and the ancestor spirits of the family. They were known as 'the sun ( shms ) of their ancestors'. In North Arabia, ginnaye were known from Palmyrene inscriptions as "the good and rewarding gods" and were probably related to

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1276-520: The Moon riding over a lion representing the Sun, with the boy holding a controlling chain attached to the lion's collar in one hand, and a small dart in the other hand. The Qatabānians followed the South Arabian custom of dedicating themselves and their close family members to the deities as a way of showing their allegiance to the religious community and to receive the deities' protections. The religious structures of

1334-618: The Qatabānians included temples, which varied from simple to elaborate onces. According to Pliny the Elder, there were 65 temples in Qatabān's capital of Timnaʿ. The economy of Qatabān primarily consisted of irrigation-based subsistence agriculture, for which the Qatabānian farmers used well irrigation and also developed flash flood irrigation methods which were more efficient than the constant-flow irrigation systems used elsewhere in ancient West Asian and North Africa. Qatabān also produced myrrh which

1392-526: The banquet being paid for from the tithe offered to the god by the populace. The patron deity of the Qatabānians, however, was the Moon-god 𐩲𐩣 ( ʿAmm ), who was seen as being closer to the people compared to the more distant figure of ʿAṯtar, and the people of Qatabān consequently called themselves the "children of ʿAmm." This prominence of the Moon-God among the Qatabānians was due to their participation in

1450-478: The beginning of the 1st millennium BC, the political leaders (Sabaean: 𐩱𐩣𐩡𐩫 , romanized:  ʾmlk ) of this tribal community managed to create a huge commonwealth of shaʿbs occupying most of South Arabian territory and took the title Sabaean: 𐩣𐩫𐩧𐩨 𐩪𐩨𐩱 , romanized:  mkrb sbʾ , "Mukarrib of the Sabaeans". Several factors caused a significant decline of the Sabaean state and civilization by

1508-447: The book Secrets of Divine Civilization by `Abdu’l-Bahá’ as those peoples who have possibly contributed to the foundations of the science of logic. South Arabian polytheism Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia included indigenous Arabian polytheism , Buddhism , ancient Semitic religions , Christianity , Judaism , Mandaeism , and Zoroastrianism . Arabian polytheism, the dominant form of religion in pre-Islamic Arabia ,

1566-399: The caravan trade, within which night travel and the use of the night sky for navigation played important roles. Another important deity of the Qatabānians was the god 𐩱𐩬𐩨𐩺 ( ʾAnbāy ), who was invoked along with ʿAmm in contracts. The Qatabānians believed in the supremacy of the Moon over the Sun, as attested by a pair of Hellenistic sculptures each depicting a baby boy representing

1624-534: The daughters of Allah. Regional variants of the word Allah occur in both pagan and Christian pre-Islamic inscriptions. References to Allah are found in the poetry of the pre-Islamic Arab poet Zuhayr bin Abi Sulma , who lived a generation before Muhammad, as well as pre-Islamic personal names. Muhammad's father's name was ʿAbd-Allāh , meaning "the servant of Allah". Charles Russell Coulter and Patricia Turner considered that Allah's name may be derived from

1682-424: The divine world reflected the society of the time. Trade caravans also brought foreign religious and cultural influences. A large number of deities did not have proper names and were referred to by titles indicating a quality, a family relationship, or a locale preceded by "he who" or "she who" ( dhū or dhāt respectively). The religious beliefs and practices of the nomadic Bedouin were distinct from those of

1740-585: The eighth-century Book of Idols by Hisham ibn al-Kalbi , which F.E. Peters argued to be the most substantial treatment of the religious practices of pre-Islamic Arabia, as well as the writings of the Yemeni historian al-Hasan al-Hamdani on South Arabian religious beliefs. According to the Book of Idols , descendants of the son of Abraham ( Ishmael ) who had settled in Mecca migrated to other lands carried holy stones from

