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85-749: In the pre-Islamic period , the Shayban with their flocks wandered according to the seasons , wintering in Jadiyya in the Najd and moving to the fertile lowlands around the Euphrates for the summer, ranging from Upper Mesopotamia in the north to Lower Mesopotamia and the shores of the Persian Gulf . Its chief opponents during this time were the Taghlib and Banu Tamim . Already from pre-Islamic times,

170-540: A "faraway, half-mythical place" . Dilmun is also described in the epic story of Enki and Ninhursag as the site at which the Creation occurred. The promise of Enki to Ninhursag, the Earth Mother: For Dilmun, the land of my lady's heart, I will create long waterways, rivers and canals, whereby water will flow to quench the thirst of all beings and bring abundance to all that lives. Ninlil ,

255-525: A Kharijite revolt by his kin al-Walid ibn Tarif al-Shaybani , while his brother Ahmad went with 20,000 tribesmen to the aid of Caliph al-Amin in the Fourth Fitna against al-Ma'mun . Yazid also served twice as governor of Arminiya , a vast province encompassing current Armenia and Azerbaijan , where carried out large-scale colonization with Arab Muslims, particularly at Shirvan . He was succeeded by his sons Asad , Muhammad , and Khalid , becoming

340-679: A Persian dominion under a Yemenite vassal and thus came within the sphere of influence of the Sassanid Empire. After the demise of the Lakhmids, another army was sent to Yemen, making it a province of the Sassanid 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. Lihyan , also called Dadān or Dedan,

425-627: A new city there and named it Batan Ardashir after his father. At this time, Eastern Arabia incorporated the southern Sassanid province covering the Persian Gulf's southern shore plus the archipelago of Bahrain. The southern province of the Sassanids was subdivided into three districts of Haggar ( Hofuf , Saudi Arabia), Batan Ardashir ( al-Qatif province , Saudi Arabia), and Mishmahig ( Muharraq , Bahrain; also referred to as Samahij ) (In Middle-Persian /Pahlavi means "ewe-fish". ) which included

510-769: A part), and the Iranian religions . The ʿĀd nation were known to the Greeks and Egyptians . Claudius Ptolemy 's Geographos (2nd century CE) refers to the area as the "land of the Iobaritae" a region which legend later referred to as Ubar . The origin of the Midianites has not been established. Because of the Mycenaean motifs on what is referred to as Midianite pottery , some scholars including George Mendenhall, Peter Parr, and Beno Rothenberg have suggested that

595-423: 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

680-479: Is locally named Ḥajar Asfal . 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

765-480: Is now Yemen's modern capital, Sana'a . According to South Arabian tradition, the eldest son of Noah , Shem , founded the city of Ma'rib. During Sabaean rule, Yemen was called " Arabia Felix " by the Romans, who were impressed by its wealth and prosperity. The Roman emperor Augustus sent a military expedition to conquer the "Arabia Felix", under the command of Aelius Gallus . After an unsuccessful siege of Ma'rib,

850-542: Is referred to in Islam in the context of jahiliyyah ( lit.   ' The period of ignorance ' ), highlighting the prevalence of paganism throughout the region at the time. Some of the settled communities developed into distinctive civilizations. Information about these communities is limited and has been pieced together from archaeological evidence, accounts written outside of Arabia, and Arab oral traditions that were later recorded by Muslim historians . Among

935-889: Is taken to be a representation possibly of the Jewish king Malkīkarib Yuhaʾmin or more likely the Christian Esimiphaios (Samu Yafa'). The Aksumite intervention is connected with Dhu Nuwas , a Himyarite king who changed the state religion to Judaism and began to persecute the Christians in Yemen. Outraged, Kaleb , the Christian King of Aksum with the encouragement of the Byzantine Emperor Justin I invaded and annexed Yemen. The Aksumites controlled Himyar and attempted to invade Mecca in

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1020-520: The Garden of Eden story. Dilmun appears first in Sumerian cuneiform clay tablets dated to the end of fourth millennium BCE, found in the temple of goddess Inanna , in the city of Uruk . The adjective "Dilmun" is used to describe a type of axe and one specific official; in addition there are lists of rations of wool issued to people connected with Dilmun. Dilmun was an important trading center from

1105-758: The Kassite dynasty in Mesopotamia. 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 ( Ziusudra ), was taken by the gods to live forever. Thorkild Jacobsen 's translation of the Eridu Genesis calls it "Mount Dilmun" which he locates as

1190-476: The Marib Dam , was built ca. 700 BCE and provided irrigation for about 25,000 acres (101 km ) of land and stood for over a millennium, finally collapsing in 570 CE after centuries of neglect. The first known inscriptions of Hadramaut are known from the 8th century BCE. It was first referenced by an outside civilization in an Old Sabaic inscription of Karab'il Watar from the early 7th century BCE, in which

