Very sorry friends, I am just seeing many comments on here due to mostly spending on my facebook page African Ark which has been around now for approximately 3 years. Had no idea people were still coming. I’ve also been spending time on my new book, The African and Arabian Origins of the Hebrew Bible: An Ethnohistorical Study, published as a dissertation this summer - 365 pages of pure afroasiatic academically-verified history.
With foreword by Fulbright Scholar and Professor Brannon Wheeler - former Associate Professor of Islamic Studies and Comparative Religion at the University of Washington and current Director of the Center for Middle East and Islamic Studies at the US Naval Academy, Maryland.
Congratulations are due all of us for the wait!: )
(BTW - I have nothing to do with the pricing of the book. lol!)
The African and Arabian Origin of the Hebrew Bible
“...to return to Joktan or Kahtan as the Arabs call him. He was a native of Hadramaut valley but settled in Yemen and introduced architecture and agriculture among the pastoral and ten dwelling tribes. His son Yarab (Jerah of Genesis) was the progenitor of Yamen Arabic and first separated the Yamen tongue from ancient Hebrew. He it was who founded the Sabaean Kingdom in Yamen on the ruins of the old Minaean dynasty which had dwindled to a mere tribal confederation in the southern Jauf and was known then and since as Maan – the Arab title for the dynasty itself." From the book, Arabia Infelix, or The Turks in Yamen, by Georg Wyman Bury, 1915. pp. 2-3.
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| Man of the Hadramaut part of the Yemen |
"...people on both sides of the Red Sea may have had a common ancestry, and their cultural expressions emerge from that common background." Edward Keall (2008).Contact Across the Red Sea (between Arabia and Africa) in the 2nd Millennium BC: Circumstantial Evidence from the Archaeological site of al-Midamman, Tihama coast of Yemen, and Dahlak Kabir Island, Eritrea
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| Dancers of al-Mukalla, Hadramaut |
The Biological Roots of the “folk of Noah”
One historian once remarked that the American, John Baldwin, Christian minister, politician, and coporate member of the American Oriental Society, drew “a marked distinction between the modern Mahomedan semites and their great Cushitic, Hamite or Ethiopian predecessors. The former, he says are comparatively modern in Arabia, they have 'appropriated the reputation of the old race' and have unduly occupied the attention of modern scholars'”, which was probably an understatement. Before that he stated "It is probable that the Arabians and their representatives in Spain and North Africa, went Northward and began the age of Bronze more than 2,000 years ago before Gades (Cadiz) was built" (Hardwick, Charles, 1872, p. 11).
Actually, Mr. Baldwin was way ahead of his time in his realizing and acknowledging that the original Arabians across the peninsula had east African connections. However, he was way off base in assuming that Semites and Cushites were of two different “racial” origins. Like many members of the clergy and Orientalists of his time he had been stuck in the idea that the children of Noah or people of Genesis were represented by three different peoples, one of which was black, or even pre-Adamite.
Chiekh Anta Diop was another very adept researcher who had been aware that Arabia had been a “black” colony where people practiced customs similar to Africa. Unfortunately, and perhaps based on the works of Lenormant, he like certain anthropologists had come to imagine that a “white” or non-black “Semitic” people called "Joktanides" or Qahtan population had come from somewhere north of the Yemen settling in the south among the Cushitic or Hamitic indigenes and adopting their civilization.
But, in reality nothing could be further from the truth and what has been appropriated is the name and culture of the Semitic-speaking peoples who called themselves and were called not only the sons of Ham or “Hamran”, but of Shem or “Shimran” and Japhet.
As it turns out most manuscripts of medieval Middle Eastern and Central Asian observers suggest that all of the indigenous population of Arabia from North to South extending into the Syrian desert was predominately Sudanic in phenotype until as late as several hundred years ago. In the time of the Islamic prophet, although Arabia had already been greatly influenced by the Persians, the Arabs were still black or "sumra" and possessed essentially Afro-Asiatic customs as well. See the blogpost AfroArabia 101 for references
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Rock art from the capitol of the Kindah kingdom of Central Arabia founded by the tribe of Thawr descendants of Kalb (Caleb), and said to be a sub-tribe of Hamdan, beginning 4th century B.C. ending 4th century A.D. (photo by Wayne Eastep). The Hamdan are a tribe of Sabaeans of the Yemen found in inscriptions. The guy on the horse with the afro may be smiling, but if so he probably didn't know people in control of presenting history were going to try to write him and other original Arabians out of it. ; ) |
Most bedouin and farming peoples of the Middle East including Arabia today are very much culturally and phenotypically unlike the original Afro-Asiatic bedouin that once dominated the deserts of the Near East, especially in the Yemen, Central Arabia, the harra, Hijaz and southern Syria.
Aside from looking phenotypically like the populations from Nubia or Sudan, we know the latter wore tunics tied at the waists, “loin cloths”, cowry shells, and scarred their faces. Their kinky hair was worn in dread locks or plaits with camel or other grease in their hair, and furthermore many of their societies were ruled by Queens or female leaders as much or more than male ones.
Arabian medieval folk tradition concerns the aboriginal Afro-Asiatic inhabitants of Asia before they intermixed with non-Semitic populations to the north of them. Histories of Middle Eastern peoples speak of the movement of various Semitic i.e. indigenous black or Afro-Arabian peoples ancestral to the Sabaeans and Himyar/Humayr from the Yaman northward to Canaan, Hijaz, the harra and Syro-Mesopotamia and even Persia. We discovered that it was these Arabian people who in fact first divided peoples into blacks and whites (“reds”) in their literature and proudly looked on themselves as “the blacks”, likely due to their being surrounded by Syrian and Persian people that had a very different appearance and origin.
When researching the background of the myth of a Mediterranean physical type in the 1980s I sought to identify how “scientific raciology” of early anthropologists was being used to erase the African origin of the black populations that appeared in the Mediterranean during the neolithic and through the early Bronze Age, in places like Egypt and southern Europe. Western scholars had done this mainly by introducing various terms or terminology that would obfuscate the black African origin of these peoples. Purchase "Myth of the Mediterranean Race" in the Journal of African Civilizations here.
When researching the background of the myth of a Mediterranean physical type in the 1980s I sought to identify how “scientific raciology” of early anthropologists was being used to erase the African origin of the black populations that appeared in the Mediterranean during the neolithic and through the early Bronze Age, in places like Egypt and southern Europe. Western scholars had done this mainly by introducing various terms or terminology that would obfuscate the black African origin of these peoples. Purchase "Myth of the Mediterranean Race" in the Journal of African Civilizations here.
It involved changing black East Africans into “hamitic Mediterranean Caucasoids”. which later evolved into the so-called “Eurafrican race” or even “basic white type” of certain early anthropologists. It also required reliance on the anthropological notion of a true Negro type, although that has never been achieved due to the variety of phenotypes among Africans south of the Sahara (Reynolds-Marniche, 2013).
William Ripley, an eminent American anthopologist and earlier Harvard Professor wrote in his Races of Europe - “The discoveries of abundant prehistoric remains all over Europe particularly France. These with one accord tended to show that European aborigines of the Stone age were not Mongoloid like the Lapps, after all but the exact opposite. In every detail they resembled rather the dolicocephalic Negroes of Africa” (William Z. Ripley, 1899, p. 436).
The Australian anatomist, Grafton Elliot Smith, also spoke of the African-related peoples discovered among the megalithic tombs in Europe and in the earliest towns of the Near East, and classified Ripley's Negroes as a “brown race”. Unlike other physical anthropologists like Guiseppi Sergi or Carleton S. Coon, who saw no irony in placing east Africans from Uganda to Sudan (formerly called “hamites” by other anthropologists) into the same “Eurafrican” and “Mediterranean” sub-categories with northern Europeans, Smith was adamant that his "brown race" (which he felt to be represented by dark-skinned peoples of the Horn or northern Sudan), had little to do with European or populations classified as “Caucasoid”. One author has summarized Smith's thinking on the matter.
“This Brown Race – which was not negroid – settled all around the Mediterranean and spread east as far as India, but in time was differentiatied into an Ethiopian branch (in tropical North East Africa) and a Mediterranean branch. Then around the beginning of the Egyptian First Dynasty there arrived an influx from South-West Asia of people of a new racial type. These Elliot Smith called Armenoid, but saw the ancestral (white)Armenoid population as having itself split into two groups: the Alpine, who settled into much of urope; and the Maritime, who settled around parts of the Mediterranean” (Derricourt, Robin, 2015, numberless pages)
But for the most part Elliot Smith's view or terminology which was based on analysis of anatomical as well as cultural remains was less desirable among academics since ancestral Europeans weren't involved and towards the end of the 19th century and into the early 20th, which saw the decline of Ottoman and European colonialism, there was a penchant bordering on the pathological to turn all of the black populations that ever occupied Europe or for that matter any region northward of the Sudan into darkened “whites”.
On this link - learn to make Ethiopian/ancient Arabian injera. Or, buy cookbooks if you love Ethiopian food as much as I do.
It is no exaggeration to say that in Western scholarship all of the black-complexioned populations that were historically documented as occupying Europe and Asia or assumed to be related to sub-Saharan Africans since the early medieval period have in recent times come to be reclassified under such euphemisms as “Mediterranean” or “Eurafrican” and even “basic white type” by influential “raciologists” in America and Western Europe.
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Ancient Sabaean women are often represented with a hairstyle common to Amhara women of Ethiopia. |
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Young Amhara girl of Ethiopia. The Sabaeans crossed back over into the Horn of Africa beginning in the 2nd millenium BC bringing their culture with them. Thus, everything east of the Nile in Africa was in fact considered "Arabia" by ancient Greeks like Strabo and Diodorus. |
It is no exaggeration to say that in Western scholarship all of the black-complexioned populations that were historically documented as occupying Europe and Asia or assumed to be related to sub-Saharan Africans since the early medieval period have in recent times come to be reclassified under such euphemisms as “Mediterranean” or “Eurafrican” and even “basic white type” by influential “raciologists” in America and Western Europe.
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| Sculpture of a dignitary from the Sabaean period (southern Arabia) |
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Faces of modern Yemenis reflect the ancient population once pervasive and found throught the peninsula and reflected in the most ancient statuary. European pseudoscience came to categorize these people as "gracile Mediterranens".
Statue from the Kingdom of "Banu Lihyan" or the "Lihyanites" of West Arabia
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| South Arabian limestone from 2nd century |
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| Ancient Sabaean ruler dating from before Christ |
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| Tigrai woman of Eritrea in the Horn - Arabian populations were moving back into the Horn of Africa as late as several centuries BC. She represents one type of the ancient black or Afro-Arabian peoplesthat spread the semitic i.e. Afroasiatic culture and dialects into the Near East. |
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| Woman of modern Ethiopia |
European anthropology created something called the cephalic index and studied crania of various peoples which were classified into the “hyperdolichocephalic” and “dolichocephalic” (“long-headed”) category. The index table created enabled anthropologists to place modern northern Europeans into the same "racial" category with the Neolithic dolichocephals even when they possessed traits that were identifiably black African. But the apparent African affiliation of the earliest peoples of Europe and their early mixed descendants led scholars to proudly proclaim modern Europeans as descendants of the ancient black dolichocephals of Anatolia, the Near East and along the Mediterranean in North Africa and southern Europe.
In contrast to Ripley, they would write such things as “The white race as a whole consists of two great sub-races, the Eurafrican and the Eurasian. The Eurafrican is so called because, from prehistoric times, it has inhabited the Mediterranean coast region of Africa, and western Europe. ...The Eurafrican race is distinguished by a long skull - it is dolichocephalic....” (Waterbury, Ivan C., 1903, p. 1035).
It was in particular the focus on crania or skulls of the so-called “Eurafrican” discovered at places like Kish, Eridu, Chatal Huyuk, Tepe Hissar in Anatolia and Iran and other places in the ancient Near East – like in early neolithic Europe - that allowed individual anthropologists like Guiseppe Sergi inventor of the "Mediterranean Race" to confound long-headed ancient black populations of the ancient world with modern fair-skinned Europeans ranging from Italy to Scandinavia, regardless of how people were represented in rock art.
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 These homes of the Tihamah are like those of Africa, often with a beehive structure. |
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| Tihama hut |
Unfortunately, since that period Western “science” has in fact continued to blur the once clear line distinguishing the former black Goddess worshipping population of the Mediterraean from the then much less numerous and non-black Eurasian populations of ancient Europe and Asia. This has been mainly done by creating terms for "fixed types" that emerged from intermingling of older groups with the newer mesocranic nd brachycranic ancestors of modern Europeans and "Eurasians".
In truth judging from skeletal finds, or the lack thereof, even the so-called “Negro” type(s) of sub-Saharan Africa appears to fall into this category of being a relatively recent type evolved in the last few thousand years from intermingling of diverse and distinct black groups, including the so-called Mediterranean or hamitic so-called “Caucasoid” or “Eurafrican” types mentioned above.
Pseudoscientist Carleton Coon was a master of meaninglessly manipulating data to create different “types” and placing numerous photographs of peoples evolved from centuries of intermixing in his books calling them various types of “Mediterraneans”. He also had the audacity to entitle his books with names like, “The Races of Europe”.
The nonsensical nature of his "Mediterranean" categorizations in particular was made all the more striking because of his photographs of peoples like swarthy Ruwala and Soleyba bedouins, or modern Moroccan Berbers and other peoples from regions that were known to have been historically born from convergence of many distinct peoples from the north and the south and even other parts of the world.
The nonsensical nature of his "Mediterranean" categorizations in particular was made all the more striking because of his photographs of peoples like swarthy Ruwala and Soleyba bedouins, or modern Moroccan Berbers and other peoples from regions that were known to have been historically born from convergence of many distinct peoples from the north and the south and even other parts of the world.
The black Qahtan Arab peoples of Central and Southern Arabia now called Maddhij, "Kahlan", "Azd" and Himyar entered Syria and Iraq even before the time of the Mohammed, "prophet of Islam". From them most of the modern day fair-skinned "Arab" peoples of Syria and Iraq (like those in the photos below) and even peoples further north and east claim descent, but are only partly descended.
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The Ruwala bedouin represented here or Ru'ala bin Anaez sons of Wa'il of Syria are among those mostly non-African people Carleton Coon tried to make into "Mediterraneans". Unlike these predominantly Syrian folk, the original Ru'ala or al-Rwhy "Reul" were from a black or Arab people of Central Arabia called Rabi'a . Their brethren were the Bakr bin Wa'il, Ma'aza and Taghlib bin Wa'il or Dawasir of Central Arabia. These modern Syrian bedouin do not represent a "race" as claimed by European physical anthropologists or scientific raciologists, but are descendants of several peoples, including the black Arab peoples called "Rabi'a" of Central Arabia (Bakr, Taghlib, Anazah bin Wa'il) and the various Syrian, Byzantine and Persian peoples they once held as slaves and/or converted to Islam. (See the 14th century Al-Dhahabi's statements below).  The Dulaym or Dulaim are an example of Coon's so-called "Mediterranean" race type - a pseudoscientific term used for blacks and whites and peoples derived from mixture - in this case of ancient black (Yemenite Maddhij) and Syrian people. This is in fact the make-up of many of the bedouin peoples of Iraq and Syria.. The Dulaim in particular derive from the Zubayd, a clan of the Banu Maddhij from the Hamdan of Yemen. Like the man from the Kindah in the desert rock art above. These were the same Maddhij whose leaders once named themselves "al Aswad" to separate themselves from the Abna or Iranians in their land and thought a fair-skinned Arab to be "inconceivable". Today, however the darker-skinned Arabs who look more African than Syrian are assumed by Westerners - scholar and laymen alike - to be less Arab than the European-looking tribes who in fact have little Arab blood. The true Arab of the ancient world called themselves "the blacks", wore cowry shells, and scarred their faces like modern African-Arabs in Sudan. Furthermore Arabs portrayed themselves like the peoples of the Sahara and horn of Africa in a deep brown color with black hair that didn't look straight at all.For more photos on the less modified Shammar and other "khudar" Arabs go to this link Afroarabia 101 and the Pure Arabs/Khudar |
In most cases the history of population replacement and movement is just simply ignored which is the case as we shall see of Arabia, and much of the Arab world.
Today most of the indigenous dwellers around the Mediterranean especially in southern Europe are among the most brachycephalic or roundheaded people in the world – the type G. Elliot- Smith and others called “Armenoid” and “Alpines” (Smith, Grafton Elliot, 1911, pp. 122 and 154). However, for most of the prehistoric and earliest historical period of the Mediterranean this was hardly the case.
A major group of these so-called “Eurafricans” appearing in the Arabian peninsula in regions like Umm an Nar for example is said to have been similar to a large-bodied type in the early Ubaid culture with distinct pronathism.
According to one observer, “Another impression that arose on the first examination was that the Eridu skulls showed a marked prognathism...Keith's interesting conclusions-that the skulls of the ancient Sumerians were relatively narrow, that they were dolichocephalic, a large-headed, large-brained people...and that the men's noses were long and wide-is applicable to some of the 'Ubaid dead of the latter half of the third and the beginning of the second millennium B.C." (Mallowan, Max, E. L., 1970, p. 358)
The Eurafrican was generally considered larger than the so called “gracile” type of Mediterranean of ancient East Africa the Horn and North Africa, although it was also found in those regions. Thus, one author wrote of Kish in Mesopotamia,
“In ancient times, this type is found in Mesopotamia and Egypt, and may be compared with the Combe Capelle skull. It is possibly identical with men who lived in the high desert west of the Nile in paleolithic times... Second there is the Mediterranean type whose variants occur all the way from Java to Indonesia, and both sides of the Mediterranean..."(See Penniman, T.K. "A Note on the Inhabitants of Kish Before the Great Flood, Excavations at Kish, Volume 4, 1925, 1930).
The same so-called “Eurafrican” variety of the “Mediterraneans” was found at the even earlier site at Jemdet Nasr of the 3rd millenium and at the early sites like Tepe Hissar in Iran. They are super-longheaded or “hyperdolichocephalic” as it was determined many “Negroes” tend to be. In fact earlier V. Childe as cited by Sayce described these same early so-called “Eurafricans” of Mesopotamia as “Negroids” people with “Mongoloid” traits.
The interesting or ironic thing is that Combe Capelle of France has been generally classified as resembling “Australoids” (Aleksejev, V., 1974, p. 289) more than any other group, and seems to be more archaic or a type that predates the appearance of the so-called “Negro” phenotypes. However, some physical anthropologists like Carleton Coon, Wilton Marion Krogman and Henry Field used the closeness of the early type at Combe Capelle people to introduce the term proto-Nordic ( Field, 1939, p. 261).
Coon wrote in his Races of Europe, "The Nordic race in the strict sense is merely a pigment phase of the Mediterranean" (Coon, Carleton, 1975, ), a statement which speaks for itself. ; )
Coon wrote in his Races of Europe, "The Nordic race in the strict sense is merely a pigment phase of the Mediterranean" (Coon, Carleton, 1975, ), a statement which speaks for itself. ; )
Guiseppi Sergi, the inventor of the “Mediterranean Race” terminology in fact classified both Nordics ( a minority of northern Europeans) and Ugandans into an fantastical “Eurafrican type” of “Mediterranean race”, on the basis that some Nordic people and Northern Italians have heads as long as some Africans. Coon added an “Atlanto-Mediterranean” variety to the type along the Mediterranean. But, theories are theories that speak for themselves. (For more information on the use and misuse of the “Mediterranean” racial terminology see Reynolds-Marniche, Dana, (1994) “The Myth of the Mediterranean Race", in the Journal of African Civilizations). The article in Egypt, Child of Africa is still available with a few book sellers.
As of late some European writers have been insistent on creating new thematic variations on the “Mediterranean race” category, i.e. the “blacks-never-left-Africa” narrative. Some of these theories are kind of nonsensical having been bolstered by biblical notions or interpretations. Using the terminology of early anthropologists, a Carl J. Becker writes - “The first human town of any size seems to have been created in Anatolia, or modern-day Turkey, around 7000 B.C. Catal Huyuk was a town that could have housed 8000 people A study of [about 300 skeletons uncovered at Catal Huyuk reveals a multiplicity of physical [racial types from around the Mediterranean. There are long-headed Eurafricans – Ham?, long-headed proto-Mediterraneans – Shem? And short [round-headed – Alpine types- Japheth?...The most numerous group resembles Upper Paleolithic Combe-Capelle humans from southern France...” (Becker, Carl J., 2004, p. 238).
(Actually I was shocked at reading this and have been trying to figure out if Becker was joking or perhaps playing with some thoughts Mellaarte had about Ham, Shem, and Japhet. I hope he was, but don't think so. I didn't get a chance to but, maybe someone can check it out and let me know what they think he was trying to say.: (
Though some try desperately to hold fast to the idea of a palaeolithic Eurasian Mediterranean, i.e. European population in prehistoric northern Africa that gave birth to modern semitic and Cushitic or Afroasiatic speaking Ethiopians, there has been some degree of progress towards truth in some areas of the academic world.
Some of the new studies have been able to trace the settlements and presence of Africans in the Mediterranean and Middle East, and even Europe. Major genetic studies being undertaken by some European scholars for example are pointing to an origin of the early Arabic or Afro-Asiatic (formerly hamito-semitic) speakers in East Africa 10,000 years ago, which many would say correlates with the linguistic evidence.
The below article from BioMed is a good example.
“Analysis of thousands of mitochondrial NA samples has led Estonian archeogeneticists to the origins of Arabic. Ene Metspalu of the Department of Evolutionary Biology at Tartu University and the Estonian Biocentre in Tartu, claims to have evidence that the Arab-Berber languages of the Near and Middle East came out of East Africa around 10,000 years ago. She has found evidence for what may have been the last sizeable migration out of Africa before the slave trade....
“MtDNA is inherited through the maternal line, and by comparing their data with existing data on European, Indian, Siberian and other Central Asian populations, the researchers were able to create a comprehensive phylogenetic map of maternal lineages diverging from Africa and spreading towards Europe and Asia. Working in collaboration with language specialists, they found that this movement 10,000 years ago, which was probably centred on Ethiopia, could well have been responsible for seeding the Afro-Asiatic language from which all modern Arab-Berber languages are descended.
'This language was spoken in Africa 10,000 or 12,000 years ago,' Metspalu told BioMedNet News. 'We think it was around that time that carriers brought these Afro-Asiatic languages to the Near East.' The language, or its derivatives, later spread much further afield. What could have triggered the movement she can only speculate. One possibility is that increasing desertification was causing famine in Africa and driving hunters further afield in search of animals. Interestingly, the lineages they traced through this 10,000-year-old migration didn't seem to get much further north than modern-day Syria or east of modern-day Iraq. There is no evidence of the lineages in the mtDNA of people from Turkey or Iran, says Metspalu.'” BioMedNet: "Maternal line reveals origin of Arabic"
Thankfully, it looks like studies like this one from Estonia have been able to sort through some of the confusion, although many others have not been as objective, and unfortunately frequently for not so noble reasons.
Through the mitochondrial dna these scientists were able to trace the movement of the original semitic speaking Arabians now called AfroAsiatics from the horn region of Africa. This finding only correlates with what physical anthopologists had discovered from the skeletal evidence coming from the region, although these findings have rarely been mentioned in recent times.
In addition there are many common iconographic features of rock art in Arabia and Northern Africa that suggest at one time populations were linked and perhaps moving between continents. Some of these features include the "decoration of bovids and other animals by means of vertical strips", so-called Dahthami or Ethiopian Arabian style of bovid representations", "bovine and ovine bucrania" "ibex representation with hypertrophic horns", "orants with spread-out fingers", nude squatting females (open-legged women)", and "sun like symbols" (Cervicek, P., 1978, p. 5).
And iconography is just one aspect of ancient Arab landscape that was shared with populations found in Africa. The language of course was another. Most semitic dialects are for example found in the Horn of Africa, in Ethiopia.
In addition there are many common iconographic features of rock art in Arabia and Northern Africa that suggest at one time populations were linked and perhaps moving between continents. Some of these features include the "decoration of bovids and other animals by means of vertical strips", so-called Dahthami or Ethiopian Arabian style of bovid representations", "bovine and ovine bucrania" "ibex representation with hypertrophic horns", "orants with spread-out fingers", nude squatting females (open-legged women)", and "sun like symbols" (Cervicek, P., 1978, p. 5).
And iconography is just one aspect of ancient Arab landscape that was shared with populations found in Africa. The language of course was another. Most semitic dialects are for example found in the Horn of Africa, in Ethiopia.
To propose that the majority of modern populations of the Arabian peninsula, Mesopotamia and North Africa are direct descendants of populations predominant in the same regions 5,000 years ago, or in the case of Arabia and the Maghreb, just 500 years ago, is to mislead and has simply created greater confusion with respect to the study of Afroasiatic biological and genetic origins, and in fact world history in general.
PARADISE LOST: THE DISMISSAL OF “AFROASIATIC” BIOLOGICAL ORIGINS
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| Men of Tihama south of Mecca, which early medieval Arab texts point to as "Canaan" |
“… Al Mohasab (المحصب (is the valley between Makkah and Mena, it is also known as the plane of Makkah and the low land of the Kananites (الكنانیون ) " al-Jumhoor 9th entury AD from al-Hasa in Arabia.In the early part of the 20th century the Orientalist author Emile Gottlieb wrote the following:
“From the vast little explored land of Arabia have come the various migrations of the Semitic peoples by which the more fertile regions to the North and west have been overrun in different epochs. The ultimate home of the semitic races may have been Abyssynia or elsewhere but most certainly Arabia was an important center for the race and the starting point. It may be assumed that the Amorites came of its migrations so far as they lie in the clear light of history….”
“Upon the heels of the Hittite migration movement must have come the Amorite migration. The original home of this people was South Arabia for the religious concepts and expressions as evidenced by the personal names are startlingly similar to those of the later to those of the later Minaeans and Sabaeans. They first invaded Syria and established their the great state of Amurru even before the Akkadians established themselves in Babylonia. It may be assumed that the Amorites came from the Higaz for the highway of the gold and frankinscense [sic] merchants traversed the region of the Red Sea coast...”(Emil Gottlieb, Aram and Israel: or the Aramaeans in Syria and Mesopotamia. Emil Gottlieb. H. Kraeling. Columbia University Press, 1918. p. 12 and 13.) Aram and Israel
In the intervening period since that that time and possibly due to the modern ethnic politics of the region biblical archaeologists in America and the West in particular have pretended the "Semitic" peoples could not have originated south of Syria.
One of the enduring consequences of ignoring the true origins and history behind the emergence of “semites” or semitic-speakers of the Near East and their relatively recent spread from the Yaman is that many of the historical narratives and genealogical traditions of medieval writers that were actually based upon tribes living then and today are seen as the stuff of myth and legend. The people's themselves are even described as “lost”, or else, as in the case of the Quranic commentaries of the Middle East, extinguished.
In actuality, the people whom the Quran and Central Asian commentarists like al-Bakhari called “the folk of Noah” and “people of the book”, were described as worshippers of “idols”, deities like Suwa, Manah, Uzza, and Ruda and numerous others venerated in pre-Islamic Arabia. These populations who were essentially responsible for the rise and spread of the three great Western religions have been made insignificant mainly because other peoples have prefered to view themselves in their place or conceive of these people as ancestral to themselves, rather than as the “Ethiopic” and Sudanic-affiliated people they actually were or are.