1798-587: The end of the 1st millennium BCE . Saba' was conquered by the Himyarites in the first century BCE but after the disintegration of the first Himyarite Kingdom of the kings of Saba' and Dhū Raydān , the Middle Sabaean Kingdom reappeared in the early second century. Note that the Middle Sabaean Kingdom was different from the Ancient Sabaean Kingdom in many important respects. The Sabaean kingdom

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1856-510: The epigraphic record, but were alluded to in pre-Islamic Arabic poetry, and their legends were collected by later Muslim authors. Commonly mentioned are ghouls . Etymologically, the English word "ghoul" was derived from the Arabic ghul , from ghala , "to seize", related to the Sumerian galla . They are said to have a hideous appearance, with feet like those of an ass. Arabs were said to utter

1914-402: The following couplet if they should encounter one: "Oh ass-footed one, just bray away, we won't leave the desert plain nor ever go astray." Christian Julien Robin notes that all the known South Arabian divinities had a positive or protective role and that evil powers were only alluded to but were never personified. Some scholars postulate that in pre-Islamic Arabia, including in Mecca, Allah

1972-485: The form of Rahmanan earlier. Al-Lāt , Al-‘Uzzá and Manāt were common names used for multiple goddesses across Arabia. G. R. Hawting states that modern scholars have frequently associated the names of Arabian goddesses Al-lāt , Al-‘Uzzá and Manāt with cults devoted to celestial bodies, particularly Venus , drawing upon evidence external to the Muslim tradition as well as in relation to Syria , Mesopotamia and

2030-432: The fourth century, almost all inhabitants of Arabia practiced polytheistic religions at which point pre-Islamic Arabian monotheism had begun to spread. From the fourth to sixth centuries, Jewish , Christian , and other monotheistic populations developed. Until recent decades, it was believed that polytheism remained the dominant belief system in pre-Islamic Arabia, but recent trends suggest that henotheism or monotheism

2088-422: The god 𐩲𐩻𐩩𐩧 ( ʿAṯtar ), who held a supreme position within the cosmology of the ancient South Arabians as the god presiding over the whole world, always appeared first in lists, and had various manifestations with their own epithets, also held this primacy within the religion of Qatabān. And, like in the other South Arabian states, the rulers of Qatabān would offer ritual banquets in honour of ʿAṯtar, with

2146-553: The kingdom to around 1200 BCE, while Robert Nebes states that the formation of the Sabean polity took place in the 10th century BCE at the latest, noting that the earliest known Sabean ruler, Yada'il bin Damar'ali, dates to before 900 BCE. Originally, the Sabaeans were one of the shaʿbs (Sabaean: 𐩦𐩲𐩨 , romanized:  šʿb ), "communities", on the edge of the Sayhad desert. Very early, at

2204-468: The kingdom's existence to between 1200 BCE and 275 CE, with its capital at Maʾrib . On the other hand, Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman believe that "the Sabaean kingdom began to flourish only from the eighth century BC onward," and that the story of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba is "an anachronistic seventh-century set piece ." The Kingdom fell after a long but sporadic civil war between several Yemenite dynasties claiming kingship, and

2262-462: The late Himyarite Kingdom rose as victorious. Sabaeans are mentioned several times in the Hebrew Bible . In the Quran , they are described as Qawm Sabaʾ ( سَبَأ , not to be confused with Ṣābiʾ , صَابِئ ), and as Qawm Tubbaʿ (Arabic: قَوْم تُبَّع , lit.   'People of Tubbaʿ'). The origin of the Sabaean Kingdom is uncertain. Kenneth Kitchen dates

2320-544: The north, the Sabeans on the southwestern tip, stretching from the highlands to the sea; the Qatabanians to the east of them, and the Hadharem east of them. The Sabaeans, like the other Yemenite kingdoms of the same period, were involved in the extremely lucrative spice trade , especially frankincense and myrrh . They left behind many inscriptions in the monumental Ancient South Arabian script as well as numerous documents in

