When Arabia was Eastern Ethiopia (Part 4) – by – Dana Marniche

The Afro-Arabian Origins of the Ad, Amalek and Aram, Uz, Saba and Himyar: Ethnohistory of the Mahra/Shahara/Somali populations

“Paradise and Hell were shown to me…Hell was shown to me, and was brought so close that I stepped back for fear that it would touch me. I saw a Humayr woman who was tall and black, being punished on account of a cat that she owned: she had tied it up, not giving it anything to eat or drink, or allowing it to eat of the vermin of the earth…” Account of a woman of the tribe of Himyar or Humayr. Sahee Al Jami 2/298, 2394 a Hadith, al-Jannah wa an-Naar. In The Light of the Qur’aan and Sunnah. Compiled by Al Bukhari 9th century from Bukhara Uzbekistan.

Cheikh Anta Diop had commented that the Joktanides (Qahtan) came down from the North conquering original tribes of Adites basing his belief on modern interpretations of Biblical and Arabian history. Arabian tradition however affirms that the tribes of Ham, Shem and Japhet were actually closely related tribes of African affiliation and origination who were originally settled in southwestern and extending to the region Mecca and Medina.

The modern Mahra extend from Hadramaut to Oman and are found in Somalia. They had clans named Samudayt (Thamud or Samud) and Mashek (Mashek is also called Mash in the Bible) and Riyam or Rigam anciently known from their king Rekem or Arkam, Mahli (Mahli the Korahite?) and Idi. The 13th century traveler Ibn Mudjawir speaks of the Mahra (also called Maheyra, Mahri) living in those days in Oman as “tall and handsome” which can also be said of the Mahra of Somalia.

The 1986 new edition of Encyclopedia of Islam says they were “of brown complexion with black, often curly hair” . The Rigam or Riyam clan of Mahra is suggested to have come from the peoples known as the Rhagmanitae or Raymanitae of Pliny 1st century and other Greek writers who are mentioned as living in Yemen and the Persian Gulf.. (the Rhagmat or Ra’amah of Biblical tradition). See p. 226 of Charles Forster’s the Historical Geography of Arabia, 1844. According to tradition the leader Rekem or Rigam (also written in literature Arqam, Rukayim, or Rukaym) was the son of Aram or otherwise, son of Abir (Heber), Aram’s brother and a son of Ad who led the Mahra south to the Hadramaut and Oman. Sir Richard Burton recounted the tradition that, “the last king of the Amalek, Arkam bin Arkam was slain by an army of the children of Israel sent by Moses to purge Madinah and Mecca of their infidel inhabitants. “

Also, Ibn Mudjawir asserted that the Mahra were the remnant of Ad whom “when God destroyed the greater part of them” went to live in the mountains of Zufar and Sokotra and al Masirah in the Yemen and Oman, a tradition elaborated on by Ibn Khaldun and others. Modern Mahra claim descent from Kuda’a son of Himyar, son of Saba of Yemen. See the Encylopaedia of Islam (Der Islam im Spiegel zeitgenössischer Literatur der islamischen Welt) p. 82 claimed Ibn Ishaq gave the genealogy of Quda’a bin Malik bin Himyar bin Saba bin Yashjub bin Ya’rub (Arab) bin Qahtan(Joktan). (Retso 19 ) The Himyarites and Sabaeans were considered “Adites”.

The Samudayt clan of the Mahra, from which came the Tsamud or Thamud, according to tradition were the 2nd Ad or remnant of the Adites whose power once extended from Sana’a in Yemen to Syria and Egypt, he is variously called the son of Abir (Eber) or Jathiar (otherwise known as Jetur, Jazar or Gezer) or . His land was called Adan or Aden. The Thamud were said to have fought against the Israelite leader Joshua son of Nun near Mecca. These Adites holding the area of Mecca and Medina were also known as Amalik or the Amalekites of Rephidim. It was they who according to both Arabian and Biblical stories met the “Yisra’el” or followers of Moses at a place called Meriba (Exodus 17:7) which was the Sabaean capital of Marib in Yemen).

