Raḥmanān

Name of the one God venerated in South Arabia during the so-called “monotheistic period”. The name Rḥmnn occurs in South Arabian (Ḥimyarite) inscriptions in the 5th and 6th centuries CE. It designated the one God in Jewish, Judaizing or vaguely monotheistic, and Christian texts.

Origin, signification

The name Raḥmānān (Rḥmnn) stems from the root RḤM, known in several Semitic languages. In Sabaic, this root is attested with the meaning “being merciful” in the 5th and 6th centuries CE, at the same time as the divine name. Raḥmānān no doubt comes from the name Raḥmān: “merciful; the Merciful, God” known in post-Biblical Hebrew and Jewish Aramaic of the Byzantine period. Likewise, all the other words derived from the root RḤM are loanwords from Jewish Aramaic. In South Arabia, the name Raḥmānān (provided with a definite article -ān) became the main name of God, which was not the case in Palestine. It was invoked first in vaguely monotheistic, Jewish and Judaizing inscriptions. After the invasion of South Arabia by the Ethiopian army, around 529–530, it was used in Christian (mostly royal) inscriptions, in the Trinitarian formula.

The name of the unique South Arabian God, Raḥmānān does not seem to relate to raḥmanā (rḥmnʾ), the epithet of the god Baʿalšamīn, one of the two supreme gods of Palmyra, for chronological reasons. The worship of Baʿalšamīn disappears with the advent of Christianity in Palmyra at the beginning of the 4th century, while the name of Raḥmānān is not attested in South Arabian inscriptions before the 5th century.

Variations on the name of the one god

Another name of the same one God in South Arabia was Ilān with its variants Ilahān and Il (ʾln, ʾlhn, ʾl) which means “the God” and derives from the root ʾLH common to Semitic languages (see Il). It seems that both names, Raḥmanān and Ilān, were equivalent and interchangeable. The name Ilān is attested earlier in the inscriptions, starting from the first half of the 4th century CE, in parallel with more vague appellations of the one God as “Lord of Heaven” (mrʾ s¹myn or bʿl s¹myn). In the region of Najrān, the Christian Arabs of the pre-Islamic period invoked al-Ilāh or Allāh, “the God”, as did the Christians of Aramaic, Syriac traditions.

Chronology

Belief in one God is attested in South Arabia since the first half of the 4th century CE at the latest. At that time, some Jews and Christians lived in South Arabia (see Judaism [South Arabia]; Christianity [South Arabia]). The Ḥimyarite kings adopted Judaizing monotheism in the second half of the 4th century. The temples of ancient gods were then abandoned and from that time on, all inscriptions with very few exceptions addressed the one God. In the first monotheistic South Arabian inscriptions, the unique God is called “Master of Heaven” (bʿl s¹myn or mrʾ s¹myn) or “Lord of Heaven and Earth” (mrʾ s¹myn w-ʾrḍn). He is then invoked under the name of Ilān (with the variants Ilahān and Il). The name Raḥmanān is attested in South Arabian inscriptions from the mid-5th century onwards. Ever since, the God is invoked most often by the name Raḥmānān but the name Ilān (Ilahān) continues to be used. The single God called Ilān or Raḥmānān is often qualified as “Master of Heaven” (bʿl s¹myn or mrʾ s¹myn), or “Master of Heaven and Earth” (bʿl s¹myn w-ʾrḍn or mrʾ s¹myn w-ʾrḍn).

Several inscriptions are certainly Jewish, their authors mention Israel and use specific Jewish religious formulas, whereas the majority simply invoke the God. No royal inscription is clearly Jewish, but we know that king Yūsuf Asʾar Yathʾar, who attempted a coup around 522, was Jew, as the inscriptions of his army chief and external sources reported. During the Ethiopian domination (see Aksum), around 530–570, Christian inscriptions invoke God by the same name: mostly Raḥmanān or Ilān.

The name of Raḥmānān is accompanied once by a qualifier derived from the same root, Rḥmnn mtrḥmn, “Raḥmanān, Most Merciful” (inscription Fa 74/3). This formula is comparable to the name and qualificative of God in Islam, al-Raḥmān raḥīm.

At the beginning of the Islamic period, the name al-Raḥmān (the Arabic equivalent of Raḥmanān) was also used by the “false prophet”, Musaylima.

Iwona Gajda

References and suggested reading

• Gajda, I. 2009. Le royaume de Ḥimyar à l’époque monothéiste. L’histoire de l’Arabie du Sud ancienne de la fin du IV^e siècle de l’ère chrétienne jusqu’à l'avènement de l’islam. Paris: Mémoires de l’AIBL.
• Gajda, I. 2010. Quel monothéisme en Arabie du Sud ancienne ?, in J. Beaucamp, F. Briquel-Chatonnet & Ch.J. Robin (eds) Juifs et chrétiens en Arabie aux V^e et VI^e siècles. Regards croisés sur les sources: 107–120. Paris: Centre de recherche d’histoire et civilisation de Byzance.
• Lundin, A.G. 1999. The Jewish Communities in Yemen during the 4th–6th Centuries according to epigraphic material, in E. Isaac & Y. Tobi (eds) Judaeo-Yemenite Studies, Proceedings of the Second International Congress: 17–25. Princeton, Haifa.
• Robin, Ch.J. 2003. Le judaïsme de Ḥimyar. Arabia 1: 113–115.
• Robin, Ch.J. 2015. Quel judaïsme en Arabie ?, in Ch.J. Robin (ed.) Le judaïsme de l’Arabie antique (Judaïsme ancien et origines du christianisme, 3): 15–295. Turnhout: Brepols.
• Robin, Ch.J. 2020. al-ʾIlāh et Allāh : le nom de Dieu chez les Arabes chrétiens de Najrān au 6^e siècle de l’ère chrétienne, Hawliyāt (Faculté des Lettres et des Sciences, Université de Balamand) 19, Special issue: 57–109.

_{Alternative spellings: Raḥmānān; Rḥmnn; Ilān ; Ilân; Ilan; Ilahān ; Ilahân; Ilahan; Il; ʾln; ʾlhn; ʾl; Master of Heaven}