"Sa‘d-iláh and his sons, Benú Marthad im, have endowed Il-Maḳah of Hirrán with this tablet, because Il-Maḳah, lord of Awwám Dhú-‘Irán Alú, has favourably heard the prayer addressed to him, and has consequently heard the Benú Marthad imwhen they offered the first-fruits of their fertile lands of Arhaḳim in the presence of Il-Maḳah of Hirrán, and Il-Maḳah of Hirrán has favourably heard the prayer addressed to him that he would protect the plains and meadows and this tribe in their habitations, in consideration of the frequent gifts throughout the year; and truly his (Sa‘d-iláh's) sons will descend to Arhaḳim, and they will indeed sacrifice in the two shrines of ‘Athtor and Shams im, and there shall be a sacrifice in Hirrán—both in order that Il-Maḳah may afford protection to those fields of Bin Marthad imas well as that he may favourably listen—and in the sanctuary of Il-Maḳah of Ḥarwat, and therefore may he keep them in safety according to the sign in which Sa‘d-iláh was instructed, the sign which he saw in the sanctuary of Il-Maḳah of Na‘mán; and as for Il-Maḳah of Hirrán, he has protected those fertile lands of Arhaḳim from hail and from all misfortune ( or, from cold and from all extreme heat)."38
In concluding this very inadequate account of the South Arabic inscriptions I must claim the indulgence of my readers, who are aware how difficult it is to write clearly and accurately upon any subject without first-hand knowledge, in particular when the results of previous research are continually being transformed by new workers in the same field.
Fortunately we possess a considerable literary supplement to these somewhat austere and meagre remains. Our knowledge of South Arabian geography, antiquities, and Literary sources. legendary history is largely derived from the works of two natives of Yemen, who were filled with enthusiasm for its ancient glories, and whose writings, though different as fact and fable, are from the present point of view equally instructive—Ḥasan b. Aḥmad al-Hamdání and Nashwán b. Sa‘íd al-Ḥimyarí. Besides an excellent geography of Arabia ( Ṣifatu Jazírat al-‘Arab), which has been edited by Hamdání (õ 945 a.d.).D. H. Müller, Hamdání left a great work on history and antiquities of Yemen, entitled al-Iklíl('The Crown'), and divided into ten books under the following heads:—39
Book I. Compendium of the beginning and origins of genealogy.
Book II. Genealogy of the descendants of al-Hamaysa‘ b. Ḥimyar.
Book III. Concerning the pre-eminent qualities of Qaḥṭán.
Book IV. Concerning the first period of history down to the reign of Tubba‘ Abú Karib.
Book V. Concerning the middle period from the accession of As‘ad Tubba‘ to the reign of Dhú Nuwás.
Book VI. Concerning the last period down to the rise of Islam.
Book VII. Criticism of false traditions and absurd legends.
Book VIII. Concerning the castles, cities, and tombs of the Ḥimyarites; the extant poetry of ‘Alqama,40 the elegies, the inscriptions, and other matters.
Book IX. Concerning the proverbs and wisdom of the Ḥimyarites in the Ḥimyarite language, and concerning the alphabet of the inscriptions.
Book X. Concerning the genealogy of Ḥáshid and Bakíl (the two principal tribes of Hamdán).
The same intense patriotism which caused Hamdání to devote himself to scientific research inspired Nashwán b. Sa‘íd, who descended on the father's side from one of the Nashwán b. Sa‘íd al-Ḥimyarí (õ 1177 a.d.). ancient princely families of Yemen, to recall the legendary past and become the laureate of a long vanished and well-nigh forgotten empire. In 'The Ḥimyarite Ode' ( al-Qaṣídatu ’l-Ḥimyariyya) he sings the might and grandeur of the monarchs who ruled over his people, and moralises in true Muḥammadan spirit upon the fleetingness of life and the futility of human ambition.41 Accompanying the Ode, which has little value except as a comparatively unfalsified record of royal names,42 is a copious historical commentary either by Nashwán himself, as Von Kremer thinks highly probable, or by some one who lived about the same time. Those for whom history represents an aggregate of naked facts would find nothing to the purpose in this commentary, where threads of truth are almost inextricably interwoven with fantastic and fabulous embroideries. A literary form was first given to such legends by the professional story-tellers of early Islam. One of these, the South Arabian ‘Abíd b. Sharya, visited Damascus by command of the Caliph Mu‘áwiya I, who questioned him "concerning ‘Abíd b. Sharya. the ancient traditions, the kings of the Arabs and other races, the cause of the confusion of tongues, and the history of the dispersion of mankind in the various countries of the world,"43 and gave orders that his answers should be put together in writing and published under his name. This work, of which unfortunately no copy has come down to us, was entitled 'The Book of the Kings and the History of the Ancients' ( Kitábu ’l-Mulúk wa-akhbáru ’l-Máḍín). Mas‘údí (õ 956 a.d.) speaks of it as a well-known book, enjoying a wide circulation.44 It was used by the commentator of the Ḥimyarite Ode, either at first hand or through the medium of Hamdání's Iklíl. We may regard it, like the commentary itself, as a historical romance in which most of the characters and some of the events are real, adorned with fairy-tales, fictitious verses, and such entertaining matter as a man of learning and story-teller by trade might naturally be expected to introduce. Among the few remaining Muḥammadan authors who Ḥamza of Iṣfahán. bestowed special attention on the Pre-islamic period of South Arabian history, I shall mention here only Ḥamza of Iṣfahán, the eighth book of whose Annals (finished in 961 a.d.) provides a useful sketch, with brief chronological details, of the Tubba‘s or Ḥimyarite kings of Yemen.
Qaḥṭán, the ancestor of the Southern Arabs, was succeeded by his son Ya‘rub, who is said to have been the first to use the Arabic language, and the first to receive the salutations with which the Arabs were accustomed Ya‘rub. to address their kings, viz., " In‘im ṣabáḥ an" ("Good morning!") and " Abayta ’l-la‘na" ("Mayst thou avoid malediction!"). His grandson, ‘Abd Shams Saba, is named as the founder of Ma’rib and the builder of the famous Dyke, which, according to others, was constructed by Luqmán b. ‘Ád. Saba had two sons, Ḥimyar and Kahlán. Before his death he deputed the sovereign authority to Ḥimyar, and the task of protecting the frontiers and making war upon the enemy to Kahlán. Thus Ḥimyar Ḥimyar and Kahlán. obtained the lordship, assumed the title Abú Ayman, and abode in the capital city of the realm, while Kahlán took over the defence of the borders and the conduct of war.45 Omitting the long series of mythical Sabæan kings, of whom the legend has little or nothing to relate, we now come to an event which fixed itself ineffaceably in the memory of the Arabs, and which is known in their traditions as Saylu ’l-‘Arim, or the Flood of the Dyke.
Some few miles south-west of Ma’rib the mountains draw together leaving a gap, through which flows the River Adana. During the summer its bed is often dry, but in the rainy season the water rushes down with such The Dam of Ma’rib. violence that it becomes impassable. In order to protect the city from floods, and partly also for purposes of irrigation, the inhabitants built a dam of solid masonry, which, long after it had fallen into ruin, struck the imagination of Muḥammad, and was reckoned by Moslems among the wonders of the world.46 That their historians have clothed the bare fact of its destruction in ample robes of legendary circumstance is not surprising, but renders abridgment necessary.47