1275-695: The Qur'an , old Arabian poetry , Assyrian annals (Tamudi), in a Greek temple inscription from the northwest Hejaz of 169 CE, in a 5th-century Byzantine source and in Old North Arabian graffiti within Tayma . They are also mentioned in the victory annals of the Neo-Assyrian King, Sargon II (8th century BCE), who defeated these people in a campaign in northern Arabia. The Greeks also refer to these people as "Tamudaei", i.e. "Thamud", in

1360-648: The Sabaeans and the Minaeans , and Eastern Arabia was inhabited by Semitic-speaking peoples who presumably migrated from the southwest, such as the so-called Samad population . From 106 CE to 630 CE, Arabia's most northwestern areas were controlled by the Roman Empire , which governed it as Arabia Petraea . A few nodal points were controlled by the Iranian peoples , first under the Parthians and then under

1445-568: The Sasanians . Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia was diverse; although polytheism was prevalent, monotheism was still a notable practice among some of the region's inhabitants, such as the Jewish tribes . In addition to Arabian paganism, other religious practices in the region included those of the ancient Semitic religions , the Abrahamic religions (of which the emerging Islam would become

1530-591: The 3rd century CE, the South Arabian kingdoms were in continuous conflict with one another. Gadarat (GDRT) of Aksum began to interfere in South Arabian affairs, signing an alliance with Saba, and a Himyarite text notes that Hadramaut and Qataban were also allied against the kingdom. As a result of this, the Aksumite Empire was able to capture the Himyarite capital of Thifar in the first quarter of

1615-462: The 3rd century. However, the alliances did not last, and Sha`ir Awtar of Saba unexpectedly turned on Hadramaut, allying again with Aksum and taking its capital in 225. Himyar then allied with Saba and invaded the newly taken Aksumite territories, retaking Thifar, which had been under the control of Gadarat's son Beygat, and pushing Aksum back into the Tihama . The standing relief image of a crowned man,

1700-668: 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

1785-457: The 7th century CE, Eastern Arabia was controlled by two other Iranian dynasties of the Parthians and Sassanids . By about 250 BCE, the Seleucids lost their territories to Parthians , an Iranian tribe from Central Asia . The Parthian dynasty brought the Persian Gulf under their control and extended their influence as far as Oman. Because they needed to control the Persian Gulf trade route,

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1870-716: The 8th and 7th century BCE, there was a close contact of cultures between the Kingdom of Dʿmt in Eritrea and northern Ethiopia and Saba. Though the civilization was indigenous and the royal inscriptions were written in a sort of proto- Ethiosemitic , there were also some Sabaean immigrants in the kingdom as evidenced by a few of the Dʿmt inscriptions. Agriculture in Yemen thrived during this time due to an advanced irrigation system which consisted of large water tunnels in mountains, and dams. The most impressive of these earthworks, known as

1955-647: The Bahrain archipelago that was earlier called Aval . The name, meaning 'ewe-fish' would appear to suggest that the name /Tulos/ is related to Hebrew /ṭāleh/ 'lamb' (Strong's 2924). The Christian name used for the region encompassing north-eastern Arabia was Beth Qatraye, or "the Isles". The name translates to 'region of the Qataris' in Syriac . It included Bahrain, Tarout Island , Al-Khatt, Al-Hasa , and Qatar. By

2040-561: The Greek geographers, for instance, we read of two islands, named Tyrus or Tylos , and Arad, Bahrain , which boasted that they were the mother country of the Phoenicians, and exhibited relics of Phoenician temples." The people of Tyre in particular have long maintained Persian Gulf origins, and the similarity in the words "Tylos" and "Tyre" has been commented upon. However, there is little evidence of occupation at all in Bahrain during

2125-545: The King of Hadramaut, Yada`'il, is mentioned as being one of his allies. When the Minaeans took control of the caravan routes in the 4th century BCE, however, Hadramaut became one of its confederates, probably because of commercial interests. It later became independent and was invaded by the growing Yemeni kingdom of Himyar toward the end of the 1st century BCE, but it was able to repel the attack. Hadramaut annexed Qataban in

2210-515: The Kingdom of Maīin, as far away as al-'Ula in northwestern Saudi Arabia and even on the island of Delos and Egypt. It was the first of the Yemeni kingdoms to end, and the Minaean language died around 100 CE . During Sabaean rule, trade and agriculture flourished, generating much wealth and prosperity. The Sabaean kingdom was located in Yemen, and its capital, Ma'rib , is located near what

