Abraha (r. 533–after 558 CE)

A Christian, Ethiopian-born king of Ḥimyar who participated in the Aksumite invasion of South Arabia in 525 and subsequently seized the Himyarite throne, ruling independently from Aksum. After suppressing a revolt within South Arabia, he set about re-establishing the Himyarite Empire, which during his reign extended over most of the Arabian Peninsula.

The reign of Abraha is arguably the best documented of any Himyarite ruler. In addition to brief references to him in sixth-century Roman sources (Procop. HW 1.20.2–8) and the more detailed accounts of his reign preserved in medieval Arabic sources, events during his reign are documented in multiple Sabaic inscriptions. In these inscriptions, Abraha bears a version of the standard very long title borne by Himyarite kings beginning in the fifth century CE — that of “King of Sabaʾ and Dhū-Raydān and Ḥaḍramawt and Yamanāt and their Arabs of Ṭawdum and Tihāmat” (DAI GDN 2002-20/7–12; CIH 541/6–9; Ry 506/1–2; Murayghān 3/1–2; Ja 547+Ja 546+Ja 544+Ja 545/8–10). However, he parts ways with earlier Himyarite rulers in that he styles himself “the Ethiopian king” (mlkⁿ ʾgʿzyⁿ) (CIH 541/5). In addition to his primary name, a Gəʿəz finite verb meaning “he brought the light”, Abraha is called ʿzly (CIH 541/4–5), rmḥs³ (CIH 541/5; Ja 547+Ja 546+Ja 544+Ja 545/10), and zbymn/zybmn (CIH 541/6; Ry 506/1; Murayghān 3/1). Of these supplementary names, this last has evaded explanation, while ʿzly recalls Tigre ʿazāla “sit in the shade, give shade” and ʿūzūl “sitting in the shade” (Müller 1978: 166; idem 2010: 143). It may also be compared with ʿAzal, the name of a clan with which King Lālībalā (fl. late twelfth–early thirteenth century) of Ethiopia’s Zāg^wē Dynasty and the Amhara emperor ʿAmda Ṣəyōn (r. 1314–1344) claim affiliation (Bausi 2007: 1122). As for rmḥs³, this is likely related to the Arabic name Rumāḥis “brave; bold; lion” (Rodinson 1965: 127).

Little is known about the early life of Abraha. According to Procopius, he had been a slave of a Roman resident of Adulis who was involved with shipping (Procop. HW 1.20.4–5). More extensive accounts of Abraha’s rise to power, albeit post-dating his reign by several centuries and incorporating many legendary elements, are transmitted by the historian and exegete Muḥammad bin Jarīr al-Ṭabarī (d. 310 AH/923 CE). Both sources agree that Abraha had been a military commander in the Aksumite army that had invaded Ḥimyar in 525 and had seized power there, overthrowing Aksum’s Himyarite client-ruler Sumūyafaʿ Ashwaʿ, and winning over to his side those troops whom King Kālēb of Aksum had sent to depose him. Both sources also agree that Kālēb, having admitted defeat, left Abraha in power in Ḥimyar, with Procopius adding that Abraha paid tribute to Kālēb’s successor. In practice, Abraha remained for all intents and purposes autonomous. This autonomy found expression not only in Abraha’s politics but also in the manner in which he expressed his Christian faith, invoking Christ and the Holy Spirit using Syriac terms (ms¹ḥ < Syriac mšīḥā and rḥ qds¹ < Syriac rūḥā ḏ-qūddšā respectively) (CIH 541/2–3) in place of their Gəʿəz counterparts used in the kingdom of Aksum (kərəstōs and manfas qəddūs respectively).

As for Sabaic inscriptions, the first written record of Abraha first appears is DAI GDN 2002-20, dating from Dhū-Ḥillat^ān in 658 Ḥim./February 548, erected by the northern sluice of the Great Dam at Maʾrib. CIH 541, dating from the month of Dhū-Maʿūn/March of the same year, was erected at Naqīl al-Mudarraj between Jabal Balaq al-Qiblī and the northern sluice of the Great Dam at Maʾrib. Although both inscriptions were erected on the occasion of Abraha’s repair of the dam, CIH 541 includes a significant amount of information on political events in the decade or so after Abraha seized power. The first of these events was the suppression of a revolt in the Ḥaḍramawt region led by Yazīd bin Kabshat, whom Abraha had earlier appointed viceroy (ḫlft) over the tribal confederation of Kinda.

