The
Arab Jewish tribes are the
Arab tribes professing the
Jewish
faith that inhabited the
Arabian
Peninsula before and during the advent of
Islam. It is not always clear whether they were
originally Israelite in ancestry, genealogically Arab tribes that
converted to Judaism, or a mixture of both. Jewish tradition
records the existence of nomadic tribes such as the
Rechabites that converted to Judaism in
antiquity.
Tribes
Some of the Arab Jewish tribes historically attested include:
History of immigration
Contemporary researchers have pieced together a mosaic of Judaized
Arabian Tribes but we have little evidence of them being Sadduccee,
Boethusian, Nazirite or otherwise. Judaism found its place in the
Arabian Peninsula by immigration of Jews into it. This immigration
took place mainly during five periods –
- *after the Babylonian occupation of Palestine in 587 BCE,
- *after
the Roman conquest of Judea and the destruction of Jerusalem
by Titus in 70 CE, exiles
(Sadducees, Essenes, Zadokites, Boethusians) found a home in the
desert,
- *survivors of the Bar Kochba
Revolt, in 135 CE, who sought religious freedom in the Arabian
desert rather than live under the yoke of the Romans,
- *immigration, around 300 CE, by people who are known in Islamic
literature as the Banu Aus and the Banu Khazraj who fled the
Ghassanids in Syria.
- *migration from Judea into southern Arabian Peninsula to ride
the ascent of the Himyarite
Kingdom around 380 CE.
Arabized Jews
The Sanaite Jews have a legend that their ancestors settled in
Yemen forty-two years before the destruction of the First Temple.
According to the Prophet Jeremiah some 75,000 Jews, including
priests and Levites, traveled to Yemen. The
Banu Habban in southern Yemen have a legend
that they are the descendants of Judeans who settled in the area
before the destruction of the Second Temple. These Judeans
supposedly belonged to a brigade dispatched by King Herod to assist
the Roman legions fighting in the region. Contemporary scholars
suggest thet the Sadduccees, Boethusians, Nazirites and Essenes
spread throughout the Arabian Peninsula, and western Persia, with
their co-religionists, the Pharisees, who did not stay in
Yavne.
The
Sadducee Himyarite royal family in exile commanded vast
wealth and resources, particularly the
Nabatean bedouin with whom they had controlled the
market of trade by Land from North-East Africa for centuries.
By the
close of the fifth century, the Banu Aus
and Banu Khazraj had became masters of
Yathrib
. During these events, or possibly in
coordination with them, Yathrib was host to a noble visitor. In 470
CE, Persian King Firuz was attempting to wipe out the Exilarchate.
The
Exilarch Huna V, who was the son of
Mar-Zutra bar Mar-Zutra, whisked his
daughter and some of his entourage to Yathrib (Medina) for
safety.
Judaized Arabs
In abt 400 CE,
Himyarite King
tubba
Abu Karib As'ad Kamil (385-420 CE), a convert to Sadduceean
Judaism, led military expeditions into central Arabia and expanded
his empire to encompass most of the Arabian Peninsula. His army had
marched north to battle the
Aksumites who had been fighting for control
of Yemen for a hundred years. The
Aksumites were only expelled from the region
when the newly-Jewish king rallied Jews together from all over
Arabia,
with pagan allies.
The relationship between the Sadducee Himyarite Kings
and the polytheistic Arab tribes strengthened when, under the royal
permission of Tubba' Abu Karib As'ad, Qusai ibn Kilab (400–480 CE) reconstructed
the Ka'aba
from a state
of decay, and had the Arab al-Kahinan (Cohanim) build their houses around it.
Qusai ibn Kilab was the great-great-
grandfather of
Shaiba ibn Hashim
(Abdul-Mutallib, who had a Jewish wife).
Shaiba ibn Hashim was fifth in the line of
descent to Muhammad, and attained supreme power at Mecca.
Qusai ibn Kilab is among the ancestors of
Sahaba and the progenitor of the
Banu Quraish. When Qusai came of age, a man
from the tribe of
Banu Khuza'a named
Hulail (Hillel) was the trustee of the Kaaba, and the Na'sa (Nasi)
- authorized to calculate the calendar.
Qusai married his
daughter and, according to Hulail's will, obtained Hulail's rights
to the Ka'aba.
Hulail, according to arabian tradition was a member of the
Banu Jurhum. Banu Jurhum was a sub-group of the Banu
Qahtani from whom the
Himyarites originally descend.
Around 455 CE, the last Himyarite King is born - the last of the
Hasmoneans. He was refered to as
a
Sadducean King with Sidelocks,
Zur'ah Yusuf Ibn Tuban As'ad Abu Kaleb Dhu Nuwas Dhu Nuwas - he died in 510. His zeal for Judaism,
albeit in a Sadducee flavor, brought about his fall. Having heard
of the persecutions of Jews by Byzantine emperors,
Dhu Nuwas retaliated by putting to death some
Byzantine merchants who were traveling on business through Himyara.
He didn't simply kill them with hanging - he burned them in large
pits - earning him the title "King of the burning pit".