In the 17th century the term Arab had still not been applied to peoples of Syria outside of the desert bedouin there, most of whom had already mixed with Syrian people. We know for example that 1000 years ago, peoples like the Syrians and Byzantines considered “Arabs” to be a people who generally were very dark brown to literally black in color. In the 10th century Ibn Hawqal from Baghdad wrote in his Kitab Harrat al-Ard that the varied skin-tones of the Beja of Nubia resembled that of the Arabs of his time (Al-Bili, Uthman, 2003, p. 15 and 16).
In addition, we are reminded that Ibn Jawzi in the 12th century uses the same terminology or word (sumr) to describe both Arabs and Abyssinians, just as today the peoples of Palestine and Negeb still apply the word “sumr” to the indigenous black and near black bedouin or “blacks” in general in their lands. (See below on the usage of sumr)
The 12th century Arabic-speaking Greek - Yaqut wrote of Beit Shean in the Ghor "that
it is a
town
of the Jordan Province in the Ghaur. ... The inhabitants are
brown-skinned
and woolly-haired" Strange, Guy, Le, 2010, p. 411).
Syrian Mamluk Al-Maqrizi/Maqadisi (born in Cairo 14th c.) noted as well of the inhabitants of Sakhar in the Ghor. " Its people are black-skinned and thick-set" (Le Strange, 2010, p. 290). Al-Idrisi 12th c. (born Ceuta, Spain) wrote about the Ghor region - " Ariha ( Jericho), with 'Amta and Baisan are teh finest of the cities of the valley of the Ghaur. The principal crop of the Ghaur is indigo. Its inhabitants are brown-skinned, and some of them even are almost black" (Sinibaldi, Micaela, 2014, p. 94; Le Strange, p. 31).
Needless to say most people in the world don't know that these "Khudr" or authentic Arabs still exist because most Westerners and other people of the Near East in fact have tried to make them into descendants of recent Africans or slaves. (All though some Egyptian soldiers, slaves and Berbers have also come into the area. Most of this has been since the Ottoman era). There are "abid" in the Ghawr region, but they are not considered the same as the Gharawna, who retain mostly ancient names of their ancestral homeland in Hijaz.
Hence Johannes Burckhardt wrote of the Harb as a confederation of tribes to be found “in the low country, or Tehama or el Ghor, between the mountains and the sea” (Burckhardt, J.L., 36). The Hamaidah group is considered to be the oldest in the area and descendants of Moabites. THe problem is they appear to descend from or be related to the groups that came northward in the Nabataean period as Quda'h. Like most people of the region including the tribe of Kenaan or Kinanah who live in the Jordan Valley and Israel there is little to suggest that these genuinely Arabic people were in these regions in the time of the Assyrian mention of Hittites and other "Canaanites", let alone 3,000 years ago in the time Israel and King Solomon were said to have lived. But there is good reason to believe all of these biblical people could have been living much further south in Arabia, judging from the stories told about Bahila (Bilha), Joseph, and an Exodus from the area of Ma'rib and conquest of Canaan by Aus (Uz) and Khazaraj (Gezer) and other peoples once known as Aram.; )
Color Terminology among the people of Kedar
As Tariq Berry reminded us in his little book the Unknown Arabs, Arab grammarians and linguists like Ibn Manzur of the 14th century also stated that most Arabs possessed “kinky” hair and were “khudar” and/or “sumr” near black in color, and that when the Arabs used the term “abyad” or variations of it - which literally meant “white”- , it referred to a black man with radiant skin tone or one that was like black buckwheat and clear without blemish. See link The usage of abyad/biyad
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| Bedouin children of al- Ghor (the Jordan valley near the Dead Sea including the Golan Heights including what was "Jund Filastin") include descendants of the Jodham, Baliyy, Zubayd of Maddhij, and many other groups also known further south that came to be called Ishmaelites and Israelites in the bible. Even the tribe called Ken'aan ("Kanaan") still lives in the Ghor. : ) Jordanian Bedouins of Nomeira |
Syrian Mamluk Al-Maqrizi/Maqadisi (born in Cairo 14th c.) noted as well of the inhabitants of Sakhar in the Ghor. " Its people are black-skinned and thick-set" (Le Strange, 2010, p. 290). Al-Idrisi 12th c. (born Ceuta, Spain) wrote about the Ghor region - " Ariha ( Jericho), with 'Amta and Baisan are teh finest of the cities of the valley of the Ghaur. The principal crop of the Ghaur is indigo. Its inhabitants are brown-skinned, and some of them even are almost black" (Sinibaldi, Micaela, 2014, p. 94; Le Strange, p. 31).
Needless to say most people in the world don't know that these "Khudr" or authentic Arabs still exist because most Westerners and other people of the Near East in fact have tried to make them into descendants of recent Africans or slaves. (All though some Egyptian soldiers, slaves and Berbers have also come into the area. Most of this has been since the Ottoman era). There are "abid" in the Ghawr region, but they are not considered the same as the Gharawna, who retain mostly ancient names of their ancestral homeland in Hijaz.
Hence Johannes Burckhardt wrote of the Harb as a confederation of tribes to be found “in the low country, or Tehama or el Ghor, between the mountains and the sea” (Burckhardt, J.L., 36). The Hamaidah group is considered to be the oldest in the area and descendants of Moabites. THe problem is they appear to descend from or be related to the groups that came northward in the Nabataean period as Quda'h. Like most people of the region including the tribe of Kenaan or Kinanah who live in the Jordan Valley and Israel there is little to suggest that these genuinely Arabic people were in these regions in the time of the Assyrian mention of Hittites and other "Canaanites", let alone 3,000 years ago in the time Israel and King Solomon were said to have lived. But there is good reason to believe all of these biblical people could have been living much further south in Arabia, judging from the stories told about Bahila (Bilha), Joseph, and an Exodus from the area of Ma'rib and conquest of Canaan by Aus (Uz) and Khazaraj (Gezer) and other peoples once known as Aram.; )
Color Terminology among the people of Kedar
As Tariq Berry reminded us in his little book the Unknown Arabs, Arab grammarians and linguists like Ibn Manzur of the 14th century also stated that most Arabs possessed “kinky” hair and were “khudar” and/or “sumr” near black in color, and that when the Arabs used the term “abyad” or variations of it - which literally meant “white”- , it referred to a black man with radiant skin tone or one that was like black buckwheat and clear without blemish. See link The usage of abyad/biyad
Unfortunately, ignoring such statements about the early Arabs has contributed to distortions of Afroasiatic history and world heritage as a whole.
Like the ancient Arabians or original Arabs many African and Afro-Arabian groups still use the term "Red" for fair skinned people. Among the Bedja of Sudan for example the term 'red" is still in use for fair skinned people like many modern Arabs and Europeans. One author writes that "red skin color"... "is linked to Europeans and people of Arab descent" (Fadlalla, Amal, 2007, p. 65).
Nevertheless, the use of these Arabic words for complexion and their semantic significance as we have seen was carried into Africa and applied to certain tribes like the Tuareg, Fulani and Wangara/Soninke and other dark-skinned or nearly black Africans - the nearly black Africans that were often called “whites” in Arabic and/or Islamic African sources. An example of this is in Ibn Battuta's use of the word “white” in his description of women of the “Burdama”, which is still a name Africans use for the Tuareg (Hill, Allen G., 2012, p. 9; Jablow, Alta, 1990, p. 42; Popenoe, Rebecca, 2012, p. 200, fn. 2).
Like the ancient Arabians or original Arabs many African and Afro-Arabian groups still use the term "Red" for fair skinned people. Among the Bedja of Sudan for example the term 'red" is still in use for fair skinned people like many modern Arabs and Europeans. One author writes that "red skin color"... "is linked to Europeans and people of Arab descent" (Fadlalla, Amal, 2007, p. 65).
Nevertheless, the use of these Arabic words for complexion and their semantic significance as we have seen was carried into Africa and applied to certain tribes like the Tuareg, Fulani and Wangara/Soninke and other dark-skinned or nearly black Africans - the nearly black Africans that were often called “whites” in Arabic and/or Islamic African sources. An example of this is in Ibn Battuta's use of the word “white” in his description of women of the “Burdama”, which is still a name Africans use for the Tuareg (Hill, Allen G., 2012, p. 9; Jablow, Alta, 1990, p. 42; Popenoe, Rebecca, 2012, p. 200, fn. 2).
As mentioned in a previous post one early Arab poem in fact speaks of the “sons of Abyssinia” with their hair of long peppers as having both “white faces” and “black faces” (Nicolle, D., and McBride, Angus, 1991, p. 11).
The Fulani in some manuscripts and certain Songhai or Soninke tribes also appear to have been considered “whites” in various histories due to this Arab linguistic influence in Africa after the Islamic conquests. But, all of this has already been discused in the previous blogpost. : ) See link Black Africans identified as "whites"
This is to say modern historians have thus often failed to distinguish between the Arab of the ancient world and “Arabs” as a nationality or ethnic population(s) of more recent times. As pointed out a few years ago by Tariq Berry born in the Near East in his Unknown Arabs, and as translated by Wesley Muhammad - the 8th century Arab linguist recently, al-Mubarrad wrote, “The Arabs used to take pride in their brown and black complexion (al-sumra wa al-sawād) and they had a distaste for a white and fair complexion (al-ḥumra wa al-shaqra)...”. Apud Ibn abi Hadid Sharh Najh al- Balaghah V:56.
Berry also points out that the work of early Arabs linguists who themselves stated that terms like “white”, “green” and “yellow” for people that were literally near black or “aswad” and “samar” or “sumr”, sometimes even within the same written text. Thus, the 14th century Syrian al-Dhahabi said that to call a person's complexion “white” signified that they were of black complexion with a light brown cast, while people who were truly fair in color or light in complexion were called “ahmar” (“red”) and considered to have slave ancestry from people like the Syrians, Greeks (Byzantines), and Iranians.
Al-Dhahabi said to be called “ahmar” or “red”, “in the speech of the people from the Hijaz, means fair-complexioned and this color is rare amongst the Arabs. This is the meaning of the saying ‘…(He was) a red man as if he is one of the slaves.” Al-Dhahabi, Siyar alām al-nubalā 2:168 (Beirut: Risāla Establishment, 1992)
Al-Dhahabi, however, was not the only early commentarist on Arabs that said that sort of thing. Others claimed the Arabs were not only proud of their blackness, but once looked down on the complexion that was “fair”. Thus the idea of a fair-skinned “Arab” in the Arabia of 1000 years ago whatever may have occurred later would have been thought ridiculous, even by most peoples in the Near East.
Just a bit after al-Dhahabi lived, as shown previously Chinese documents of the 15th century, like those of Ma Huan who accompanied admiral Zheng He in expeditions and mentioned peoples of Hijaz, or the region extending between Mecca and Jiddah as having a “near black” and even “very dark purple complexion” or “purple-chest” (zitangse) color ( Waley-Cohen, 2000, p. 48; Dikotter, Frank, 2015). The natives of Malabar in south India were also referred to as “purple" in the Chinese manuscripts (Dikotter, Frank, 2015). The latter were also black up until several hundred years ago when Benjamin of Tudela wrote about them. The latter wrote "Khulam...is the beginning of the country of the sun-worshippers. These are the suns of Cush who read the stars and are all black in color." (See The Itinerary of Benjamin Tudela translation, by Adler, Marcus Nathan, 1907 pp. 63-64)
This in itself is telling for the fact that, the people of Hijaz and the volcanic region of the harra, were identifiably comprised of the same tribes that occupied the Nejd or Central Arabia. Both regions included such well-described tribes as Sulaym and Hawazin, Ateibah (Utayba) or Tebah, Kalb and Tayy, Wa'il and Rabi'a and the Azd tribes such as Ghafiq and Bahila of the Sawad.
Although it is known that the Central Arabian region in the early Islamic period had been colonized by Iranians (Persians) and the latter had in fact succeeded in kicking out the Arabs out of major towns in Yemen like Sana'a, in the 14th century Ibn Khaldun still seems to view the Nejd like Hijaz and the Yemen as part of the Sudanic zones that were hot and black.
Thus, it is apparent that the most change in the biology and physiognomy populations in the Arabian peninsula as in North Africa has come rather recently in the last several hundred years. This is something that can be demonstrated just from diverse texts written in the past three centuries by Middle Eastern authors and other foreign visitors about the appearance of peoples of the Hijaz.
In fact as late as the 19th century the inhabitants of Medina in Hijaz for example were mostly black. An Egyptian visitor recorded that “the people of Madinah were 'a dark, almost black complex'ion,'” although some "'light-skinned, almost white'" individuals could also be seen. Today however those black and almost black people in Madinah have nearly disappeared. In fact the whole of the Hijaz region has been flooded with foreigners from every country of the Muslim world according to Burkhardt - especially the two sacred cities of Mecca and Medina (Reichmuth, Stefan, 2009, p. 26).
Similarly, the Yemen, the Asir and eastern part of the Arabian peninsula has seen drastic demographic change in the past several centuries. British colonialists often spoke of the many Turkish people in Yemen. But the Yaman and other parts of the peninsula had already been intermingling with Persian peoples in particular in earlier periods.
However, what is certain is that acknowledging the true Afroasiatic heritage of the aboriginal populations of Arabia actually helps to explain the tribal relations, movements and settlement background recorded not only in biblical and Hebraic sources, but in the Quran, and its medieval commentaries.
This blogspot has already given a few instances how some scholars have even gone so far as to deny the south Arabian or Himyarite origins of historically documented tribes like the al-Ka'in of the Qudha'a or Qudah Arabs whom they now believe may have birthe the biblical peoples called “Kenites” (Shahid, Irfan,). It
was noted that the al-Kain or "Farayn bin Baliyy" are derived
from the Quda'ah Himyarites known to have lived between a place called al-Numan and
Wadi Hamdh.
It should be mentioned here that the remnants of al-Qudah are still in
existence and considered a part of the of the Banu Sakhr Harb in the
central part of modern Jordan (Muhammad, G., 1999, p. 10 fn. 4). This seems to confirm the conclusions of scholars that have acknowledged the
Kenite-Salamians of the Hebrew Targums as the historical al-Ka'in
and Quda'ah brethren.
Another
branch of the Harb include mining people called al-Hammad or Hamadh or Hamida,
whose name is evidently that of the Canaanite miners once designated
“Hammathites”. Thus was it written in Chronicles 2:55 “For
these are the Kenites who came of Hammath”.
But,
there is another clan of the Banu Sakhr tribe of the Harb called
Ghabein (Upton, R., 1881, p. 236) or al-Ghbein (Muhammad,
1999, ibid) whose name is reminiscent of that of the “Gibeon” or
“Gabaon”, a people and town of the Hivites ( who we discovered were the modern Heiwat of Jordanian Huwaytat). Not far away are the modern Mana'een, part of a tribe who split off of the Huwaytat and
whose name is obviously reminiscent of the people anciently called
“Minaeans”. The latter also were considered to be the biblical
Maeonians, descendants of Ma'on, a man of Judah who is named a great
grandson of Caleb. And, the Calebites whose remnants were called Banu
Kalb ibn Wabara
in Najd (Central Arabia) were by the 7th century AD the
most powerful Quda'ah tribe in the vicinity of Palmyra further north.
Are
we supposed to believe that all of these Qudha'a Himyarite
descendants in the northern Arabia and the Levant closely intertwined
historically and bearing names nearly identical to the tightly
interwoven biblical ones, i.e. Gibeonite, Minaean or Ma'onite,
Hammathite, Calebite, Kenite and Hivite, etc, is purely
coincidence?! Statistically there is a very little chance that this
may just be a case of dozens upon dozens of Arabian tribes with names
(seen in this blog) all by chance sounding like biblical ones living
next door to each other.
As well, we have seen that Kamal Salibi's book, the The Bible Came from Arabia gives excellent examples of how certain phrases related to geography have been distorted, misinterpreted or ignored in order to validate established ideas of biblical archaeology. This has included the misconstruing of localities and placement of names like that of the promised land of Moses (mentioned in Number 34:1-12). Names meant to designate regions in places like Hijaz, Asir and Wadi Dawasir in the Yaman, have been misappropriated and applied to places in modern Levant towns – some of which could hardly have been occupied until centuries later than the period referred to in the Torah/Bible.
As well, we have seen that Kamal Salibi's book, the The Bible Came from Arabia gives excellent examples of how certain phrases related to geography have been distorted, misinterpreted or ignored in order to validate established ideas of biblical archaeology. This has included the misconstruing of localities and placement of names like that of the promised land of Moses (mentioned in Number 34:1-12). Names meant to designate regions in places like Hijaz, Asir and Wadi Dawasir in the Yaman, have been misappropriated and applied to places in modern Levant towns – some of which could hardly have been occupied until centuries later than the period referred to in the Torah/Bible.
As just another small example, among these misapplied names Salibi includes Abu Quraynat in Wadi Dawasir, which he identifies as Chennerith or Chinnereth of Numbers 34:11 and of other biblical books - part of the land promised to Moses. He shows how phrases like “qtp ym knrt” containing place names have often been wrongly interpreted in the West.
In this case the phrase has been traditionally translated in the West as shoulder of the “Sea of Chinnereth” when in fact the phrase probably literally reads “Qatf west of Quraynat”, an actual place in the area of Wadi Dawasir (Kamal, Salibi, p. 172).
It is clear that the name “Shepam” or “Shefan” mentioned is related to “Shafan” a tribe of the Dawasir (Lorimer, p. 393) whom Salibi calls al-Thafan or Hadayir al-Thafan, or settlements of Al-Thafan/Shafan (Salibi, p. 172) in Wadi Tathlith. This described the southeastern borderline of “the promised land”. Thus, was it written, "And the coast shall go down from Shephan to Riblah,on the east side of Ain: and the border shall descend,and shall reach the other side of the sea of Chinnereth"(Numbers 34:11) - or Qatf west of Quraynat.
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| Dawasir of Al Dawasir (Al Yamama) in al -Falaj |
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| Woman of northern Yemen Mes Voyages |
The “Song of Deborah”, Black Dawasir, or an Israel Never “Lost”? : (
We also saw in the post of the infernal Saracens how the “Song of Deborah” of the book of Judges talks about the people of modern Banu Amran in Arabia where once lived the Afro-Arabian tribes of Ashayr or “Asher” and place of “Kishn” or Kishon which Arab texts claim was between the modern Zebid/”Zerid” and Raimah in Yemen from which emerged according to Arab histories the tribe and name of Azd tribe of “Ghassan”, These Ghassan were those called also Jokshan/Kushan relatives of Midianites (Genesis 25:2/Habbakuk 3:7).
We saw these powerful Azd like the Ghassan ("Jokshan" or Kushan-Midianites) who claimed descent from ancient kings named Jafneh (“Jephunah”) with their subject Himyarite (Humayr/Hamor) people were led by an Amr Musaikiyya (Musa or Moses) and Zarifa al-Himyari (or “Zipphorah”) from the region of Marib or “Meribah” (Exodus 17) into the land of the Canaan/Kinahna – a lowland according to Arab tradition, south of Mecca.
These Ghassanids don't seem to have arrived in Syria until a little more than a couple of centuries after the time of Christ. The Greeks called them the “Cassanitae” Saracens or Kasandreis in Arabia. According to the Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography these Gasandes are “ an Arab tribe, mentioned by Diodorus Siculus (3.44), identical with the Cassanitae of Ptolemy, and the Cassandreis of Agatharchides. Diodorus places them, with the Alibaei, next to the Debae, on the south, in agreement with Ptolemy ... located in Zahran near Gazuan (Jizzan)."
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| Men of Jizzan in the ancient land of Asir Tihama of Saudi Arabia |
Interested in the study of "Afroasiatic" dialects like Arabic or biblical Hebrew? Click these links to catch up with me! : )
Or if your visiting Ethiopia - the African country with the fastest growing economy - any time soon, click here to brush up on your conversational Amharic.
This Zahran was the land of the “Dosareni” (which is either the name of the Azd tribe of Dhawi Shari or perhaps even that of the Dawasir which singular is “Dowsari”) (Forster, Charles, 1844, p. 145 and 146).
From just these few examples in Arabian tradition we know that as Salibi suggested something went terribly wrong with the western or European version and Middle Eastern interpretation of where the biblical peoples originated. But it is all the more intriguing in that among the same tribes of the MODERN Dawasir of the Azd and the modern Qudha'a of the Himyarites are the names of the peoples or tribes of Israel mentioned in the “Song of Deborah”.
How is this possible? : (
How is this possible? : (
The tribes include the present day “Braik” or "al-Birayk" a tribe of the Dawasir (Lorimer, p. 392; al-Azma, p. 111). The “Song of Deborah” of Judges 5:12-25 says “Arise Barak take captive your captives, oh son of Abinoam”.
“Some came from” Ferain bin Baliyy (“Ephrain”/”Ephraim”) “whose roots were in Amalek” (Judges 5:14). The same “Amlik” that al-Tabari says was born in Yamamah region of the Wadi Dawasir deriving from from Al-Tawsim/Tasim ("Letushim") (Watt, W. Montgomery and Macdonald, M. V., 1988, p. 19).
The tribe of Banu Yam or Beni Yamin from Banu Hamdan still the name of a Dawasir tribe (Lorimer, p. 394) (“Benjamin”) was “with the people who followed you” (Judges 5:14).
From Makharim/Makhir, the Dawasir tribe (Lorimer, p. 394) or “Makir”, “captains came down from Zabbalah (“Zebulun”) of the modern Bela/Beli clan of Qudha'a (Hamza, p. 7) "those who bear a commander's staff”. The princes of Ishkara (“Issachar”) (Lorimer, p. 393) or **al-Shakarah of the Dawasir (Hamza, p. ; Al-Azma, Talal, 1999) were with Deborah, yes, Issachar was with Barak, sent under his command into the valley. In the districts of Rujban or Rijban (“Reuben”) clans of the Quda'a and the Dawasir ( Hamza, p. 15 and 10; Al Azma', Talal, 1999, p. 110) “there was much searching of heart. ...And Dindan (plural for "Dan") a current tribe of Wadi Dawasir (Minchin, Elizabeth, 2011, p. 65), “why did he linger by the ships? Asha'ir (“Asher”) (who we mentioned above) remained on the coast and stayed in his coves. The people of "Zebulun" (Zabbalah) (risked their very lives; so did Meftal (“Naphtali”) on the terraced fields...Kings came, they fought, the kings of Canaan fought. ..The river Kishon swept them away, the age-old river, the river Kishon (or Ghasan).... Most blessed of women by Jael, the wife of Heber (the Kenite (al- Kain/Kawiyyin)", the latter anciently and still belonging to the Beli/Bila/Bela clan of today's Qudha'a.
This Song of Deborah “mother of Israel” thus is about an irony of ironies, a tale of the tribes of Himyarites or Sabaeans known as Dawasir or Dossary and Quda'ah that became “Israelites” or al- Yasir, still occupying their “promised land”.
The Makharam or Makharib in Arabia seem to have been called "Makhar", "Makhir" or "Makharoba"or Makhuritae in Africa as well. Some of the area of Somalia is still known as Makhar, and according to one 19th century account, “some of the Mahra tribe who occupy the opposite Arabian coast have a tradition that the Somal are descended from them and call them Beni Am or cousins”(Hunter, F. M., 1877, p. 158). The Mahra themselves are Himyarites mentioned in ancient inscriptions generally thought to have come from al-Haf (Ephah?), and one tradition says their father was “Hamdan”.
As we saw in the previous blogpost, the Kenites or al-Ka'in were a historical people of the originally Yemenite Arabian tribe of Qudah according to early scholars." ... the Kenites are referred to as living in strong places in a rocky region, but in danger of being devastated and carried away by Ashur (Num. xx.v. 21, 22). It is less likely that the poet thought of the Assyrians than the Ashurim, neighbors of the Kenites in the south and southwest. Noldeke is probably right in identifying the Kenites with the Arabic tribe Bal Kayin (Banu'l Kayin), flourishing in El Tih and El Tor in the sixth A.D.” (Colby and WiIlliams, 1917, p. 166).
But today's “Al-Kawiyyin” (Hamza, p. 9) or “Qawayinah” south of Ta'if (Salibi, p. 168) is named a clan of Bila (Beli/Bela) in the Near East/South Asia Report. Zabbalah ("Zebulun") are also named by Hamza as part of Qudha'a (Hamza, p. 9) as in the medieval period. The Qudha'a are thus historically-documented Himyarite peoples. Kawiyyin is plural for Kayyin (al-Ka'in). The “Kenites” were related according in the Torah or Bible to the people called “Hivites” (modern “Heiwat”) and “Hammathites” (Hamadha) children of Ken'an (“Cana'an”), which as we have seen according to historical Arabic texts was a land south of Mecca.
But today's “Al-Kawiyyin” (Hamza, p. 9) or “Qawayinah” south of Ta'if (Salibi, p. 168) is named a clan of Bila (Beli/Bela) in the Near East/South Asia Report. Zabbalah ("Zebulun") are also named by Hamza as part of Qudha'a (Hamza, p. 9) as in the medieval period. The Qudha'a are thus historically-documented Himyarite peoples. Kawiyyin is plural for Kayyin (al-Ka'in). The “Kenites” were related according in the Torah or Bible to the people called “Hivites” (modern “Heiwat”) and “Hammathites” (Hamadha) children of Ken'an (“Cana'an”), which as we have seen according to historical Arabic texts was a land south of Mecca.
As-Shakara/Ishkara (the Israelie tribe of Issachar) of the Dawasir are the “Yashkur” of medieval Arab writers connected with Taghlib (Dawasir) and Bakr bin Wa'il in Central Arabia on the one hand and Jazila bin Lakhm (“Lehummim” of the Midianites). The latter “Yashkur of the Azd Shanu'ah” are mentioned by al-Tabari when he wrote of the them as ancestral to the clan of Qusayy, an ancestor of the Prophet and the Hashemites. Hashem was grandson of Qusayy and father of Abd al Mutallib the Prophet's grandfather who was described by al-Jahiz and other writers as huge and extremely black, as were his sons The Hashemites were themselves the color of tar, like the Dawasir were and like the Canaanites before them. (Yes - Muhammad was a descendant of Israelites as much as "Caananites": ).
Daus bin Udthan/”Adnan” (=”Ethan”?) is the name of an Azd tribe connected with Bahila and Umama and said to be the father of Akk in some genealogies.
The biblical Naphtali was affiliated with “Bilha” or Bahila who once lived in Yamama in the Wadi Al Dawasir region belonging to the Azd tribe and Ghatafan, in Central Arabia were composed according to tradition of Ghuni (Ghunay or Ghani ibn A'sur or Ya'sur). This is the biblical Guni who was “son of Naphtali, son of Bilha” (Genesis 46:24). One encyclopaedia says, that because of the connection A'sur makes with A'sur, Bahila b. A'sur are called “brothers of the Ghani' (Khanam, R., 2005) The tribe of “Suham” or Shuham, a son of Dan son of Bilha is thus Suhm or Sahm a tribe that was part of Bahila of Central Arabia. Thus, Ibn abd Rabbih wrote “Sahm was in Bahila” (Boullata, 2012, p. 270), and thus Numbers 26: reads "these are the sons of Dan after their families: of Suham, the family of the Suhamites."