Not long had Abraha suppressed the revolt when, in Dhū-Madhraʾ^ān/July 547, a report reached him from the Sabaean community of Maʾrib, to the effect that portions of the Great Dam, including its main component, the earthen dyke known as ʿArim^ān, had suffered damage. In response, Abraha assembled a workforce of South Arabian and Ethiopian labourers to make the necessary repairs. As foundations for the southern sluice of the dam were being laid, however, an epidemic and pestilence (ḍll^m w-ʿws¹^m [CIH 541/72–73]) hit, forcing Abraha to temporarily halt work on the dam and dismiss the workmen. This outbreak could be linked to the so-called Justinianic Plague, which actually appears to have emerged in western China and spread westwards, where it lingered from 541 to 549 (Damgaard et al. 2018). Although this plague is described in hyperbolic terms in sixth-century literature, its actual impact seems in fact to have been relatively limited (Haldon et al. 2018). In the context of Abraha’s reign, the plague did not hinder the dispatch to Ḥimyar of diplomatic missions from abroad. In addition to missions from the rulers of Aksum, Rome, and Persia —Wāʿzēb, Justinian, and the Sāsānid emperor Khosro I respectively—Abraha received envoys from three Arab rulers: the Naṣrid al-Mundhir III and the two Jafnids al-Ḥārith bin Jabala and his brother Abūkarib. Later, after the plague had subsided, work resumed on the Great Dam in Dhū-Diʾāw^ān/January 548, coming to a conclusion with the facing of the repaired parts of the structure with masonry.

As a token of his piety, Abraha is recorded in CIH 541 as having celebrated Mass in the church of Maʾrib shortly after establishing an appointed time for beginning repair work on the Great Dam, perhaps to bless the undertaking. He similarly advertised his piety through the construction of a church in Ṣanʿāʾ, a town that may have served as his political headquarters. This structure is not mentioned in any of the known inscriptions from Abraha’s reign but is documented in medieval Arabic sources, Muḥammad bin ʿAbd Allāh al-Azraqī (d. ca. 865 CE) providing the most detailed description (al-Azraqī / ed. Wüstenfeld 1858: 88-90). According to these sources, Abraha sent to the Roman Empire for marble and mosaic stones, as well as craftsmen. The discovery of marble from Mediterranean regions at the site of Adulis in northern Eritrea, indicates that the peoples of the southern Red Sea region did indeed import stone from the Roman Empire during Late Antiquity (Peacock 2007: 114-115, 123). The authenticity of the Arabic reports is further substantiated by the name that they give to the church: al-Qalīs, derived from the Sabaic term for church, qls¹ < Greek ἐκκλησία. Recent research indicates that the church stood near the site of the present Great Mosque of Ṣanʿāʾ, a structure that incorporates pre-Islamic spolia, including a column capital still bearing a Cross, which may well derive from the church (Robin 2015).

Having reasserted his authority in South Arabia, repaired a major piece of infrastructure at Maʾrib, and normalized relations with the major powers of the day, Abraha then set about restoring Ḥimyar’s political influence in more northerly regions in the Arabian Peninsula. The key historical sources for these events are Ry 506 and Murayghān 3 from Biʾr Murayghān in southwestern Saudi Arabia. The earlier of these two inscriptions, Ry 506, is dated Dhū-ʾĀl^ān in 662 Ḥim./Dec. 552 and documents a military campaign against the Maʿadd people of Central Arabia. Evidently, this was not Abraha’s first engagement with this group, for Ry 506 indicates that this was the fourth such campaign that he undertook against Maʿadd. On this particular occasion, Maʿadd appears to have acted in concert with a group called the “the lineage of ʿAmr” (bny-ʿmr^m). Long identified with the Central and West Arabian tribe of Banū ʿĀmir bin Ṣaʿṣaʿ, this lineage now appears to have a branch of Kinda descended from ʿAmr, father of the Kindite ruler Ḥujr Ākil al-Murār whom the Himyarites had appointed to rule Maʿadd in the second quarter of the fifth century CE (Robin 2012). Abraha sent two armed divisions to fight against the Kindites in the wadi of Dhū-Marakh and at the watering place of Turābān. Once the enemy force was defeated, Abraha received the submission of the Maʿaddites at Ḥalibān and appointed as his new viceroy over Maʿadd another ʿAmr, the son of the Naṣrid king al-Mundhir III and Hind, daughter of the Kindite king al-Ḥārith al-Malik.

