Judaism in pre-Islamic Arabia
[1] Some proposals suggest there were Jewish migrations after the destruction of the Second Temple during the Jewish–Roman wars in the first century[2] or during the conquests or persecutions by the Persians, Babylonians, or Romans, but no data exist to support this.
The inscriptions span at least five centuries, only number thirty-one if all are accepted as Jewish, are written in a variety of scripts/languages although most are in Nabataean Aramaic, are typically brief, and are geographically limited insofar as nearly all hail from Hegra or Al-Ula.
[10] or "By/for Ahab son of Simak is the tomb" Contemporary sources from Greek and Syriac literature say little about the subject of Arabian Judaism or Jewish communities.
The Arabian/Arab antiquities collector Abū l-Faraj al-Iṣfahānī (d. 976) also has scattered reference to eleven Jewish poets in his Kitāb al-agānī ("Book of Songs").
Asides from Samaw'al, the only other Jewish poet to earn some renown was al-Rabī‘ ibn Abī l-Ḥuqayq, chief of the Naḍir tribe.
[19] Non-contemporary Arabic historiographical sources, such as those of al-Hamdani, are considered secondary in their ability to enable a historical reconstruction of Judaism in pre-Islamic Arabia.
One of the inscriptions from 203 indicate that a Jewish individual named Isaiah became the head of Tayma, suggesting that Jews could at least occasionally achieve positions of power in western Arabia.
The Midrash Rabba suggests that two third-century rabbis thought it would have been beneficial to them to travel to al-Ḥijr (Hegra)/Madāʾin Ṣālih in order to improve their Aramaic.
According to Procopius, a 6th-century Byzantine historian as he was commenting about the Tiran Island and perhaps at an entrance on the Gulf of Aqaba, "Hebrews had lived from of old in autonomy, but in the reign of this Justinian they have become subject to the Romans.
"[27] Haggai Mazuz has argued that the Hijazi Arabian Judaism was rabbinic and halakhic,[28] but his thesis has criticized for an uncritical reliance on traditional sources.
[34] A Sabaic inscription dating to this time, titled Ja 856 (or Fa 60) describes the replacement of a polytheistic temple dedicated to the god al-Maqah with a mikrāb (which might be the equivalent of a synagogue or an original form of organization local to Himyarite Judaism[35]).
The evidence suggests a sharp break with polytheism, coinciding with the sudden appearance of Jewish and Aramaic words (‘ālam/world, baraka/bless, haymanōt/guarantee, kanīsat/meeting hall) and personal names (Yṣḥq/Isaac, Yhwd’/Juda), Yws’f/Joseph).
It lists the mishmarot ("guards"), enumerating the twenty-four Priestly families (and their place of residence in Galilee) appointed to protect the Solomon's Temple after the return of the Jews following the Babylonian exile.
[41] Mentions of synagogues, indicating the formal organization of Jews in Southern Arabia, are present in a fourth-century Sabaic inscription and a late sixth century Greek inscription from the port of Qāniʾ in Bi'r Ali which uses the phrase eis Theos to refer to God and mentions a hagios topos, a phrase typically connoting a synagogue.
These events are also discussed in several contemporary Christian sources: in the writings of Procopius, Cosmas Indicopleustes, John Malalas, and Jacob of Serugh.
In addition, an anonymous author produced the Book of the Himyarites, a sixth-century Syriac chronicle of the persecution and martyrdom of the Christians of Najran.
This event to a significant counterattack by the Ethiopian kingdom, leading to the conquest of Himyar in 525 and the end of the Jewish leadership of southern Arabia.