2378-719: The northwest Hijaz . Additionally, the influence of the Sasanian Empire resulted in Iranian religions being present in the peninsula. Zoroastrianism existed in the east and south, while there is evidence of either Manichaeism or Mazdakism being possibly practiced in Mecca. Features Types Types Features Clothing Genres Art music Folk Prose Islamic Poetry Genres Forms Arabic prosody National literatures of Arab States Concepts Texts Fictional Arab people South Arabian deities Until about

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2436-402: The oases where lived the Arabs, thanks to which Qatabān also derived significant revenue from the transit through its territory of merchant caravans trading incense produced in Ẓufār and luxuries imported from South Asia , which allowed it to act as a mediator in this trade route, thus bringing significant wealth and exotic displays to its ruling classes and institutions. Trade in South Arabia

2494-589: The pagan faiths of Syriac-speakers in northern Mesopotamia, who were mostly Arabs. However, mythologies and narratives elucidating the history of these gods, as well as the meaning of their epithets, remains uninformative. The pre-Islamic Arabian religions were polytheistic, with many of the deities' names known. Formal pantheons are more noticeable at the level of kingdoms, of variable sizes, ranging from simple city-states to collections of tribes. Tribes , towns, clans, lineages and families had their own cults too. Christian Julien Robin suggests that this structure of

2552-532: The related cursive Zabūr script , their presence is also felt in Africa where they left numerous traces such as inscriptions and temples that date back to the Sabean colonization of Africa . The Ottoman scholar Mahmud al-Alusi compared the religious practices of South Arabia to Islam in his Bulugh al-'Arab fi Ahwal al-'Arab . The Arabs during the pre-Islamic period used to practice certain things that were included in

2610-629: The right hand of a thief and stoned Adulterers. According to the medieval religious scholar al-Shahrastani , Sabaeans accepted both the sensible and intelligible world. They did not follow religious laws but centered their worship on spiritual entities. Sabaeans are mentioned in the biblical books of Genesis , 1 Kings (which includes the account of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba ), Isaiah , Joel , Ezekiel and Job . The latter mentions Sabaeans as having slain Job 's livestock and servants. In Isaiah they are described as "tall of stature". The name of Saba'

2668-613: The role of Allah in Meccan religion. Many of the physical descriptions of the pre-Islamic gods are traced to idols , especially near the Kaaba, which is said to have contained up to 360 of them, including the Buddha statue. Other religions were represented to varying, lesser degrees. The influence of the adjacent Roman and Aksumite civilizations resulted in Christian communities in the northwest, northeast, and south of Arabia . Christianity made

2726-436: The settled tribes of towns such as Mecca . Nomadic religious belief systems and practices are believed to have included fetishism , totemism and veneration of the dead but were connected principally with immediate concerns and problems and did not consider larger philosophical questions such as the afterlife. Settled urban Arabs, on the other hand, are thought to have believed in a more complex pantheon of deities. While

2784-485: The title of fkl lt . René Dussaud and Gonzague Ryckmans linked her with Venus while others have thought her to be a solar deity. John F. Healey considers that al-Uzza actually might have been an epithet of al-Lāt before becoming a separate deity in the Meccan pantheon. Paola Corrente, writing in Redefining Dionysus , considers she might have been a god of vegetation or a celestial deity of atmospheric phenomena and

2842-497: Was a title for the kings of Saba' , like for Himyarites. Sabaeans are mentioned many times in the Baha’i Writings as regional people and of their religious practice. The religion is considered among the true religion of God as an early part of a historical process of progressive revelation where God guides humanity by sending Divine Educators throughout time to teach people of the religion of God. They have also been mentioned in

