[4] In extra-biblical literature, the land of Havilah is mentioned in Pseudo-Philo as the source of the precious jewels that the Amorites used in fashioning their idols in the days after Joshua, when Kenaz was judge over the Israelites.
According to this tale, in the early days after the Tower of Babel, the children of Havilah, son of Joktan built a city and kingdom, which was near to those of his brothers, Sheba and Ophir.
[9] Benjamin Tudela, the twelfth-century Jewish traveler, claimed Zeila region was the land of Havilah confined by Al-Habash on the west.
[10] Zeila (Havilah) had been sacked by the Portuguese governor of Old Goa, Lopo Soares de Albergaria, while its Harla chief Mahfuz invaded Abyssinia in 1517.
[13][14][15] Augustus Henry Keane believed that the land of Havilah was centered on Great Zimbabwe and was roughly contemporaneous with what was then Southern Rhodesia.
There are a number of features in Medina Province which match the description such as gold deposits, a location on the incense road, and remains of neolithic and bronze age civilizations in the Harrat region.
The Arabian hypothesis is further strengthened by James A. Sauer's, former curator of the Harvard Semitic Museum, identification of Pishon, which is described as encircling Havilah in the Bible,[20] as the Wadi -al Rummah,[21][circular reference] a dry channel which begins in the Hijaz Mountains, near Medina, to run northeast to Kuwait.