• Ориенталистика
• 2021 год
• Vol 4, № 3

The present article deals with the authenticity of early Islamic historical tradition. The sceptical approach of some Western scholars is balanced by an attempt to substantiate the data available in the Arab Muslim sources with the information from the inscriptions from South Arabia. The author was fortunate to discover an Islamic source, which dates back to the first half of 9^th century AD, the Kitāb al-Ṭabaqāt alkabīr by Ibn Sa‘d, which comprises the missives of the Prophet Muhammad to two noble clans of Ḥaḍramawt: dhū Marḥab and al-Bassī. These clans are also mentioned in two late Sabaean inscriptions, which originate from the territory of Ḥaḍramawt: Beeston – Wādī Sanā’ and MM (al-Mukalla’ Museum) 157. Therefore, the existence of at least two addressees of the missives of the prophet Muḥammad is confirmed in the epigraphic documents from Ancient Yemen.

• Prophet Muḥammad
• missives of the prophet Muḥammad to tribes of Arabia
• historiography
• Islamic
• early
• South Arabia
• epigraphy of
• clans
• pre-Islamic
• in Ḥaḍramawt
• Ḥaḍramawt

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The problem of the authenticity of early Muslim historical tradition remains crucial for the scholars of Arabic and Islamic history, who deal with the emergence of Islam and the formation of the Caliphate. In Western Islamic studies there is a strong tendency: the scholars almost completely deny the reliability of the early Arab Islamic historical works or, at least, their parts. Two prominent scholars, viz. Patricia Crone and Michael Cook, became the “symbols” of this trend¹. Their strongest argument is the lack of independent sources, which confirm the data taken from the Prophet’s biography (al-Sīra), such as his military campaigns (al-Maghāzī), the accounts on the great Arab conquests (al-Futūḥāt), etc. However, new discoveries in the field of South Arabian epigraphy have confirmed some data found in the early Islamic historical works.

Of significant interest are missives sent by the prophet Muḥammad² to the nobility of ancient Yemen on the occasion of their conversion to Islam. In several cases, the names of addressees’ clans are also found in the South Arabian inscriptions. For example, the Messenger of Allah sent a missive written down by his official secretary Mu‘āwiya b. Abī Sufyān to Rabī‘a b. dhī Marḥab (of the clan dhū Marḥab) al-Ḥaḍramī, his brothers and his paternal uncles (wa-ikhwati-hi wa-a‘māmi-hi). In this document the prophet Muḥammad confirmed their rights on their property, such as bees,³ slaves, wells, trees, waters, irrigation channels (sawāqiya-hum),⁴ plants, long-bodied female camels (sharādji‘a-hum)⁵ in Ḥaḍramawt as well as on any property, which had belonged to the clan dhū Marḥab (wa-kull māl li-āl dhī Marḥab) [5, S. 21.7-9]. It should be noted that according to the Sabaic inscription Ir 31 in the early twenties of the 4^th century AD a member of this ancient Sabaean clan Laḥay‘athat Yasha‘, who bore the title wz‘/š‘b-n/Sb’ (commander of the commune of Saba’), was at the head of a military campaign undertaken by the Ḥimyarite kingdom against Ḥaḍramawt [6, c. 252–253, 258]. Besides, in 1962 the renowned British Arabist and specialist in South Arabian Studies Alfred F. L. Beeston published a fragmentary Sabaic construction inscription discovered by Captain A. D. I. Fuller and Captain J. Johnson at a site in Wādī Sanā’ located at the eastern extremity of the region of Ḥaḍramawt [7, p. 41]. The edition by A. F. L. Beeston and his translation of it [7, p. 42, tav. X.1] are quoted below with some additions to his comments.

Beeston – Wādī Sanā’

Text

1. …/w-n‘]mgd/bnw/Wrw’l/’…

2. …/’]lht/Mrḥb-m/[w-]ḏ-Šms-n/w-Bṯ’-/…

3. …/]w-Tḡm’/w-Shb/w-Mšḥṭ-n/w-rkb/by…

4. …w-]br’/mṣn‘t-hmw/[ḏ-’sl]m-n/b-ḫlf-n/b-sr-n/…

5. …yn/m……hw[/’l]y/y‘qby/sr/’slm-n

Translation

1. …and N‘]mgd, sons of Wrw’l…

2. …clans Mrḥb-m [and] ḏ-Šms-n and Bṯ’-n⁶ …

3. …and Tḡm’ and Shb and Mšḥṭ-n and Rkb of the family…

4. …and] constructed their fortress /[ḏ-’sl]m-n at the frontier-post in the valley…

5. … …[who b]oth hold the local magistracy over the valley of ’slm-n

Additions to Commentary

No doubt, the proper noun Tḡm’ (l. 3) corresponds to the Arabic ethnonym Tughmā, i.e. a large subdivision of the tribal confederation of Mahra [9, I, Taf. 328, II, S. 545]. Therefore, a parallel can be drawn between ḏ-Šms-n and the Arabic name of another subdivision of Mahra – Ashmūs [9, I, Taf. 328, II, S. 201]⁷.

