Pre-Islamic Arabia
The era of pre-Islamic Arabia encompasses human history in all parts of the Arabian Peninsula before the rise of Islam. During the prehistoric period, humans first migrate and settle into the peninsula. In the early first millennium BC, writing and recorded history are introduced into the Peninsula, along with the rise of the first kingdoms in the south. In the early seventh century, the pre-Islamic period quickly comes to a close, from the beginning of Muhammad's preachings of Islam, to his establishment of the first Islamic state in 622 in Medina, and the subsequent conquest and political unification of the peninsula shortly after Muhammad's death, in the 630s. Some strands of Islamic tradition interpret the pre-Islamic period as a barbaric, morally un-enlightened period known as the "Jahiliyyah", but historians have not adopted this convention.
Pre-Islamic Arabia's demographics included both nomadic and settled populations, the latter of which eventually developed into distinctive civilizations. Eastern Arabia was home to the region's earliest civilizations, such as Dilmun, which is attested as a prominent trade partner of Mesopotamia during the Bronze Age; and its later pre-Islamic history is marked by the reign of consecutive Iranian empires, including those of the Parthians and the Sasanians. From the early 1st millennium BCE onward, South Arabia became home to a number of kingdoms, such as Sheba and Ma'in; while part of North Arabia became home to the Nabataean Kingdom, which was conquered and annexed by the Roman Empire in 106, becoming the province Roman Arabia, and starting [History of the Romans in Arabia|a period of Roman influence].
Arabian tribes and the southern kingdoms structured much of pre-Islamic society, and memory of these societies is filtered today through Islamic literature and Pre-Islamic [Arabic poetry|pre-Islamic poetry]. Pre-Islamic tribes engaged in warfare and formed alliances, and for most of history, practiced Arabian religions. Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia was diverse. Polytheism was prevalent for most of the region's history, with beliefs and practices having a common origin in ancient Semitic religion. Christianity, Judaism, and monotheism became common in the region in the fourth century, a trend driven by Christian proselytization from the Eastern Roman Empire and the Kingdom of Aksum, as well as the conversion to monotheism and Judaism by the elite of the Himyarite Kingdom.
Territory
The Arabian Peninsula is a region of great ecological and environmental diversity and gave rise to distinct forms of human occupation throughout the region. It has an area of 2.5 million km2 and includes the modern-day regions of Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Oman, the Arab Emirates">Arabs">Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, and parts of Jordan. The Peninsula has 7,000 km of coastline, and most of the interior is covered by vast wastelands called dunes.Before Islam, the territory implied by the word Arabia was different across many surviving sources, but it was not a synonym for the Arabian Peninsula. Instead, in the earliest sources, it encompassed both the peninsula, in addition to the steppe and desert wastes on the borders of Egypt and the Fertile Crescent. For Herodotus, an ancient Greek historian in the 5th century BC, "Arabia" refers to the areas as far out as eastern Egypt, the Sinai Peninsula, and the Negev. The Arabâya mentioned in Persian administrative sources includes the territory described by Herodotus, in addition to the areas of the Syrian desert. For Pliny the Elder, the Syrian desert itself was the territory of the "Arabia of the nomads".
Prehistoric Arabia
Prehistoric Arabia is the era of the history of the Arabian peninsula before its earliest documented civilizations. Early human migration into Arabia took place during the Paleolithic period. Human occupation was not continuous, but punctuated, heavily influenced by changing patterns of rainfall and precipitation, resulting in expansions, contractions, and migrations of early Arabian populations of humans. Among the earliest human settlements that have been found date back to 240–190 thousand years ago, and the oldest human fossils known from Arabia are over 80,000 years old. The earliest human populations likely migrated into Arabia from Africa, settling into the Eastern coastline. In the Neolithic period, Arabia witnessed a large demographic expansion, and humans began to widely settle the south and inland regions of Arabia. Eventually, by 6,000 years ago, the Arabian economy transitioned into one of nomadic pastoralism, but it continues to be debated if this technology spread into Arabia through the migration of Levantine populations where this practice had already been established, or if it was an internal development that may have come about from trade with the Levant.Eastern Arabia
Eastern Arabia is a geographic region that generally refers to the territories covered by modern-day Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the east coast of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Oman. The main language in this region among sedentary peoples was Aramaic, Arabic, and to some degree, Persian. The Syriac language also came to be spoken as a liturgical language.Many religions were practiced in the area. Practitioners included Arab Christians, Aramean Christians, Persian-speaking Zoroastrians and Jewish agriculturalists. One hypothesis holds that the contemporary Baharna are descendants of Arameans, Jews, and Persians from the area. Zoroastrianism was also present in Eastern Arabia. The Zoroastrians of Eastern Arabia were known as "Majoos" in pre-Islamic times. The sedentary dialects of Eastern Arabia, including Bahrani Arabic, were influenced by Akkadian, Aramaic and Syriac languages.
Bronze Age (3000 – 1300 BCE)
During the Bronze Age, most of Eastern Arabia was part of the land of Dilmun, including modern-day Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar and the adjacent coast of Saudi Arabia. Its capital was located in Bahrain. Dilmun is the earliest recorded civilization from Eastern Arabia, mentioned in written records in the 3rd millennium BCE, with archaeological evidence indicating activity from the fourth to first millennia BCE, its importance faltering after 1800. Dilmun is regarded as one of the oldest ancient civilizations in the Middle East in general.The Dilmun civilization was an important trading center which at the height of its power controlled the Persian Gulf trading routes. This was enabled by a number of natural advantages to the region, and part of this was its abundant underground water supplies and easy anchorages for ships. It became a center for long-distance trade and all types of commodities passed through it, including a variety of exotic goods. As a result, Dilmun became legendary in Mesopotamian literature. The Sumerians regarded Dilmun as holy land. The Sumerians described Dilmun as a paradise garden in the Epic of Gilgamesh. The Sumerian tale of the garden paradise of Dilmun may have been an inspiration for the Garden of Eden story. Dilmun, sometimes described as "the place where the sun rises" and "the Land of the Living", is the scene of some versions of the Eridu Genesis, and the place where the deified Sumerian hero of the flood, Utnapishtim, was taken by the gods to live forever. Thorkild Jacobsen's translation of the Eridu Genesis calls it "Mount Dilmun" which he locates as a "faraway, half-mythical place".
