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Kahl (god)
Kahl is a god of pre-Islamic Arabia. He was the chief god (tutelary deity) of the city of Qaryat al-Faw, the capital of the Kingdom of Kinda, beginning in the 2nd century BC. Kahl is attested regularly, but the evidence is more sparse with respect to how Kahl was understood. Based on recent evidence, it has been posited that Kahl was an Arabian version of the smiting or menacing god that is known in the regions of the Eastern Mediterranean and West Asia. Kahl may have evolved into the god Rahmanan in the trend towards the evolution of pre-Islamic monotheism. Name In Ancient South Arabian texts, his name is rendered as ''khl''. Due to the absence of information about how the name of this god is pronounced, his name has been transcribed in many ways in studies, including as ''kahl'', ''kāhil'', ''kuhūl'' and ''kāhal''. Sometimes, it takes the grammatical form ''khlm'' (''Kāhilim'') with a final mimation. In one Sabaic dictionary, ''khl'' means 'ruler, powerful'. Generally, it ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pre-Islamic Arabia
Pre-Islamic Arabia is the Arabian Peninsula and its northern extension in the Syrian Desert before the rise of Islam. This is consistent with how contemporaries used the term ''Arabia'' or where they said Arabs lived, which was not limited to the peninsula. Pre-Islamic Arabia included both nomadic and settled populations. Several settled populations developed distinctive civilizations. From around the second half of the 2nd millennium BCE, South Arabia, Southern Arabia was the home to a number of kingdoms, such as the Sabaeans and the Minaeans, and Eastern Arabia was inhabited by Semitic-speaking peoples who presumably migrated from the southwest, such as the so-called Samad Late Iron Age, Samad population.Kenneth A. Kitchen The World of "Ancient Arabia" Series. Documentation for Ancient Arabia. Part I. Chronological Framework and Historical Sources p.110 From 106 CE to 630 CE, Arabia's most northwestern areas were controlled by the Roman Empire, which governed it as Arabia Petrae ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
ZI 11
Zaid Inan 11 (''Zaid ʿInān 11'', abbreviated ZI 11), also known as the Hymn to Almaqah or MB 2004 I-94, is a 3rd century AD Sabaic poem discovered as a votive inscription stored at the Temple of Awwam in the city of Marib from pre-Islamic South Arabia. Marib was the capital of the Kingdom of Saba, located in modern-day eastern Yemen. The poem is a religious-military hymn dedicated to the glory of the god Almaqah, who in the text is called Kahl. ZI 11 shows Kahl leading an army of Sabaeans into Al-Yamama (then called al-Jaww), a region that he pierces and conquers in a triumphant victory. According to the inscription, this campaign is part of Kahl's "rising in the East" (meaning to overcome the night). The poem also reveals a development in pre-Islamic religion as Kahl absorbs the properties and functions of several deities that had come before him in the pantheon. According to some historians, this represents an ongoing trend in South Arabian religion at the time towards the em ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arabian Gods
Deities formed a part of the polytheistic religious beliefs in pre-Islamic Arabia, with many of the deities' names known. Up until about the time between the fourth century AD and the emergence of Islam, polytheism was the dominant form of religion in Arabia. Deities represented the forces of nature, love, death, and so on, and were interacted with by a variety of rituals. Formal pantheons are more noticeable at the level of kingdoms, of variable sizes, ranging from simple city-states to collections of tribes.Robin, Christian Julien, "South Arabia, Religions in Pre-Islamic", in The Kaaba alone was said to have contained 360 idols of many deities. Tribes, towns, clans, lineages and families had their own cults too. Christian Julien Robin suggests that this structure of the divine world reflected the society of the time. Many 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 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shams (deity)
Shams, also called or ''Shamsum'' or ''Dhat-Ba' dhanum'', is a sun goddess of Arabian mythology. She was the patron goddess of the Himyarite Kingdom. Her name meant 'shining', 'Sun', or 'brilliant'. She was the South Arabian equivalent of the North Arabian sun goddess Nuha. Prior to Islam, religion on the Arabian Peninsula focused on local gods, with every tribe and kingdom having their particular protective deities. However, there were also gods common for all Arabs, and the trinity of gods representing the Sun, the Moon and the planet Venus seem to have been worshipped throughout Arabia, though their names, gender and worship differed between regions. Thus, Nuha was the name of the sun goddess in Northern Arabia, while the name of the sun goddess in Southern Arabia was Shams. As Nuha, Shams was also worshipped in a trinity alongside the male gods of the Moon and Venus. In Saba', the sun goddess Shams was worshipped with the god of the planet Venus, Athtar, and Almaqah, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pre-Islamic Arabian Inscriptions
Pre-Islamic Arabian inscriptions are inscriptions that come from the Arabian Peninsula dating to before the rise of Islam. They were written in both Arabic and other languages, including Sabaic, Hadramautic, Minaic, Qatabanic. These inscriptions come in two forms: graffiti, "self-authored personal expressions written in a public space", and monumental inscriptions, commissioned to a professional scribe by an elite for an official role. Unlike modern graffiti, the graffiti in these inscriptions are usually signed (and so not anonymous) and were not illicit or subversive. Graffiti are usually just scratchings on the surface of rock, but both graffiti and monumental inscriptions could be produced by painting, or the use of a chisel, charcoal, brush, or other tools. These inscriptions are typically non-portable (being lapidary) and were engraved (and not painted). Both graffiti and monumental inscriptions were also intended for public display. Pre-Islamic Arabian inscriptions ar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