Some traditions make Bahila (Bilha) and Ghani (Ghuni), a branch of the Ghatafan of the Qays Ailan who was also ancestor of the 'Abs/Yabs and Zubyan (who is Zibeon “the Horite” or “Hivite”) in most traditions, otherwise of Ghutayf who is the same tribe in the south and from the Murad (brethren of Ashay'r/Asher and Maddhij). We saw that Ghutayf is actually another name of Qatifan or Itfan who is otherwise known as the biblical Potiphar. See Potiphar, Ghutayf, Ghatafan discussion here
The historical Bahilah pastured their flocks in the region of Yamamah (Jemima) in the Wadi Dawasir, and most of the inhabitants of the mountain called Sawd or Sud behind Yamamah was occupied by them. Bahilah also once lined the road from Ar-Riyadh to Mecca.
The name of the tribe of Ferain belongs to Beli/Bela and is related to the name of “Ephrain” or “Ephraim”, brother to “Manasseh” who are probably the tribe of Manasse'ir that live in the desert nearby to Wadi Dawasir, and as we have already seen, related to the peoples of Mansur, of the Sulaym and Hawazin bin Mansur. See link About Ferain bin Baliyy
Today a tribe named al-Fur'an is still part of the Huwaytat al-Tihama (Hamza, Fu'ad, p. 13. : )
Today a tribe named al-Fur'an is still part of the Huwaytat al-Tihama (Hamza, Fu'ad, p. 13. : )
A tribe of Sulaym (Salaiyim) are still found among the Dawasir (Lorimer, p. 394). As pointed out in the blog on the Solymi or Sulaym "Lions of Judah", many of the names of the tribes of Sulaym are those of the peoples of Judah identified by Salibi as living in the Asir, Tihama and Hijaz regions. (See links on King Solomons Miners Sulaym - sons of Mansur/Manasseh
The name Shallum or Shalom of the Torah/Bible is translated as Sulaym by the medieval Egyptians or Egyptian Jews (Bareket, Elinoar, 1999, p. 50, fn. 87). Shallum was an individual mentioned at least 11 times in the Bible mostly as Israelite. There is Shallum who descends from Judah and Simeon, and elsewhere he's called the Levite (1 Chronicles 9: 19), one called the Ephraimite chief (2 Chronicles 28:12) undoubtedly a reference to Ephrain or Ferayn bin Baliy; another called uncle of Jeremiah, and another as son of king Josiah (1 Chronicles 3:15). Shallum as the Levite is called Meshallum (2 Chronicles 34:12). Some of these passages were apparently refereing to the same person.
Kamal Salibi said that the tribal name Danadinah (dndn) - the plural of Dan - is carried by a village in the region of Zahran a region of the Azd tribes. The tribe of al Dindan in Wadi Dawasir is a clan of Rijban and is named for an early tribal chief there - Abdullah al-Dindan. The name of al-Dindan would thus mean belonging to "the Danites" which suggest that the ancient tribe once resided there as the historical Bahila (Bilha mother of Dan) did.
We saw that the Habbaniyya of Hadramaut claim to be from Dan, the brother of Naphtali, and that an Arabic text mentions the Habbani as descendants of Bahila from Banu Ma'n bin Asur of the Banu Azd (MacMichael, 1922 p. 186), i.e. the biblical “Bilha”, mother of Naphtali and Dan. The Habbani named Habban district of the Hadramaut region a region which along with the rest of Yemen according to Ibn Khaldun in the 14th century was known as the blackest zones of the Sudan (al-Bili, .
The tribal lands of Naphtali according to Salibi “could have comprised” places ranging from the “hinterlands of Birk in the north to that of Jizan” in the Assir with al-Maftil or al-Maftal (Hamza, F., p. 17) – whom Kamal Salibi considers to be the tribe of “Naphtali” (Salibi, p. 192 : ). So much for a people without any history. ; )
We saw that the Habbaniyya of Hadramaut claim to be from Dan, the brother of Naphtali, and that an Arabic text mentions the Habbani as descendants of Bahila from Banu Ma'n bin Asur of the Banu Azd (MacMichael, 1922 p. 186), i.e. the biblical “Bilha”, mother of Naphtali and Dan. The Habbani named Habban district of the Hadramaut region a region which along with the rest of Yemen according to Ibn Khaldun in the 14th century was known as the blackest zones of the Sudan (al-Bili, .
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The true Habbani of Hadramaut (as represented by the man above) are not the fair-skinned Yemenite Jews that have been placed over the internet falsely under the name "Habbani". Yemenite Jews are those who have mixed with the Persians and others. The true Habbaniyya are descendants of the "black" Azd tribe or Ghatafan people called Bahila (Bilha, Jacob's concubine) through Dan. Thus, they must necessarily represent not only what the Azd looked like and what a majority of the tribes of "Israel" looked like (a few tribes of Israel were not Azd although they were still black). But it is safe to say that even the Habbaniy have absorbed other peoples within the last 2000 years. ; ) |
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Habbani Jews in photo above and African of Mali below it. Somehow the "pagan" Dogon, a Mande tribe of Mali, wear prayer shawls similar to the traditional Jewish shawls of the Habbaniyy in Hadramaut above. People have written books in attempts to explain the connection of Dogon religious beliefs to those of the Hebrews. The Dogon are famous for bringing new information about the star Sirius who is in fact named Jether/Yethir, Idris, Dharis and Teras or Tir in Africa and the ancient world. When the world starts to acknowledge the Afro-Asiatic origins of the Hebrews, they will understand what these people understood about the consciousness of the universe reflected in man. So as the people said in their book - "when the Jews return to Sion...." |
THE FATE OF THE SHULAMITES
Recently, I ran into an interesting article of a Susan Beckerleg, a well-meaning anthropologist who had graduated from the London's School of Oriental and African Studies. She had studied peoples in Africa and sought the roots of black (sumr) peoples or slaves in Palestine. The article is unfortunately a fine example of the deleterious effects of the slave narrative on modern academic historical studies and confusion surrounding the origins of the black indigenes and Afroasiatic bedouins in general found throughout the Middle East.
In an article she entitled, “Hidden History Secret Present: the Roots of the Origins and Status of African Palestinians” many of the indigenous black populations of Palestine are wrongly subsumed into an imagined African population with relatively recent ties to Africa. See Beckerleg article here
Although she admits there are black bedouin, along with African communities that descended from slaves and migrants from the haj, she seems to lump together every black group of the Negeb and Palestine with black peoples of recent African roots.
Beckerleg writes, “This study was made possible by the kind co-operation of Palestinians living in Jerusalem, Gaza and the Nagab. People of African descent told me what they knew of their parents and grandparents and their lives in Palestine. Some older people I spoke to Jerusalem had been born in Africa, while others in the Nagab and Gaza told me what they knew of how their ancestors came to Palestine. For many other people the link with Africa had been lost and all but forgotten. In London I searched libraries for historical accounts of the links between Africa and Palestine. I did not find much.”
And in fact, the reason she didn't find much was likely due to the fact that the people called sumr or black in Palestine, Negeb and Jordan were mostly descendants of the original and well-documented “sumr” of the same region, otherwise known for thousands of years as "the Arab".
As we have shown in this and the previous blogs, the original Arab peoples of this region for thousands of years have been historically-documented as “black as soot” Saracens, “the black Nabit” or Nabataeans of Syrian writers like al Dimashqi, “black Kedar” or “Khudayr” the black Kushi(tes) in the tents of Kedar”, the black “Canaanites”, the black Ishmaelites” the black as lava” Sulaym bin Mansur” of al-Jahiz – the latter who as we have seen included the tribes of Manasseh, Ephraim, and Judah of “the Israelites”!
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In an early medieval depiction from a church in Estonia (eastern Europe), five black "Saracens" - early Arab invaders of Eastern Europe - falling into the waters as one of them begs for mercy and another stays on the ship. St. George hovers over them. (The idea that Saracens were just symbolically black because of there "infernal religion" is based more on European wishful thinking and their slave narrative rather than on reality. ; ) |
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Warriors of the Umayyad dynasty under their ruler Maslama abd al Malik of the 7th c. depicted in this early Byzantine painting were mainly from the Hijaz or west Arabian region. Unlike the Ummayads, the immediately succeeding dynasty of the Abbasids were not so much Arab as Turkish and Persian. Later came the Qays ibn Ailan whose black (or near black) people were mainly from Central or north Central Arabia from the akhdar tribes of Kedar. |
In the same article Beckerleg informs the reader that many people in Palestine claimed that the 20th century Israelis tried to lump together all the sumr or "blacks" in the region as “Abu Bilal”.
The author even speaks of meeting black bedouins known as the “al-Rubayn” whose name is the biblical Reuben, and likely the same tribe from which the Jewish adventurer David ha Reubaniy described in Europe as "black as a Negro" claimed descent from in Khaibar, Hijaz. She wrote “In Gaza, I also encountered black people of the Al Rubayn ashira who were settled Bedouin living around the area of Jaffa, before being driven from their villages as refugees in 1948. They said that they were unconnected to the Nagab Bedouin. Their name derived from Nabi Rubooyn who thousands of years ago used a well near their home area.”
Hmmmm - now what well could this tribe with an ancestor named "Rubayn" or "Rubooyn" have been referring to. Lest we forget thousands of years ago a biblical Reuben "son of Jacob" is supposed to have convinced his some of his brothers to throw another brother named Joseph into a well. As one website commentary says - "Some of Reuben’s good qualities displayed themselves when he persuaded his nine brothers to throw Joseph into a dry well instead of killing him, Reuben intending to return secretly and deliver Joseph out of the well." (See Genesis 37:18-30)
Hmmmm - now what well could this tribe with an ancestor named "Rubayn" or "Rubooyn" have been referring to. Lest we forget thousands of years ago a biblical Reuben "son of Jacob" is supposed to have convinced his some of his brothers to throw another brother named Joseph into a well. As one website commentary says - "Some of Reuben’s good qualities displayed themselves when he persuaded his nine brothers to throw Joseph into a dry well instead of killing him, Reuben intending to return secretly and deliver Joseph out of the well." (See Genesis 37:18-30)
The word 'ashira' means families. And, we can rest assured Beckerleg was speaking of the families of a real life nation of Jacob/Israel in the very true sense. The Rubayn are mentioned in the Transjordanian area in the 12th century by Benjamin Tudela, but the David ha Reubeniy from Khaibar (Chaboras) who traveled in Europe claimed to be a prince of not only of the Reuben, but of the tribes of Gad and Manasseh (Mansur/Manasse'ir) nearby (Rabow, Jerry, 2002, p. 163). (And we have also seen numerous times in this blog who these black people were and are.)
Reuben is associated with the region of Mishor which has frequently and wrongly been translated as modern Egypt. Mishor is Mishra or Mushir which corresponds to the present day Musra tribe - not Egypt (Nadav, Na'aman, 2005, p. 51; Levin, Yigal, 2017, p. 143).
Reuben is associated with the region of Mishor which has frequently and wrongly been translated as modern Egypt. Mishor is Mishra or Mushir which corresponds to the present day Musra tribe - not Egypt (Nadav, Na'aman, 2005, p. 51; Levin, Yigal, 2017, p. 143).
Beckerleg sites the Palestinian historian Arif el-Arif, a descendant of Ottoman Turks who reported that people traced the historical roots of those she and other Brits and the European Israelis called “Africans” in Jerusalem back to Arabia. El Arif wrote:
“'The origins of the African community go back to pure Arabic roots. The majority of the members are derived from the Arab Muslim tribe called Al Salamat. This tribe was living in Jeddah, Hijaz (now in Saudi Arabia), and then migrated to Chad and Sudan and other African countries. However, members of the tribe kept up contact with Hijaz, especially Mecca and Medina for the Haj, and after the pilgrimage they went to Jerusalem to continue their worship in al Aqsa mosque, the place of the nocturnal journey of the prophet Mohammed to the Seven Heavens. So some of these visitors loved Jerusalem and stayed in it'” (Arif el-Arif, address given in Jerusalem in 1971)
If el-Arif used for the word African he probably wasn't speaking of the bedouins, but of the people that arrived from Africa later. The indigenous Arabian al-Salamat however are mentioned by Hamza as well as others as part of the Alawi'in of Huwaytat al-Nejd near Aqaba and Arabah (Hamza, p. 13), and is probably just another group of the peoples otherwise called Sulaym and Salamiyyan. Another well known group of the Alawi are the Sa'idis who also settled in southern Egypt, Sudan and Libya. Burkhardt derived them from the Banu Salih the principal tribe of the Sinai region, who we have shown is the "Shelah" of Genesis and the "Salih" of the Quran.
In fact the indigenous al-Salamat bedouin in Arabia are descendants of Arabian peoples who during the early Muslim invasions of the Suleym-Hilal (“sons of Mansur”) peoples, emigrated through Chad and Sudan where they made and still make up part of the Arabs called Shuwa in Chad and Libya and Cameroon and moved westward into Niger and the Emirates of Nigeria (Holl, Augustin, 2003, p. 24, 26, 46; Temple, O, 2009, p.25).
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The Ottoman (Turkish) Palestinian journalist Al -Arif sits in the midst of the bedouin Hanajra or Hanajireh tribe of Beersheba - among the least modified of the early tribes of "Kedar" and "Nabataean Aramaeans" once dominating northern Arabia and the Syrian deserts. They are a tribe of Terabin closely related to the Amarat, and Ma'aza and Anazah groups who before mixing with "white Syrians" and others were derived from the Rabiyya bin Wa'il of Central Arabia. Such people in more ancient times in Assyria and Mesopotamia were called Amurru or "Rabbean Amorites".  |
Bedouin chiefs of the Azazmeh in Palestine. The Azazmeh claim descent from the Ma'aza an ancient people mentioned in Assyrian records. (See below) Ma'aza are likely "Massa" of Genesis and "Muzay" and "Marza" of writers like the Persian al-Tabari - "a child" or tribe of Ishmael and descendant of "Nabeet" son of Kedar/Qudhar (or otherwise Canaan/Kainan) - mentioned by medieval Syrians as signifying the "black" people.
In fact the indigenous al-Salamat bedouin in Arabia are descendants of Arabian peoples who during the early Muslim invasions of the Suleym-Hilal (“sons of Mansur”) peoples, emigrated through Chad and Sudan where they made and still make up part of the Arabs called Shuwa in Chad and Libya and Cameroon and moved westward into Niger and the Emirates of Nigeria (Holl, Augustin, 2003, p. 24, 26, 46; Temple, O, 2009, p.25).
The Shuwa Salamat tribe in Africa are mentioned with tribes named Hamidiy, Habbani and Beni Seit who are also undoubtedly among the tribes mentioned in sources like Fu'ad Hamza's, Near East/South Asia report extending along the western coast and southern coasts of Arabia in the early 20th century. They now make up groups among the Musra Harb and Haweitat in the Negeb, Hijaz and are found in the Asir and in Hadramaut and Yemen.
The tribal name Salamat corresponds to the name “Shalometh” or “Shallumith”, found several times in the Bible mainly in Chronicles as a chief of the Izharites - Izhar being the grandson of Levi (1 Chron. 23:18); as a descendant of Eliazar the son of Moses (1 Chronicles 26:25 and 26:28); as a Gershonite, - Gershon or Gershom (probably Banu Jurshum) being a son of Levi (1 Chronicles 23:9); and a woman named “Shulamith” is named the daughter of the Danite (Leviticus 24:11) who lived in the time of Moses.
Dr. Beckerleg who appears to repeatedly dismiss the indigenous origins of even black bedouin of Palestine due to her interest in the plight of African slaves points out how the “white” Palestinians made use of the term “abid” a word which means servant or slave. She comments, “Although some white Palestinians claim that 'abed' is not an abusive name and that any connotations with slavery have been lost, others are embarrassed to even hear the word mentioned. Clearly the issue of the origins, identity and terminology used to describe people of African origin is a highly sensitive one. When I spoke to some white Palestinians they denied that black people were ever slaves in the region, and said that rather they had been soldiers of the Ottoman Empire. When I pointed out that this was not the case, one man almost whispered to me 'we never talk about it'. Yet, white Palestinians by persisting in calling people of African origin 'abed, perpetuate discrimination.”
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Contrary to the wishful thinking of many Americans and the distortions of Europeans most so-called Shuwa or Baqqara of Sudan are Arabs that are less mixed than most people in Arabia today, preserving the early and ancient Arab phenotype. Due to the similarity between Arab tribal names found in Sudan and among the Banu Harb, Harold MacMichael once wrote "there seems small reason to doubt that the Bakkara tribe of the Sudan contain numerous elements that are also common to the Beni Harb of the Hegaz." ( See A History of the Arabs of Sudan (2011) p. 281)Click here and relax forever to the enchanting music of the Nile Or just listen to one. |
Dr. Beckerleg who appears to repeatedly dismiss the indigenous origins of even black bedouin of Palestine due to her interest in the plight of African slaves points out how the “white” Palestinians made use of the term “abid” a word which means servant or slave. She comments, “Although some white Palestinians claim that 'abed' is not an abusive name and that any connotations with slavery have been lost, others are embarrassed to even hear the word mentioned. Clearly the issue of the origins, identity and terminology used to describe people of African origin is a highly sensitive one. When I spoke to some white Palestinians they denied that black people were ever slaves in the region, and said that rather they had been soldiers of the Ottoman Empire. When I pointed out that this was not the case, one man almost whispered to me 'we never talk about it'. Yet, white Palestinians by persisting in calling people of African origin 'abed, perpetuate discrimination.”
I would say the real discrimination and far more irritating is European attempts for the last few centuries to exclude blacks in Arabia or brainwash them from their own tribal names and ancient ancestral lineages in these regions consequently depriving them and the rest of humanity of peace and a truly spiritual heritage. ; )
THE DOWNFALL OF NIMROD AND THE NABATAEANS: CENTRAL ARABIAN ORIGINS AND THE AMORITE
“Among the children of Canaan are the Nabit, Nabit signifies 'black'...” Ibrahim ibn Wasif Shah in Mukhtasar al-Ajaib, circa 10th-11th century (cited in Goldenberg, David M., The Curse of Canaan 2009, p. 352 rn. 23).
“The Nimrods were the kings of the Syrians, whom the Arabs call Nabathaeans. The Nabataeans founded the city of Babylon...The inhabitants of Ninevah were those we call Nabeet or Syrians.” Al Mas'udi of Baghdad 10th century
"Nabit son of Mash having fixed his residence at Babil these Nabathaeans gave kings to Babel, his descendants seized all Irak who covered the land with cities, introduced civilization, and reigned with unequalled glory. Time has taken away their greatness and empire; and their descendants, in a state of dependance and humiliation, are now dispersed in Irak and other provinces.'" Al Mas'udi 10th century
In the ancient Near East, the Greeks referred to the early Arab peoples as "black Syrians". They lined the coast of Asia including and including the regions of Cappadocia and Asia Minor until very late period and are the reason early Byzantine and Russian artwork so often portray the early Christians as black. (See below)
The name Nimrod is from an Afroasiatic word meaning leopard, panther or tiger. He is “called a mighty hunter that goeth before a lord,” both for literal and cosmological reasons. It is the name for several tribes in Arabia the most celebrated of which was the Central Arabian tribe of Namir ibn Cassit in the Nejd or Central Arabia. As we have explained previously the Muslim writers use the name Nimrod "son of Cush", or Numayr/Namir ibn Cassit or Nimrod "bin Arphaxad" (Aur or Ur Khasdim) to describe the tribe that went into Babylon a few thousands of years ago, or “in the time of Abraham” founding Akkad , Uruk and Kish and other places in “the plain of Sena'ar”.
Numayr ibn Kassit or Casit is in other words a historically documented northern Arabian tribe, which was closely related to or issued from the people called Rabi'a (Rabee'ah) and Wa'il comprised of the Dawasir related tribes of Taghlib bin Wa'il, Bakr bin Wa'il and Anaeza bin Wa'il all children of Cassit (Boullata, 2003, p. 249).
It is certain that from Anaza (“the she goat”), sibling of Ma'aza (“he goat”), came many of the tribes mentioned in Assyrian texts further north as Amorites and Aramaeans. These tribes came to live between Nejd or Central Arabia, Jordan and Syria. Burton writes of what the tribes believe of their origin,
“The bandit Ma'azah claim the bluest of blue blood. According to one of their chiefs... Wail left by his descendants two great tribes. The first and eldest took a name from their Ma'az (he-goats), while the junior called themselves after the 'Annaz (she-goats). From the latter sprang the great 'Anezah family, which occupies the largest and the choicest provinces of the Arabian peninsula” (Burton, Richard F., 1882, pp. 273-274).
According to an early Assyriologist the tribe Maaza'a or Ma'aza was mentioned fighting with the Assyrians before the 6th century BC along with Thamud. Ma'aza are also mentioned in the Assyrian inscriptions of the ruler Tiglath Pilessar II at the site of ancient Nineveh where they are referred to with the Sabaeans, Tema, and Idbahil (Adbeel) (Smith, George, 1875, p. 262).
These are obviously the names of the tribes mentioned who are Dumah, Massa, Tema, Adbeel are like Nabit and Kedar children of "Ishmael" (Genesis 25:12-15). "These are the names of the sons of Ishmael, named in the order of their birth: Nebaioth, the firstborn of Ishmael; and Kedar, Adbeel, Mibsam, Mishma, Dumah, Massa, Hadad, Tema, Jetur, Naphish and Kedemah."
The 1909 Standard Bible Dictionary entry speaks of Massa", a son of Ishmael", saying "...it's exact location is unknown, but it appears to be mentioned in an inscription of one of the later Assyrian kings under the Gentile name Mas'a'a 'the Masaites'. These tribes were in conflict with the people of Nebaoith from which we infer they lived not far from E. Palestine." (See A Standard Bible Dictionary, eds. Melancthon Jacobus, Edward E. Nourse and Andrew C. Zenos published 1909 by Funk and Wagnalls).
Al Tabari writes a variant of the name "Marza" (Watt, William Montgomery, and McDonald, Michael V., 1988, p. 42 ). The modern tribe called Ma'aza (otherwise called Atiyeh after a former tribal chief) are found in Palestine and Jordan even today, and they are closely related to the Haweitat, Azazma, Terrabin, Hanajra, Muzeina and other tribes plainly descendants in full or in part of the inhabitantts of the Nabataean kingdom and their kinsmen the Solymi or Salamaeans or Sulaym.
Among the other Alawi'in-Huweitat are al-Qudman who are likely Qedem or Kedemah "child of Ishmael". Tabari in fact has one of the variations as "Qudayman".
As mentioned previously the Lebanese historian Philip Hitti stated correctly that the Nabataeans “were represented by the lowly Haweitat who still roam where their ancestors once flourished and pitch their tents outside of their red rose city half as old as time”. This red rose city of the Nabataeans is known as Petra is still occupied by remnants of the Haweit'at.
The 1909 Standard Bible Dictionary entry speaks of Massa", a son of Ishmael", saying "...it's exact location is unknown, but it appears to be mentioned in an inscription of one of the later Assyrian kings under the Gentile name Mas'a'a 'the Masaites'. These tribes were in conflict with the people of Nebaoith from which we infer they lived not far from E. Palestine." (See A Standard Bible Dictionary, eds. Melancthon Jacobus, Edward E. Nourse and Andrew C. Zenos published 1909 by Funk and Wagnalls).
Al Tabari writes a variant of the name "Marza" (Watt, William Montgomery, and McDonald, Michael V., 1988, p. 42 ). The modern tribe called Ma'aza (otherwise called Atiyeh after a former tribal chief) are found in Palestine and Jordan even today, and they are closely related to the Haweitat, Azazma, Terrabin, Hanajra, Muzeina and other tribes plainly descendants in full or in part of the inhabitantts of the Nabataean kingdom and their kinsmen the Solymi or Salamaeans or Sulaym.
Among the other Alawi'in-Huweitat are al-Qudman who are likely Qedem or Kedemah "child of Ishmael". Tabari in fact has one of the variations as "Qudayman".
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An Al-Azazma or Azazimeh of Israel/Palestine - they are originally from the Ma'aza (Atiyeh) who are mentioned in ancient Assyrian texts several hundred years BC. In that day the Arab Ma'az didn't get along too well with the Assyrians, now some are in conflict with peoples in Israel.: ( Sir Richard Burton in his "Land of Midian" claimed they stretched from Petra to the northern harra. Some British colonialists have suggested the name of the Azazmeh itself is possibly the same as "Zuzim" or "Zamzummim", the name of a people who were inhabitants of "Ham", a city of Canaan. |
The Nabataeans as we have mentioned were otherwise called by "white Syrians", the "black Nabiti" or Nabeet. One anonymous work says “ {Ham} had a son, after Canaan, Kush, who was black ...Among the children of Canaan are the Nabit, Nabit signifies 'black'... ” words of the Syrian author of the Akhbar as Zaman circa 11th century (cited in David M. Goldenberg's, The Curse of Ham: Race and Slavery in Early Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (2009), p. 352, fn. 23).
In some genealogies the Nabataeans are called sons of Mash or Mashek son of Aram son of Shem. In fact in the “ Tabaqat” of Ibn Saad we can read, “The Nabateans are the descendants of Nubayt, ibn Mash ibn Iram ibn Sham ibn Nuah”, and in the works of al-Masudi we read “'Among the sons of Mash, son of Aram, son of Shem, son of Noah, is Nabit, from whom are sprung all the Nabathaeans and their Kings.'” We have seen that Mash is repeatedly written Meshech in the Bible and other sources and that this is the tribe Masika or Mazigh "an Ethiopian people" that are also mentioned in Roman period in the Maghreb or Northern Africa. However, they may have come to be perceived as children of Ham/Hamran by Syrians of the medieval period due to their blackness and connection to Canaan, i.e. the lowland south of Mecca.
Originally they were said to be warlike bedouin or camel owning nomads, and as scholars know, the Aramaeans were originally the same people as the Amorites. Even in the time of Diodorus Siculus the Nabataeans are considered as a people who never liked to plough the ground. He describes them as 10,000 warriors saying:
Originally they were said to be warlike bedouin or camel owning nomads, and as scholars know, the Aramaeans were originally the same people as the Amorites. Even in the time of Diodorus Siculus the Nabataeans are considered as a people who never liked to plough the ground. He describes them as 10,000 warriors saying:
“they were by their laws prohibited from sowing, planting, drinking wine, and building houses; every violation of the precept being punishable with death. The reason assigned for this very singular rule is, their belief that those who possess such things will be easily brought into subjection by a tyrant; on which account they continue, says the historian, to traverse the desert, feeding their flocks, which consist partly of camels and partly of sheep.” Diodorus Siculus (1st century AD) on the Nabataeans 1832 Michael Russell Palestine, or the Holy Land: From the Earliest Period to the Present Time. J. & J. Harper.
The Nabataeans started off as a nomadic and warrior pastoralist people that became prominent after they were put in charge of the frankincense trade between Gaza and South Arabia by the Achaemenid Persians (Kropp, p. 39).
Now it is time to point out other clan names of the historical Nabataeans, who were Ishmaelites and as well the first to be called Aramaeans, that are still existing amongst the Harb and Huwayt'at peoples. That is to say that the clans of the Nabataeans and Thamud are still extant among the modern tribes of the Haweitat and Harb-related peoples as stated by Hitti.