It is worth mentioning that A. F. L. Beeston dated that inscription based on palaeographic criteria from “the end of the fifth or the sixth century A.D.” [7, p. 41]. This is a piece of evidence that the Sabaean clan Marḥab mentioned in a missive of the Prophet, did exist in pre-Islamic Ḥaḍramawt. One more name of a clan, viz. Bṯ’-n, is also found in Sabaean epigraphy from the Ḥaḍramawt as well as in early Islamic historical tradition. However, in the historical writings, it has another spelling with the sīn instead of the ṯā’. The replacement of the ṯ with the so-called third sibilant ś⁸, which does not occur in Arabic, but is rather close to the Arabic sīn, in the proper noun Bṯ’-n is found in an unpublished fragmentary inscription kept in the Mukalla’ Museum (MM 157). According to the Museum documentation, it originates from the site Qāra Ḥabashiyya situated in one of the tributaries of Wādī Sanā’ mentioned above⁹. Its first edition with translation and comments is given below.

MM 157

Text

1. ……‘t/’ymn/w-…

2. …hmw/M‘dkrb/Ymgd[/…

3. …Ḏmnkrm/’qwl/w-m[r’s…

4. …Bś’y-n/hyf‘w/w-h…

5. …………y/’y

Translation

1. … …‘at Ayman and…

2. …their … Ma‘dīkarib Yamgud…

3. …Ḏamankarim the qayls and h[eads of…

4. …Baśa’iyyān announced and…

5. ……………

Commentary

l. 1, ’ymn: wide-spread “epithet” (second personal name) in the Sabaic onomasticon [12, p. 89][13, p. 155–156]. It is also attested in Qatabanic [14, S. 91, 305].

l. 2, M‘dkrb: this personal name occurs not only in Sabaic but also in Minaic, Qatabanic and Hadramitic inscriptions [12, p. 553]. Ymgd: one more Sabaic “epithet”, although of rather rare use [12, p. 683][13, p. 419].

l. 3, Ḏmnkrm: first occurrence of this personal name in the South Arabian epigraphy. ’qwl: a plural form of the term qayl borrowed from Sabaic into Arabic which designated a member of a leading clan in an agricultural commune (š‘b) [15, p. 110].

l. 4, Bś’y-n: that form, which represents a relative proper noun derived from B(ṯ/ś)’-n, could be used to denote the clan. If we accept the reading Bṯ’y-n,¹⁰ the similarity between these two forms of the clan name will become much greater. hyf‘w: 3 pers. m. pl. The causative stem of the Sabaic verb yf‘ is interpreted as “announce, make known” [15, p. 168].

According to the palaeographic features, this inscription should be dated from the 5^th–6^th century AD. As to the relative proper noun Bś’y-n, it is to be compared with the nisba al-Bassī found among a half-dozen “qayls and nobleman (‘uẓamā’) of Ḥaḍramawt” to whom the prophet Muḥammad sent his missives [5, S. 33]. The loss of the hamza in that nisba can be explained by the tendency towards the disappearance of this sound in the Ḥidjāzī dialect of Old Arabic. As a result, at least two names of South Arabian clans attested in Hadramitic epigraphy prove to occur among the addressees’ of the Prophet’s missives to the traditional nobility of Ḥaḍramawt.

The recent discovery of a late Sabaean rock inscription in the area of Sawṭ Bā Tays plateau in Ḥaḍramawt allowed a suggestion that its author Batha’, son of Shāfsī (Bṯ’/bn/Šfsy), appeared to be the founder of the clan Bṯ’(y)-n / Bś’y-n [8, p. 181]. Moreover, it is possible to identify him with a certain Bś’-m mentioned in the Sabaic inscription Ja 665, who was a commander of a cavalry detachment guarding wagon train of troops of Ḥaḍramawt during a Ḥimyarite campaign against this kingdom, which took place around AD 316–320 [6, c. 250, n. 212, 251, n. 213].

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