List Of Pre-Islamic Arabian Deities
Deities formed a part of the polytheistic religious beliefs in pre-Islamic Arabia, with many of the deities' names known. Up until about the time between the fourth century AD and the emergence of Islam, polytheism was the dominant form of religion in Arabia. Deities represented the forces of nature, love, death, and so on, and were interacted with by a variety of rituals. Formal pantheons are more noticeable at the level of kingdoms, of variable sizes, ranging from simple city-states to collections of tribes.Robin, Christian Julien, "South Arabia, Religions in Pre-Islamic", in The Kaaba alone was said to have contained 360 idols of many deities. Tribes, towns, clans, lineages and families had their own cults too. Christian Julien Robin suggests that this structure of the divine world reflected the society of the time. Many 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 wh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Abu Karib
Abū Karib As’ad al-Kāmil (), called "Abū Karīb", sometimes rendered as As'ad Abū Karīb, full name: Abu Karib As'ad ibn Hassān Maliki Karib Yuha'min, was king ( Tubba', ) of the Himyarite Kingdom (modern day Yemen). He ruled Yemen from 390 CE until 420 CE, beginning as a coregency with his father Malkikarib Yuhamin (r. 375–400) followed by becoming sole ruler in 400. As'ad is cited in some sources as the first of several kings of the Arabian Peninsula to convert to Judaism, although contemporary historians have ascribed this transition to his father. He was traditionally regarded as the first one to cover the Kaaba with the kiswah. Biography Abu Karib As'ad was the son of Malikikarib Yuha'min. He first came to power as part of a co-regency with both his father Malikikarib Yuha'min and his brother Dhara' Amar Ayman in 375 CE. After the death of Malikikarib Yuha'min in 385 CE, only Abu Karib and his brother Dhara' Amar Ayman were left to rule. Around the year 400 CE ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Malkikarib Yuhamin
Malkīkarib Yuha’min (r. 375–400) was a king (Tubba', ) of the Himyarite Kingdom (in modern-day Yemen), succeeding his father Tharan Yuhanim. Byzantine sources and contemporary historians credit him with converting the ruling class of the Himyarite Kingdom from paganism to Judaism in pre-Islamic Arabia#Southern Arabia/Yemen, Judaism (whereas later Islamic sources ascribe this event to Abu Karib, his son). These events are chronicled by the fifth-century ''Ecclessiastical History'' of the Anomoeanism, Anomean Philostorgius and the sixth-century Syriac language, Syriac Book of the Himyarites. Such sources implicate the motive for conversion as a wish on the part of the Himyarite rulers to distance themselves from the Byzantine Empire which had tried to convert them to Christianity. Malkikarib was likely at an advanced age when he took the throne as he immediately initiated a coregency with his children. He first entered into a coregency with his son Abīkarib Asʿad (Abu Karib). ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pre-Islamic Arabian Monotheism
Monotheism as the belief in a supreme Creator being, existed in pre-Islamic Arabia. This practice occurred among pre-Islamic Christian, Jewish, and other populations unaffiliated with either one of the two major Abrahamic religions at the time. Monotheism became a religious trend in pre-Islamic Arabia in the fourth century CE, when it began to supplant the polytheism that had been the common form of religion until then. Transition from polytheism to monotheism in this time is documented from inscriptions in all writing systems on the Arabian Peninsula (including those in Nabataean, Safaitic, and Sabaic), where polytheistic gods and idols cease to be mentioned. Epigraphic evidence is nearly exclusively monotheistic in the fifth century, and from the sixth century and until the eve of Islam, it is solely monotheistic. Pre-Islamic Arabic poetry is also monotheistic or henotheistic. An important locus of pre-Islamic Arabian monotheism, the Himyarite Kingdom, ruled over South Arabia, w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Al-Yamama
Al-Yamama () is a historical region in south-eastern Najd in modern-day Saudi Arabia. Only a handful of centralized states ever arose in the Yamama, but it figured prominently in early Islamic history, becoming a central theater in the Ridda wars immediately following Muhammad's death. Despite being incorporated into the Najd region, the term 'al-Yamama' remains in use as a traditional and historical term to reference or emphasize the region's ancient past. The current headquarters of the Saudi government in Riyadh, for example, is known as the Palace of Yamamah. Etymology The 13th-century geographer Yaqut al-Hamawi mentions a number of etymologies for ''al-Yamama'', including the root word ''hamam'' (Arabic for " domesticated pigeon") but the historian G. Rex Smith considers them unlikely. Instead, Smith holds that it is more likely the name ''al-Yamama'' is the singular form of the Arabic word for wild pigeons, ''yamam''. History From the pre-Islamic period through the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sabaeans
Sheba, or Saba, was an ancient South Arabian kingdom that existed in Yemen from to . Its inhabitants were the Sabaeans, who, as a people, were indissociable from the kingdom itself for much of the 1st millennium BCE. Modern historians agree that the heartland of the Sabaean civilization was located in the region around Marib and Sirwah. In some periods, they expanded to much of modern Yemen and even parts of the Horn of Africa, particularly Eritrea and Ethiopia. The kingdom's native language was Sabaic, which was a variety of Old South Arabian. Stuart Munro-Hay, ''Aksum: An African Civilization of Late Antiquity'', 1991. Among South Arabians and Abyssinians, Sheba's name carried prestige, as it was widely considered to be the birthplace of South Arabian civilization as a whole. The first Sabaean kingdom lasted from the 8th century BCE to the 1st century BCE: this kingdom can be divided into the " mukarrib" period, where it reigned supreme over all of South Arabia; and the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