This new order was not to last for long, however, for in a few years’ time Abraha had to take up arms once more against Maʿadd. This campaign is documented in Murayghān 3, which bears no date but which appears to date from sometime around the mid-550s (Robin & Ṭayrān 2012). In the course of this campaign, Abraha removed al-Mundhir’s son ʿAmr from power and subdued not only Maʿadd but also the towns of Hagar (modern al-Hufūf) and Khaṭṭ (modern al-ʿUqayr) in East Arabia and Yathrib (modern Medina) in the Ḥijāz and the North Arabian tribes of Ṭayyiʾ and Judhām whose territories bordered the Sāsānid and Roman frontiers respectively. In so doing, Abraha brought most of the Arabian Peninsula under his control but for the Oman Peninsula, which remained under Sāsānid rule. How he managed to hold this vast region together is unclear, for Murayghān 3 gives no indication as to whom he appointed to govern the more northerly areas of the Himyarite Empire now that ʿAmr was no longer in power. Epigraphic research by a Franco-Saudi team at Biʾr Ḥimā, a water source located 100 km north-northeast of Najrān that served as the point of departure for all northward bound armies, as well as at Biʾr Murayghān, located in a northwesterly direction 160 km beyond that, have revealed a number of graffiti and rock drawings of cavalrymen that are likely associated with Abraha’s Arabian campaigns (Robin 2018). Idhbaḥ JFR01.29, a one-line inscription from the former site written in a hybrid form of the musnad and local Himaic scripts, reads ʾbrh zbymn mlk “Abraha ZBYMN (the) king” (Robin 2018: 1346–1350). Medieval Arabic sources, e.g. al-Ṭabarī 1881–1882: 937–945, claim that Abraha made a failed attempt to destroy the Kaʿba shrine at Mecca, an event that is allegedly alluded to in the Qurʾān in Sūrat al-Fīl “The Sura of the Elephant” (Qurʾān 105), believed to be so called after the elephant that Abraha’s army allegedly brought along for the purpose (Robin 2018). The historicity of this event is, however, open to question, and since Murayghān 3 indicates that Abraha annexed Yathrib, it is likely that he succeeded in annexing areas of the Ḥijāz to the south of Yathrib, including Mecca. Rock drawings of elephants at Biʾr Ḥimā (Robin 2018: 1363–1366) indicate links with Africa but do not prove the historicity of the attack on the Kaʿba. More credible are Arabic accounts of Abraha’s contact with chieftains from the far north of Arabia whom he placed in positions of authority. One such man was Zuhayr bin Janab, a nobleman (sayyid) of the powerful North Arabian tribe of Kalb, whom Abraha appointed to rule over Bakr and Taghlib, two tribes inhabiting the desert frontier of western Mesopotamia (Kister 1986: 45–47). Another was Muḥammad bin Khuzāʿī, whom Abraha crowned king and appointed to govern Muḍar (al-Ṭabarī 1881–1882: 934–935), a powerful Arab confederation based in the Ḥijāz whose territory encompassed the oases of Yathrib, Khaybar, al-ʿUlā, and Taymāʾ. It would be easy enough to dismiss such accounts, not least given their legendary elements. In light of Murayghān 3, however, there is nothing implausible about Abraha’s intervention in the tribal affairs of North Arabia.

Ultimately, Abraha’s Arabian empire proved short-lived. Yaksūm and Masrūq, two sons of Abraha who succeeded him on the throne, lacked their father’s ambitious qualities, nor have any inscriptions of either ruler come to light. The Ethiopian dynasty of Ḥimyar that Abraha founded was brought to an end sometime in the 570s by a Sāsānid invasion of Ḥimyar that was coordinated by one Sayf, a member of the Yazʾanid lineage that had participated in the rebellion against Abraha back in the 540s (al-Ṭabarī 1881–1882: 946–958). Sāsānid rule in South Arabia would continue until Bādhān, the last Persian viceroy, surrendered to Muḥammad and converted to Islam around 630.