File:Baranamtarra Dilmun AO 13725.jpg|Sumerian cuneiform tablet recording shipments of wool and silver by Queen Lagash to Dilmun c. 2350 BCE found in a tel in Girsu|right|thumb|250px
Dilmun was mentioned in two letters dated to the reign of Burna-Buriash II recovered from Nippur, during the Kassite dynasty of Babylon. These letters were from a provincial official, Ilī-ippašra, in Dilmun to his friend Enlil-kidinni in Mesopotamia. The names referred to are Akkadian. These letters and other documents, hint at an administrative relationship between Dilmun and Babylon at that time. Following the collapse of the Kassite dynasty, Mesopotamian documents make no mention of Dilmun with the exception of Assyrian inscriptions dated to 1250 BCE which proclaimed the Assyrian king to be king of Dilmun and Meluhha. Assyrian inscriptions recorded tribute from Dilmun. There are other Assyrian inscriptions during the first millennium BCE indicating Assyrian sovereignty over Dilmun. Dilmun was also later on controlled by the Kassite dynasty in Mesopotamia.
In 19th and early 20th centuries, some historians believed that the Phoenicians originated from Eastern Arabia, particularly Dilmun. However, this theory has since been abandoned.
Iron Age (1300 – 330 BCE)
Upon the Late Bronze Age collapse, the major powers across the Near East lost much of their power and this allowed many smaller and far-flung states to become more independent and a number of minor states to emerge. In addition, new scripts and alphabets were developed, which were of great utility to merchants for producing contracts and conducting other and related economic affairs. In turn, the Middle Assyrian Empire became much more prominent and undertook an aggressively expansionist policy. In the second half of the 13th century BCE, Tukulti-Ninurta I took on the title "king of Dilmun and Meluhha". Dilmun disappears from Assyrian sources until the reign of Sargon II, king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. Here and across the next century, Dilmun appears as a polity that is not directly ruled by Assyria, although it sends tribute to the Assyrian rulers in exchange for peace and independence. When the Neo-Babylonian Empire overthrew the Assyrian Empire, its influence on Dilmun is also attested. Finally, Dilmun falls under the sway of the Persians after the rise of the Achaemenid Empire which replaces the Babylonian one.Greco-Roman/Parthian period (330 BCE – 240 CE)
After Alexander the Great returned from his conquests that reached India, settling in Babylonia, it is said by the historian Arrian that he was turning his attention towards an invasion of the Arabian peninsula. Although he died too soon for this campaign to take place, Alexander did dispatch three intelligence-gathering missions to gather knowledge about the peninsula, and it was these missions that greatly enhanced information about the peninsula to the Hellenistic world. Alexander, and his Seleucid successors who took control of the relevant region near Arabia after his death, took an interest to Arabia because of trade happening there involving luxury products.Image:Asia 001ad.jpg|thumb|300px|Gerrha and its neighbors in 1 CE.In this context, Gerrha was an ancient city of great importance in Eastern Arabia. It was located on the west side of the Persian Gulf. Soon after the conquests of Alexander the Great, it became the most important center of trader for the Hellenistic world in the Gulf region, known for its transport of Arabian aromatics and goods from India further away. It retained its prominence until the first centuries of the common era. While there is no certainty as to which archaeological site the Gerrha of Greek sources can be identified with, the most prominent candidates have been Thaj and Hagar. The Greeks also described Bahrain in their writings, referring to it by their exonym, Tylos. Tylos was the center of pearl trading, when Nearchus came to discover it serving under Alexander the Great. From the 6th to 3rd century BCE Bahrain was included in Persian Empire by Achaemenians, an Iranian dynasty. The Greek admiral Nearchus is believed to have been the first of Alexander's commanders to visit these islands, and he found a verdant land that was part of a wide trading network; he recorded: "That in the island of Tylos, situated in the Persian Gulf, are large plantations of cotton tree, from which are manufactured clothes called sindones, a very different degrees of value, some being costly, others less expensive. The use of these is not confined to India, but extends to Arabia." The Greek historian, Theophrastus, states that much of the islands were covered in these cotton trees and that Tylos was famous for exporting walking canes engraved with emblems that were customarily carried in Babylon.It is not known whether Bahrain was part of the Seleucid Empire, although the archaeological site at Qalat Al Bahrain has been proposed as a Seleucid base in the Persian Gulf. Tylos was integrated well into the Hellenised world: the language of the upper classes was Greek, while Zeus was worshipped in the form of the Arabian sun-god Shams. Tylos even became the site of Greek athletic contests.
Another important player in this time was the Parthian Empire, which emerged from northeastern Iran and relinquished a significant amount of territory from the eastern borders of the Seleucids. The Seleucids would be eventually vanquished by the Roman Empire over the course of the 1st century BCE, leading to the Romans and Parthians being the main power contenders in the region, separated by the Syrian desert. Parthian influence extended over the Persian Gulf and reached as far as Oman. Garrisons were established at the southern coast of the Gulf to help extend their power.
Byzantine/Sasanian period (240 CE – 630 CE)
A major shift in dynamics accompanied the replacement of the Parthian dynasty in Persian lands by the Sasanians, leading to the rise of the Sasanian Empire around 240 CE. Seizing the moment, Ardashir I, the first ruler of this dynasty marched down the Persian Gulf to Oman and Bahrain and defeated Sanatruq II, probably the Parthian governor of Eastern Arabia. He appointed his son Shapur I as governor of Eastern Arabia. Shapur constructed a new city there and named it Vahman Ardashir after his father. At this time, Eastern Arabia incorporated the southern Sasanian province covering the Persian Gulf's southern shore plus the archipelago of Bahrain. The southern province of the Sasanians was subdivided into the three districts of Haggar, Vahman Ardashir, and Mishmahig which included the Bahrain archipelago that was earlier called Aval.Sasanian interests in the region largely lay in controlling traffic through the Persian Gulf, but land-incursions into the peninsula were occasionally undertaken, such as when the inhabitants of Eastern Arabia invaded southern Iran during the reign of Shapur II in the fourth century CE. During the political struggles of the sixth century, Khosrow I began to exert more direct rule over Eastern Arabia, including the direct appointment of regional governors. Another development of the Sasanian period is the rise of Christianity in Eastern Arabia.