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Dha'if - A Huwaytat/Haweitat chief during the British colonial period, i.e. time of Lawrence of Arabia |
Many of the Haweit'at in contemporary times were so near to black that some have wrongly mistaken them to be descendants of Egyptians or other Africans. There are however as we have shown in previous blogposts and references on this post several early medieval references to the Nabataeans as black-complexioned people in medieval Arabic texts; just as there are numerous references to Canaanites, Copts, Berbers and Kushites being black. It was also pointed out in earlier posts that Ibn Washiya and a famous 9th century Persian Imam called Reza speak of the “black Nabati”. Al-Dimashqi claimed the name of the “Nabit” in his 13th century era had come to signify “black”, and also says they, along with the Qipti or Copts and Berbers were black because of a curse that had been placed on Ham's children.
One author recounts the dream of the 10th century Ibn Nadim - “he saw ... a group resembling the Nabataeans, black, barefoot, with cloven heels. He said to me 'I saw in their group ibn Mundhiryani, who was one of the greatest workers of Magic, [living] near to our time. His [real] name was Ahmad ibn Ja'far and he was an apprentice of Ibn Zurayq....” (Lebling, Robert, 2010, no page numbers).
The author who cites this passage goes on to mention that the “Nabataeans mentioned here were an ancient Arabian tribal group, perhaps of Iraqi origin, with a deep magical tradition. In the Roman period they were known as a prosperous merchant people, involved in the trans-Arabian caravan trade as well as nautical commerce, and were identified primarily with the dramatic carved stone cities of Petra (now in Jordan), and Medain Salih (in present day Saudi Arabia).”
In reference to the above, linguistic specialist Saad D. Abulhab wrote in his book, Inscriptional Evidence of PreIslamic Classical Arabic the following: “Ibn an-Nadim wrote in the introduction of his book al-Fihrast that the old language of Babylon (i.e. the Akkadian was the language of the Nabataeans and that al-Kildaniyyun (the Chaldeans) and al-Siryaniyyun (the Assyrians) spoke dialects that were derived from it. He also wrote, quoting one of the Nabataean magicians who was living during his time, that the Nabataeans were people 'with black complexion'” (Abdulhab, Saad, 2013, p. 10).
In reference to the above, linguistic specialist Saad D. Abulhab wrote in his book, Inscriptional Evidence of PreIslamic Classical Arabic the following: “Ibn an-Nadim wrote in the introduction of his book al-Fihrast that the old language of Babylon (i.e. the Akkadian was the language of the Nabataeans and that al-Kildaniyyun (the Chaldeans) and al-Siryaniyyun (the Assyrians) spoke dialects that were derived from it. He also wrote, quoting one of the Nabataean magicians who was living during his time, that the Nabataeans were people 'with black complexion'” (Abdulhab, Saad, 2013, p. 10).
Abdulhab adds that early Arabic writers believed that “these early Nabataeans were Arabs in their roots who had migrated earlier from Southern Arabia...” (Abdulhab, 2013).
We have already discussed the indisputable evidence of the fact in the blogpost King Solomon's Miners that those people that George Hogarth, Richard Burton and Robertson Smith designated Haweitat and Harb contain between them the tribes named Salamiyya, Salaymat, Salim and Musalima mirroring the early biblical names generally (translated as Shallum, Salma or Shalmai, Shalometh, and Shulamite, Meshullam, Meshelemiah, Shallum, Salma or Shalmai and Shulamite). However, equally of note are the ancient names of Nabataean groups found in inscriptions and still present amidst the Huwaytat and other bedouin clans claiming a southerly origin.
Inscriptions in the Nabataean kingdom suggest that many of the remaining black populations of the present area of southern Palestine, North Arabia, Sinai and Jordan are their descendants. The modern Ma'aza are also called Atiyah today and the people of the Haweitat/Huwaytat, Terabin, Azazma, Hanajira and other tribes that still have a significant number of people with sumr or khudar complexon already discussed in this post claim descent from each other. The name of the Terabin actually derives from their homeland of Turaba in the Central Arabian desert east of Mecca.
Inscriptions in the Nabataean kingdom suggest that many of the remaining black populations of the present area of southern Palestine, North Arabia, Sinai and Jordan are their descendants. The modern Ma'aza are also called Atiyah today and the people of the Haweitat/Huwaytat, Terabin, Azazma, Hanajira and other tribes that still have a significant number of people with sumr or khudar complexon already discussed in this post claim descent from each other. The name of the Terabin actually derives from their homeland of Turaba in the Central Arabian desert east of Mecca.
The British colonialist Hogarth wrote -
“The Beni Atiyah are an old tribe closely akin to the 'Anezah. They claim descent from Ma'z, who is said to have been brother of 'Anaz, the ancestor of the 'Anezah. Some authorities state that the 'Atiyah tribe was of the origin of the Huweitat, the Heiwat, the Terabin, Ma'za, and Tiyahah. Whether or no this be the true explanation of the relation between the 'Atiya and the Huweitat, it is certain that their connexion is exceedingly close. The two tribes camp in each other's country, and aid each other against common enemies. ...” Hejaz Before World War I, David George Hogarth p. 35 published 1917 by British colonialists.
The Atiyeh (also known as Ma'aza) got their name from a relatively recent tribal chief Ibn Atiyah. Charles Doughty also wrote similarly in his 1935 book, Sons of Ishmael - "Ma'aza was another name for the Bani Atiya" (Murray, George W., 2013, p. 267). “This tribe is known by the name of Al-'Atawinah or Al-Ma'azah, and is related to Ma'az Ibn Asad (brother of 'Anz, the founder of 'Anzah).”
Today's Anaezah or Anzah are among the largest confederations in Arabia and Syria comprising tribes of various phenotypes from the darkest color to the lightest. Those in Syria tend to be very fair or like other modern Syrians, but many of these same tribes under the same names south of Syria in the region of Sinai and Jordan and the Tihama are not. Nevertheless some European or Western scholars documenting such groups continue to imply that all the dark-skinned among them are the result of the influx of African slaves - as if they didn't know or prefer to ignore all the textual evidence that shows how these ancient Nabataeans, Sulaym/Solymi, Canaanites, and Ishmaelites/Kedar were described.
Atiyah/Ma'aza lives today in harrat al-Mowahib and harrat al-'Uwarid (Hamza, F., p. 27) – that is to say al-harra, the volcanic region where the 9th century al-Jahiz claimed in his time "all of the tribes" were black as the lava.
The name of the Anezah or Anaeza bin Wail is said to be that of “Aeis” the goat or "Esau", and thus we find among them the now fair-skinned Syrian looking Amarat Anaeza clan called the Ruwala bin Anaez or Anazah in Syria (shown above) - that is to say - Reu'el ( the "al-Arawi" of Tabari), “son of Esau”.
In fact the name of the Rabi'a or Rabee'ah a major tribe of early Central Arabia from which spring Anaza and Ma'aza sounds curiously, but not surprisingly, like or identical to the name of the ancient major Amorite tribe Rabbiya or the “Rabbeans” mentioned in Mesopotamian texts mainly near Mari (Johnson, Philip, 2002, p. 138; Kamp, Kathryn A., and Yoffee, Norman, 1980, p. 91; ).
As mentioned the Anaez bin Wa'il and Rabi'a peoples were originally from the Nejd and were those considered Nabit or Nabataean in Jordan. Even in our modern times they have among them a tribe of al Amarat or Amrat (Hamza, p. 24), while the Terabin have a division called the Naba'at.
Inscriptions in the Nabataean kingdom also mention the tribes of Amrat along with the Ruhi/Rwhy, Namrat, Mzyn, Masikat and Ma'is.
As mentioned the Anaez bin Wa'il and Rabi'a peoples were originally from the Nejd and were those considered Nabit or Nabataean in Jordan. Even in our modern times they have among them a tribe of al Amarat or Amrat (Hamza, p. 24), while the Terabin have a division called the Naba'at.
Inscriptions in the Nabataean kingdom also mention the tribes of Amrat along with the Ruhi/Rwhy, Namrat, Mzyn, Masikat and Ma'is.
The name of the Amrat may be the reason the Nabataeans are referred to as "Amorites" in Assyrian record. These groups are also those that became known as Aramaeans.
Genesis 22:21 speaks of Nahor's sons as “Uz his firstborn and Buz his brother and Kemuel the father of Aram, Chesed and Hazo...” Furthermore, the homeland of Aram, Uz or Aus, his son, and Ad son of Aus, and Shedad, son of Ad, and Thamud, the remnant of Ad in Arabian tradition, is in the winding sands or Al-Akhaf of Hadramaut and near Rub al-Khali - not Syria. Thus, al-Tabari wrote, “To Aram b.Shem was born Uz b. Aram,whose home was al-Ahqaf” (Brinner, William, 2015, p. 16) Ibn Khaldun also said al-Akhaf in Hadramaut in al-Yaman was the place where the tribe of A'ad resided, and that ”in its midst was the mountain of Shibam”(Kay, Henry Cassels, 1892, p. 180).
Among these Aramaeans formerly known as Amurru were the Sutu Amurru or Shetu also called "Sutean Aramaeans" and Ahlamu Sutu (Lipinski, Edward, 2000, p. 39) The latter are mentioned several times in the Amarna records and may have been the Beni Set of southern Transjordania.
Genesis 22:21 speaks of Nahor's sons as “Uz his firstborn and Buz his brother and Kemuel the father of Aram, Chesed and Hazo...” Furthermore, the homeland of Aram, Uz or Aus, his son, and Ad son of Aus, and Shedad, son of Ad, and Thamud, the remnant of Ad in Arabian tradition, is in the winding sands or Al-Akhaf of Hadramaut and near Rub al-Khali - not Syria. Thus, al-Tabari wrote, “To Aram b.Shem was born Uz b. Aram,whose home was al-Ahqaf” (Brinner, William, 2015, p. 16) Ibn Khaldun also said al-Akhaf in Hadramaut in al-Yaman was the place where the tribe of A'ad resided, and that ”in its midst was the mountain of Shibam”(Kay, Henry Cassels, 1892, p. 180).
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Shibam young men play ball |
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Town of Shibam of Hadramaut lies in background |
Apparently “Sutu” was originally the name of one tribe, which then became a general name for nomads in later times. It is a name found in the Akkadian dialect. Also the “Sutu were nomadic tribes in Egyptian service”, and are also mentioned in the texts of Sargon I as “desert folk”.
On the same hand Kamal Salibi spoke of this tribe mentioned in the Amarna period as plausible ancestors of al-Sutah near Ta'if and the Sawati near Mecca (Salibi, Kamal, p. 75). The Sutah of Salibi are the al-Sawtah mentioned by Hamza in his "Near East/South Asia Report" as a clan of the Beni Sa'd who extend to Ta'if in Hijaz. The name of the Sutu has possibly been retained in that of the Suwayt that are part of the al-Zafir living now between Iraq and Najd. Salibi spoke of the Banu Set of southern Transjordania as a probably related tribe - which shouldn't be too hard to find out.; )
We know we are talking about the same people as the Afroasiatics in this blog because many of the Amorite tribes are connected to the land of Canaan “the homeland of the Amurrū stretched along the Mediterranean coast and included the area south of Ugarit and as far south as Byblos. South of Amurrum, the texts mention the city of Yariḫ, close to the ruins of Rāḫiṣum (Ruḫizzi of El-Amarna texts) in the 'Land of Canaan'” from which the Benjaminite Yariḫū tribe came” (Bodi, Daniel, 2014, p. 391).
But, the land of Canaan where the biblical Benjamin lived, as well as the towns of the Egyptian Amarna records, as shown by Kamal Salibi were identical to those the regions of Asir, Hijaz and Tihama south of Mecca in the Arabian peninsula (Salibi, K., p. 112, 118 and 137). One of these Cana'anite territories where the Benjamin tribe settled was Gibeon which Salibi considered to be al-Jib'an/al Jub'an in southwest Saudi Arabia in the Majaridah district of Asir.
Note the semitic Benyaminites (meaning "southerners") of Mesopotamia were associated with a tribe called "Yahrurum"(Malamat, Avraham, 1998, p. 228) while the Arabian Banu Yam of Hamdan in Nejran, also meaning "southerners" were not far away from the tribe called Yahar of the modern Yafa or Yafa'i bin Qased tribe in southwestern Arabia (south of Mecca).
In the book of Jasher, "Yafi bin Chesed" is said to be brother to Ben Oni, another name for Benjamin. "And the sons of Kesed were Anamlech, Meshai, Benon and Yifi." Is this coincidence?! Or is it proving once again that the history of the biblical peoples in the West has been so fantastically mangled into something that it would be geographically and culturally unrecognizable to the ancient Canaanites and Israelites. Of Benjamin's mother who died in childbirth it was said "she called his name Ben-oni; but his father called him Benjamin." Genesis 35:18. Canaan of the Torah was most definitely south of Mecca. : (
Amrat or Amarat is still the name of a modern tribe in Jordan near Petra claiming to descend from the Alaya or Alayan Haweit'at or Huwayt'at who come from the tribe still called al-Heywat (“the Hivites”). these or their ancestors were thus the Amorites, Elon-Hittites and Hivites who were the Canaanites of the biblical chapters. (I'm not sure why present historians haven't tried to see the link between these modern names and those of the ancient peoples like the Canaanites thought to have lived in or near the region. Maybe they were expecting people to look more like actors in a Hollywood motion picture or something, but I couldn't tell you. : (
Not surprisingly the Hivites who are also inhabitants of Gibeon are called Amorites in 2 Samuel 21:2 where it is explicitly said that the Gibeonites were “a remnant of the Amorites”. Thus these tribes the Heywat and Amarat along the Tihama and western regions of Arabia must have been at one time considered the same people who at a certain period and in a particular region were called Nabataeans. This also explains why Nabit is sometimes called a “son of Canaan”.
Note the semitic Benyaminites (meaning "southerners") of Mesopotamia were associated with a tribe called "Yahrurum"(Malamat, Avraham, 1998, p. 228) while the Arabian Banu Yam of Hamdan in Nejran, also meaning "southerners" were not far away from the tribe called Yahar of the modern Yafa or Yafa'i bin Qased tribe in southwestern Arabia (south of Mecca).
In the book of Jasher, "Yafi bin Chesed" is said to be brother to Ben Oni, another name for Benjamin. "And the sons of Kesed were Anamlech, Meshai, Benon and Yifi." Is this coincidence?! Or is it proving once again that the history of the biblical peoples in the West has been so fantastically mangled into something that it would be geographically and culturally unrecognizable to the ancient Canaanites and Israelites. Of Benjamin's mother who died in childbirth it was said "she called his name Ben-oni; but his father called him Benjamin." Genesis 35:18. Canaan of the Torah was most definitely south of Mecca. : (
Amrat or Amarat is still the name of a modern tribe in Jordan near Petra claiming to descend from the Alaya or Alayan Haweit'at or Huwayt'at who come from the tribe still called al-Heywat (“the Hivites”). these or their ancestors were thus the Amorites, Elon-Hittites and Hivites who were the Canaanites of the biblical chapters. (I'm not sure why present historians haven't tried to see the link between these modern names and those of the ancient peoples like the Canaanites thought to have lived in or near the region. Maybe they were expecting people to look more like actors in a Hollywood motion picture or something, but I couldn't tell you. : (
Not surprisingly the Hivites who are also inhabitants of Gibeon are called Amorites in 2 Samuel 21:2 where it is explicitly said that the Gibeonites were “a remnant of the Amorites”. Thus these tribes the Heywat and Amarat along the Tihama and western regions of Arabia must have been at one time considered the same people who at a certain period and in a particular region were called Nabataeans. This also explains why Nabit is sometimes called a “son of Canaan”.
One text from an urban dweller in Mesopotamia apparently not of Amorite or Nabataean descent wrote about the Amorites or Martu -
“Their hands are destructive and their features are those of monkeys…They never stop roaming about…Their ideas are confused. …(The Amorite is) “clothed in sack-leather….lives in a tent, exposed to wind and rain, and cannot properly recite prayers. He…eats raw flesh. He has no house during his life, and when he dies he will not be carried to a burial place” ( Bodi, Daniel, 2014, p. 389).
Another name for the Amurru was Hanu which came to mean tent-dwellers, probably the equivalent of the name Djehennu or Ta-henu a people living west of the Nile in ancient “Libya”. The Hanu or Hanaeans (Hannah?) were divided into Beni Sim'al and the Beni Yam, which is translated as northerners and southerners. The Benu Yam are the “Benjaminites” that Bodi spoke about above (the fact that one of the clans comes from Canaan of course suggests they were in fact the biblical tribe Benjamin). As we saw previously the real Benjamin was found in the region of Gibeon, which Salibi found was al-Jiban of al-Mujardah in the Asir or Assir of Saudi Arabia.
The "northerners" settled in places like Mari and Terqa while the southerners included the Rabbiyu/Rabbeans and the “Yabasu” (Ristvet, Lauren, 2005, p. 136) . Like the name Rabiya that of the Yabasu seems to be the equivalent of the name Yabasah, Yubays and the Wadi Yabs in the region of the Tihama near Baha which is the seat of the Ghamid region and Qunfudha in Arabia mentioned by Salibi (p. 112). However, the presence of these people in the Ghamid region of Assir suggests that they are the 'Abs of medieval texts, the traditional brethren to the Dhabyan or Zabyan/Zibeon.
Abs or Absiyya, Dhubyan and Fezarah are often mentioned together in early medieval Arab texts. The Dhabyan still inhabit the Ghamid (Hamza, F. p. 29) in Assir. Living with Dhabyan are the Fezara or Farza'ah. Of the Dhubyan, Hamza writes, “it is said that they descend from 'Abs” (p. 9). William Muir writes the name of Dhubyan as “Dzobian” (Muir, W, 1861, p. CCXXV). This Farza or Fezara is likely the biblical "Perez" or "Parosh".; )
Salibi has suggested the Yabs/'Abs or Yabasah or Absiyya of the Tihama and Asir were the Jebusites of Canaan, just as Dhabyan as we have previously shown is the name or tribe of the biblical Hivite/Horites called “Zibeon” in their ancient homeland.
Abs or Absiyya, Dhubyan and Fezarah are often mentioned together in early medieval Arab texts. The Dhabyan still inhabit the Ghamid (Hamza, F. p. 29) in Assir. Living with Dhabyan are the Fezara or Farza'ah. Of the Dhubyan, Hamza writes, “it is said that they descend from 'Abs” (p. 9). William Muir writes the name of Dhubyan as “Dzobian” (Muir, W, 1861, p. CCXXV). This Farza or Fezara is likely the biblical "Perez" or "Parosh".; )
Salibi has suggested the Yabs/'Abs or Yabasah or Absiyya of the Tihama and Asir were the Jebusites of Canaan, just as Dhabyan as we have previously shown is the name or tribe of the biblical Hivite/Horites called “Zibeon” in their ancient homeland.
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Group of Yemenite Tihama people in their hut |
Kamal Salibi considered that the Yabs extended to the Suhaf regions of Rijal Alma'. And that the ridge of Siyan in Rijal Alma is the real Mount Zion of the Torah (Salibi, K., 1985, p. 116-117).
The 'Abs are described by Ibn Abd Rabbih who said the famous Ibn Duraid saw a group of 'Abs bin Ghatafan described as "'black men shaking their spears and digging in the earth with their feet” (Berry, T., 2002, p. 78), which is still done by the sumr tribes of the Asir and Yemenite region. Many of the still predominantly dark-skinned or "sumr" men of the Tihama still dance with spears digging their feet in the sandy dirt. These are then almost certainly the direct and forgotten descendants of the real Canaanite peoples in their ancient homeland - founders of Jerusalem or Uru Salim, that were the biblical Hivites, Jebusites, Amorites, and from which emerged the Israelites.
See link Men of Yemen with spears "digging in the dirt with their feet"
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Rijal Alma - land of Abs or Yabsi and Zubyan/Dhubyan and likely ancient land of the Canaanite "Jebusites" (Yabusi) of the Torah/Bible |
See link Men of Yemen with spears "digging in the dirt with their feet"
Further north, the Amorites and the Aramaeans in Syria occupied the same areas and this is because they were different phases of the same people. One ruler mentions two thousand Aramaean tribesman from the clans of Saruga and Luhuayya under two leaders, one of whom was from Hamath a name which we discovered is connected to the name of the “Canaanite” and modern Hamadha or Hamayda miners - the latter being from the Kenites, or al-Ka'in of the Beliyy - a sub-tribe of Qudah and clients of the Sulaym. The name of the Sarugu, an Aramaean tribe, in fact corresponds to the name of one of the Hebrew ancestors “Serug” (son of Reu, the son of Peleg son of Eber/Abir) and is probably related to that of the medieval and modern Surayqa, al-Sawarka, Sowarqa, Seraha a people of the Salim section of the Harb (Hogarth, 1978, p. 39; ).
Richard Burton wrote that the Ahamda or Hamida were the most important branch of the Salim Harb. He calls them the principal family of the Harb a tribe who had "kept their blood pure the past thirteen centuries". He described these Harb he met as "small, chocolate colored beings, stunted and thin", and in meeting them he taunted them as looking like fellaheen in Egypt ( Burton, Richard, 1874, p. 240).
As illustrated previously the names of the Harb are also those of the ancient tribes of Mansur - Hawazin and Sulaym bin Mansur - who we have also demonstrated were a remnant of "Manasseh" who were "Shechemites" inhabitants of the first capital of Israel.
And the names of some families of the Hamida Burton mentions were the Mahamid and Sumaydah ) (Burton, p. 249) who are likely the "Shemidah" ("son of Gilead") and "Mehida" of the biblical texts. Shemidah is called son of Gilead (1 Chron. 7) who is grandson of Manasseh through his father Makhir, while Mehida (Ezra 2:52) ancestors of Nethinim (who are from the Gibeonites) is mentioned with Salmai, who is probably Salim, and other tribes mentioned in the book of Nehemiah - as aptly pointed out by Salibi occupying Tihama, Hijaz and Asir.
Nehemiah 7:45 mentions the peoples of Judah who appear to be other nations of Hijaz and Tihama, including the still modern Sulaym or Salamiyyan (Shallum), the modern Watar/Utur, Uqub, Haweitat and Subh all clans of the modern Harb and Haweitat and Towarah or those still called "The gatekeepers of the families of Shallum, Ater, Talmon, Akkub, Hatita and Shobai". As mentioned above the name Shallum of the Torah is translated as Sulaym by the medieval Egyptians Jews (Bareket, Elinoar, 1999, p. 50, fn. 87).
The name of Helek, another son of Gilead, is also in the region under the name of Haliq whom Burton calls the Aliki (Burton, p. 138). And we saw that Pliny called the land of the Hamidah Hammaeum "where there are gold-mines" which is doubtless the biblical land of Ham from which the Hivites and Hammathites i.e. these Hamidah descended.; )
The name of the Amorite Luhuayy could be related to that of the traditional “Luhay” son of Qam'ah son of Elyas bin Mudar - ancestor to the Khaza'a. It is also possibly connected with the Luhuatu or land of Luhuti named by Assurbanipal of Assyria. They are called an Aramaean tribe (Hermann, Claude, and Johns, Walter, 1901, p. 413). As we have seen previously a tribe affiliated with the name known as Lahiyan of the Hudhail (Huthail/Huzail bin Mudrika) whose "skins were black and shining" according to traveler and colonial Charles Doughty (Doughty, Charles, 2010, p. 535), and who dwelt in the bee-hive huts native to the Tihama indigenes and the Africans of the Horn.
Richard Burton wrote that the Ahamda or Hamida were the most important branch of the Salim Harb. He calls them the principal family of the Harb a tribe who had "kept their blood pure the past thirteen centuries". He described these Harb he met as "small, chocolate colored beings, stunted and thin", and in meeting them he taunted them as looking like fellaheen in Egypt ( Burton, Richard, 1874, p. 240).
As illustrated previously the names of the Harb are also those of the ancient tribes of Mansur - Hawazin and Sulaym bin Mansur - who we have also demonstrated were a remnant of "Manasseh" who were "Shechemites" inhabitants of the first capital of Israel.
And the names of some families of the Hamida Burton mentions were the Mahamid and Sumaydah ) (Burton, p. 249) who are likely the "Shemidah" ("son of Gilead") and "Mehida" of the biblical texts. Shemidah is called son of Gilead (1 Chron. 7) who is grandson of Manasseh through his father Makhir, while Mehida (Ezra 2:52) ancestors of Nethinim (who are from the Gibeonites) is mentioned with Salmai, who is probably Salim, and other tribes mentioned in the book of Nehemiah - as aptly pointed out by Salibi occupying Tihama, Hijaz and Asir.
Nehemiah 7:45 mentions the peoples of Judah who appear to be other nations of Hijaz and Tihama, including the still modern Sulaym or Salamiyyan (Shallum), the modern Watar/Utur, Uqub, Haweitat and Subh all clans of the modern Harb and Haweitat and Towarah or those still called "The gatekeepers of the families of Shallum, Ater, Talmon, Akkub, Hatita and Shobai". As mentioned above the name Shallum of the Torah is translated as Sulaym by the medieval Egyptians Jews (Bareket, Elinoar, 1999, p. 50, fn. 87).
The name of Helek, another son of Gilead, is also in the region under the name of Haliq whom Burton calls the Aliki (Burton, p. 138). And we saw that Pliny called the land of the Hamidah Hammaeum "where there are gold-mines" which is doubtless the biblical land of Ham from which the Hivites and Hammathites i.e. these Hamidah descended.; )
The name of the Amorite Luhuayy could be related to that of the traditional “Luhay” son of Qam'ah son of Elyas bin Mudar - ancestor to the Khaza'a. It is also possibly connected with the Luhuatu or land of Luhuti named by Assurbanipal of Assyria. They are called an Aramaean tribe (Hermann, Claude, and Johns, Walter, 1901, p. 413). As we have seen previously a tribe affiliated with the name known as Lahiyan of the Hudhail (Huthail/Huzail bin Mudrika) whose "skins were black and shining" according to traveler and colonial Charles Doughty (Doughty, Charles, 2010, p. 535), and who dwelt in the bee-hive huts native to the Tihama indigenes and the Africans of the Horn.
What can be assumed is that the ancient Amurru and Aramaeans were related to the later Arabic-speaking tribes of northern central Arabia and Hijaz known as “Khudar” or al-Khudair and Nabit or Nabeet, like the Hamaydha, Ma'za and Sulaym and the Azd.
The area of the Wadi Dawasir is still called Falaj al-Aflaj (“Peleg of the Pelegites” an area divided by irrigation systems- thus "in his days was the earth divided") who along with with Qahtan or “Joktan” is named son of “Eber” (Abir) in Genesis. Peleg is said to be the father of “Reu” who was father of Serug. As mentioned by Tobias Clay, Sarug is named a district in the land of Aram, which is close to Nahiri (Clay, Albert Tobias, 1919, p. 37). As mentioned above the name likelly is that of the modern Suwarka extending from Hijaz to Sinai.
It is likely this Reu is the same as "Ruha" a tribe mentioned in the Nabataean kingdom to the North. The Ruhu or Rwhy or Rahay of Nabataean inscriptions (del Rio Sanchez, Francisco, p. ) were evidently the “Rawh” of Ibn Rabbih – and the biblical Reu. They are considered to have also settled further north in Urha or Edessa where lived the early Arab ruler Akbar Ukama - meaning “Akbar the black”.