George Hatke

References and suggested reading

Sources

• Procopius / ed. Dewing: 2006. History of the Wars, trans. H. B. Dewing. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
• al-Ṭabarī / ed. De Goeje: al-Ṭabarī, Muḥammad bin Jarīr, 1881–1882. Annales quos scripsit Abu Djafar Mohammed ibn Djarir at-Tabari, ed. M.J. de Goeje, vol. II. Leiden: Brill.
• al-Azraqī / ed. Wüstenfeld: 1858-59. Die Chroniken der Stadt Mekka: Teil I/II. I: el-Azraki’s Geschichte und Beschreibung der Stadt Mekka. Vol. II: Auszüge aus den Geschichtsbüchern der Stadt Mekka, ed. F. Wüstenfeld, Hildesheim, New York: Georg Olms.

Studies

• Bausi, A. 2007. Name(s). 1. Pre-Aksumite and Aksumite names, in S. Uhlig (ed.) Encyclopaedia Aethiopica. Vol. 3: 1119–1122. Wiesbaden: Harrossowitz Verlag.
• Damgaard, P. de B., N. Marchi, S. Rasmussen et al. 2018. 137 ancient human genomes from across the Eurasian steppes. Nature 557: 369–374. DOI: 10.1038/s41586-018-0094-2.
• Haldon, J., J. Elton, S.R. Huebner, A. Izdebski, L. Mordechai & T.P. Newfield 2018. Plagues, climate change, and the end of an empire: A response to Kyle Harper’s The Fate of Rome (3): Disease, agency, and collapse. History Compass 16(12). DOI:10.1111/hic3.12507.
• Kister, M.J. 1986. Mecca and the Tribes of Arabia: Some Notes on Their Relations, in M. Sharon (ed.) Studies in Islamic history and civilization in honour of Professor David Ayalon: 33–57. Jerusalem, Leiden: Cana, E.J. Brill.
• Müller, W.W. 1978. Abessinier und ihre Namen und Titel in vorislamischen südarabischen Texten. NESE 3: 159–168.
• Müller, W.W. 2010. Sabäische Inschriften nach Ären datiert: Bibliographie, Texte und Glossar (Veröffentlichungen Der Orientalischen Kommission, Band 53). Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag.
• Peacock, D. 2007. Stone artefacts from the survey, in Peacock, D. and L. Blue (eds) The Ancient Red Sea Port of Adulis, Eritrea: Results of the Eritro-British Expedition, 2004–5: 109–124. Oxford: Oxbow Books.
• Robin, C.J. 2012. Les rois de Kinda, in A. al-Helabi, D.G. Letsios, M. al-Moraekhi & A. al-Abduljabbar (eds) Arabia, Greece and Byzantium. Cultural Contacts in Ancient and Medieval Times: 59–129. Riyadh: King Saud University.
• Robin, C.J. 2015. La Grande Église d’Abraha à Ṣanʿāʾ : Quelques remarques sur son emplacement, ses dimensions et sa date, in V. Christides (ed.) Interrelations between the Peoples of the Near East and Byzantium in Pre-Islamic Times (Semitica Antiqva, 3): 105–129. Córdoba: Oriens Academic.
• Robin, C.J. 2018. Les expéditions militaires du roi Abraha dans l’Arabie désertiques dans les années 548–568 de l’ère chrétienne. CRAI 2018(3): 1313–1376. DOI: 10.3406/crai.2018.96589.
• Robin, C. J. & S. Ṭayrān 2012. Soixante-dix ans avant l’Islam: L’Arabie toute entière dominée par un roi chrétien. CRAI 2012(1): 525–553. DOI: 10.3406/crai.2012.93448.
• Rodinson, M. 1965. Éthiopien et sudarabique. Annuaire de l’École Pratique des Hautes Études. Section 4: Sciences historiques et philologiques 1965: 125–141.

_{Alternate spellings: ʾbrh, 'brh, Zbymn, ʿzly, 'zly, Abramos, al-Ashram, Abū Yaksūm, Abû Yaksûm, Abu Yaksum}