According to Muslim commentators this king of the Amalekites, dwelt in the lower part of Mekka… El-Harith, son of the Himyarite ruler Modad (Almod’ad), king of the Djurham or Darim tribe (Hadoram son of Shem of Genesis) disputed his control of the sanctuary there. The Hadoram (Adramitae or Dreematae) are mentioned in Greek texts as “Sabaeans”.

Masudi in the 10th century wrote of this king saying, “The king of Syria, es-Someida, son of Hubar, (who is Tsamud or Thamud son of Abir son of Malik marched against Joshua, son of Nun, and after many fights, was killed by the last one, who conquered his kingdom… The circumstances of this are mentioned in the following verses by Awf, son of Saad, the Djorhamite: Haven’t you seen at Elath (Elah) the skin of the Amalekite (Someida), son of Hubar (Abir or Abar), put into shreds when he was attacked by an army of eighty thousand Jews, protected or not by shields? These Amalekite cohorts, who trained meticulously jumped behind him. One hasn’t met them ever since among the mountains of Mekka, and nobody has seen again es-Someida.” See Les Prairies d’Or translation The Prairies of Gold, Chapter 39, Paris 1861.

In Assyrian texts they are the historical Tamudi (circa 8th c B.C. )and in Roman times they are the Saracens called Thamudenioi Equites (equestrian Thamud) who occupied Dumah (modern Duma’at al Jandal in Jordan where they had also came to be called Idumaeans ( Dumah, child of Ishmael). Thamud’s original home however was far to the south as with the rest of the Ismaelites or North Arabian bedouin. These “second Adites” according to some were also those that were ruled by Lokman, son of Ad and who also left Saba at one of the burstings of the Marib dam of Iram or Aram (modern Yarim).

When this dam burst not only did they disperse in Arabia, but they went into Africa. Josephus claimed the people along the Nile as at Meroe were Sabaeans, descendants of Keturah through Jokshan. Jokshan’s descendants include Judadas, Ashurim, and Leummim, He mentions the Yudadas, (Dedan) in Western Ethiopia and the Ashurim (or Surim )of “Libya” (known to the Romans as Asuriani, Astacures, Astrikes and Saturiani a branch of the camel owning Levathes Maures or Tuareg) as the tribe who had harassed, conquered and named Assyria under the leadership of Nimrod were also in Africa. (Asshuran or Chronus as he was called in Greece was a name for the venerated deity also called Saturn. )

Exodus: Movement of Jah Peoples (The Tribes of Aram move from Saba)

For those who find it difficult to imagine how so many of the Biblical peoples ended up in Africa under their ancient names it would be good to look at Kamal Salibi’s The Bible Came from Arabia first published in the 1970s. Salibi was actually able to locate hundreds of names of the towns of ancient Canaan, Israel and Judah cited in the Bible in Arabia explaining why only a handful of Biblical place names have been found in the modern region of Israel-Palestine and why many modern Biblical archeologists have even begun to suspect that King Solomon and David themselves never even existed in the modern Israel.

The book seems to provide more than abundant evidence that the home of the original Jerusalem and followers Moses, the Canaanites and Phoenicians and Judaeans was much further south in Arabia then the early Greek interpreters of Hebraic tradition implied they originated. Even such names as Kush, Kuth and Misra have been by Salibi and others discovered to correlate with the names of ancient tribes and towns in southern and northern Arabia as much as with Africa and Syria, as will be shown. At the time of the flooding of the South Arabian dam of Marib (Meriba of the Bible Exodus 17:7) many of the people dispersed to the north and into Africa. Among them were the followers of a man named Muzaikiyya also called Amr or Amru bin Amir, who was the Biblical Moses. The descendants of these people were the Khazras and Aus or Awza (Biblical Gezer and Uz, children of Aram) who settled in Hejaz in the area of a brook or stream called Kushan or Kishon not long after the time of their leader Amru bin Amir. Their descendants were called the Kushan or Kassan or Kusim in Syrian dialects. They were the Biblical Jokshan who was said to be brother of Midian, whom in Habbakuk are called Kushan.

