A Wisdom Archive on Sabaean

Yemen was one of the oldest centers of civilization in the Near East. Its relatively fertile land and adequate rainfall in a moister climate helped sustain a stable population, a feature recognized by the ancient Greek geographer Ptolemy, who described Yemen as Eudaimon Arabia (better known in its Latin translation, Arabia Felix) meaning "fortunate Arabia." Between the 12th century BC and the 6th century AD, it was dominated by three successive civilisations which controlled the lu ...

Read more here: » History of Yemen: Encyclopedia II - History of Yemen - Ancient history

A fair number of Arabian inscriptions survive from the pre-Islamic era, but, very few are in the Arabic alphabet. Some are in the Arabic language, or its closest relatives including:- The Thamudic, Lihyanic, and Safaitic inscriptions in the north. The Epigraphic South Arabian (Sabaean, Himyaritic, etc.) inscriptions in the south. Both of these are in variants of the South Arabian musnad alphabet. Nabataean inscriptions in Aramaic and Arabic. Inscriptions in other languages, such as ...

Read more here: » History of the Arabic alphabet: Encyclopedia II - History of the Arabic alphabet - Pre-Islamic Arabic inscriptions

The kingdom of Axum had its own written language called Ge'ez, and also developed a distinctive architecture exemplified by giant obelisks. The kingdom was at its height under king Ezana, baptized as Abriha, in the 300s AD (which was also when it officially embraced Christianity). The Ethiopian Orthodox Church claims that the Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion in Axum houses the Biblical Ark of the Covenant in which lies the Tablets of Law upon which the Ten Commandments are inscribed. This same church was the site Ethiopian emperors wer ...

Read more here: » Axum: Encyclopedia II - Axum - Axumite kingdom and Orthodox Christianity

The major Aksumite monuments in the town are stelae; the largest number lie in the Northern Stelae Park, ranging up to the 33 metre-high Great Stele (believed to have fallen during construction) and the tallest standing 24m high King Ezana's Stele. They are believed to mark graves and would have had cast metal discs affixed to their sides, which are also carved with architectural designs. The Gudit Stelae, unlike the northern area, are inte ...

Read more here: » Axum: Encyclopedia II - Axum - Sites of interest

Main article: History of Yemen Yemen was one of the oldest centres of civilization in the Near East. Between the 9th century BC and the 6th century AD, it was part of the Minaean, Sabaean, Himyarite, Qatabanian, Hadhramawtian, and Awsanian kingdoms, which controlled the lucrative spice trade. It was known to the Romans as "Arabia Felix" ("Happy Arabia") because of the riches its trade generated; Augustus Caesar attempted to annex it, but the expedition failed, but Persian kings were more successful and Yemen became a Persian pr ...

Read more here: » Yemen: Encyclopedia II - Yemen - History

The Arabic alphabet's alphabetical order is different from in the Phoenician, Hebrew, Syriac, and Greek alphabets:- (Greek waw = digamma) The old alphabetical order, as in the other alphabets shown here, is known as the Levantine or Abjadi order. If the letters are arranged by their numeric order, the Levantine order is restored:- (Greek waw = digamma) (Note: here "numeric order" means the traditional values when these letters were used as numbers. See Arabic numerals, Greek numerals and Hebrew numerals for more details) This order is much the oldest. The fir ...

Read more here: » History of the Arabic alphabet: Encyclopedia II - History of the Arabic alphabet - An innovating alphabet

The Arabic alphabet evolved either from the Nabataean, or (less widely believed) from the Syriac. This table shows changes undergone by the shapes of the letters from the Aramaic original to the Nabataean and Syriac forms. Arabic is placed in the middle for clarity and not to mark a time order of evolution. It seems that the Nabataean alphabet became the Arabic alphabet thus: In the 6th and 5th centuries BC, north-Semitic tribes immigrated and founded a kingdom centered around Petra, in what is now Jordan. These people (n ...

Read more here: » History of the Arabic alphabet: Encyclopedia II - History of the Arabic alphabet - Origins

In the 7th century AD, the Arabic alphabet is attested in its classical form. See PERF 558 for the first surviving Islamic Arabic writing. In the 7th century AD, probably in the early years of Islam while writing down the Qur'an, it was realized that deciding by context in each case did not solve all the various ambiguities that resulted when reading Arabic text, and a proper cure was needed. Writings in the Nabataean and Syriac alphabets already had sporadic examples of dots being used to distinguish letters which had become id ...

Read more here: » History of the Arabic alphabet: Encyclopedia II - History of the Arabic alphabet - Early Islamic changes

Although Axumite Muslims have attempted to build a mosque in this most holy of Ethiopian towns, Orthodox residents have replied that they must be allowed to build an Ethiopian Orthodox church in Mecca (officially Makkah) if the Muslims are to be allowed to build a mosque in Axum. The connection of Axum with Islam is very old. According to ibn Hisham, when Muhammad faced oppression from the Quraish clan, he sent a small group that included his daughter Ruqayya and her husband Uthman ibn Affan, whom Ashma ibn Abjar, the king of Axum, ga ...

Read more here: » Axum: Encyclopedia II - Axum - Axum and Islam

The Sabians were well known until the ninth century AD. Around this time, the Harranians claimed the name Sabian in order to avoid Islamic persecution. Long ago however, there may have existed some connection between the two groups, since Sabians allegedly had a base in Edessa. One should not confuse either of these groups with Sabaeans - a completely unrelated group. After the conquests of Alexander, Harran came to be a center of intellectual and religious activity, which evolved into a philosophical tradition centered on Hermes Tris ...

Read more here: » Sabians: Encyclopedia II - Sabians - Sabi-Harran connections

The word "Semitic" is an adjective derived from Shem, one of the three sons of Noah in the Bible (Genesis 5.32, 6.10, 10.21), or more precisely from the Greek form of that name, namely Σημ (Sēm); the noun form referring to a person is Semite. The negative form of the adjective anti-Semitic is almost always used to mean "anti-Jewish", specifically. The concept of a "Semitic" peoples is derived from Biblical accounts of the origins of the cultures known to the ancient Hebrews. Those closest to them in culture and langu ...

Read more here: » Semitic: Encyclopedia II - Semitic - Origin

Medieval Arab genealogists divided the Arabs into three groups: the "ancient Arabs", tribes that had been destroyed or vanished, such as Ad and Thamud; they are often alluded to in the Qur'an as examples of God's power to destroy wicked peoples. the "Pure Arabs" of South Arabia, descending from Qahtan. The Qahtanites (Qahtanis) are said to have migrated the land of Yemen following the destruction of the Ma'rib Dam (sadd Ma'rib). The Qahtanite Arabs were responsible for the ancient civilizations of Yemen, notably ...

Read more here: » Arab: Encyclopedia II - Arab - Traditional genealogy