These killings destroyed the trade of Yemen with Europe and
involved Dhu Nuwas in a war with the heathen King Aidug, whose
commercial interests were injured by these killings. Dhu Nuwas was
defeated. Dhu Nuwas then made war against the Christian city
Najran, in Yemen, which was a dependency of his kingdom; and on its
surrender, he offered the citizens the alternative of embracing
Judaism, under coersion, or being put to death. As they refused to
renounce their faith, he executed their chief, Harith ibn Kaleb,
and three hundred and forty chosen men. Many scholars suspect that
the Hamyarite Kings, in their display of violent recruitment, lend
the greatest weight to any explanation of "why contemporary Jews
do not proselytize" - in fact Contemporary Judaism
actively discourages conversion and converts even after conversions
have occurred.
The rise of Islam
Four-hundred ninety years (70x7) years had passed from the
destruction of
Bar Kochba's armies
until the year 622 CE. Bar Kochba was a failed Messiah and now,
according to Prophet
Daniel, "would come the
true warrior Messiah". "A warrior with 'the helmet of deliverance
on His head' and clad in armor". "He will don garments of vengeance
(as his) clothing and will put on a cloak of zealousness". "He will
fight the battle of
Gog ha-Magog and
against the army of Armilos (
Heraclius)".
Most of the Jewish tribes of Arabia were on alert for a new Messiah
- anxious to usher his arrival.
In 622 CE,
Prophet Mohammed leveraged
Jewish-Arab despondency at successive military defeats, abandonment
by Persian Jews, loss of Jerusalem (again), the Murder of
the Exilarch Nehemiah ben Hushiel , and the renewed opposition of
the Banu Quraish, set out for Taif
.
Prophet Mohammed was working hard to turn the hearts of the
Jewish-Arabian and Pagan tribes from their esoteric Jewish
Prophesies amd Pagan fallacies respectively - he succeceded in
stimulating the Messianic fervor of Jews and coercing the Pagan
tribes. Against this back-drop, Prophet Mohammed capitalized upon a
confluence of events that rendered the Jewish Arab Tribes hopeful
for redemption at the hands of a Messiah.
When
Prophet Mohammed arrived in Taif, and called
upon the Jewish tribes to hear his teachings, he was
rejected. After being rejected he received a vision of
Jewish
Jinn, perhaps referring to the souls of
the slaughtered Jewish troops, who, in his vision, eagerly accepted
his message. In the Qur'an it is recorded that the native Jewish
Priests rejected his claim to being a prophet - Prophet Mohammed,
in turn, denounced them for deserting him.
In late
622 CE, Shallum ben Hushiel (a/k/a "Salman al-Farsi", "Shallum
the Persian", "Salman the Good", "Abu Bakr al-Chaliva al-Saddiq",
Hanamel the 37th Exilarch") son of the Exilarch Hushiel, went to visit Prophet Mohammed in Medina, and offered
his submission (desiring conversion to Islam). With the
submission of an
Exilarch Prophet Mohammed
found resistance to submission, by Judaized Arab tribes, begin to
wane.
Some of these tribes, or some of their members, were conquered and
converted to Islam, some lived as
crypto-Jews, while others remained Jews living
among Muslims though protected by the
Constitution of Medina.
See also
References
- Norman A. Stillman, The Jews of Arab
lands: a history and source book, p. 117
- Dr. Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri, Constitutional Analysis of the Constitution of
Madina (excerpt)
- Moshe Gil, A history of Palestine, 634-1099, p.
19
- Muhammad Farooq-i-Azam Malik (translator), Al-Qur'an, the
Guidance for Mankind - English with Arabic Text (Hardcover)
ISBN 0911119809
- Ibn Kathir, Trevor Le Gassick, The Life of the Prophet
Muhammad: Al-Sira Al-Nabawiyya, p. 227
- Joseph Adler (May/June 2000), The Jewish Kingdom of Himyar
(Yemen): Its Rise and Fall, Midstream, Volume XXXXVI No.
4
- Shalom Seri and Naftali Ben-David (1991), A Journey to
Yemen and Its Jews. Eeleh BeTamar publishing; p.43
- Ken Blady (2000), Jewish Communities in Exotic Places,
Jason Aronson Inc., p.32
- Ibn Hisham, I, pp. 26-27
- A Traditional Mu'tazilite Qur'an Commentary: The Kashshaf
of Jar Allah Al-zamakhshari (D538/1144) (Texts and Studies on
the Qur'an)
- Joseph E. Katz (2001), The Islamic Crescent was originally a Jewish Symbol,
EretzYisroel.org
- Richard Gottheil and Isaac Broydé, Dhu Nuwas, Zur'ah Yusuf ibn Tuban As'ad abi
Karib, Jewish Encyclopedia
- Daniel
- Joseph Schwartz, Descriptive Geography and Brief Historical
Sketch of Palestine
- Ben Abrahamson and Joseph Katz (2004), The Persian conquest of Jerusalem in 614CE compared
with Islamic conquest of 638CE, EretzYisroel.org
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