According to David Goldenberg in, The Curse of Ham, “the prophet Habbakuk parallels Kushan with Midian: The Tents of Kushan…the dwellings of Midian and because scholars have concluded there is some connection between Kushan and Midian: The Kushan are historically known in the works of Ptolemy . The same tribe named by Agatharchides as Cassandreis and by Diodorus the Gasandi. They were located southeast of Mecca and are also called Ghassan. (See Part II for the Midianites or Ishmaelites to come)

The modern Somali (Sama’al), Afar, Danakil and other Cushitic speakers are examples of the peoples known to historians as Ad or A’ad, Amalek, Qahtan, Saba and Himyar kingdoms. Names of their clans Rahawein, Mahra, Darood, Yahar and Hubir give credence to the documents that state the Sabaeans migrated to Africa, many of these Baribari also ended up in North Africa. The comments of early Roman and Greek writers such as Josephus and Strabo become more understandable. They claimed the Ethiopians of Meroe were actually Arabians or Sabaeans and that everything east of the Nile was in fact “Arabia”.

These are the names and people of the ancient tribes of the Sabaeans children of Joktan. According to the book The Yemen in Early Islam, published in 1988 the clans Rahawein (Ru’ayn, Rahawiyyin, Rahawi in early Arabia – Reu) belonged to the Madhhij or Madhhaj. Others clans of the Maddhij were the Murad or Amurath also called Qaran, Rualla or Ruwalla bin Anaeza , Ans or Anaeza bin Wa’il, Nakh’l or An-Nakha, Badi’ah, Ghutayf bin Haritha related to the Ghatafan, Nashirah, Sa’ad al Ashirah, Za’afar, Zubayd or Zabeida, al Amluk or Amalek was a clan of the Rahawiyin, as was the tribe of Qataban (Banu Kita’a), and Yafi’ (Ephah).

Almost all of these clans are listed in the Genesis of the Bible. They are Reu, Amorites, Reuel son of Esau, Esau, Hawila, Anoch, Hatepha, Ashira, Zabid, Amalek and Qahit or Kohath and Ephah . It is not improbable, that Madhhij who are listed with the Ma’adei who are mentioned in Syrian inscriptions of the 3rd century B.C. at Nemara are in fact the Madianites especially since the plural of Maadi was Madan who was called brother of Madian.

The Madhhij or Madhaj were large branch of the Hamdan who in the time of Mohammed were often mentioned in the southern Arabian area. They are also called the Malik bin Udad who descended from Yashjub who descended from Kahlan son of Saba.

Hamdan or Hamran as various versions have it was the son of Dishon brother of Dishan (Banu Jayshan) in Genesis. They are mentioned as descendants of Zibeon, the Hivite or Hivim who are called Canaanites in the Bible.

Hamdan is in fact brother of Cheran (Qaran) and Eshban (Ishban) whom later Muslim manuscripts said were the black descendants of Canaan. According to David Goldenberg, Wah ibn Munabbih in the 7th century, an Iranian descendant born in Arabia (as were many inhabitants of the Yemen of that time) said the Qaran along with the Barbar (Berber early name for Somali and their descendants in the Maghreb), Copts, and Zaghawa (Zaghwe of Abyssinia) were descendants of Cush and Canaan while the Ishban in the book Akhbar al Zaman whose author was thought to be Masudi, 300 years later says Ishban (Banu Sha’ ban of Yemen)was a descendant of Kanaan. Thus Qaran and Ishban along with the 70 tribes that multiplied in the Maghrib (the Berber) are descendants of Canaan. Qaran are also called Murad (Amurath) in various writings. It has been suggested that the name of the Hawiye clan of Somalia is related to the name of the Hivites. Canaan and its cities were evidently located in southwest Arabia before its peoples spread north and colonized Syria.

The Banu Zubyan, (called Dhubyan or Dhubaniyya in Sudan) are a well-known tribe whose descendants live in modern Sudan and Arabia. It is clear that the descendants of Esau, Himyar, Saba, Ad, Amluk, Cush and Canaan are represented by the copper black and dark reddish brown inhabitants of Somalia, northern Sudan, Djibouti, Ethiopia and Eritrea. However, as we shall see in other segments the sons of Shem and Japhet in total are in fact well represented by the inhabitants of the horn of Africa and by Afro-Arabians still in the Arabian peninsula in their lands and places and under their age-old names.

To Be Continued…