In fact the tribe Reu or Rwhy are listed by Ibn Abd Rabbihu with the Nabataeans, the Aram and others who appear in inscriptions of the Sabaean and Nabataean kingdom as people of Qahtan. He writes in his Al Iqd al Farid/The Unique (or Precious) Necklace the following in the 12th century:
“Qahtan begat Ya'rub who is al-Mur'if, Saba, Al-Muslif, Al-Mirdad, Diqlah, Takla, Abimal, Ubl, Uzal, Haduram who is Jurhum, Ufir, Huwayla, Rawh, Iram and Nubat – these are the children of Qahtan as mentioned by Abd Allah ibn Maladh” (Boullata, 2012, p. 272).
As shown in a previous blogpost these names of Genesis can be identified with ancient peoples living in southern Arabia some of whom are in fact recorded in the Musnad/Sabaean, Minaean or Himyarite inscriptions there. They include Yerah/Jerah, Saba, Shelef/Salif, Almodad/Al-Mirith'ad, Diklah, Ubal, Uzal, Hadoram, Afyr, Huwayla/Hevila, Reu, Aram and Nabit.
The name of Reu'el (the al-Arawi of certain midieval Arabic texts) is possibly related to the Nabataeans called Rwhy and has likely been retained in the modern name of the Ruwalla or Ru'ala bin An'aeis (Anayza/Anzah) in Syria, i.e. "Reul, son of Esau" (or Aeis, meaning the goat), is otherwise also called through metathesis al-Arawi (as written in Arabic by al-Tabari). Ibn Batriq for example an 8th century Syrian calls Reul the son of "Ais" for Esau (Burrington, Gilbert, 1836, p. ; Greenfield, William, 1831, p. 107).
In the tradition mentioned by the 9th century Al-Tabari, Reul's first son is identified as Qumayr”. The tribe of Qumayr is mentioned in Nabataean inscriptions (Fahd, Toufic, 1989, p.365). The name is also transcribed as Qamar or “Komare” (Kropp, Andreas J. M., p. 229). Qumayr was a clan of Khaza'a of the Azd settled in Hijaz before moving north. Tabari names the son of Qumayr as Zarih (“Zerah”) and Zarih's son as “Nahath”. But Nahath is the name of Nahadh - a Dawasir tribe from whom came Taghlib bin Wa'il, brother of Anaezah (Lorimer, p. 394).
The name of Huwayla, is found in Saifitic inscriptions as “Hawalat”. They are mentioned with clns called Rawh/Ruhay, Iram and Nibat or Nabataeans in the black volcanic region called al-harra (Niditch, Susan, 1979, p. 525). (The name Wa'il or Wa'ila in central Arabia is a shortened from of Havila or Huwayla, the latter being still a tribal name in Arabia particularly in the east.)
The name of Reu'el (the al-Arawi of certain midieval Arabic texts) is possibly related to the Nabataeans called Rwhy and has likely been retained in the modern name of the Ruwalla or Ru'ala bin An'aeis (Anayza/Anzah) in Syria, i.e. "Reul, son of Esau" (or Aeis, meaning the goat), is otherwise also called through metathesis al-Arawi (as written in Arabic by al-Tabari). Ibn Batriq for example an 8th century Syrian calls Reul the son of "Ais" for Esau (Burrington, Gilbert, 1836, p. ; Greenfield, William, 1831, p. 107).
In the tradition mentioned by the 9th century Al-Tabari, Reul's first son is identified as Qumayr”. The tribe of Qumayr is mentioned in Nabataean inscriptions (Fahd, Toufic, 1989, p.365). The name is also transcribed as Qamar or “Komare” (Kropp, Andreas J. M., p. 229). Qumayr was a clan of Khaza'a of the Azd settled in Hijaz before moving north. Tabari names the son of Qumayr as Zarih (“Zerah”) and Zarih's son as “Nahath”. But Nahath is the name of Nahadh - a Dawasir tribe from whom came Taghlib bin Wa'il, brother of Anaezah (Lorimer, p. 394).
The name of Muharib also appears in Sa'ifitic texts with Hawalat as names of tribal territories "….indicating some areas of the harra were demarcated for regular use by certain tribes" (Fahd, Toufik, p. 268, fn. 90). The tribes of the harra whom Jahiz in the 9th century states were all "black as lava" were thus part of the people that appear in the region of the Nabataean kingdom earlier.
Muharib were in medieval period a well-known tribe of the Khasafa or Khafsa. Apparently in the Lisaan el Arab “Arab Lessons” by Ibn Mandhour, the Muharib of the Qays Ailan were used as an example of what the color term "green", "akhdar" or "khudar" meant when referring to to complexion. He said when one speaks the “green Muharib” one is talking about their blackness (Berry, Tariq, 2002, p. 77). Khasafa was also ancestor to he tribes of Mansur - that is Manasse'ir or "Manasseh".
Muharib were in medieval period a well-known tribe of the Khasafa or Khafsa. Apparently in the Lisaan el Arab “Arab Lessons” by Ibn Mandhour, the Muharib of the Qays Ailan were used as an example of what the color term "green", "akhdar" or "khudar" meant when referring to to complexion. He said when one speaks the “green Muharib” one is talking about their blackness (Berry, Tariq, 2002, p. 77). Khasafa was also ancestor to he tribes of Mansur - that is Manasse'ir or "Manasseh".
There is an Ubal located between Hadeida and Sana'a the capital of Yemen, while Sana'a is called by Arab geographers Ausal or Azal (Uzal) (Hastings, James, 2004, ). Ausal was also the ancestor of th
Numayr ibn Cassit is the brother of Wa'il ibn Cassit/Chesed (Kasdim) in genealogy. The Taghlib ibn Wa'il "sons of Wa'il" are well known to have branched off from the Dawasir related tribe. The Dawasir were “divided into two parts. The first is Dawsar, who is related to Taghlib, and the second is Za'id... ” (Hamza, F. , p. 15).
Thus, we can suppose that a people related to the ancestors of the Dawasir and the Wa'il in the region of Central Arabia and other early peoples of Nejd were once considered influential in founding the civilization that was once called Babylonian. This Central Arabian region has been overlooked as a land that geographically important in the interpretation of the Torah, yet as we have seen there would be no "people of the book" without the originalpeople of Nejd, and the original "black" indigenes of the Yemen, Hijaz, Tihama, and Asir.
There were in fact a people named Namarat in Palmyra inscriptions (Graf. D. F., p. 152) that may be the same as the "Amorites" that had a presence at one time in Mesopotamia as much as they were there in the Nabataean kingdom in Syria. They were also likely a northern extension of the Nomeir or Numair ibn Cassit in the Central Arabian desert. The latter were evidently among the original Arab peoples that were called Kedar (Khudar, Qudhar or "Kutharan"), and in more eastern lands of Central Asia this son of Cassit or Kush or “Nimrod” is sometimes identified as “Kaush Melukh”, i.e. “King Kush”. He came to be called Kavus and Kavi Usha in India and was associated with the metal smithy and those who made thunderbolts for Indra (Intauruta/Thawr). : )
ANCESTRAL DAWASIR AS BIBLICAL “ARAMAEANS”, "LUD" "MASHEK" AND "SONS OF JAPHET"
It is easy to show that the lesser modified Dawasir are among the last of the people whom the Torah calls “Shem” aside from being among the earliest Semitic-speakers. Previously we have shown that the name Dawasir/Dowsari according to at least one encyclopedia of the Middle East is derived from “al-da Yasir” (Khanam, R.) a phrase of uncertain derivation. They traditionally descend from the Azd people once occupying southwest Arabia in the region of Sanaa and Marib and are described in historical writings as black and huge or giants (though not all Azd were giants).
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"Khaza'el" - an "Aramaean" king of the 9th century BC mentioned in book 1 Kings 19:15 of the Bible . He lived in Damascus at the time of the prophets Elijah and Elisha. |
Like the early or lesser modified Haweitat and Harb bedouin, the Dawasir or Dowsari were unquestionably a portion of those once historical people called Canaanites, Edomites, Aramaeans and Israelites - frequently figuring in the Torah, if not in the contrived and thoroughly distorted traditions of Western peoples.
As we have seen, from these Azd tribes were said to have come the Arabian populations Banu Aus or “Uz”, Khaza'a/Khuza'a or “Hazo”, and Masika or “Masheyek” whose names in the Torah/Bible have been translated as “Uz” and “Hazo”, “Mashek” or “Mash” relatives of Aram. The biblical book of Genesis 22:21 speaks of Nahor's sons as “Uz his firstborn and Buz his brother and Kemuel the father of Aram, Chesed and Hazo...”
Also we read in Genesis 10 - “The sons of Aram were; Uz, Hul, Gether, and Mashek. 24 Qeynan begot Shalah; and Shalah begot Eber. 25 Chronicles 1:17 also records that the “sons of Shem were Elam, Asshur, Arpachshad, Lud, Aram, Uz, Hul, Gether and Meshech.”
We have discovered there was in fact the historical Arabian or Azd people named “Masika” who had survived until a rather late period in the Wadi Kanauna region in the Arabian peninsula (Ulrich, Brian John, 2008, ). These same people are also found further north in Saifitic inscriptions in the area of the Nabataean Empire under the name Masikat, and the tribal name Banu Masika is also found in the lower part of Medina (Ilan, Tal, and Hunefeld, Kirsten, 2011, p. 292, fn. 42; Fahd, Toufic, 1989, p. 363; Winnet, F., 1973, p. 54) and in the region of Wadi Dawqa north of Taif.
As for Canaan, as we shall see this is the land of the Qeynan (Cainan or Kenan) mentioned above and in Genesis 10. He is son of Enosh or Henosh, son of Seth, and these names are undoubtedly identical to those of the Dawasir tribes of Qainan and Hanaish. Today among the Dawasir of Central Arabia can be found a large section called “Qainan” (Hamza, Fuad, 1983, p. 15; Lorimer, John Gordon, 1908, p. 393) and another called al-Hanaish (Lorimer, p. 395). The name of Henos or Enosh is sometimes translated as Nahish, and al-Nahish is also the name of a Dawasir tribe (Lorimer, p. 395).
Sir Walter Raleigh surmised some centuries ago that the Phoenicians moved north and spraed into the north lands.
Sir Walter Raleigh surmised some centuries ago that the Phoenicians moved north and spraed into the north lands.
“...it seemeth very agreeable to reason, that both Gomer, Magog, and Tubal, sate, downe first of all in that part of Syria, to the North of Palestina and Phoenicia: and from thence Gomer or his children past on into Asia the lesse(r), as those of Magog and Tubal did; from whence the Tubalines spred themselves into Iberia: and the Magogians more Northerly into Sarmatia.” Sir Walter Raleigh, 1614, The History of the World in Five Books
Certainly, the view has for a long time been that Europeans and other peoples external to the Afroasiatic peoples who brought the semitic dialects to Syria are the peoples of Japhet. But as with the notion of Shem being non-Afroasiatic there is little reason for this belief.
According to some Mussulman writers, “Oudh (Lud), the son of Shem, had a son named Ad; but, according to others, Ad was the son of Aram” Aram was of course the son of Shem in the Genesis book, and Lud was his brother.
According to some Mussulman writers, “Oudh (Lud), the son of Shem, had a son named Ad; but, according to others, Ad was the son of Aram” Aram was of course the son of Shem in the Genesis book, and Lud was his brother.
Ibn Ishaq wrote of “Tasm and 'Imlaq and Umayan, the sons of Lawidh b Sam” (Guillaume, Alfred., 1967 p. 4). And Lud is often translated from the Arabic as “Lawadh”, “Lawidh”, “Awadh” “al-Awidh” “Aoud” or Oudh. It is a name likely associated with the Dawasir called Widha'in (Wadi'in or el-Wuda'in) in Central Arabia.
Ludh is said to have settled as far north as the confluence of the Euphrates and the Tigris in Asia Minor, and the Indo-European-speaking people called “Lydians” that arose in their region took their name and deities from them.
The proper name of the tribe of Awidh is frequently found in Safaitic and Greco-Nabataean inscriptions in places like Rama and Nemara in Syria nort of Arabia. There was a deity called Gad-Awidh or Gad Awadh, a God of the desert. “ Le nom propre 'Awidh est assez frequent en safaitique; on connait aussi le 'al'Awidh ou tribu de 'Awidh ...” (Dussaud, Rene and Macler, Frederic, 1902, p. 63; Littman, Enno, p. 126). Al-Awidh like many of the Arab tribal names was derived from the name of a deity worshipped by the tribe.
The original ancestral Dawasir and/or Azd clans called Aus (Uz), al-Qama'ah (Kamuel), Khaza'a (Hazo) and Dahash (Thahash) (Lorimer p. 395) were certainly the children of Nahor mentioned in Genesis who came to be called the Aramaeans. It is only due to the ancestors of such populations having wandered North into Hijaz and Jordan and Syria that the name Aramaean came to be in Greek synonymous with “Syrian”, but even that latter name appears to have originally come North with these southern Arabian people.
The tribe of Al-Awidh, Lawadh or Lud was supposedly ancestral to the Amalekites and the Taimallah who moved north to Hijaz and Babylonia. The Nabataeans worshipped the goddess Allat. Like the name of Awidh, that of the deity Taim Allah or Taim Allat appears in the Nabataean kingdom area in Thamudic inscriptions. It is also present in the Lihyanite and Saifitic. One of the tribes named for Taim Allah or Taimallah was in fact a branch of Namir ibn Cassit. The other was a tribe of the Quda'ah Himyarites, the genealogy being TaimAllah son of Asad or Sud ibn Wabra or Wabara, a descendant of Hulwan, son of Omran, son of Elhaf bin Quda'a (See “The History of Mecca”, Bombay Quarterly Magazine, Volume 3, 1853, p. 427). Among the Khazraj tribe of Azd were also the clan of Taimallah (or Taimallat) bin Thalabah. (Landau-Tasseron, Ella, 2015, p. 133; Popovkin, Alex V., and Rowson, 2007, p. 509).
Some of the same tribes suchas the Taimallah and Faran/Ephrain “the Midianite” that passed into Jordan and Syria were thought to have ended up in Africa as "Berbers". Thus Ibn Sa'd also said in the 9th century -
“'Imliq was the progenitor of the 'Imlags. And to them belong tall people of Barbar whose genealogy is as follows: Barbar Ibn Tamila (Taimallah) Ibn Mazarab Ibn Fárán Ibn 'Amr Ibn 'Imliq Ibn Ludh Ibn Sam Ibn Nuh. As regards Sunhajah and Kutamah, they are the descendants of Fariqis Ibn Qays Ibn Sayfi Ibn Saba (Sheba). It is said that 'Imliq was the first person to speak Arabic when his people had migrated from Babil. They along with the Jurhumites were known as al-'Arab al-'Aribah...Imlaq is the same as 'Arib and Tasim and Amim”. Tabaqat al Kabir of Ibn Sa'ad
Strangely enough Hamza in his "Near East/South Asia Report" mentions a tribe called al-Barabirah as affiliated with the Sawalihi (Banu Salih/Shelah) present occupants of Sinai and Jordan. (Hamza, Fu'ad, p. 23). The Salih or Saleh are mentioned by Eutychius in Sinai in the time of Justinian. They had wondered there from Oriens in the Levant (Shahid, Irfan, 1984, p. 385). He have shown in a previous posting that Salih who was a son Thamud and Abir or Eber the son of Shelah of the Torah/or Genesis Bible was associated wth Caleb in the Torah and Thamud in Islamic writers. In fact Lina Eckenstein in her book, History of Sinai first published in 1921 claimed the Sawalih (Salih) people claimed descent from Saleh. The tribe of Salih however belonged to the Qudha'a who originated like the Thamud leaders Lukman in the far south of Arabia.
The Quran (Chapter 7) says “to the Thamud we sent Salih, one of their own brethren.” Thamud is said to be son of Abir, like Qahtan, and Abir is either brother or son of Aram depending on the tradition. Thus, all of these purely Arab and probably very black groups from the Yemen were in fact the children of Shem and were historical people that moved north to Hijaz and Jordan. They were related to the taller groups among the Nabataeans and Berbers, and were the same people that were called Amarat, Amorites or Amurru in Mesopotamia, Syria and the harra and those Moors or Mauri in Africa called Mazikes, and Ifurayn in Africa. However they had among them the Hamran or smiths and agriculturalists called Hammath, Kenites, who were from the Qudha'a Himyarites and were not giants, but in fact appear to have been in some cases unusually small people.
These people of Qahtan became the Ishmaelites Banu Sim'al, Sumu'il or Kedarites of northern Arabia and Babylonia. They include the historically documented black giants of Aram or Iram now called Ubar/Wabar, and Cana'an (including Tihama and Hijaz), Thamud Ad, Amalek and Al-Tasm, Aus (or Uz), Khaza'a or Hazo, Khazaraj or Gezer/Jazar, Thamud, Dumah, Pelegites Nimrod, Namarat or Aus or Uz in the land of Job.
The leading individuals of the Khazraj and Aus in medieval times show that this was not just allegorical expression. The name of the historical Khazraj general, Ubada/Obada bin Samit, whose feet nearly touched the ground when sitting upon his horse, was said to be in the range of 8 feet in height. He has the name early Nabataean kings, tribes and localities. Similarly individuals of the Aus tribe, like Mohamed ibn Maslama and Nabtal ibn el-Harith are called huge and black in color by Ibn Saad in El-Tabaqaat el-Kubra and al Dhahabi in Siyar A'laam el Nubala'a. and Al-Baladhuri's Ansaab el- Ashraf (Berry, T., 2002, pp. 72-73).
The legends that developed about Nimrod “the giant”, Luqman “a pious giant of royal pedigree”, Dedan or Titan, Goliath “the giant” of the Philistines, Amalik and Ad the giants, Og, Atlas or Dharis king of the Berbers, and the Saracen giants of legend were doubtless due to the appearance of these living people.
Akk, ancestor of the historical Banu Akk such as Khazraj, and Banu Ghafiq is called Uq or Uj bin Anak, that is to say of the Anakim of Canaan. He is the biblical Og who was called the Amorite king of Bashan and remnant of the Rephaim. The Philistines are called a remnant of the Anakim as well. We also saw that Rephaim in the book of Deutoromy 2:10-12 are called Emim or Amayim corresponding to the tribal name of the Umayim/Umaymah of the Azd.
Thus, these Adites of Hadramaut are pretty much recognized throughout the Middle East as the giants called Anakim and Emim or Umayyim (Umama) and Amalekites of Yamamah and Hijaz. For example from Turkey comes this fable.
Thus, these Adites of Hadramaut are pretty much recognized throughout the Middle East as the giants called Anakim and Emim or Umayyim (Umama) and Amalekites of Yamamah and Hijaz. For example from Turkey comes this fable.
“One day Moses (peace on him!) went against a tribe, and they were of the people of 'Ad, and they called their chief Og, the son of Anak. ...Moses (peace on him!) assembled four hundred and four-score thousand men and proceeded against the Adis. When they were come near the 'Adis, he sent twelve men as ambassadors to that tribe....Now Og had gone out to look about, and he saw the twelve men coming, so he putthe whole of them into his sack and slung it over his shoulder and turned back and went. Away. He brought them to his tribe the 'Adis and said, “See the hose of the Messenger Moses which is come seeking to make war with us; and he held the mouth of the sack downward and the twelve men rolled out."
“And that tribe saw them that they were smalll of stature, for their own stature was twice that of these. And they all made mock of them and laughed at them; but they killed them not, but sent them back. Then Saint Moses (peace on him!) took his rod in his hand and went aginst that tribe of 'Ad. ...Then Saint Moses ((peace on him!) returned to his people and gave them tidings of Og being slain; and they were all glad. Then Saint Moses passed thence and made for the country of Sheykh Balaam, the son of Beor.” See p. 379 of Turkish Literature: Comprising Fables Belle Lettres, Epiphanius Wilson, 1901.
"Beor" who is called "Baura" in Arabic sources was nephew of Job of the land of Uz. Beor is said to be in fact “a great man among the Midianites”, while in Hebrew tradition Baalam is the son of Luqman, builder of Marib. (Beeston, A.F. L., 1983, p. 379) The land of “Uz” is in fact the famous Banu Aus of the Azdites who are said descendants of those who followed the leader Amr Muzaikiyya Ma es-Sama. “Some hold that Azd was the son of Aus, or Uz the son of Aram, the son of Shem” (The Ancient History of the Jews, 1834). Uz or Aus is traditionally a descendant of Tha'labah ibn -'Amr Muzaikiya whose followers settled down in Yathrib (Medina).
Thus, we see again that the Arabian and Middle East tradition although clearly connected to the biblical stories do not jive or correlate with the Western or European beliefs that Uz and Edom and Moses were people originally from Syria and Mesopotamia, but rather people who lived in the far south in the Arabian peninsula. And as we have seen these peoples of the Muslim folklore like the Torah/Bible are actually historically-documented Arab tribes corresponding to early populations from the Yemen, Hijaz Assir, and Central Arabia, and some that are still around.
The kingdom or dynasty of the Almoravids which was established by the veiled Tuareg called Aulemmiden (Lamtuna”) and other Sanhaja is called the "Kingdom of the Philistines" in European Jewish texts of Andalusia, and the city of Toledo was said to have been founded by the Amalekites (Roth, Norman, 1994, p. 163). In addition, a manuscript of the Arabs that settled in Sudan as other sources says the following: The Berber are a nation of people whose tribes are innumerable, descended from the AmAlik” (MacMichael, Harold, 1922, p. 198).
The Berbers mentioned here may be those that remained in “Berberia” or the region of Somalia, however it likely includes the peoples of the Maghreb who were said to have lived in the region for centuries before leaving for North Africa.
Thus, we see again that the Arabian and Middle East tradition although clearly connected to the biblical stories do not jive or correlate with the Western or European beliefs that Uz and Edom and Moses were people originally from Syria and Mesopotamia, but rather people who lived in the far south in the Arabian peninsula. And as we have seen these peoples of the Muslim folklore like the Torah/Bible are actually historically-documented Arab tribes corresponding to early populations from the Yemen, Hijaz Assir, and Central Arabia, and some that are still around.
The kingdom or dynasty of the Almoravids which was established by the veiled Tuareg called Aulemmiden (Lamtuna”) and other Sanhaja is called the "Kingdom of the Philistines" in European Jewish texts of Andalusia, and the city of Toledo was said to have been founded by the Amalekites (Roth, Norman, 1994, p. 163). In addition, a manuscript of the Arabs that settled in Sudan as other sources says the following: The Berber are a nation of people whose tribes are innumerable, descended from the AmAlik” (MacMichael, Harold, 1922, p. 198).
The Berbers mentioned here may be those that remained in “Berberia” or the region of Somalia, however it likely includes the peoples of the Maghreb who were said to have lived in the region for centuries before leaving for North Africa.
CAINAN OF Al-DAWASIR
“Cainan was the eldest son of Ham. He was the first whom Iblis made to abandon the religion of Noah; it is from him that the enmity between his race and that of the son of his grandfather dates; the giants and the Canaanites who lived in Syria were his descendants...” Akhbar es Zaman 11th century
Al-Qainan were a historical people who belong to the al-Hassan branch of the Dawasir today, but other names of the al-Hassan also suggest a connection of Qainan with the biblical Canaan, and Kinanah of medieval Arab and ancient Hebrew texts.
As shown in a previous post, other Dawasir tribal names include Ghanim, Makharim (also written Makharib/Makhir) and Nadir (Lorimer, pp. 393 and 394) who are associated in Arabic texts with the ancestor “Kinanah”. Tabari states that Kinanah had a son “Nudayr” who is said to be the “full-blooded brother” of “Ghanm” and “Makhrama”. This name of Makharim must be that of the aristocratic Sabaean clan of “Banu Mqrm” mentioned in ancient Sabaean inscriptions (Korotaev, M, 1996, p. 57). The modern Makharim belong to the Al-Salem branch of the Dawasir in Central Arabia. The ancient Greeks appear to have called them Mocoretae and Mekhra in Assir who were next to the “Doreni” or Zahran and “Dosareni”, which was a land of Azd tribes.
The giant ancestral Dawasir whose remnant still bear the name of Qainan are without doubt the “Cainan” of ancient scriptures. He appears to have been considered the ancestor to the giants among the “Canaanites” and to giants of Syria as well. It may be by the time the Akhbar al-Zaman was written, the Nabataeans who were the original "wandering Aramaeans" and “children of Mash” son of Shem, had come to be perceived as derived from Hamran which refers to the agriculturalist and client tribes of the Shamran, their protectors. It may be that since most of the setttled agricultural peoples of northern Arabia were black, the Nabataeans who themselves had come to have a large agricultural component came to be associated with the allegorical Ham, which refers to the soil, but came to mean black earth. Amalek and Lud are as well were considered both children of Ham and Shem by different Muslim authors.
Thus the Akhbar es Zaman states -
Thus the Akhbar es Zaman states -
“Cainan was the eldest son of Ham. He was the first whom Iblis made to abandon the religion of Noah; it is from him that the enmity between his race and that of the son of his grandfather dates; the giants and the Canaanites who lived in Syria were his descendants. They also associate them with the Pharaohs of Egypt and Goliath, whom David slew, as well as the Amalekites, because the Amalekites were sons of Ham; and the Canaanites that fought Moses and Joshua were sons of Nun, after him. It is of them that God spoke in this verse: 'There are in this land a people born of the giants' (Quran 5:22). Their size was very mighty indeed. It is claimed that Cainan the Younger is the one who established the regions of Syria and Mesopotamia.
Among the children of Cainan are Falestin and Sidda, who gave their name to two countries, and also Nabit; Nabit means the black.” From 11th century Syrian text, “Akhbar al Zaman” author unknown.
The above paragraphs, like those from many other medieval sources, tell us that a thousand years ago the “Canaanites” were considered by virtually the entire literate Islamic world to be a black people from whom issued certain early peoples of the Maghreb in North Africa (namely the Amazigh or Masigh now known as Tuwarek), as well as many peoples of Syria and Mesopotamia. These included the Sidonians or Phoenicians (Sida or Sa'ida) and the giants called Jababirah ("Ghebers") or Philistines and Amalekites, and some of the tribes called Nabataeans or “Nabit”. The latter were otherwise called Aramaeans, Ishmaelites or Kedarites (Kudhar/Khudar or"Kutharan"), and were said to have once settled both Mesopotamia and Africa.
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Philistine depicted in a temple in the temple of Medinet Habu in ancient Egypt (time of Ramses III).They were a remnant of the Anakim and "Akk", and the Ad, Azd, Amalek and original Amorites were of their stock. |
CANAANITE GIANTS IN AFRICAN LEGEND: Banu Azd and their Remnant Dawasir
“These ancient Cushites of the Arabian peninsula originally consisted of twelve tribes – Ad, Thamoud (probably so named after Thamus or Tammuz) Tasm, Djadis, Amlik (Amalek), Oumayim, Abil, Djourhoum, Wabar, Jasm, Antem and Hashem. From this it would appear that the Amalekites who occupied the country to the extreme north of Arabia and the south of Palestine were of this race.” John Garnier (1904) The Worship of the Dead: The Origin of Pagan Idolatry, p. 74.
“...it is, perhaps, not so generally known, that a tribe of Bedaweens, called the Dowaser Arabs, found in the land of Omar, are also black. Their gigantic forms and sable features ... point them out as most likely the Sabeans, men of stature (Isa. Xlv. 14)...” The Christian Ladies Magazine 1848.