2900-462: Was based on veneration of deities and spirits. Worship was directed to various gods and goddesses, including Hubal and the goddesses al-Lāt , al-‘Uzzā , and Manāt , at local shrines and temples such as the Kaaba in Mecca . Deities were venerated and invoked through a variety of rituals, including pilgrimages and divination, as well as ritual sacrifice. Different theories have been proposed regarding

2958-420: Was considered to be a deity, possibly a creator deity or a supreme deity in a polytheistic pantheon . The word Allah (from the Arabic al-ilah meaning "the god") may have been used as a title rather than a name. The concept of Allah may have been vague in the Meccan religion. According to Islamic sources, Meccans and their neighbors believed that the goddesses Al-lāt , Al-‘Uzzá , and Manāt were

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3016-496: Was dominant from the fourth century onwards. The contemporary sources of information regarding the pre-Islamic Arabian religion and pantheon include a growing number of inscriptions in carvings written in Arabian scripts like Safaitic , Sabaic , and Paleo-Arabic , pre-Islamic poetry, external sources such as Jewish and Greek accounts, as well as the Muslim tradition, such as the Qur'an and Islamic writings. Nevertheless, information

3074-515: Was finally conquered by the Ḥimyarites in the late 3rd century , and at that time, the capital was Ma'rib. It was located along the strip of desert called Sayhad by medieval Arab geographers , which is now named Ramlat al-Sab'atayn . The Sabaean people spoke a Semitic language of their own, Himyaritic . Each of these peoples had regional kingdoms in ancient Yemen, with the Minaeans in Wādī al-Jawf to

3132-707: Was initially done by barter in goods against standards of gold or silver or bronze by weight, but in the 4th century BCE the kingdoms of the region started minting their own coinage, which were based on Athenian Greek ones. In the 2nd century BCE, Qatabān replaced these with its own local coinage designs which were struck with its royal mint's name of Ḥarīb . Known rulers of Qatabān include: Sabaeans The Sabaeans or Sabeans ( Sabaean : 𐩪𐩨𐩱 , romanized:  S¹Bʾ ; Arabic : ٱلسَّبَئِيُّوْن , romanized :  as-Sabaʾiyyūn ; Hebrew : סְבָאִים , romanized :  Səḇāʾīm ) were an ancient group of South Arabians . They spoke Sabaic , one of

3190-405: Was known to pagan Arabs as the supreme god. Winfried Corduan doubts the theory of Allah of Islam being linked to a moon god , stating that the term Allah functions as a generic term, like the term El- Elyon used as a title for the god Sin . South Arabian inscriptions from the fourth century AD refer to a god called Rahman ("The Merciful One") who had a monotheistic cult and was referred to as

3248-423: Was not an independent state at the time of the text's composition. The Graeco-Roman writer Strabo recorded the name of Qatabān in the form of Kattabania ( Κατταβανία ), and referred to its capital as Tamna ( Τάμνα ), while the Roman author Pliny the Elder referred to the Qatabānians as the " Gebbanitae " and called Timnaʿ as " Thomna ." The Qatabānians practised South Arabian polytheism , and

3306-422: Was ruled by two joint kings, respectively named Hawfiʿamm Yuhanʿim son of Sumhuʿalay Watar, of whom several inscriptions are known, and Yadʿʾab son of Ḏamarʿali. In the late 7th century BCE, Qatabān and the nearby kingdom of Ḥaḍramawt were initially allies of the king Karibʾil Watar of the neighbouring kingdom of Sabaʾ , but soon hostilities broke out between Karibʾil Watar and the Qatabānian king Yadʿʾab. During

3364-547: Was sold to Minaean merchants who sold it to markets in the countries of the Fertile Crescent . The Qatabānians also derived revenue from their participation in international commercial networks, especially from the trade of frankincense and myrrh, as well as from the trans-shipment of products imported into West Asia from South Asia. The ancient trade route of ancient South Arabia passed successively through Ḥaḍramawt, Qatabān, Sabaʾ, and then Maʿīn, before heading north towards

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