Beth Qatraye
In antiquity, Syriac Christians referred to a region in northeast Arabia as Beth Qatraye, or the "region of the Qataris". This region encompassed a territory that, today, includes Bahrain, Tarout Island, Al-Khatt, Al-Hasa, Qatar, and possibly the United Arab Emirates. The region was also sometimes called "the Isles".By the 5th century, Beth Qatraye was a major centre for Nestorian Christianity, which had come to dominate the southern shores of the Persian Gulf. As a sect, the Nestorians were often persecuted as heretics by the Byzantine Empire, but eastern Arabia was outside the Empire's control offering some safety. Several notable Nestorian writers originated from Beth Qatraye, including Isaac of Nineveh, Dadisho Qatraya, Gabriel of Qatar and Ahob of Qatar. Christianity's significance was diminished by the arrival of Islam in Eastern Arabia by 628. In 676, the bishops of Beth Qatraye stopped attending synods; although the practice of Christianity persisted in the region until the late 9th century.
The dioceses of Beth Qatraye did not form an ecclesiastical province, except for a short period during the mid-to-late seventh century. They were instead subject to the Metropolitan of Fars.
Beth Mazunaye
Oman and the United Arab Emirates comprised the ecclesiastical province known as Beth Mazunaye. The name was derived from 'Mazun', the Persian name for Oman and the United Arab Emirates.South Arabia
South Arabia roughly corresponds to modern-day Yemen, with Oman being designated as part of Eastern Arabia. In contrast to the rest of Arabia, South Arabia is a self-contained cultural area that retained the independence of its cultural, political, and linguistic dynamics from the rise of its first known kingdoms until the end of Late Antiquity. The rise of the South Arabian kingdoms owes itself to the construction of irrigation complexes that captured precipitation by the biannual monsoon rains, enabling agriculture, and the trade routes that carried incense and other spices, giving rise to tales of legendary wealth about the region among Greco-Roman observers.The South Arabian kingdoms emerged in the early first millennium BCE, and they included the Kingdoms of Ma'in, Saba, Hadhramaut, Aswan, and Qataban. Until recently, very little was known about human activity in South Arabia prior to the first millennium BCE. However, recent decades of archaeological work have begun to rapidly change this situation. This has helped increase the prominence of the discipline, though it has not yet became a mainstream topic in Near Eastern archaeology.
In the third century CE, the Kingdom of Himyar emerged and conquered its neighbours to exert complete political domination over South Arabia. This situation persisted for several centuries, until the Himyarite polity unravelled over the course of the sixth century CE and experienced a societal collapse. The collapse had no single cause, instead, a number of coinciding events contributed to this situation. First, a rapid series of turbulent political events took place: the violent coup of Dhu Nuwas, the massacre of the Christian community of Najran, the [Aksumite invasion of Himyar|Aksumite conquest of Himyar], and the rebellion of the Ethiopian soldiers in South Arabia against Aksum. Epidemic and climatological factors also contributed: one inscription from the 550s indicates that the Plague of Justinian struck South Arabia. Severe droughts took place from 500 to 530 CE, and around the mid-6th century, there was the Late Antique Little Ice Age. Across the Arabian Peninsula, the effect of each of these factors was the most severe in the South, and there, especially the Southwest. By the 550s and 560s, Himyar's decline was completed, as it faced military incursions from Central and Northwest Arabia, and local insurrections. In 559 CE, the final Himyarite inscription was recorded. The collapse of the traditional order is indicated by the breakdown of the Marib Dam over the course of the 570s. A creeping in of influence from the Persian Sasanian Empire is evident towards the end of the 6th century.File:Panel Almaqah Louvre DAO18.jpg|thumb|Sabaean inscription addressed to the moon-god Almaqah, mentioning five South Arabian gods, two reigning sovereigns and two governors, 7th century BCE
File:griffon hadhramaut.jpg|thumb|A Griffin from the royal palace at Shabwa, the capital city of the Kingdom of Hadhramaut
Kingdom of Saba (1000 BCE – 275 CE)
The Kingdom of Saba was regarded by the South Arabian and earliest Ethiopian kingdoms as the locus for the birth of South Arabian civilization. The kingdom spoke Sabaic and constructed many impressive architectural complexes, such as the Marib Dam, which helped sequester the monsoon rains through an irrigation network that laid the foundation for the emergence of a civilization, and many temples, including the Temple of Awwam for their national god Almaqah where hundreds of inscriptions have been discovered. The Sabaeans had close contact with the cultures of the Horn of Africa. They went on to conquer both Eritrea and northern Ethiopia to establish the Kingdom of Dʿmt, where a hybrid Ethiosemitic script emerged. Under the leadership of Karib'il Watar, Saba dominated most of modern-day Yemen, a feat that would not be accomplished again in the region until the Himyarite Kingdom a thousand years later. Their legacy was remembered in both biblical and Islamic tradition, especially in the legendary story of the Queen of Sheba.The Sabaean kingdom emerged some time around the turn of the 1st millennium BCE. By the time that the formative period of Sabaean history was complex, a fully developed alphabetic script was available, as well as the technological prowess to construct cities and other architectural complexes. There is some debate as to the degree to which the movement out of the formative phase was channeled by endogenous processes, or the transfer or technologies from other centers, perhaps via trade and immigration.
The first major phase of Sabaean civilization lasted from the 8th to the 1st centuries BCE. Rulers referred to themselves by the title Mukarrib as a testimony to the hegemony they exerted over neighbouring polities. The period was dominated by a caravan economy that had market ties with the rest of the Near East. Its first major trading partners were at Khindanu and the Middle Euphrates. Later, this moved to Gaza during the Persian period, and finally, to Petra in Hellenistic times. The South Arabian deserts gave rise to important aromatics which were exported in trade, especially frankincense and myrrh. It also acted as an intermediary for overland trade with neighbours in Africa and further off from India. Saba was a theocratic monarchy with a common cult surrounding their national god, Almaqah. Four other deities were also worshipped: Athtar, Haubas, Dhat-Himyam, and Dhat-Badan.
The first Sabaean period came to a close as the Roman Republic expanded to conquer Syria and Egypt in 63 and 30 BCE, respectively. They diverted the overland trade route through the Sabaean kingdom into a maritime trade route that went through the Hadhramaut port city of Qani. They even attempted to siege Marib, the Sabaean capital, but were unsuccessful. Greatly weakened, they were annexed by the neighbouring Himyarite Kingdom. Saba was able to regain their independence around 100 CE to onset a second period of their civilization. Notably, power dynamics had shifted from oasis cities like Marib and Sirwah to groups occupying the highlands. Ultimately, Himyar permanently re-annexed them, around 275 CE.