This name Omar or "al-Umur" is likely the same of the biblical Omar that is "brother of Amalek" born in Yamamah (a Dawasir region) in southern Nejd). Interestingly, Hamza mentions a tribe of Quwadah in the Dawasir district, probably a plural for Qudah. Lorimer mentions the Sulayim and Hamadiyya. The presence of the Qudah, Hamadiy and Sulayim area tribes among the Dawasir of Central Arabia suggests this is an area where Kenites and the giant Amalekites (issued from “Al-Tawsim” or “Letushim” of Yamamah) once lived together, which led to the division of Hamran and Shamran in early literature. The Dawasir giants came to be called “Shem” or Shamran and those of the smaller agriculturalists or workers of the land or soil became Hamran.
Over time these Dawasir "Wabarim" or "Al-Wabar'iyn" (See Al-Azma, Talal, 1994 ) or “Eber” and al-Qaynan or “Canaanites” mixed together with the al-Qudah originally Himyarites or Humayr (probably from Hamor first ruler of Canaan) to become “Israelites”. As already discussed and demonstrated in previous posts on this blog, this Yamamah/Dawasir is the area from which according to medieval tradition came the giants Al-Tawsim and Amalek or Adites who are otherwise called historically the Banu Umayyim or Umamah the “Amim” or “Emim” giants of Canaan. It is thus not surprising the such names of the Banu Nifal or “Nephilim”, and al-Qainan or Cainan and others of the Azd or Adite or biblical giants are still found in this region.
These traditions also explain a lot about the traditions of related peoples once present across the Maghreb, Sudan who claimed their roots were in Canaan and Israel, which was apparently a region involving the Hijaz, Tihama and the Yemen and Nejd.
These traditions also explain a lot about the traditions of related peoples once present across the Maghreb, Sudan who claimed their roots were in Canaan and Israel, which was apparently a region involving the Hijaz, Tihama and the Yemen and Nejd.
As we have shown the Mashek or Mash son of Aram were the "Mash" who were ancestral to the Nabataeans from Canaan/Cainan. The Masika of Kanauna and Hijaz were the people from whom were derived the legendary Masik or Mazig “son of Canaan”, so-called ancestor of the Berbers (Brogan, Olwen, 1975, p. 285). Interestingly in the Hebrew Targum the name of M'zag or Mezeg is replaced by the name of Yudadas/Dedan who is called son of Canaan, son of Sheba son of YoKshan (Kushan of the Midianites) (Laredo, 1954)*. This plainly connects Judadas of Western Ethiopia and his descendants with the ancient “Ethiopians” called Mazikes later known as the Imoshagh and Tamashek or Tuareg.
An example of some of the folk tradition explained by the recognition of who these early "semitic" people of Arabia and the Near East were is that which surrounds the semi-mythical or legendary figure of Odudawa and Lamrudu. Lamrudu “the giant” of Ife and Benin in Africa is recognized as Nimrod “son of Kush”, and he is said to have come from "Mecca". The name of Oduduwa is connected to the biblical Dedan or Yudadas of Josephus who is said to have settled in Western Ethiopia.
According to the respected Africanists John D. Fage and Roland Oliver the legend of Odudawa refers to an ethnic migration. They wrote “traditional accounts particularly the Yoruba ones, speak of the Oduduwa migration as if it were a great ethnic movement involving the whole of the Yoruba people. But this is plainly nonsense. Quite certainly the invaders were a minority. Probably at the time of their arrival they spoke Kanuri or Hausa, or some other northern language. Those of them who settled in Yorubaland intermarried with the Yoruba and picked up ther language, while those who settled in the direction of Benin became Edo-speaking in exactly the same way. The invaders did not, of course, settle only, or even mainly at Benin and Oyo. These were merely the two states which emerged from a long course of development as the leading states of the region” (Oliver, Roland and Fagan, Brian, 1975, p. 184).
The legend of Odudawa, the giant son of "Lamrudu" who is also a giant, is most definitely the Yudadas of Josephus, who with other descendants of Keturah wound up in the troglodyte area of the Horn and emigrated Westward. He is seemingly associated with the rulers of numerous West African kingdoms including that of Togo, Dahomey, Benin and Oyo ( Peele, John Yeadon, 2003, p. 119, 388, fn. 89). Lamrudu's sons are said to have become rulers of Kanem-Bornu and the Hausa state of Gobir, all the regions said to have been once ruled by the Zaghai or Zaghawa related peoples, otherwise called Beriberi, and Wangara, Wakore, Koran, Gorane or Qur'an in an area once extending across the Sudan from Mali and Morocco to Chad and Libya (Murray, ).
Sir Richmond Palmer had pointed out the connecton of the Zaghai with certain groups among the Yoruba including the Kwararafa/”Kororafa” and their descendants, the Jukun-Kwona who were remote dwellers east of Lake Chad (Mshelia, Ayuba Y., 2014, p. 12). These Kwona people were also called Bura and Babur, now pronounced Pabir (Mshelia, 2014, p. 13).
Sir Richmond Palmer had pointed out the connecton of the Zaghai with certain groups among the Yoruba including the Kwararafa/”Kororafa” and their descendants, the Jukun-Kwona who were remote dwellers east of Lake Chad (Mshelia, Ayuba Y., 2014, p. 12). These Kwona people were also called Bura and Babur, now pronounced Pabir (Mshelia, 2014, p. 13).
Mashek/Masigh, son of Cana'an
“Udad” or “Udayd” is an ancient genealogical forefather of several documented major Yemenite and Central Arabian tribes descended from Zaid son of Kahlan son of Saba, like the descendants of Azd (Smith, G. R., and Bosworth, C. E., 1954, p. 954). He is likely the same personnage as one whom Ibn Duraid, Yakut, Abu'l Feda and Al-Baladhuri call "Udad", the son of Za'id, son of Yashjub son of Arib (Yarab) son of Za'id the son of Kahlan the son of Saba. He is ancestor of the Tayyi, Maddhij, Murra and Al-Ashar or Ash'ayr whom we have already seen were the biblical Asshurites or Asher of the "Song of Deborah" in the Yemenite Tihama.
The Smith's Bible dictionary thus mentions “...a tribe of Dedan...Knobel considers them the same with the Asshur of (Ezekiel 27:28) and connected with southern Arabia.” In previous parts of this blog we have seen that the names Kush, Midian and Jokshan are at times interchangeable in the Torah/Bible as in Chronicles where “Kushan” replaces the word Jokshan and becomes synonymous with Midian. We also saw that Midian and Jokshan were connected in Genesis with the “Ashurim” whom Josephus mentions as a people of Keturah in troglodyte Africa that were in reality the same people that the Romans called Austuriani and Saturiani in Africa - ancestors of the Tuareg.
In the chapter from Josephus', Antiquities referring to the descendants of Abraham and Keturah he writes -
“Now the sons of Sous were Sabathan and Dadan. The sons of Dadan were Latusim, and Assur, and Luom. The sons of Madiau were Ephas, and Ophren, and Anoch, and Ebidas, and Eldas. Now, for all these sons and grandsons, Abraham contrived to settle them in colonies; and they took possession of Troglodytis, and the country of Arabia the Happy, as far as it reaches to the Red Sea. It is related of this Ophren, that he made war a”gainst Libya, and took it, and that his grandchildren, when they inhabited it, called it (from his name) Africa.” Josephus Antiquities of the Jews.
(Sous is Shuah otherwise called Shu'aib in Arabic. Luom is Lehummin and Madiau is Midian of Genesis. Troglodytis is the region of Somalia, Happy Arabia (otherwise called Arabia the Blessed) is the Yaman or southern portion of Arabia, and Libya is another name for Northern Africa.)
The name of the biblical Dedan is in fact connected with the name of “Didanu”, “Ditanu” or “Tidnu”, used historically for the Amurru (“Amorites”) who are naturally said to be “giants” (Saretta, Phyllis, p. 16; Gordon, Cyrus H., 1987, p. 116). A man named “Ammiditana” is for example one of the Amorite rulers of the first dynasty of Babylon. William F. Albright noted that the mountainous area of the Amurru or Amorites was named “Ti-da-nu-um” or “Di-da-num” identical with North Arabian and bibilical Dedan” (Cross, Frank Moore, 2009, p. 57).
In addition the Greek name of the Titans (also said to be giants) is related and derived from the semitic, i.e. AfroAsiatic name “Dedan”. According to Richard Lobban specialist on Nubia, “Dedun” was an especially important deity of the ancient indigenes of Egypt and the Medjay people of Nubia and they sometimes “were known simply as the Dedu” (Lobban, Richard A., 2003, p. 250).
Lobban also connects the Medjay to the X group of Nubia and the people called Blemmyes whom as we have seen the ancients seemed to have identified as Arabians from the Baliyy or Belawi clan of the Qudaa' Himyarites who were clients or a sub-clan of Sulaym.
A main tribal area of the Baliy or Beli in the North was in Petra, an place where there was more than one town named Sulaym. In the 8th century they are in the region of Ailah or Aylah (Powers, Timothy). The Blemmyes of Nubia are described as the “bedouin” on the other side of Gulf of Ailah. Interestingly, just as in medieval texts the modern Bela or Beli in Arabia together with the Juhayna are called Qudah according to Fu'ad Hamza's Near East/South Asia Report of 1968.
In any case, Dedan in the Torah or Genesis book of the Bible, is also associated with “Letushim” or Latusim from whom Tabari said came Amalik. As Genesis states, the sons of Dedan were “Asshurim, Letushim and Lehummim”.
These Asshurim, Letushim and Lehummim are in fact as we have seen Yemenite people from Kahlan (brother of Himyar) from the Azd people known as Ashay'r, al-Tawsim or Tasm and al-Lahm and “Lihamm” or Lakhim mentioned by Tabari and other medieval historians (Watt and MacDonald, 1988, p. 173).
It was from these Latusim or Tawsim people that the giants called Amalek came who lived according to al-Tabari in Yamama (meaning dove) (Perlmann, Moshe, 1987, p. 151) in the southern part of the Nejd ( Central Arabia ) in the region of Wadi Dawasir where black giants are mentioned up until colonial times, and apparently still live! Thus, Doughty once wrote “The Dawasirs are said to be very tall men and almost black.”
Saudi Long jumper - Ahmed Fayez al-Dosari/Dawsari
The traditions related to the biblical tribes of Jokshan, Letushim, Dedan, Udadas or Odudawa, and Ashurim are thus related to the early medieval traditions of Al-Tawsim or Tasm and the Amalekites and Banu Asha'yr in the area of Yamamah or Wadi Dawasir and Yemen.
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Saudi Soccer player Saeed el Dosari of Central Arabian birth. Many black footballers, i.e. soccer players in Saudi Arabia have the Dawasir surname, al Dossari or Al-Dosari (meaning of the Dawasir). Most were born in places like Riyadh and al-Kharj. Not all living Dawasir are "giants" as described by colonialists, although most dark-skinned Dawasir appear to be in the tall and moderately tall range. |
The traditions related to the biblical tribes of Jokshan, Letushim, Dedan, Udadas or Odudawa, and Ashurim are thus related to the early medieval traditions of Al-Tawsim or Tasm and the Amalekites and Banu Asha'yr in the area of Yamamah or Wadi Dawasir and Yemen.
The giants called “Amim “/“Emim” by the people of Mo'ab - or "Omayyim" - are mentioned as well usually together with Imlaq (Amalek) and Tasim (Letushim) in the writings and considered one and the same people with the Adites. Apparently the biblical commentarists say the Israelite name for them was Rephaim. The biblical ruler Og of the Anakim was said to be a remnant of the Rephaim Amorites.
“According to the Arabian historians, 'Ad, king of Yemen, led to the greater part of the giant (powerful) race of Ham into Africa, and made a settlement along the Nile; and it is stated in the history of Arabia, written by King Juba, about thirty before Christ, that the people living between Meroe and Syene, were not originally Ethiopians, but Arabs of the first or Cushite branches. To these branches belonged the Tasm and Jadis (in Bahrein), the Adites (in Yemen, and part of Arabia Petraea), the Thamoudites, the Amalekites, the Jorhamites, the Obailites (Abil or 'Obail), the Beni Abd Dhakhan and the Omayyim or Omaim. These were the Arab el- Ariba, the pure Arabs, or Arabs by excellence...” (Chesney, Frances R., 1850, p. 659).
Tasm was an ancient deity or God as well as the name of a tribe. It is the biblical Letushim or Latusim who with his brother Dedan (Titan or Judadas) settled in “western Ethiopia” or Africa with Madan (according to Josephus). Beni Abd Dhakhan is "servants of Dagon" the latter being the ancient "God of the Amorites" and "Philistines". The name of A'd or the Adites is thought to be related to "Adah", "the daughter of Elon the Hittite" woman (Forster, Charles, 1844, pp. 32-33).
We’ve learned the following as well. At some early point in time, the personnage Lakhym ibn Hezal (Lehumim/Leumim of Genesis 25:3) was sent from the Yemen to Mecca along with Al-Mirth’ad or Al-Marthad (Almodad of Genesis 10:26), Afyr (Afer/Afran, br) and Ghafar (Ja'fer/Jafran) by the Thamudite (Adite i.e. Sabaean) chief Luqman, otherwise known as Balaam or Bela, called the first king of "Edom" (see above and previous blogposts).
The Haweitat or Huwayt'at bedouin have traditionally been occupants of the region east of the Dead Sea, the Nejd of Central Arabia and the Tihama or western coastal region of the present Saudi Arabia. The Heywat ("Hivites") one of their branches lived east of the Akaba and around the well of Themmed (Thamud) according to Burckhardt. They also are called El-Heywat and Lehewat and extend into the modern United Arab Republic of Egypt where they had probably lived for thousands of years.
When we look at what the ancient Roman histories record of the names in Maghreb and North Africa we can see that they tend to confirm what was said about their populations origins as Canaanites.
D. J. Mattingly for example a specialist in the archaeology of the Roman world, including Roman North Africa mentions those Moors or Mauri whom were called “Leuathae” in the Byzantine period of North Africa. He states at the beginning of an abstract for his paper "The Laguatan" “the tribal grouping known as the Laguatan, Leuathae, and Lawata in various Roman and Arabic sources are identified as a powerful confederation of Libyan tribes.” He argues in the same paper that these were the camel-using populations known as Ausuriani and Austuriani or Saturniani who conducted incessant raids in Tripolitania known until late Roman times.
In fact the 9th century Ya'aqubi as much as states that Berbers called “Luwata”, “Aylanab” and “Mazata” believed themselves to be descendants of a single people that once spread to or from the region near Aila (Elah), which was the area of the Huwaytat people called Lehewat or “Heywat”.
And the colonialist administrator Sir Richmond Palmer in his Born Sahara and Sudan cites Ya'aqubi who states in his work “Buldan” the following:
“The Hawara claim that they descend from the ancient Barabars and that the Mazata and Luwata belong to the same people, but separated from them and went to Barka, and other places; the Hawara say that they themselves are a people of Yaman... The abodes of the Hawara are from the boundary of the district of Sort to Tarabolus...”
Elsewhere in speaking of the Hawara or Tuareg of the Ahaggar he says -
“another section migrated to Tawarga. And a tribe went to the hills of Hagar. They are called Lamta and also called al Aiyalab. They live in the desert and have no fixed abode. When their brethren the Egyptians ruled Misr they spread west from the area between Al Arish [in Palestine} and Aswan in length, and from Aiyla (Akaba] to Barka in breadth” (Palmer, Richmond, 1936, pp. 144-145).
Ya'qubi thus states that the ancient Mauri or Moorish tribes of the Leuathae in his day called Luwata, Hawara, Tawareg and Mazata were all nomadic desert peoples who had lived between the Syrtic region of Libya and Tripolitania having once spread from Al- Arish in Palestine and Aylah of Jordan. But this is the same region where the Lehewat or El-Heywat/Haweit and Aylan other Huwayt'at and Maaza have been domiciled for centuries. So if the Haweit were the same people as the biblical Hivites it should be easier to understand why early writers connect the Mauri with “accursed” and “black” Canaanite peoples which many of the Huwayt'at still are.
In the book, Empire of the Mahdi, Orientalist Heinz Halm wrote in reference to Ya'aqubi's text: “Some of the Luwata tribes claimed descent from the Qays 'Aylan or the Syrian Lahm…” (Halm, H., 1996, page 197, fn. 191).
Like the Huwayt'at, the Tuareg who we have shown in earlier posts were the bulk of the Luwata and Ausuriani (Assurim of Cleodemus and Josephus) are connected to the legendary Canaanite (Hivite) ancestor named Aiyla or Ailan (meaning hyena) (= Elon?) in their own traditions.
Thus, one of them runs as follows -
“En-Noman, son of Humyer-Ibn-Seba,...called his sons and said to them, 'I wish to send some of you to Maghreb to people it.' In spite of their protests he sent Lemt, ancestor of the Lemtouna; Mesfou, ancestor oft the Messoufa: Merta, ancestor of the Heskoura: Asnag, ancestor of the Sanhadja; Lamt, ancestor of the Lamta, and Ailan, ancestor of the Heilana” (Wysner, Glora, 2013).The name of the ancestral Berber or Tuareg mentioned above “Merta” may be connected with the name of the Arab bedouin Amarat or Amrat of modern and ancient times in Jordan and Syria whose ancestors were likely the Mar.tu, Amurru or biblical “Amorites” - a people whose name was associated with both Canaanites in the book of Genesis and Nabataean peoples in inscriptions and records of the Nabataean and Assyrian empires, and possibly with the Moors.
As pointed out in a previous blogpost En-Numan is connected to the Naaman and the Naamathites of Genesis among whom is a Minaean or Yemenite man or ruler named Zophar possibly the same as the legendary Yaf'ur bin Saksak.
The historical Haskoura Berbers named in the paragraph are considered in medieval times to be a Sanhadja tribe, though later absorbed into the Masmuda. They along with the Lamta and Gezula came to occupy the region of the Sous in Morocco. The modern Berabish are also descendants of the Lamtuna and the other Tuareg or veiled Berbers comprise the rest of the above named except for the Masmuda.
John Hunwick writes, “...we may note that the names of several of the Sanhaja tribes listed by Ibn Hawqal bear a striking resemblance to those of Tuareg now living in Air. Of these we may particularly note the Inusoufen of Tekidda” (Hunwick, John O., 1980, p. 427). The early Messoufa (Mesfou) or Massufa are the Tuareg tribe still called Imesufa (Bernus, Suzanne, 1976, p. 108) or Inusufen or Inusoufen ( Hunwick, J., 2003, p. xxxvi, fn 53). Air and Tekidda are in the country of Niger.
Origins of the Luwata and Lehewat: The El-Heywat/Hivite-Amorite Element in Africa and the Levant
The probable link between the ancient Tuareg "Leuathae" or "Luwata" of North Africa and the Lehewat or Heywat of the Levant and Tihama Arabia partly explains the traditions of Canaanite origins of the North African Maurusioi (Moors) and Berbers. Thus, even Ibn Khaldun in the 14th century writes “Now the real fact that dispenses with all hypothesis is this: the Berbers are children of Canaan son of Ham son of Noah."
It also helps to understand that the peoples of the Canaanites for the most part were an Arabian, rather than Syrian population. Thus an al-Jumhoor of the 8th century member of the Kalb bin Wabara (Caleb) of Qudh’a tribe mentions Canaan was far to the south of the modern Syria and southward of Mecca (Shahid, Irfan, 2009, p. 35 and p. 26, fn. 51) He wrote -
It also helps to understand that the peoples of the Canaanites for the most part were an Arabian, rather than Syrian population. Thus an al-Jumhoor of the 8th century member of the Kalb bin Wabara (Caleb) of Qudh’a tribe mentions Canaan was far to the south of the modern Syria and southward of Mecca (Shahid, Irfan, 2009, p. 35 and p. 26, fn. 51) He wrote -
“… Al Mohasab (المحصب (is the valley between Makkah and Mena, it is also known as the plane of Makkah and the low land of the Kananites (الكنانیون "
When he spoke of the lowland of the Kanaanites as an area extending between Mecca and Mena he was doubtless talking about his own people and not some fabricated place of "Eurasians" that would be invented thousands of years later as "Canaaan". Kinaniyya or Kana'an were and are a black people of Tihama south of Mecca that settled Syria or the Levant - not vice versa. Hamza mentions them in recent times as part of the Zahran in Asir and in Hali on the Red Sea (Hamza, pp. 13 and 17).
Colonialist observers rightly identified the name of Haweit or Heywat or El Heywat clan of the Huwaytat (Hatita - Nehemiah 7:45) as etymologically associated with the biblical name “Hivite”. For example, the orientalist Henry Clay Trumbull wrote in his book, Kadesh Barnea, “Robinson, or rather Eli Smith, has shown that this word 'Hay wat' (its singular being “Haywy” corresponds closely with 'Hivite'” (Trumbull, H.C., 1884, p. 315). The people that came into Africa were considered descendants of those people.
George Murray mentioned in his classic, Sons of Ishmael mentioned that “The true Haweitat live East of the Jordan ...Their tribal ancestor is Haweit bin Ham and from one of his descendants called Ayalan all the Haweitat in Midian are descended” (Murray, George, p. 245 ). Sons of Ishmael - is a reliable Orientalist's record on the tribes of Sinai
George Murray mentioned in his classic, Sons of Ishmael mentioned that “The true Haweitat live East of the Jordan ...Their tribal ancestor is Haweit bin Ham and from one of his descendants called Ayalan all the Haweitat in Midian are descended” (Murray, George, p. 245 ). Sons of Ishmael - is a reliable Orientalist's record on the tribes of Sinai
It is also clear the Arabs also considered that Kenan or Kinanah was the same as or derived from the name of Qaynan which remains the name of the Dawasir Arab clan, and which evidently came to be Canaan or Cainan. These Canaanites or "Kinahniyya", once occupying the land of Qayn'an south of Mecca, evidently settled across the Red Sea and spread across Northern Africa as far as Morocco and the Atlantic. They likely carried the name of Ausailah or "Uzal" with them.
“The traditionalists say that Noah cursed Ham, asking God that his descendants should become ugly and black, and they were subjected to serving the progeny of Shem. He had a son after Cainan, Kush, who was black; he wanted to approach his wife; Shem tried to stop him by reminding him of his father’s curse hanging over him. Ham was angry. Satan fomented discord between the brothers, and pitted one against the other. In the end Ham had to flee to Egypt; his children were scattered, and he continued his journey westward, till he came into the Sūs-al-Aqsa, the place known today Asilah [in Morocco]; this is the last port of the Sea of Spain to which ships might arrive, coming from the direction of the Qibla; one cannot pass beyond it." Akhbar al-Zaman 11th century author Anonymous
It is has been shown by the references on this blog that a good portion of the Maurusioi or Moors of North Africa were considered to be descendants of not only Canaan, but the giants of Canaan. Although it can be ascertained that the earliest use of the word “Moor” or “Mauri” referred exclusively to black populations, not all were considered akin to giants. However, the Tuareg were one of the groups in the Maghreb that traditions linked to Philistines, Adites or Amalekites all said to be of tall or gigantic stature.
Another group of giants were the Sao or Shaushau who were said to be very black and to have lived in the region of Chad once upon at time, and extended across the Sudan to places like Zamfara in Nigeria. Legends have it that the original Sao were "Adites" and giants, warriors and hunters that also came from Canaan. But, there is not much information about the people beyond the stuff of legend. Certainly many of the people claiming descent from the Sao are not giants and thus the original people must have absorbed a number of the other peoples of Africa that immigrated to the region. There is no reason why a population similar to the Dawasir in Arabia and Khazraj (the Jazar of Josephus) of the Azd or Ad could not have crossed into Africa at one point which would have been many centuries BC.
The truth is many Tuaeg were so tall that even some of their smiths are now giants. This well-known Tuareg craftsman, ElHadji, is himself 7 feet tall, which is probably a reduction of what many Tuareg were before. His face is reminiscent of the Trinidad-American actor Jeffrey Holder, who was himself in the 6'6" range. It is likely that many Africans in the basketball leagues of the West are in large part Tuareg descendants.
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Actor Geoffrey Holder of Live and Let Die classic of the James Bond movie series was 6 feet and 6 inches tall. |
Similarly, the Canaanites were often claimed to be cursed with blackness (Goldenberg, David M., 2009,p. 352). Ibn Khaldun in fact said that in his days Berbers were believed to have received their skin color due to this curse, and he viewed them as children of “Canaan, son of Ham”.
Procopius and earlier writers had mentioned the tradition of the “black-skinned” people called Mauri or Moors as people who were believed to have been of Canaanite origin that had fled from the Israelite leader Joshua. Procopius who said Moors were “black-skinned, unlike the Vandals” wrote in his description of Tangiers - “Here are two columns, made of white stone, near the great fountain, having carved upon them Phoenician letters, which read thus in the language of the Phoenicians: We are they who fled from the face of Joshua the Robber, the son of Nun' "(De Bello Vandalico, ii. 10). Corripus another Byzantine in his Johannides of the 7th century wrote about the Moors of of Algeria and Tunis and remarks on the faces of the Moors having faces of a horrible black color. “Maure videbatur facies, nigro colore horrida” (p. 189 fn. )
St. Moses of Chorene of 5th century Armenia also apparently wrote: "When he (i.e. Joshua was destroying the Canaanites some fled to Agra, and sought Tharsis in ships. This appears from an inscription, carved on pillars in Africa which is extant even in our own time, and is of this pruport: ' We the chiefs of the Canaanites, fleeing from Joshua the Robber, have come hither to dwell.'” (Hist. Armen. I. 18). (Crane, Oliver Turnbull, 1890, p. 160-161).
According to the Jewish Encyclopedia of 1906 apparently this Tharsis or Tarshish was identified as Carthage in the Septuagint and the Targum Jonathan. See link - Carthage as Tharsus/Tarshish
According to the Jewish Encyclopedia of 1906 apparently this Tharsis or Tarshish was identified as Carthage in the Septuagint and the Targum Jonathan. See link - Carthage as Tharsus/Tarshish
This tradition is thus reference to the Hivite i.e. Canaanite or Tihama ancestors of the El-Haweit group of Huwat'at who became “the Hivites” and Ailan/Aylan (or Elon “the Hittite) of Genesis 36:2. Unfortunately, modern archaeologists have confused early Arabian fables concerning Tihama and the clans and petty conflicts of the people there with a truly fantastical and never existing version of the past, in some cases inventing whole civilizations and imaginary states in Syria and Turkey and for that matter a whole new sciences, in order to replace the tribal heritage of nearly vanished black, Afroasiatic tribes, occupying almost exclusively territory in southwestern and Central Arabia.
It's actually kind of comical and pitiful at the same time, if one really ponders on it because whole wars are being fought over this manipulation of history. For the clans of Afro-Arab peoples of southern Arabia - like the "Horites" and Hittites - still known under their ancient names to be now misinterpreted as inhabitants of whole "city-states" thousands of miles away in Anatolia somewhere shows the vastness of the nonsensical information that must have been accepted as fact.
And then these biblical archaeologists have the audacity to get angry and condescending toward or ignore independent thinkers like Kamal Salibi whose information is finally straightening out a lot of the enigmas and tangled mess that has been made.