Kingdom of Awsan (8th century BCE – 7th century BCE)
Awsan was a South Arabian kingdom that lasted from the 8th to 7th centuries BCE, with a brief resurgence in the 2nd or 1st century BCE. Awsan is centered around a wadi called the Wadi Markha. The name of the capital of Awsan is unknown, but it is assumed to be the tell that is today known as Hagar Yahirr, the largest settlement in the wadi. The territory under its control was sizable enough that it was a powerful contender in local power politics. In the late 7th century BCE, under the reign of its ruler Murattaʿ, Awsan entered a military conflict with the Kingdom of Saba that brought about its demise. The Sabaean king, Karib'il Watar, defeated Awsan and proceeded to obliterate it. An inscription left behind claims that Karib'il killed over 16,000 people and took 40,000 more as prisoners. After this event, the wadi was left abandoned, and Awsan disappeared from the historical record for the time being. Saba had divided its territory between its then-allies, Qataban and Hadhramaut. Half a millennium later, when Qataban's control over the Wadi Markha was declining, Awsan was able to briefly re-emerge, in the 2nd or 1st centuries BCE. This final phase of the Awsanite kingdom is the only period in South Arabian history where kings were deified.Kingdom of Ma'in (8th century BCE – 1st century CE)
The Minaeans, or the inhabitants of the Kingdom of Ma'in, had their capital at Qarna. Another important city was Yathill. The Minaean Kingdom was centered in northwestern Yemen, with most of its cities lying along Wādī Madhab. Ma'in was responsible for managing an international frankincense trade and it set up a number of colonies across Arabia and the Mediterranean to manage it. For this reason, Minaic inscriptions have been found far afield of the Kingdom of Maīin, as far away as al-'Ula in northwestern Saudi Arabia and even on the island of Delos and Egypt.Kingdom of Qataban (8th century BCE – 2nd century CE)
Qataban was one of the ancient Yemeni kingdoms which thrived in the Beihan valley. Like the other Southern Arabian kingdoms, it gained great wealth from the trade of frankincense and myrrh incense, which were burned at altars. The capital of Qataban was named Timna and was located on the trade route which passed through the other kingdoms of Hadramaut, Saba and Ma'in. The chief deity of the Qatabanians was Amm, or "Uncle" and the people called themselves the "children of Amm".Kingdom of Hadhramaut (8th century BCE – 3rd century CE)
Hadhramaut is first mentioned in a 7th century BCE inscription from the king of the Sabaean kingdom, Karib'il Watar, mentioned as an ally. For commercial reasons, Hadhramaut became one of the confederates of Ma'in when they took control of the caravan routes. After the fall of Ma'in, it experienced a period of independence. Hadhramaut had to repel attacks by Himyar in the 1st century BCE, and managed to annex Qataban in the 2nd century CE, when it reached its greatest size. Ultimately, the kingdom did fall to an invasion by the Himyarite king Shammar Yahri'sh in the 3rd century CE, making it the final one of the South Arabian kingdoms to fall to Himyar.Kingdom of Himyar (110 BCE – 530 CE)
Himyar was a polity in the southern highlands of Yemen, as well as the name of the region which it claimed. Until 110 BCE, it was integrated into the Qatabanian kingdom, afterwards being recognized as an independent kingdom. According to classical sources, their capital was the ancient city of Zafar, relatively near the modern-day city of Sana'a. Himyarite power eventually shifted to Sana'a as the population increased in the fifth century. After the establishment of their kingdom, it was ruled by kings from dhū-Raydān tribe. The kingdom was named Raydān.The kingdom conquered neighbouring Saba' in c. 25 BCE, Qataban in c. 200 CE, and Haḍramaut c. 300 CE. Its political fortunes relative to Saba' changed frequently until it finally conquered the Sabaean Kingdom around 280. With successive invasion and Arabization, the kingdom collapsed in the early sixth century, as the Kingdom of Aksum conquered it in 530 CE.
The Himyarites originally worshiped most of the South-Arabian pantheon, including Wadd, ʿAthtar, 'Amm and Almaqah. Since at least the reign of Malkikarib Yuhamin, Judaism was adopted as the de facto state religion. The religion may have been adopted to some extent as much as two centuries earlier, but inscriptions to polytheistic deities ceased after this date. It was embraced initially by the upper classes, and possibly a large proportion of the general population over time. Native Christian kings ruled Himyar in 500 CE until 521–522 CE as well, Christianity itself became the main religion after the Aksumite conquest in 530 CE.
Aksumite occupation of Yemen (525 – 570 CE)
In response to the massacre of the Christian community of Najran under the reign of the Jewish king Dhu Nuwas, the Christian king of the Kingdom of Aksum, Kaleb, responded by invading and annexing Himyar.Sasanian period (570 – 630 CE)
In the second half of the sixth century, the Sasanian Empire conquered the Himyarite Kingdom and ended Aksumite occupation of South Arabia. This event is not mentioned in Sasanian sources and is noted only in passing in Byzantine sources. The bulk of what has been written about the period comes from Arabic sources, most famously that of Al-Tabari in his History of the Prophets and Kings, relying on an earlier account by Ibn Ishaq. However, there are six major Arabic accounts describing the Sasanian conquest of South Arabia and they differ over a range of major and minor details, including who the key actors were and their relative roles, the religious identities of some of the authors, the sizes of the armies, and so forth. In Al-Tabari's reporting, the Persian king Khosrau I sent troops under the command of Vahriz, who helped the semi-legendary Sayf ibn Dhi Yazan to drive the Aksumites out of Yemen. Southern Arabia became a Persian dominion under a Yemenite vassal and thus came within the sphere of influence of the Sasanian Empire. After the demise of the Lakhmids, another army was sent to Yemen, making it a province of the Sasanian Empire under a Persian satrap. Following the death of Khosrau II in 628, the Persian governor in Southern Arabia, Badhan, converted to Islam and Yemen followed the new religion.Western Arabia (Hejaz)
Thamud (8th century BCE — 5th century CE)
The Thamud was an ancient civilization in Hejaz, attested in Mesopotamian and Classical sources and Arabian inscriptions in northwestern Arabia at Hegra from the eighth century BCE until the fifth century CE, when they came to serve as Roman auxiliaries and sometimes were identified as Nabataeans. They are remembered in pre-Islamic Arabic poetry and Islamic-era sources, notably including the Quran. In the Quran, they are mentioned twenty-six times, and are remembered as an ancient polytheistic people destroyed by God for their rejection of the prophet Salih. The Quran associates Thamud into a grander pattern of rebellion and destruction of past groups of people, along with others like Ad, Lot, and Noah. When Salih calls Thamud to serve one God, they demand a sign from him. He presents them with a miraculous she-camel. Thamud, unconvinced, injures the camel: for this God destroys them, except Salih and his followers. The Islamic exegetical tradition embellishes the story with more details. In Islamic genealogy, Thamud is among the true Arab tribes.Kingdom of Lihyan/Dedan (5th century BCE - 1st century BCE)
, also called Dedan, was a northwestern kingdom whose language was Dadanitic. The kingdom existed sometime between the 5th and 1st centuries BCE, but the end-date is uncertain. It is unclear if Lihyan was conquered by the Nabataeans or if the Nabataeans captured the territory after Lihyan had already fallen.North Arabia
Kingdom of Qedar (8th century BCE – ?)
The most organized of the Northern Arabian tribes, at the height of their rule in the 6th century BCE, the Kingdom of Qedar spanned a large area between the Persian Gulf and the Sinai. An influential force between the 8th and 4th centuries BCE, Qedarite monarchs are first mentioned in inscriptions from the Assyrian Empire. Some early Qedarite rulers were vassals of that empire, with revolts against Assyria becoming more common in the 7th century BCE. It is thought that the Qedarites were eventually subsumed into the Nabataean state after their rise to prominence in the 2nd century CE.The Achaemenids in Northern Arabia
Achaemenid Arabia corresponded to the lands between Nile Delta and Mesopotamia, later known to Romans as Arabia Petraea. According to Herodotus, Cambyses did not subdue the Arabs when he attacked Egypt in 525 BCE. His successor Darius the Great does not mention the Arabs in the Behistun inscription from the first years of his reign, but does mention them in later texts. This suggests that Darius might have conquered this part of Arabia or that it was originally part of another province, perhaps Achaemenid Babylonia, but later became its own province.Arabs were not considered as subjects to the Achaemenids, as other peoples were, and were exempt from taxation. Instead, they simply provided 1,000 talents of frankincense a year.
They participated in the Second Persian invasion of Greece while also helping the Achaemenids invade Egypt by providing water skins to the troops crossing the desert.
Nabateans
The Nabataeans are first mentioned as inhabiting the area east of the Syro-African rift between the Dead Sea and the Red Sea, that is, in the land that had once been Edom. And although the first sure reference to them dates from 312 BCE, it is possible that they were present much earlier.Josephus, writing in Jewish Antiquities 1.12.4) in the Roman era, described the descendants of Ishmael as Arabs, linking them with the Nabataeans, the tribe of Nebaioth:
twelve sons in all were born to Ishmael, Nabaioth, Kedar, Abdeêl, Massam, Masma, Idum, Masmes, Chodam, Thaiman, Jetur, Naphais, Kadmas. These occupied the whole country extending from the Euphrates to the Red Sea and called it Nabatene. And it is these who conferred their names on the Arabian nation and its tribes.
The identification of the Arabs as Ishmaelites has also been expressed by Apollonius Molon and Origen, and was later adopted by Eusebius and Jerome. Classical Arab historians sometimes name Nebaioth as an ancestor of Muhammad. However the majority of traditions point to Kedar, another son of Ishmael, as his ancestor.
Petra lies in the Jordan Rift Valley, east of Wadi `Araba in Jordan about south of the Dead Sea. It came into prominence in the late 1st century BCE through the success of the spice trade. The city was the principal city of ancient Nabataea and was famous above all for two things: its trade and its hydraulic engineering systems. It was locally autonomous until the reign of Trajan, but it flourished under Roman rule. The town grew up around its Colonnaded Street in the 1st century and by the middle of the 1st century had witnessed rapid urbanization. The quarries were probably opened in this period, and there followed virtually continuous building through the 1st and 2nd centuries CE.
Kingdom of Hatra
The Kingdom of Hatra, also called Kingdom of Arabaya and Araba, was a 2nd-century Arab kingdom centered on the city of Hatra, located between the Roman and the Parthian empires, mostly under Parthian suzerainty, in modern-day northern Iraq.In the first and second century, Hatra was ruled by a dynasty of Arab princes. It capital rose to prominence and became an important religious center as a result of its strategic position along caravan trade routes. Hatra is one of the first Arab states to be established outside of the Arabian Peninsula.
Hatra withstood repeated sieges - in the 2nd century by Roman emperors Trajan and Septimius Severus, and in the 220s by the Sasanian king Ardashir I. The kingdom was finally conquered after the 240/41 capture of its capital by the Sasanians under Shapur I, who destroyed the city.
Osroene and the Abgarid dynasty
Osroene, or Edessa, was one of several states that acquired independence from the collapsing Seleucid Empire through the Abgarid dynasty, established by the Osrhoeni, a nomadic Nabataean tribe from Southern Canaan and North Arabia, beginning in 136 BC. Osroene's name either derives from the name of this tribe, or from Orhay, the original Aramaic name of Edessa. Arab influence had been strong in the region. In his writings, Pliny the Elder refers to the natives of Osroene and Commagene as Arabs and the region as Arabia. Abgar II is called "an Arab phylarch" by Plutarch, while Abgar V is described as "king of the Arabs" by Tacitus.The Edessene onomastic contains many Arabic names. The most common one in the ruling dynasty of Edessa being Abgar, a well-attested name among Arabic groups of antiquity. Some members of the dynasty bore Iranian names, while others had Arabic names. Judah Segal notes that the names ending in "-u" are "undoubtedly Nabatean". The Abgarid dynasts spoke "a form of Aramaic".
Abgar V is a legendary King who ruled Osroene at the time of Jesus, and is said to have been the first King to embrace Christianity. There is no doubt Christianity came early to Osroene and was widely embraced by the reign of Abgar VIII the Great, who was either Christian himself or not at all hostile to Christians. The Christian writer Sextus Julius Africanus stayed at Abgar the Great's court in 195, and a Christian inscription was produced in Edessa, which is from the same period or few decades later than the Inscription of Abercius from 216. It is estimated that Christianity was preached in Edessa since 160 – 170, and a flood in 201 destroyed "the temple of the church of the Christians", indicating a community large enough to have had a building of notable importance to the city at the time.