It's the epitomy of Western arrogance. As the saying goes - some people just can't be trusted. ; )
Like the name Nabit which referred to tribes that had moved to northwest Arabia, the name of Kedar the equivalent of khudar or akhdar as asserted by Jaroslav Stetkevych also came to signify “the black” and synonymously the “pure Arab” or an Arab from the nobles ( Stetkovich, Jaroslav, 2000, p. 73). Not surprisingly, the eggplant “in today’s Arab world, it is sayyid al-khudaar, the lord of vegetables”. See Aramco article - About the King of Vegetables
And then these biblical archaeologists have the audacity to get angry and condescending toward or ignore independent thinkers like Kamal Salibi whose information is finally straightening out a lot of the enigmas and tangled mess that has been made.
It's the epitomy of Western arrogance. As the saying goes - some people just can't be trusted. ; )
Like the name Nabit which referred to tribes that had moved to northwest Arabia, the name of Kedar the equivalent of khudar or akhdar as asserted by Jaroslav Stetkevych also came to signify “the black” and synonymously the “pure Arab” or an Arab from the nobles ( Stetkovich, Jaroslav, 2000, p. 73). Not surprisingly, the eggplant “in today’s Arab world, it is sayyid al-khudaar, the lord of vegetables”. See Aramco article - About the King of Vegetables
But, today in fact the name Khudair or Khudayr as we have seen is still in use for the tribes of Ismail in Central Arabia such as the "Muzay", "Hadhud" and "Nafisah" and refers often in a derogatory way to the darker-skinned tribes of Central Arabia. We have said these are the names of the biblical Ishmaelites - “Muzay'il” or Muzay as in "Muzay bin 'Audah (Lud) bin 'Iram (Aram) bin Qaydar (Kedar) bin Ismail", which is normally written "Massa" in English - and "Hadhud" (Hadad) and Nafisah (Nafis/Nefish). These tribes were said by Hamza to be those who cannot trace their descent to "well-known" Arab tribes (Hamza, F., p. 14).
It shows that even in the Middle East, history has been turned upside down with modern Middle Easterners apparently not even aware of or having knowledge of who or what was once considered an Arab. : (
It shows that even in the Middle East, history has been turned upside down with modern Middle Easterners apparently not even aware of or having knowledge of who or what was once considered an Arab. : (
Early in the 1st millenium BC these tribes known as Sumu'il/”Ismailites” or Kedar are first mentioned. One specialist comments, “Since the 8th century B.C. E. the members of the confederation of Sumu'il = Ishmael headed by the Qedar-tribe, are known as Aribi, Arabu, Arabaia in the Assyrian sources” (Dijkstra, M., 1999, p. 451). These Sumu'il/Ishmaelites “had kings (and queens), who are also 'the kings, or queens, of the Arabs' — and of Qedar” (Stetkovich, Jaroslav, 2000, p. 7 ). Muhammad and the Golden Bough They extend in ancient times between Sinai and what's called the nafud in the Arabian desert. They are called Arabs even in Assyrian sources although later non-Arab commentarists of the Middle East try to make them Arabs “by adoption” only.
The “Ishmaelites” traditionally were comprised of the tribes of Thamud or Dumath - “Dumah” of the Ishmaelites. In Arabic tradition the latter were the remnant of A'ad, son of Aram or A'ad bin Uz (Aus) bin Aram settled in Hijaz with Banu Khazraj and Khaza'a (Hazo) in the time of Moses, and were among those that came to be considered Nabataeans. According to Suyuti, “They were Arabs who settled between Hijaz and Syria (Wheeler, Brannon, 2002, p. 77). Uz or Aus was said to have founded Damascus. The brother of Aus was Jathiar (Gether). This suggests the Aus and Khazraj tribes were the ancestors of the first people that came to be known further north as Ishmaelites, Thamud (Dumath), Kedarites, Nabataeans or Aramaeans.
We have already seen that the children of Aram and Nahor, Uz/Aus and Khaza'a/Hazo are also a historically-documented people known known both as Azd descendants and from the followers of Ziphorah/Zarifah and Musa/Musaikiyya (“Moses”) known as the “Kaila” or “Kayla” in Arab tradition even after the time of the Prophet Muhammed. This name is likely the same as that used for the Beta Israel once known as “Falasha” (Kaplan, Steven, 1995, p. 103).
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| Phoenician man wearing braided hair locks. |
We have already seen that the children of Aram and Nahor, Uz/Aus and Khaza'a/Hazo are also a historically-documented people known known both as Azd descendants and from the followers of Ziphorah/Zarifah and Musa/Musaikiyya (“Moses”) known as the “Kaila” or “Kayla” in Arab tradition even after the time of the Prophet Muhammed. This name is likely the same as that used for the Beta Israel once known as “Falasha” (Kaplan, Steven, 1995, p. 103).
Thus, the 9th century compilation Sahih Muslim, one of the most cherished Islamic commentary collections in speaking of the “Sanuah” a large branch of the Banu Azd says, “He (Ibn Abbas) said that the prophet (pbuh) mentioned the time he was ascended to the Heavens and he said that Musa (Moses) was black-skinned and tall as if he was from the tribe of Shanuaa.” (For more interesting discovery regarding black complexion and the original Arabs see the book, The Unknown Arabs, by Tariq Berry.The Unknown Arabs (Though the authors theory that most African Americans are descendants of ancient Arabs is not proven by the book and leaves a lot to be desired, it has otherwise some highly valuable, or even priceless information that destroys fabricated Western myths of the past few centuries about who the Arabs were.)
In fact we saw the Azd tribes like Ghafiq were likely part of the reason the Saracens mentioned in the "Song of Roland" and described as “blacker than ink” are spoken of as giants. A man born in Arabia named Abd al Rahman al-Ghafiqi is the individual who led the battle against the Charles Martel.
Such commentaries may not prove what Moses or Musa and the Israelites looked like, but they most certainly describe what the Banu Azd and many other tribes of Hijaz and Arabia looked like a thousand years ago. Today there are many tribes claiming descent from the Khazraj/Khazras, Aus and other of these originally tall black populations. Due to the intermingling of populations in Arabia many of the tribes making such claims are in fact neither tall, nor black like the ancient Azd or modern Dawasir, but in appearance more like the majority of populations of the Middle East and Central Asia today.
Gether third son of Aram is the name Arabic “Jathiar” who is traditionally related to the Thamud a remnant of the A'ad or Adite people who had moved northward from Hadramaut and the Yemen. He is called the brother of Uz (Aus) in Arab tradition, as in the Genesis of the Torah. In one early Arabian tradition “The tribe of Thamud were the posterity of Thamud the son of Jathiar the son of Aram...” According to Josephus, Jathiar (or Gether the Aramaean) had been the founder of Bactria, while Saints Jerome and Isidore make him father of the peoples called Carians in the Aegean.
We can also note again that other names related to the biblical figure Aram seem to be part of the confederation of the Dowasir. One name is Al-Qahma or Qama'a corresponding to the biblical Kemuel who was “father of Aram”. The ancestors of the Dawasir may have originally split from the original Mahra who were also said to be tall and have tribes named Qahma and Masheyk.
According to folk tradition of the early Arabs when Khaza'a who branched off from Khazraj moved to Hijaz from the south the tribe expelled the Adite King Midhadh/Almirithad (the biblical Almodad) who was forced to flee and settle in Syria. The Djurhomites (biblical Hadoram according to Ibn Rabbihu) were also there (Peters, Francis E., 1994, p. 9 and 10; Boullata, Issa J., 2012, p. 272). This tribe of Almirithad is mentioned in ancient Sabaean inscriptions and some think the name is connected to that of the modern Murad in Yemen, brethren of Maddhij.
The name Aram (also translated from the Arabic as Erem, Arram or Iram) is in fact that of a town that has been rediscovered in the region of the Rub al-Khali. It is also called Ubar or Wabar, the latter also not surprisingly being the name of a Dawasir tribe. An Encyclopedia of Islam reads - “ WABAR, a district and tribe of the earliest period, in the southern half of Arabia. Al Bakri,...” (Tkatsch, J., 1993, p. 1073). Al-Wabarin is still the name of a Dawasir tribe (Hamza, F. 1983, p. 15).
And this name Wabar or Ubar is probably none other than the biblical figure Eber, another son of Shem, brother of Aram. He is in fact in the Arab manuscripts sometimes called Abir “son of Aram”. Thus we read “Aram, son of Sam, son of Nuh begot 'Awad and Abir and Huwayl. Awad (who is Laoud) begot Abir and Ad and ... Abir son of Aram begot Thammud and Gidays" (MacMichael, Harold A., 2011, p. 188). The Huwayl mentioned in this text is of course Hul, son of Aram of Gen. 10:23 who occupied the desert of Palmyra, just as 'Awad is Lud, and Abir is Eber (or Wabar).
A tribe called “Hawalat” is in fact mentioned in Nabataean inscriptions, one of which says “0 Ruta, help him against [all] enemy, (viz. grant) booty from Rahay and the Nabataeans and Hawalat” (Niditch, Susan, p. 525). This Ruta or Ruda was a deity of the Ishmaelite tribes (Hoyland, Robert, 2001, p. 68).
Interestingly, according to the Fu'ad Hamza mentioned there is a tribe named “Alkam al-Hawl” in Asir, whose name may be connected to that of the biblical“Kamuel” father of Aram and “Hul”his grandson (Hamza, Fu'ad, p. 18).
Al- Tabari, Ibn Abd Rabbih and other genealogists speak of El-Qama'ah as the brother of Mudrika, and Tabikha/Tabaykh or Tahba – the latter being apparently the biblical “Tebah” if we are to believe the translations of Al- Tabari's translations(Montgomery ). This El-Qam'a is likely Kemuel son of Nahor who in Genesis is half brother of “Tebah” (Genesis 22:24). The tribe of Tebah also called Uteibah or Utaybah still lives next door to the Dawasir, among whom are “war-like” as-Shiyyabin or ash-Siyabin or al-Shayabin (“Eshban”) (Kupershoek, P. M., 1999, pp. xii, 3, 99 and p. 83, fn. 140; ) who Tabari calls “Yashbin” and “Bashmani” (Watt and MacDonald, 1988, p. 41) - the latter obviously being the name of the Basman tribe of the Dawasir (Lorimer, p. 394). Thus tribes of the relatives of Aram or “Aramaeans” still living together (although some of them apparently don't get along too well) were also Canaanites and “chiefs of the Horites” of Arab and Berber, or Hebrew tradition.
CANAAN AND THE HORITES IN AFRICA: THE TRIBES OF QAR'AN AND ESHBAN
“Among the descendants of Sudan, son of Kan'an [Canaan], are many nations, among them the Ishban, the Zanj, and many peoples that multiplied in the Maghrib, about 70 of them.”
"Ham begat Kush ibn Mah, Kanani ibn Ham and Fut ibn Ham .... Kush and Kana'ans descendants are the various races of blacks: Nubians Zanj, Qaran , Zaghawa, Ethiopians, Cipts, and Berbers." (Wah ibn Munabbih, Kitab al Ma'arif ,ed. Therwat Ukasha, snd ed. {Cairo, 1969} cited by Bernard Lewis in Race and Slavery in the Middle East p. 26.In ancient times south Arabia and the area extending down to the Zanzibar coast had already been settled by the Himyarites and Kahlan or Sabaean according to the Perplus of the Erythraean Sea. Orientalist William Schoff wrote, "the people of Ausan at some period of Arab history, which we may perhaps place not later than the 7th century B. C. apparently dominated not only all south Arabia, but the opposite side of the Gulf of Aden and much of the East African coast. We have a reference to them in the Periplus which refers to this coast as far as Zanzibar under the name of Ausanitic."
Some believe that this name of Ausan or Azania was related to that of the Zanuj or Zanj from which came the name of Zanzibar.
Al Masudi wrote, "The sailors of Oman sail on this sea as far as the island of Kanbalu in the Sea of Zanj. The sailors of Oman are Arabs of the tribe of Azd." The original Zanj in fact were said to be from the Azd, and it is they who may have given their name to Azania or Ausan.
The isle of Qanbalu was near Zanzibar. It is possible the Azd made up much of the people who were first known as Zanj in eastern Arabia and Iraq. An Avestan text called Bundehisn states that Zanuj were pushed from Iran back into the Sea and this may refer to the Sassanid invasion of the Persian Gulf when the Azd from Yamama and Bahrein were slaughtered under Shapur II the Sassanid. (The name Zanj in Persian simply means the "rust-colored" people.)
The Zanj in the Bundehisn were said to be born from Azh-Dahakk or Zohakk whom al-Tabari says was the brother of Adnan in Arab genealogy. These early Zanj probably intermixed with the people of Central East Africa while others moved westward. The word Zanj after a time came to be applied to black peoples in general, including Bantu-speaking peopes and black populations in Asia extending to Indonesia. The people once called "gypsies" due to their color were among those designated as Zanj and/or Tzigani in Asia.
The most southern town of Azania along the coast of east Africa was known as Rhapta in a region of very large people which suggests again the presence of Azd peoples. The Periplus referring to Azania states, "The natives of this country have very large bodies and piratical habits and each place likewise has its own chief. The Marpharitic chief rules it". Mapharitis was known as Ma'afir and is the present Ma'ifa on the southern coast of the Arabian peninsula. Another translation says the piratical men "along this Azania coast were very great in stature" (Montgomery, Denis, 2008, p. 157).
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| Fishermen of Ma'afir (Mapharitis of the Periplus), an ancient Kingdom of the Himyarites ; ) |
Mazigh and Dedan/Odudawa/Yudadas, Eshban or Ash-Shiyyabin, and the "Botr" or Badrah and Badran ("Ithran") and Bahran (Aran) of the Dawasir (Lorimer p. 394) who like Masigh of the Berber lore descend from Berr or “Barr”, the Adite and other descendants of “Canaanites” in Africa are in fact the biblical "Horites". Thus Genesis 36:26 says: "These are the children of Dishon: Hemdan, Eshban, Ithran and Keran/Cheran". They are historical ancient and modern south Arabian tribes Dushayn or Djeshain, Hamdan, Ash-Shiyyabin/Besman, Badrah/Bideran, and Khuran. Most of those names are those of the Dawasir and Uteibah/Tebah, still living next door to each other!
These biblical Horites themselves have often been claimed as Hurrians of Asia Minor by Orientalists and biblical pseudo-historians of the past. However, this mythologizing in the Western academy has been based on widely-accepted biblical archaeological pronouncements, which had never taken seriously the southern or African origins of the original semitic, i.e., Afroasiatics speakers. Thus up until the present day we have downright disconcerting assertions and as usual, largely baseless assumptions, such as the following:
"No doubt many of the people whom the bible lists as pre-Israelite inhabitants of the land (Hittites, Hivites, Horites, Jebusites, Girgashites, Perizzites, etc.), though most of them cannot be identified with certainty, represent non-Semitic elements in the population...It is tempting to connect the Horites of the Bible with the Hurrians and many scholars do (the names correspond)...." (Bright, John, 2000, p.117).In a footnote we read that R. de Vaux a specialist on the subject matter, author of Les Hurrites de l'Histoire et les Horites de la Bible (The Hurrites of History and Horites of the Bible), strongly disagrees with this assessment.
Then continuing the passage reads we read "To be sure the Bible places Horites only in Edom (e.g., Gen. 14:6, 36:20-30), where no Hurrians are known to have been..." And so on, and so on. Thus, the author admits that the area of present Palestine is an area that doesn't seem to be occupied by peoples the bible identifies as Canaanites.
Hmmm... I wonder why that is. : (
One would think that the obvious and inescapable conclusion is that the society that biblical archaeologists have designated (on the basis of similar sounding names) as Hurrians have little or nothing to do with the Horite people of the Genesis book, also identified as Hivites" and "Canaanites". The name "Horite" may in fact have something or more to do with the name of the harra or the harrat region, than it does with the "Hurrians" further north.
And as seen from the posts of this blogspot it seems not too much to conclude (as some of the early Orientalists) that the ancient Canaanites, Israelites, Horites or Edomites, Ishmaelites and Aramaeans, i.e., the people of Noah as known in ancient allegorical history of "the Hebrews" were the ancient indigenous Afroasiatic people of southern or southwest Arabia – having little to do with modern peoples of Syria - and absolutely nothing to do with modern Europeans. The fact that such tribes found under the same names as one moves further north in places like Jordan, Iraq and Syria/Palestine today tend toward characteristics once considered non-Arab, - fairer or near-white in color (“redness”) and “lank-haired” - doesn't mean the tribes under such names weren't at one time much like their “sumr” or “khudar/khudayr” brethren further south in the peninsula.
In fact we know that the Arab ancestors of such tribes once comprised the documented "black" peoples called Nabit, Solymi or Sulaym, Kedar, Azd and "ahl Yaman" in general.
The tribe of “Eshban” ("the Horite" chief of Genesis 36:26) otherwise named As-Shiyabin of Utaybah (Tebah) near the Dawasir belong to the division called Iyal Mansur (Hamza, p. 26) and descend from Hawazin bin Mansur whose tribes originally extended between the Nejd of Central Arabia to Damx - "the red mountain" (nearly the same meaning as the biblical “Edom”) and to the west as far north as the Hijaz and volcanic harra again where “all the tribes” were said to be black “as lava”.
Among them were the Hajir or "Banu Hadjir, bedouin tribe of Eastern Arabia. Its members trace their ancestry to Kahtan through Hadjir and Mansur, eponym of al-Manasir tribe. The two groups, known together as Iyal Mansur, have frequently been allies" (Rentz, G. and Mandaville, J., 1986). They claim "kinship with the tribes of eastern Asir". Hajir in English is "Hagar".
As mentioned previously in my posts the name of the Manase'ir - a tribe of the southern Najd and now of Sudan - is that of Manasse or Manasseh of the Genesis of Torah (where are mentioned "the people of the book" : ).
Interestingly the early Orientalist and anthropologist Arthur Sayce mentions the tradition of the "Emim" (Umaymah) being to the north of the "red-rose" mountain of Seir. He writes in his book Patriarchal Palestine, "South of the Emim in the rose-red mountains of Seir, afterwards occupied by the Edomites came the Horites..." (Sayce, Archibald Henry, 1895, p. 38)
Still more interestingly, the Iyal Mansur according to Hamza appear to have included many of the names of the Arabian tribes that colonized Egypt and Sudan in or during the period of Muslim conquests - including Ababid (Ababda), Hammarin (Hammar), Khawatim (also called Huteim), al-Jibiridiya (Jobarti?), etc. In addition there is al- Samah ( “Samuel”?), al-Ruqa (“Rachel” or “Rukhala”), Raba'in (Reuben), Rukaybat (Rechab) and al-Quba'ah (possibly related to Jacob or Ya'qub).
Among them were the Hajir or "Banu Hadjir, bedouin tribe of Eastern Arabia. Its members trace their ancestry to Kahtan through Hadjir and Mansur, eponym of al-Manasir tribe. The two groups, known together as Iyal Mansur, have frequently been allies" (Rentz, G. and Mandaville, J., 1986). They claim "kinship with the tribes of eastern Asir". Hajir in English is "Hagar".
As mentioned previously in my posts the name of the Manase'ir - a tribe of the southern Najd and now of Sudan - is that of Manasse or Manasseh of the Genesis of Torah (where are mentioned "the people of the book" : ).
Interestingly the early Orientalist and anthropologist Arthur Sayce mentions the tradition of the "Emim" (Umaymah) being to the north of the "red-rose" mountain of Seir. He writes in his book Patriarchal Palestine, "South of the Emim in the rose-red mountains of Seir, afterwards occupied by the Edomites came the Horites..." (Sayce, Archibald Henry, 1895, p. 38)
Still more interestingly, the Iyal Mansur according to Hamza appear to have included many of the names of the Arabian tribes that colonized Egypt and Sudan in or during the period of Muslim conquests - including Ababid (Ababda), Hammarin (Hammar), Khawatim (also called Huteim), al-Jibiridiya (Jobarti?), etc. In addition there is al- Samah ( “Samuel”?), al-Ruqa (“Rachel” or “Rukhala”), Raba'in (Reuben), Rukaybat (Rechab) and al-Quba'ah (possibly related to Jacob or Ya'qub).
There were also Janaba mentioned as part of Iyal Mansur, eponym of the tribe of Manasir (Manasse'ir or "Manasseh"). Of the al-Janaba, Qara or Gara and Mahra Arabs it was said by the British explorer Richard Burton in his narrative “They are described as having small heads, with low brows and ill-formed noses (strongly contrasting with the Jewish feature), irregular lines, black skins, and frames for the most part frail and slender” (Burton, Richard Francis, p. 27, fn. 3 ).
Far different than the giant Dawasir and the “taller” “muscular” dark-skinned groups of Hawazin in both appearance and biological origin, such people seem to represent the so-called “gracile Mediterranean” type of "small to medium height" of early physical anthropologists that once predominanted in parts of Arabia and areas far up into Syria, Anatolia and southern Mesopotamia and eastward in southern Asia.
It also once encompassed northern Africa including most of Egypt and much of the Horn, and according to Grafton Elliot Smith who designated such people the "brown race", it once appeared in neolithic and megalithic sites in Europe from Malta to the British Isles. It is also different than the larger built Eurafrican “Mediterraneans” that reached the region of Mesopotamia earlier and may have descended in part from earlier Mesolithic Natufians and other Neolithic peoples.
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The "splay-footed" modern Mahri, (Mehera or Mahra) people of southeastern Arabia are direct descendants of the Himyarites, and are a group of the Qahtan Arabs still speaking their ancient Sabaean-related dialects. The name Mahra is now a name generally used for people speaking ancient south Arabic dialects. The early Mahra like these men were said to be people of brown color, but tall, and their language was called by medieval writers "the language of 'Ad". |
It also once encompassed northern Africa including most of Egypt and much of the Horn, and according to Grafton Elliot Smith who designated such people the "brown race", it once appeared in neolithic and megalithic sites in Europe from Malta to the British Isles. It is also different than the larger built Eurafrican “Mediterraneans” that reached the region of Mesopotamia earlier and may have descended in part from earlier Mesolithic Natufians and other Neolithic peoples.
This gracile AfroArabian is likely associated with the Ethiopic groups connected to the culture designated "Afro-Tihama" or "Sabir" that began developing in the 3rd millenium and that were found on both sides of the Red Sea (Buffa, Vittoria, and Vogt, Burkhardt, 2005, p. 438). Bronze Age pottery of this civilization has parallels with that of the earliest the C-group and Kerma cultures and Pan-Grave cultures of Nubia as well as pre-Axumite Ethiopia and the Eritrean region ( Bolvin, Nicole et al., 2009, p. 264; Magee, Peter, 2014, p. 140).
Among the groups that appear to have been present in the pre-Christian and later pre-Islamic eras on both sides of the Red Sea are some of the Beja, Buja or Buga (Begui of Ezra 10:34?) and Hadarme/Hadorab Beja (Hadoram), Hadandowa Beja (Hadan), the Afar (Afariyya or Afyr), Rawiyyi'in or Ruhawayn and the Yahar of Somalia, the Makhar or Makhir, the As-Shiyyabin or Shayban (biblical "Eshban"), the Farain or Iferouane/Yifren, the Beliyy, Bila, Bali or Belawi, the Hubir or Yubir, Sab, Tumal, the Geza or Age'azi, the Habashat, the Darrenioi or Darha and the Goran (also called on both sides of the Red Sea Goran or al-Goran, al-Kur'an, al-Gera'an , Qur'an, Kor'an, Kura'an, Qara'an)
The Goran or Gorane are called Tubu or Tibbu by the Zaghawa, who call themselves "Beriberi, and likely have connection to the Agau Hebrews of Ethiopia and the Yubir. According to the linguistic specialist Bernard Leeman, the "Zaghwe" were Agau Ethiopians, and the names of Yibir/Ibro/Ibr ('BR) are Agau in origin. The Zaghwe royal house were given and are still in the area of Wag. According to Bernard Leeman, their religion was of the "Samaritan" Hebrew sort ("Shimran"). The Samaritans are designated "Kuthi" or "Kuthaeans" in ancient sources, a name which was not infrequently deliberately or through error interchanged with the word "Kushi" (Kushite) Goldenberg, David M., 2003, p. 203).
The Yahar in the Horn are the people called Hubir or Yubir in Africa identified, as Jews or Hebrews by the Somalis. They are not improbably the same Yahar of the Yafi Banu Qasid - a people who live across the sea in Hadramaut (Sergeant, R. B., 1989, pp. 84, 87, 89). We can consider them the same as the Yafa bin Qased of the book of Jasher, or Chesed of the Torah, who were "the Khasdim" or Kasdan of the ancient world, i.e. the Chaldaeans (according to Josephus). The tribe of Kaladi among them (Edwards, Aaron, 2014) may very well be the root of the name "Chaldi" or "Chaldaean" given to these Qased or Khasdim people.
Like the ancient "Chaldaeans" or "Khasdim" of old, the Hubir/Yibir ("Hebrews") or Yahar in the horn of Africa have "a reputation for magic" and "one of their traditional functions is to bless the newborn and the newly married", aside from making medicine pouches, talismans and making astrological forecasts for their customers. They are also called and have amongst them "hatahata", a name which means sorcerers, but which is obviously cognate to the term "hadaheed" used for blacksmiths of the Zaghawa/Zaghai peoples further West as well, who referred to themselves as Beri-beri, and as Kora. The blacksmiths are associated with magic and sorcery in Africa just as it was in the ancient Middle East.
One article says about the Yibir (pronounced Yi-burr) in the Horn that - "Centuries ago they levied astrological taxes and practiced an amalgam of Judaism and Islam." The Khasdim thus continue to practice or ply their wares, and ancient traditions. Ancient practices of the Khasdim
Now let's go to the Gur'an, Kor'an or Gorane of Chad, Libya Sudan and Arabia today. Burton mentions the al-Kur'an as a Haweitat/Huwaytat tribe of Wadi Azlam and extending to el-Wijh. Similarly, George Wallin wrote the Kor'an confined themselves to the Wadi Azlam and at the base of Jebel Suweyid (Burton, Richard F., 1878, p. 153; Wallin, George, 1850, p. 303)
The Goran or Gorane are called Tubu or Tibbu by the Zaghawa, who call themselves "Beriberi, and likely have connection to the Agau Hebrews of Ethiopia and the Yubir. According to the linguistic specialist Bernard Leeman, the "Zaghwe" were Agau Ethiopians, and the names of Yibir/Ibro/Ibr ('BR) are Agau in origin. The Zaghwe royal house were given and are still in the area of Wag. According to Bernard Leeman, their religion was of the "Samaritan" Hebrew sort ("Shimran"). The Samaritans are designated "Kuthi" or "Kuthaeans" in ancient sources, a name which was not infrequently deliberately or through error interchanged with the word "Kushi" (Kushite) Goldenberg, David M., 2003, p. 203).
The Yahar in the Horn are the people called Hubir or Yubir in Africa identified, as Jews or Hebrews by the Somalis. They are not improbably the same Yahar of the Yafi Banu Qasid - a people who live across the sea in Hadramaut (Sergeant, R. B., 1989, pp. 84, 87, 89). We can consider them the same as the Yafa bin Qased of the book of Jasher, or Chesed of the Torah, who were "the Khasdim" or Kasdan of the ancient world, i.e. the Chaldaeans (according to Josephus). The tribe of Kaladi among them (Edwards, Aaron, 2014) may very well be the root of the name "Chaldi" or "Chaldaean" given to these Qased or Khasdim people.
Like the ancient "Chaldaeans" or "Khasdim" of old, the Hubir/Yibir ("Hebrews") or Yahar in the horn of Africa have "a reputation for magic" and "one of their traditional functions is to bless the newborn and the newly married", aside from making medicine pouches, talismans and making astrological forecasts for their customers. They are also called and have amongst them "hatahata", a name which means sorcerers, but which is obviously cognate to the term "hadaheed" used for blacksmiths of the Zaghawa/Zaghai peoples further West as well, who referred to themselves as Beri-beri, and as Kora. The blacksmiths are associated with magic and sorcery in Africa just as it was in the ancient Middle East.
One article says about the Yibir (pronounced Yi-burr) in the Horn that - "Centuries ago they levied astrological taxes and practiced an amalgam of Judaism and Islam." The Khasdim thus continue to practice or ply their wares, and ancient traditions. Ancient practices of the Khasdim
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| A member of the Yibir/Hubir of Somalia, apparently a leader of some kind. |
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| Another Yibir of Somalia |
Now let's go to the Gur'an, Kor'an or Gorane of Chad, Libya Sudan and Arabia today. Burton mentions the al-Kur'an as a Haweitat/Huwaytat tribe of Wadi Azlam and extending to el-Wijh. Similarly, George Wallin wrote the Kor'an confined themselves to the Wadi Azlam and at the base of Jebel Suweyid (Burton, Richard F., 1878, p. 153; Wallin, George, 1850, p. 303)
The Qur'an Howeitat are undoubtedly the "Qaran" or the people referred to by Wahb ibn Munabbih as Canaanites who settled in Africa along with the Zaghawa and Berbers (Lewis, Bernard, 1990, pp. 124-125) and historians had long suspected that they were the same people still called by such names in Libya, Chad and Nubia. It is not clear whether this Qur'an or Kura'an/Gorane, is the name of the biblical "Cheran" or that of Kora or Korah, another name which the Zaghawa still call themselves. The stories surrounding "Wakore" seem to point to "Korah" the Horite/Edomite and Reuel, and at the same time the Korah that was a relative Moses, Reuel and Aaron.
We are given a hint, of where the names Kore or Korah come from with the story told by Mahmoud Kati in Tarikh el-Fettach. "The grandfather of Sughai (Songhai), the grandfather of Wakare ( a name for the Mandingo), and the grandfather of Wankara ( a name for the Mandingo) were brothers. Their father was a king from Yemen whose name was Taras the son of Haroun..." (Berry, T, 2005, p.109)
Taras and his people emigrated to the Atlantic coast as Haroun's brother had treated them so bad Interestingly al-Hamdani claimed the inhabitants of the Sudan were descendants of both Teras ibn Japheth and the Canaanites. And we have explained previously in this blog that Daris or Teras is the Diodorus mentioned by Josephus. He was son of Sophax, a "Berber" ruler and also a legendary hero like Daris. The name of Daris became the mythological Atlas of the Greeks, like the name of the famous mountain range of northern Africa.
The name "Sophax" is retained in that of the Tunisian city of Sfax. The name of Sofax however may be that of the grandfather of Ifrikush Tubba who is called Saif (possibly Shefo "the Horite" of Genesis) by ibn Khallikan, ibn Al-Kalb and others.
This Haroun is of course Aaron, the son of Moses, and Taras or Dharis his "son" is otherwise called Jethro or Jether or "Ithran" brother to "Cheran" duke of the Horites. It may be that the name Qaran or Gera'an or Kura'an is the name of "Cheran" the Horite. While that of Wakore is affiliated with that of Korah. But Reuel who is also called a Horite of Edom, is considered to be Jethro "the Kenite shepherd" at the same time.
The Zaghawa/Zaghai/Zawagha of Chad and Libya according to Harold MacMichael called themselves the Korra or Kourra ( MacMichael, H.A., 1967, p. 112, fn. 8). Kora/Korah is a duke of the Horites of Edom, and "Cheran" and "Ithran" and Reuel are also Horite children of Esau, like Korah.
We have already shown in King Solomon's Miners that these Kenites and the Beli or Bela of Arabia and Africa also known as Baliyy or Bila, "Beli-Zaghawa" were the same Beri or Beri-beri. These Beriberi or Berbers whom the Arabs called al-Berabir were known further East as Burra, Yi-burr, Yubir, Pabir and Hubir or "Hebrews?" and were ancestors of countless peoples across the Sudan.
It is all very confusing, but as mentioned above Botr a descendant of Berr is "Ithran" (Badrah/Badran) and these were Horite/Edomite peoples who came to inhabit Canaan. From them emerged the Israelites under leaders like Jethro "the Kenite" who worshipped Yahwe and who is otherwise anachronistically represented as "Ithran" the Horite chief, or vice versa.
Jethro is called "Reu'el" in Exodus 2:16 and he is "Reu'el" or "Al-Arawi" the Edomite in Genesis 36:13. We saw that the name of the Kenite or al-Ka'in of Qudha'a was Ferain bin Beli/Bila from which comes the name of the Beli-Zaghawa. The name of the Zaghawa clan "awlad Kuayn" (MacMichael, 1967, p. 112) may preserve the name of the Kawiyyin or al-Ka'in/"Kenites" of modern Hijaz and ancient Hammathites/Hamaydha/Hamideh from whom they came.
It may be for this reason that "Phoenician"/Canaanite stelae have been found in Garamantian pyramids, and why British colonialists remarked that the walled towns of the Hausa seem to be modeled after walled cities of Canaanite or Phoenician type. In any case we can surmise it is largely why Israelite-Canaanite centered traditions of origin are so foundational to the heritage of peoples like the Hausa and Zaghawa and related peoples across the Sudan. See Dierk Lange's hard to find book for more on the traditions related to Canaanite and Hebrew origins. Ancient Kingdoms of West Africa. Africa-Centered and Canaanite-Israelite Perspectives published by Verlag.
A relatively recent article (2004) on the Garamantes, "The Libya's Forgotten Desert Kingdom" by Louis Werner reads - "The steep pitch of some 100 salt-brick funerary pyramids resembles counterparts in Sudan at Meroë, and stelae under the monuments resemble those of the Phoenicians,...: Phoenician Stela in Garamantia
We are given a hint, of where the names Kore or Korah come from with the story told by Mahmoud Kati in Tarikh el-Fettach. "The grandfather of Sughai (Songhai), the grandfather of Wakare ( a name for the Mandingo), and the grandfather of Wankara ( a name for the Mandingo) were brothers. Their father was a king from Yemen whose name was Taras the son of Haroun..." (Berry, T, 2005, p.109)
Taras and his people emigrated to the Atlantic coast as Haroun's brother had treated them so bad Interestingly al-Hamdani claimed the inhabitants of the Sudan were descendants of both Teras ibn Japheth and the Canaanites. And we have explained previously in this blog that Daris or Teras is the Diodorus mentioned by Josephus. He was son of Sophax, a "Berber" ruler and also a legendary hero like Daris. The name of Daris became the mythological Atlas of the Greeks, like the name of the famous mountain range of northern Africa.
The name "Sophax" is retained in that of the Tunisian city of Sfax. The name of Sofax however may be that of the grandfather of Ifrikush Tubba who is called Saif (possibly Shefo "the Horite" of Genesis) by ibn Khallikan, ibn Al-Kalb and others.
This Haroun is of course Aaron, the son of Moses, and Taras or Dharis his "son" is otherwise called Jethro or Jether or "Ithran" brother to "Cheran" duke of the Horites. It may be that the name Qaran or Gera'an or Kura'an is the name of "Cheran" the Horite. While that of Wakore is affiliated with that of Korah. But Reuel who is also called a Horite of Edom, is considered to be Jethro "the Kenite shepherd" at the same time.
The Zaghawa/Zaghai/Zawagha of Chad and Libya according to Harold MacMichael called themselves the Korra or Kourra ( MacMichael, H.A., 1967, p. 112, fn. 8). Kora/Korah is a duke of the Horites of Edom, and "Cheran" and "Ithran" and Reuel are also Horite children of Esau, like Korah.
We have already shown in King Solomon's Miners that these Kenites and the Beli or Bela of Arabia and Africa also known as Baliyy or Bila, "Beli-Zaghawa" were the same Beri or Beri-beri. These Beriberi or Berbers whom the Arabs called al-Berabir were known further East as Burra, Yi-burr, Yubir, Pabir and Hubir or "Hebrews?" and were ancestors of countless peoples across the Sudan.
It is all very confusing, but as mentioned above Botr a descendant of Berr is "Ithran" (Badrah/Badran) and these were Horite/Edomite peoples who came to inhabit Canaan. From them emerged the Israelites under leaders like Jethro "the Kenite" who worshipped Yahwe and who is otherwise anachronistically represented as "Ithran" the Horite chief, or vice versa.
Jethro is called "Reu'el" in Exodus 2:16 and he is "Reu'el" or "Al-Arawi" the Edomite in Genesis 36:13. We saw that the name of the Kenite or al-Ka'in of Qudha'a was Ferain bin Beli/Bila from which comes the name of the Beli-Zaghawa. The name of the Zaghawa clan "awlad Kuayn" (MacMichael, 1967, p. 112) may preserve the name of the Kawiyyin or al-Ka'in/"Kenites" of modern Hijaz and ancient Hammathites/Hamaydha/Hamideh from whom they came.
It may be for this reason that "Phoenician"/Canaanite stelae have been found in Garamantian pyramids, and why British colonialists remarked that the walled towns of the Hausa seem to be modeled after walled cities of Canaanite or Phoenician type. In any case we can surmise it is largely why Israelite-Canaanite centered traditions of origin are so foundational to the heritage of peoples like the Hausa and Zaghawa and related peoples across the Sudan. See Dierk Lange's hard to find book for more on the traditions related to Canaanite and Hebrew origins. Ancient Kingdoms of West Africa. Africa-Centered and Canaanite-Israelite Perspectives published by Verlag.
A relatively recent article (2004) on the Garamantes, "The Libya's Forgotten Desert Kingdom" by Louis Werner reads - "The steep pitch of some 100 salt-brick funerary pyramids resembles counterparts in Sudan at Meroë, and stelae under the monuments resemble those of the Phoenicians,...: Phoenician Stela in Garamantia
There is thus no way to run from the fact that the truth about Africa is far from what we've all been taught in the West - or rather, brainwashed with.; )
Historical “Adites”, “Titans” and Amorites: The Foundations of Shem
As we have just seen, the people who in Arab tradition and histories living in Hadramaut and the Yaman that were called “Adites” or “A'ad” and Thamud, their remnant, are the same as the peoples known in the bible as children of Shem -Lud, Eber, Hul, Meshech or Mash, Almodad, Shelah and the “Aramaeans”, otherwise known in literature, insciption and historical documents as Al-Awidh, Wabar, Mesheyik, AlMirithad, and Salih. These were originally the names of tribes of southern and central Arabian origin still known as el-Wuda'in, Wabar or Wabari'in, Huwayl, Meshaykh, and Salih of the Qudah (or Sawalihi'in plural), and "Iram" or "Aram" is the original home of these peoples also known futher northward as the Nabataeans.
Some have suggested that the name of Al-Mirthad known in the ancient Musnad or Sabaean inscriptions is that of the Banu Murad or Morad still living today in Yemen. Both Al-Masudi and the 8th century AD Ibn Saad who wrote Kitab al-Tabaqat al-Kabir considered the Nabataeans the same people as the Thamud, “The Banu 'Ad were known in their time as 'Ad Iram. When they suffered disaster the Thamud were known as Thamud Iram who are the Nabateans. All of them professed Islam. They lived in Babil till it came under the sway of Nimrudh ibn Kush ibn Kan'an (Canaan) ibn Ham ibn Nuh, who asked them to worship the idols, and they complied.” Kitab al-Tabaqat al-Kabir See the ebook here at https://archive.org/details/TabaqatIbnSaadVol12English
As we can see in Arab or Middle Eastern tradition Kush varies from being “son of Canaan” to “father of Canaan” while in the Torah or biblical book of Genesis Cush is Canaan's “brother”. And in almost all traditions Nimrod is a son of Kush/Cush, Cassit son of Ham or “Arfakshad” another son of Shem, and he is called a giant. “The Syriac of Genesis 10:89 calls Nimor a 'warlike giant'”. Another of his names is Malik-Gheber, Gheber being related to the name the Arabs traditionally used for the Amalekites – Jababirah. The word Amalek signifies "a giant" in Arabic, while the word the Tuareg used for giants is Jabarren or Iyabarren.
In Arabian legend the Thamud, descendants of the Adites, were the same populations as the Central Arabian tribes of Tasm (Letushim or Latusim), Amalik (a descendant of Esau in Genesis). The Torah/Bible otherwise calls these Ghebers or Gibborim by such names as “Amorim”, “Umayim/Emim”, Nephilim, Rephaim and Anakim (whose remnant were Philistim according to Joshua 11:21-22), etc. From the Thamud, the remnant of A'ad, also came many of the northern Arabs called Nabataeans and the people of Adummatu or Dumath (or Idumaeans) who were from Kedar or the “Ishmaelites”. Thus, the Nabataeans themselves are called “Amorites” in Assyrian inscriptions of rulers like Nabonidus.
The name may very well be derived from the tribe which in Nabataean and Sa'ifitic inscriptions within the Nabataean kingdom is called Amarat or Amrat (Patrich, Joseph, 1990, p. 33). In the 2nd century AD members of the Amarat are mentioned attacking John, the son of Mattathias the Hasmonean.
The name may very well be derived from the tribe which in Nabataean and Sa'ifitic inscriptions within the Nabataean kingdom is called Amarat or Amrat (Patrich, Joseph, 1990, p. 33). In the 2nd century AD members of the Amarat are mentioned attacking John, the son of Mattathias the Hasmonean.
The name Nabataean came early to refer to a variety of closely-related tribes in the region of northern Arabia or Jordan and the southern Levant who were once strictly nomadic, but whose client tribes were in fact agriculturalists, miners and metallurgists and probably of a different origin. These peoples were in actuality historically-documented peoples by early Greek, Roman and neo-Roman times. They were founders of an empire that included Hegra, Mada'in Saleh and Petra in Jordan.
The early Greek Strabo referred to the Nabataean exiles as Idumaeans (Kasher, Aryah, 1988, p. 66) because Duma'ath was the metathesis of the name Thamud (not to be confused with the earlier Edomites from further south) (otherwise called “Thamud”, “Dumath” or “Adummatu”). Thus Thamud or “Dumah” is a child of Ishmael, like Nabaioth in Genesis. “In Pliny they are called Thamudeni (6.28. s. 32).” And, it was Ptolemy that stated the Idumaeans were also “Phoenicians” and among the Syrians. Stephanus “makes the Thamuda (Θαμουδά) a neighbour of the Nabataeans” (See the Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography by William Smith 1854.)
To summarize, the original homeland of these Thamudenii like that of the Nabati in the tradition of Arabia was considered to be in Arabian "Arram "or Iram in the winding sands of the Hadramaut far to the south in the Yemen. The legendary leaders of the Thamud or the second A'ad include Luqman, who is said to have built Marib (“Meribah” of Exodus 17) of the Yemen and to have been a king of the Edomites (which we have shown was in the Es-Shara region of the Yemen – not in Syria).
Luqman in European rabbinical and Arab tradition is Balaam or Bela and it is he that went down in Western fable as black and “woolly-haired” and the probable basis for the legendary Aesop, i.e. Ethiop of the fables. Today, Arab bedouin tribes still tell stories or fables using animals as main characters, like the Africans did.
Giants like the Thamud supposedly came north to the area of Mecca and Medina in the time of Amir Muzaikiyya, but some had halted in the Hijaz. Others moved further North and came to occupy Jordan and Syria/Palestine and even Mesopotamia in this ancient period. Still another group were ancestral to some of the population of North Africa, whom came to be called "Mauri" or Moors. Thus names that are found in the Levant are similar to those found in Africa and the Yemen.
“MASH/MASHEK” son of ARAM and father of NABIT
Presently a tribe of Thumala or Thamalah is known among the Thaqif in Hijaz between Mecca and Ta'if. These Thamalah also have a clan among them called “Mashayikh” (Hamza, Fuad, p. 8) possibly the “Masika” (Mashek) or Mashai of more ancient inscriptions in the region. According to some early Orientalists, the Assyrians mention the desert of Mash in the campaign of Assur-banipal (See the entry "Mash" in The Popular and Critical Bible Encyclopaedia and Scriptural Dictionary, Vol. 2 eds. Andrew C. Zenos, Samuel Fallows and Herbert L. Willett, 1920, p. 1123) This tribe of Masei or Mashaa'i whose name is possibly tied to that of the modern Mashai of Central Arabia and/or Mashayikh of western Arabia (Hijaz) appear to have been a very important ethnic group that were part of the Nabataean Ishmaelites. (Since there are tribes called Mashai and Masheyk in Arabia today, this name is likely not the same as Mazaa'a also transcribed from Assyrian texts.)
Pliny mentions the Masei with the Salmani who were possibly ancestral to the Salman or al-Salman clan of the Anaeza bin Wa'il of modern times (Hamza, p. 24). The "Shalamians" or Sulaym/Salamiyyan were also well known allies to the Nabataeans. The Masei were a tribe of Mesopotamian Arabs mentioned in Assyrian records with the Sabaeans, Badana and Temai (Retso, Jan, 2003, pp. 405 and 406). Gaston Maspero wrote the word as Mashai (Maspero, Gaston, 1900, p. 189). The Badana are mentioned in Thamudic inscriptions near Dumah (Retso, p. 135).
According to the 19th century Orientalist Wilhelm Gesenius, "Mesech" came to live in the northern part of Syria between Cilicia and Mesopotamia, near the mountain. of Masius where there was a river named “Mazeca”. They appear to have given their name to the “Moschi” of Cappodocia (Katpatukka = "Keftiu" in northern Syria) as well. An early painting of the "Keftiu princes" of Syria (Tunip) clearly shows the term "black Syrian" used by Greeks for such people in later times was well deserved. : )
The writings of the al-Masudi of Baghdad belonging to the 10th century have been translated and may sum up the connection between these Mashai/Masheyk/Masika and the Nabataeans.
“'Among the sons of Mash, son of Aram, son of Shem, son of Noah, is Nabit, from whom are sprung all the Nabathaeans and their Kings.'
''After the deluge, men settled in different countries, (such) as the Nabathaeans who founded Babel,...”
By the 9th century when Masudi lived, the grandeur and status of the black Nabit or Nabataean descendants of Mash, founders of Babylonian civilization, had already faded. The bedouin such as the Mashai (“Mash”) and Thamud (“Dumah”) were likely their descendants. We see also that Ma'sudi contends that the people called Chaldaeans in Syria were originally Nabataeans and that their kings were from Nimrod probably the tribe called Numayr from Nejd or “Namrat” in the Nabataean kingdom, who is variously called son of Kush, Kassit, Kesed or Arphaxad in medieval texts.
After mentioning Nabit b. Canaan b. Kush b. Ham, Al-Dimashqi says the following concerning the Nabataeans.
“They had their homes in Babylonia, and their first king was Nimrod I, that is, the Great. They were known as Kaldan (Chaldeans), Kasdan (Kasdites), Janban, Jaramiqa, Kutharun, and Kan'anun; these were Nabataeans who constructed buildings, founded cities, dug canals, planted trees,...They were all Sabeans who worshiped stars and idols” (Zakeri, Mohsen, 1995, p. 148).
Thus, the Nabataeans or Nabit whose name, like that of Qudhar, Kedar or Khudar, came to be a generic term for “the black” or “blacks” in Asia, were definitely said to have been connected with the reign of Nimrod in southern Mesopotamia. As the European Orientalists like Rawlinson and Baldwin have implied previously these “Cushites” were said to be the makers of early civilization, including those of the Semitic peoples called Chaldeans, Kasdim, Janabah, Jaramiqa, Kedarites (Kudhar/Khudar), Canaanites, all derived from the “Sabaeans” of the Yaman - their ancestors. Masudi also wrote “The Chaldaeans are the same as the Syrians, formerly called Nabataeans under Nimrod” in the same text.
Al-Dimashqi of the 14th century interestingly says that the Jaramuq Nabataeans of his day were “a community of Hebrews” living in Palestine (now part of Israel) (Fenton, Paul, 2014, p. 303). Amazingly, but not unexpectedly the black people still living in the Yaramouk Basin in the Daraa Governate of southern Syria and surrounding towns like Jamla and Tasil are now simply called by such names as Zanj and abid and the Middle Eastern people fair-skinned people they live in the midst of make up stories about them being from Sudan. : (
Wikipedia speaks of the black people of today's Yarmouk basin in southern Syria saying “some local stories report Sudan as ancestral homeland of the Yarmouk Basin's black people; in any case, they have lived in the area for a long time, and are culturally and linguistically assimilated into the local Arab population”.
Clearly, when Masudi wrote of the Nabataeans “and their descendants, in a state of dependance and humiliation, ... now dispersed in Irak and other provinces,” it was no exagerration. But, Masudi probably never would have imagined that these people would have come to be concieved as non-Arabs and his Iraqi people as the real Arabs, or more Arab than an Arab. ; )
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Yarmouk basin - where many descendants of the Shammar Arabs live and remain relatively dark or with a more Arab appearance than the other Arabic Shammar groups of Syria, who mostly look Syrian. The Shammar originate from the Tayy of Yemen and were a branch of the Maddhij groups who like the rest of the Yemenites were black and near black in color. It is not certain if these people descend from the "Jarmuqians" mentioned by early writers as both "Nabataean" and "Hebrew". Needless to say most Western people look at the darker- skinned Syrians like these Jarmoukians as somehow less Arab biologically than the fairer-skinned Syrians. |
So much for a people with no civilization – the ancestors of al-Khudair or Kedar, the Sumr, the aswad of Arabia and Syria.
Unfortunately, most of the links between the original Aramaeans/Amorites and the tribes of Arabia are not generally recognized due to the long-time unwarranted belief among biblical archaeologists that these AmMurru nomads came from invasions from North to South Arabia, when in reality as suggested by earlier historians the semitic speaking tribes of Mesopotamia and Syria came up from the South.
The second reason which is the foundation for the first seems to do with the present state of chronology of the Near East in general. Apparently some historians seem to believe that there is no reason to think the dynasties of the region date back to the 3rd millenium, but rather to the middle of the 2nd millenium BC - but that is a whole other book to be read.
Unfortunately, most of the links between the original Aramaeans/Amorites and the tribes of Arabia are not generally recognized due to the long-time unwarranted belief among biblical archaeologists that these AmMurru nomads came from invasions from North to South Arabia, when in reality as suggested by earlier historians the semitic speaking tribes of Mesopotamia and Syria came up from the South.
The second reason which is the foundation for the first seems to do with the present state of chronology of the Near East in general. Apparently some historians seem to believe that there is no reason to think the dynasties of the region date back to the 3rd millenium, but rather to the middle of the 2nd millenium BC - but that is a whole other book to be read.
As with the Canaan in Arabia theory promoted by Kamal Salibi, the mainstream specialists in biblical and Near Eastern archaeology are not in agreement with alternative chronology theories like those of Gunnar Heinsohn, which may lend support to Salibi's theories as well as new ones that seem to provide evidence that both Akkadian and Sumerian were just early forms of Arabic (Abulhab, Saad, 2016, p. 9, or see introduction - As with the work of Salibi, Abulhab's theories have not been taken seriously by a number of biblically-oriented scholars.)
Heinsohn in fact seems to think the chronology was founded on biblical fundamentalist beliefs and is completely off base. And he's not the only one.
The other thing that has been placed out of context by the present chronological construction of the ancient Middle East are the findings of physical anthropologists in Mesopotamia which seem to show that the physical type appearing in books didn't even arrive in the region of southern Mesopotamia or Iran until just several centuries BC, which is really an enigma.
Thus, we have physical anthropologists/archaeologists concluding inexplicable things about the peoples found in early Mesopotamia and Iran or facts like the following -
As Ephraim Speiser put it "there is a marked discrepancy between the evidence of the cemeteries uncovered in Sumer and the appearance of the historic Sumerians depicted on the monuments. For it has been repeatedly observed that the monumental representations of the Sumerians point for the most part to pronounced roundheads" (Finkelstein, J. J. and Greenberg, Moshe, 1967, p. 217).
And this is just the molehill out of a mountain of problems that surround the chronology of not only Mesopotamia, but the entire ancient Near East, partially resulting in placing immigrating populations in areas where they actually didn't arrive until very late, and in fact creating "phantom dynasties" that may never have existed.
Unfortunately, with all the destruction going on in the Middle East these days we may not be learning the truth any time soon.
Abulhab, Saad. (2016). The Epic of Gilgamesh: Selected Readings from its Original Early Arabic
Language. Blautopf Publishing.
Abulhab, Saad. (2013). Inscriptional Evidence of PreIslamic Classical Arabic
Heinsohn in fact seems to think the chronology was founded on biblical fundamentalist beliefs and is completely off base. And he's not the only one.
The other thing that has been placed out of context by the present chronological construction of the ancient Middle East are the findings of physical anthropologists in Mesopotamia which seem to show that the physical type appearing in books didn't even arrive in the region of southern Mesopotamia or Iran until just several centuries BC, which is really an enigma.
Thus, we have physical anthropologists/archaeologists concluding inexplicable things about the peoples found in early Mesopotamia and Iran or facts like the following -
"this study suggests that the Himrin population was relatively dolichocranic and generally unaltered until the Parthian period as in southern Mesopotamia (Keith, 1927; Ehrich, 1939; Swindler, 1956) , but sometime in or after the Parthian period a more brachycranic population came into this northern Mesopotamian area and craniofacial characteristics within the inhabitants in this area probably became more diverse, as preliminarily suggested by Ishida and Wada (1981) and Wada (1986). It has been suggested based on archaeological data that the population of Mesopotamia began to be influenced by Persians after the Achaemenean domination, and more foreigners were settled and mixed with the native population in the Parthian period (Roux, 1992)" (Ogihara, N. et al., 2009, p. 16).
This if true would suggest that the predominant dolichocephalic "brown race", i.e. the original AfroAsiatic alias "hamite" wasn't overrun until a few centuries before Christ. This matter in fact throws a big wrench into modern Near Eastern chronology and would explain the quandary of why the monuments of ancient Sumer that are found in most books don't seem to belong to the population unearthed in early tombs. This had proved puzzling to earlier specialists that were aware of the physical remains as well.
As Ephraim Speiser put it "there is a marked discrepancy between the evidence of the cemeteries uncovered in Sumer and the appearance of the historic Sumerians depicted on the monuments. For it has been repeatedly observed that the monumental representations of the Sumerians point for the most part to pronounced roundheads" (Finkelstein, J. J. and Greenberg, Moshe, 1967, p. 217).
And this is just the molehill out of a mountain of problems that surround the chronology of not only Mesopotamia, but the entire ancient Near East, partially resulting in placing immigrating populations in areas where they actually didn't arrive until very late, and in fact creating "phantom dynasties" that may never have existed.
Unfortunately, with all the destruction going on in the Middle East these days we may not be learning the truth any time soon.
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COMING SOON ON THIS BLOG! "The Legacy of the Minaean Nazarenes: Who is this King of Glory?"
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This painting of the great St and Prophet of the Nazarenes (Nasiriyya) - Jesus/Isa - is hidden in the darkness (as usual) at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem's Old City district. The church was built in the 300s AD, and the painting is thought to date from before then according to the photographer who took the picture. Photo by Steven Graham.
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