Osroene endured for four centuries, with twenty-eight rulers occasionally named "king" on their coins. Most of the kings of Osroene were called Abgar or Manu and settled in urban centers.
Lakhmid kingdom
The Lakhmid kingdom was founded in the late third century. Spanning Eastern Arabia and Southern Mesopotamia, it existed as a dependency of the Sasanian Empire, though the Lakhmids held al-Hira as their own capital city and governed from there independently. For the Sasanians, the Lakhmids served as a buffer state to protect themselves from nomadic Arab invasions, and to project their own power over Arab territories. The Lakhmids were also contenders for the Ghassanids, another major Arab tribal confederation which existed as a client state to the Byzantine Empire. The Lakhmids and Ghassanids fought proxy wars on the part of the two empires, and assisted the empires when they entered more dire conflict. Under the leadership of Al-Mundhir III, the power of the Lakhmids reached its height, and they reigned a devastating defeat on the Romans and Ghassanids at the Battle of Callinicum, to the point that the Romans paid them tribute to avoid invasion. However, this apogee declined after the death of Al-Mundhir III. The Lakhmids became weak in the second half of the sixth century, leading to issues to them with the Persians. The final Lakhmid king, Al-Nu'man III, was converted to Christianity as the religion grew at Al-Hira. Years later, as the Sasanians sought to take direct control over their borders with Arab groups, Al-Nu'man III was deposed by the Sasanians themselves around 602 AD, bringing an end to the Lakhmid kingdom.Ghassanid kingdom
The Ghassanid kingdom was a major Arab tribal confederation founded in the early third century. Early on, the Ghassanids converted to Christianity, and formed a cliental relationship with the Roman Empire, and later, the Eastern Roman Empire. They served as rivals for the Lakhmid kingdom, the vassals of the Persian Sasanian Empire. Like the Lakhmids, they acted as a buffer state, preventing Arab nomadic incursion and playing the role of projecting the power of the empire into Arabian lands. The Byzantines ultimately deposed them in the late sixth century, and they ceased to be an entity during the early Muslim conquests.Central Arabia
Kingdom of Kinda
Kinda was an Arab kingdom by the Kinda tribe; the tribe's existence dates back to the second century BCE. The Kindites established a kingdom in Najd in Central Arabia unlike the organized states of Yemen; its kings exercised an influence over a number of associated tribes more by personal prestige than by coercive settled authority. Their first capital is called Qaryat al-Faw, then known as Qaryat Dhāt Kāhil. According to Islamic tradition, Kindite supremacy over Central Arabia collapsed after the First Battle of Kulab.Ancient South Arabian inscriptions mention a tribe settling in Najd called kdt, who had a king called rbˁt from ḏw ṯwr-m, who had sworn allegiance to the king of Saba' and Dhū Raydān. Since later Arab genealogists trace Kinda back to a person called Thawr ibn 'Uqayr, modern historians have concluded that this rbˁt ḏw ṯwrm must have been a king of Kinda ; the Musnad inscriptions mention that he was king both of kdt and qhtn. They played a major role in the Himyarite-Ḥaḑramite war. Following the Himyarite victory, a branch of Kinda established themselves in the Marib region, while the majority of Kinda remained in their lands in central Arabia.
The first Classical author to mention Kinda was the Byzantine ambassador Nonnosos, who was sent by the Emperor Justinian to the area. He refers to the people in Greek as Khindynoi, and mentions that they and the tribe of Maadynoi were the two most important tribes in the area in terms of territory and number. He calls the king of Kinda Kaïsos, the nephew of Aretha.
Ma'add
was a group of nomadic and semi-nomadic groups occupying central Arabia, beyond the territorial domain of the major powers of its day: north of the direct territorial control of the Himyarite Kingdom, and south of that of the Lakhmids. Ma'addites retained independence and protected their northern and southern frontiers because they lived in remote areas and had militarized societies. From the fourth to sixth centuries, they were centered at Ma'sal al‐Jumh in the Najd. Ma'add coexisted among other regional identities, including Ghassan, Himyar, and Tayyi'. They are first mentioned in the Namara inscription.In Islamic times, Ma'add was transformed into a folkloric ancestor for all the Arabs. As time passed on, Arab genealogy expanded, and Ma'add was reduced to being an ancestor of some of the "northern" Arabs.
Interactions with foreign civilizations
Romans
There is evidence of Roman rule in northern Arabia dating to the reign of Caesar Augustus. During the reign of Tiberius, the already wealthy and elegant north Arabian city of Palmyra, located along the caravan routes linking Persia with the Mediterranean ports of Roman Syria and Phoenicia, was made part of the Roman province of Syria. The area steadily grew further in importance as a trade route linking Persia, India, China, and the Roman Empire. During the following period of great prosperity, the Arab citizens of Palmyra adopted customs and modes of dress from both the Iranian Parthian world to the east and the Graeco-Roman west. In 129, Hadrian visited the city and was so enthralled by it that he proclaimed it a free city and renamed it Palmyra Hadriana.File:Roman Empire Trajan 117AD.png|thumb|right|300px|Map showing Roman emperor Trajan control of northwestern Arabia until Hegra
The Roman province of Arabia Petraea was created at the beginning of the 2nd century by emperor Trajan. It was centered on Petra, but included even areas of northern Arabia under Nabatean control.
Recently evidence has been discovered that Roman legions occupied Mada'in Saleh in the Hijaz mountains area of northwestern Arabia, increasing the extension of the "Arabia Petraea" province.
The desert frontier of Arabia Petraea was called by the Romans the Limes Arabicus. As a frontier province, it included a desert area of northeastern Arabia populated by the nomadic Saraceni.
Persians
The Persian, Sasanian Empire maintained an economic and political presence in the Hejaz since its establishment in the third century, until the sixth century. This was done indirectly, and often through the kings of the Lakhmid kingdom, a powerful pre-Islamic Arab kingdom that acted as a client state of the Sasanians and helping to project Persian power into Arabian Peninsula.The Šahrestānīhā ī Ērānšahr, a Middle Persian document, places the region with both Mecca and Medina in the domain of the Iranian empire during the third century. Medina may have been directly controlled, at one point, by Khosrow I, who is said to have appointed the Lakhmid king Al-Mundhir III over all Arabs living between, on the one side, Oman, Bahrain, and Al-Yamama, and to the other side, Al-Ta'if and the rest of the Hejaz. A Sasanian governor, whose main seat was on the coast of the Persian Gulf, is said to have indirectly ruled Medina and Tihama, and where he was represented by an official called an ʿamīl. Banu Qurayza and Banu Nadir, two Jewish tribes, were said to have exacted tribute from two other tribes, Banu Aws and Banu Khazraj, on account of the Sasanians. Some sources also suggest a Sasanian presence in the Najd and Yemen to extract mineral resources, which would have involved Sasanian servicemen and laborers in the region with local involvement to operate. This is evidenced by the Antiquities of South Arabia of Al-Hamdani, transmits family names from these regions, some of which are Middle Persian. Earlier, Kavad I is said to have attempted promoting Mazdakism in the same area.
In the second half of the sixth century, it is said that the Lakhmid ruler Al-Nu'man III appointed a king, ʿAmr b. al-Itnaba from the Khazraj, over Medina. Later, the Sasanians conquered South Arabia, replacing rule by the Kingdom of Aksum. The Sasanian emperor at this time, Khosrow II, may have considered Mecca to be part of his domain, as he is said to have sent a governor to Mecca from Yamama over collecting taxes.
Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa
, and the Horn of Africa at large, is found south-west of the Arabian Peninsula, separated only by the Red Sea. Contact, trade, and even warfare between Arabian and civilizations in the Horn dates at least to the early 1st-millennium BC, when the Sabaean Kingdom may have established a state in parts of modern-day Eritrea and Ethiopia, called Da'amat, although the precise nature of the Sabaean cultural presence in this area is debated.After the collapse of Da'amat, contact between South Arabia and Ethiopia declined. This was revitalized after the establishment of the Kingdom of Aksum, a new and powerful Ethiopian kingdom centered in Eritrea and Ethiopia emerging in the 1st century CE. Contact, and occasional battle, continued between the two, for centuries. Ethiopia maintained a policy of irredentism, believing that the southern territories of the peninsula rightfully belonged under its own rule. The Kingdom of Aksum conquered South Arabia in the early 6th century, and Ethiopian rule over South Arabia reached its height during the reign of Abraha, who conquered most of the peninsula. Control was finally lost to the Sasanian Empire during the Aksumite–Persian wars.
Genealogical tradition
Arab traditions relating to the origins and classification of the Arabian tribes is based on biblical genealogy. The general consensus among 14th-century Arab genealogists was that Arabs were three kinds:- "Perishing Arabs": These are the ancients of whose history little is known. They include ʿĀd, Thamud, Tasm, Jadis, Imlaq and others. Jadis and Tasm perished because of genocide. ʿĀd and Thamud perished because of their decadence. Some people in the past doubted their existence, but Imlaq is the singular form of 'Amaleeq and is probably synonymous to the biblical Amalek.
- "Pure Arabs" : These are traditionally considered to have originated from the progeny of Ya'rub bin Yashjub bin Qahtan so were also called Qahtanite Arabs.
- "Arabized Arabs" : They are traditionally seen as having descended from Adnan.
Religion
Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia included pre-Islamic Arabian polytheism, ancient Semitic religions, and Abrahamic religions such as Judaism and Christianity. Other religions that may have existed in pre-Islamic Arabia are Samaritanism, Mandaeism, and Iranian religions like Zoroastrianism and Manichaeism. Arabian polytheism was, according to Islamic tradition, the dominant form of religion in pre-Islamic Arabia, based on veneration of deities and spirits. Worship was directed to various gods and goddesses, including Hubal and the goddesses al-Lāt, Al-'Uzzá and Manāt, at local shrines and temples, maybe such as the Kaaba in Mecca. Deities were venerated and invoked through a variety of rituals, including pilgrimages and divination, as well as ritual sacrifice. Different theories have been proposed regarding the role of Allah in Meccan religion. Many of the physical descriptions of the pre-Islamic gods are traced to idols, especially near the Kaaba, which is said to have contained up to 360 of them in Islamic tradition.Other religions were represented to varying, lesser degrees. The influence of the adjacent Roman and Aksumite resulted in Christian communities in the northwest, northeast and south of Arabia. Christianity in pre-Islamic Arabia made a lesser impact, but secured some conversions, in the remainder of the peninsula. With the exception of Nestorianism in the northeast and the Persian Gulf, the dominant form of Christianity was Miaphysitism. The peninsula had been a destination for Jewish migration since pre-Roman times, which had resulted in a diaspora community supplemented by local converts. Additionally, the influence of the Sasanian Empire resulted in Iranian religions being present in the peninsula. While Zoroastrianism existed in the eastern and southern Arabia, there was no existence of Manichaeism in Mecca. From the fourth-century onwards, monotheism became increasingly prevalent in pre-Islamic Arabia, as is attested in texts like the inscriptions from Jabal Dabub, Ri al-Zallalah, and the Abd Shams inscription.
Culture
Literacy
classifies societies as literate or non-literate based on the role played by writing in that society. Writing may be widespread, but if it is not involved in the administration of a society, it is considered non-literate. By contrast, a literate society relies on writing for its administration. Contrary to myth, the ability to read and write was common in pre-Islamic Arabia, and pre-Islamic Arabia at large represented a literate society.Writing was used to different extents in different regions of the Peninsula. South Arabia was a literate society to the most extensive degree: not only are thousands of graffiti known, suggesting commoners knew how to write at a basic level, but thousands of public inscriptions also show that writing was used to run South Arabian societies, across all ranges of purposes: for legal, commemorative, and dedicatory purposes, as well as for issuing public decrees, documenting history, and for legal affairs. The major oases towns in North and West Arabia were also literate societies. The northern nomadic Arabs were non-literate societies, but the tens of thousands of pre-Islamic Arabian inscriptions found even among these societies suggest that the ability to write was common, and was mainly used for entertainment and passing time.
Literature
No native literature survives from pre-Islamic Arabia, however, over 65,000 pre-Islamic inscriptions have been found on stone, metal, pottery, wood, and other surfaces, and published. These inscriptions suggest a copious literature once existed in the area, but it has not survived, likely because it was written on perishable materials.Most of these inscriptions are from North Arabia, where 50,000 inscriptions are known. The remaining 15,000 are from South Arabia. The Arabian corpus of inscriptions is more extensive than that of Ugarit or Phoenicia in Punic, Aramaic, and Hebrew. It is second only in size to Akkadian, but remains behind in the field of Semitic studies due to a lack of accessible tools.
While not written down in the pre-Islamic period, the period may have had a vibrant poetic culture.
Greek and Roman cultural influence
Pre-Islamic Arabia was Hellenized, a process that refers to when local cultures mix with the Greco-Roman culture spread by Alexander the Great's conquests. After Alexander's fall, and before reaching the Arabian Peninsula, Hellenistic and Roman rule were imposed for centuries on Arabic-speaking populations in Syria, the Jordan, and Palestine.Hellenization first reaches the peninsula in the 3rd century BC, in Eastern Arabia, shown by the amphorae in that region that came from Rhodes and Chios. In South Arabia, Hellenization begins in the 2nd or 1st centuries BCE, around the time of the last of the kings of Qataban. In the resurgent period of the South Arabian Kingdom of Awsan, during the 2nd or 1st centuries BCE, an evolution of the iconography of the kings is seen: they are transformed from wearing traditional South Arabian clothing to being shown dressed as a Roman citizen would, with curly hair and wearing a toga. At the Kingdom of Saba, the traditional Near Eastern norms of religious iconography gave way to Roman and Hellenistic anthropomorphic styles around the turn of the Christian era. In Central Arabia, statues of Greek deities like Artemis, Heracles, and Harpocrates have been discovered have been found at Qaryat al-Faw, the former capital of the Kingdom of Kinda. Roman military presence, coins, and Greek and Latin inscriptions have been documented in many sites in Saudi Arabia, including invocations of Roman gods in the northwestern Hejaz. Many Arabic inscriptions mention Romans, Rome, or even the Roman emperor, citing them with the words rm, ʾl rm, or hrm. One Arabic inscription accompanies a rock drawing of a Roman soldier in a plumed helmet and lamellar armor on horseback.
In 106 CE, the Roman Empire conquered the Nabataean Kingdom and they set up a province called Arabia Petraea encompassing both northern Arabia and the northwest Hejaz. Roman military encampments were set up at Hegra in the Medina Province, at Ruwafa, and as far south as the Farasan Islands. The Limes Arabicus was the desert frontier that separated the Roman Empire from the rest of the Arabian Peninsula.
Christianity expanded into pre-Islamic Arabia. The Letter of the Archimandrites dating to 569/570, composed in Greek but preserved in Syriac, demonstrates a dense network of churches and monasteries in Roman Arabia. Arabic-speaking tribes were gradually converting to Christianity or becoming foederati of the emperor, resulting in increasing integration into the Roman world over time. In the mid-sixth century, for example, Justinian I was closely allied with the Ghassanids, a Hellenized Christian Arab kingdom.
Hellenistic influences are also seen on the corpus of pre-Islamic Arabic poetry.
Art
The art is similar to that of neighbouring cultures. Pre-Islamic Yemen produced stylized alabaster heads of great aesthetic and historic charm.Late Antiquity
The early 7th century in Arabia began with the longest and most destructive period of the Byzantine–Sasanian Wars. It left both the Byzantine and Sasanian empires exhausted and susceptible to third-party attacks, particularly from nomadic Arabs united under a newly formed religion. According to historian George Liska, the "unnecessarily prolonged Byzantine–Persian conflict opened the way for Islam".The demographic situation also favoured Arab expansion: overpopulation and lack of resources encouraged Arabs to migrate out of Arabia.
Fall of the Empires
Before the Byzantine–Sasanian War of 602–628, the Plague of Justinian had erupted, spreading through Persia and into Byzantine territory. The Byzantine historian Procopius, who witnessed the plague, documented that citizens died at a rate of 10,000 per day in Constantinople. The exact number; however, is often disputed by contemporary historians. Both empires were permanently weakened by the pandemic as their citizens struggled to deal with death as well as heavy taxation, which increased as each empire campaigned for more territory.Despite almost succumbing to the plague, Byzantine emperor Justinian I attempted to resurrect the might of the Roman Empire by expanding into Arabia. The Arabian Peninsula had a long coastline for merchant ships and an area of lush vegetation known as the Fertile Crescent which could help fund his expansion into Europe and North Africa. The drive into Persian territory would also put an end to tribute payments to the Sasanians, which resulted in an agreement to give of tribute to the Persians annually in exchange for a ceasefire.
However, Justinian could not afford further losses in Arabia. The Byzantines and the Sasanians sponsored powerful nomadic mercenaries from the desert with enough power to trump the possibility of aggression in Arabia. Justinian viewed his mercenaries as so valued for preventing conflict that he awarded their chief with the titles of patrician, phylarch, and king – the highest honours that he could bestow on anyone. By the late 6th century, an uneasy peace remained until disagreements erupted between the mercenaries and their patron empires.
The Byzantines' ally was a Christian Arabic tribe from the frontiers of the desert known as the Ghassanids. The Sasanians' ally; the Lakhmids, were also Christian Arabs, but from what is now Iraq. However, denominational disagreements about God forced a schism in the alliances. The Byzantines' official religion was Orthodox Christianity, which believed that Jesus Christ and God were two natures within one entity. The Ghassanids, as Monophysite Christians from Iraq, believed that God and Jesus Christ were only one nature. This disagreement proved irreconcilable and resulted in a permanent break in the alliance.
Meanwhile, the Sasanian Empire broke its alliance with the Lakhmids due to false accusations that the Lakhmids' leader had committed treason; the Sasanians annexed the Lakhmid kingdom in 602. The fertile lands and important trade routes of Iraq were now open ground for upheaval.
Early Muslim conquests
When the military stalemate was finally broken and it seemed that Byzantium had finally gained the upper hand in battle, nomadic Arabs invaded from the desert frontiers, bringing with them a new social order that emphasized religious devotion over tribal membership.The political apparatus created by Muhammad was able to conquer Arabia within a few years of his death. Afterwards, this group invaded the Near East into both Sasanian and Byzantine territory. Within a few decades, the Sasanian empire had fallen entirely, with Byzantine territories in the Levant, the Caucasus, Egypt, Syria and North Africa also taken. By the end of the seventh century, an empire stretching from the Pyrenees Mountains in Europe to the Indus River valley in South Asia had been established.