2295-780: The Lihyanites fell into the hands of the Nabataeans around 65 BCE upon their seizure of Hegra then marching to Tayma , and finally to their capital Dedan in 9 BCE. Werner Cascel consider the Nabataean annexation of Lihyan was around 24 BCE under the reign of the Nabataeans king Aretas IV . The Thamud ( Arabic : ثمود ) was an ancient civilization in Hejaz , which was a flourished kingdom from 3000 BCE to 200 BCE. Recent archaeological work has revealed numerous Thamudic rock writings and pictures. They are mentioned in sources such as

2380-456: The Midianites were originally Sea Peoples who migrated from the Aegean region and imposed themselves on a pre-existing Semitic stratum. The question of the origin of the Midianites still remains open. The sedentary people of pre-Islamic Eastern Arabia were mainly Aramaic , Arabic and to some degree Persian speakers while Syriac functioned as a liturgical language . In pre-Islamic times,

2465-730: The Parthians established garrisons in the southern coast of Persian Gulf. In the 3rd century CE, the Sassanids succeeded the Parthians and held the area until the rise of Islam four centuries later. Ardashir , the first ruler of the Iranian Sassanians dynasty marched down the Persian Gulf to Oman and Bahrain and defeated Sanatruq (or Satiran ), probably the Parthian governor of Eastern Arabia. He appointed his son Shapur I as governor of Eastern Arabia. Shapur constructed

2550-519: The Persian Gulf. Alexander had planned to settle the eastern shores of the Persian Gulf with Greek empires, and although it is not clear that this happened on the scale he envisaged, Tylos was very much part of the Hellenised world: the language of the upper classes was Greek (although Aramaic was in everyday use), while Zeus was worshipped in the form of the Arabian sun-god Shams. Tylos even became

2635-743: The Qatabanians was Amm , or "Uncle" and the people called themselves the "children of Amm". The Himyarites rebelled against Qataban and eventually united Southwestern Arabia (Hejaz and Yemen), controlling the Red Sea as well as the coasts of the Gulf of Aden . From their capital city, Ẓafār , the Himyarite kings launched successful military campaigns, and had stretched its domain at times as far east as eastern Yemen and as far north as Najran Together with their Kindite allies, it extended maximally as far north as Riyadh and as far east as Yabrin . During

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2720-573: The Roman general retreated to Egypt, while his fleet destroyed the port of Aden in order to guarantee the Roman merchant route to India . The success of the kingdom was based on the cultivation and trade of spices and aromatics including frankincense and myrrh . These were exported to the Mediterranean , India, and Abyssinia , where they were greatly prized by many cultures, using camels on routes through Arabia, and to India by sea. During

2805-470: The Shayban would play an important role in the history of early Islamic Armenia and Azerbaijan . A few isolated groups and individuals of the tribe are also attested in northern Syria and Khurasan , such as Abu Dawud Khalid ibn Ibrahim al-Dhuhli al-Shaybani , a follower of Abu Muslim . During the Umayyad Caliphate , the Shayban remained powerful in al-Jazira. Shabib ibn Yazid al-Shaybani

2890-696: The Sumerian goddess of air and south wind had her home in Dilmun. It is also featured in the Epic of Gilgamesh . However, in the early epic " Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta " , the main events, which center on Enmerkar 's construction of the ziggurats in Uruk and Eridu , are described as taking place in a world "before Dilmun had yet been settled". Gerrha ( Arabic : جرهاء ), was an ancient city of Eastern Arabia, on

2975-607: 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. During Minaean rule, the capital was at Karna (now known as Sa'dah ). Their other important city was Yathill (now known as Baraqish ). The Minaean Kingdom was centered in northwestern Yemen, with most of its cities lying along Wādī Madhab . Minaean inscriptions have been found far afield of

3060-693: The ancient Greek name for Muharraq island. Herodotus 's account (written c. 440 BCE) refers to the Io and Europa myths. ( History, I:1). According to the Persians best informed in history, the Phoenicians began the quarrel. These people, who had formerly dwelt on the shores of the Erythraean Sea ( the eastern part of the Arabia peninsula ), having migrated to the Mediterranean and settled in

3145-585: The area belonged to the Dilmun civilization, which was conquered by the Assyrian Empire in 709 BCE. Gerrha was the center of an Arab kingdom from approximately 650 BCE to circa 300 CE. The kingdom was attacked by Antiochus III the Great in 205-204 BCE, though it seems to have survived. It is currently unknown exactly when Gerrha fell, but the area was under Sassanid Persian control after 300 CE. Gerrha

3230-420: The ascendant and secured the removal of Ahmad ibn Isra'il. Finally, unable to meet the financial demands of the Turkic troops, in mid-July a palace coup deposed al-Mu'tazz. He was imprisoned and maltreated to such an extent that he died after three days, on 16 July 869. He was succeeded by his cousin al-Muhtadi . After the deposition and murder of his cousin al-Mu'tazz ( r.  866–869 ) on 15 July 869,

3315-459: The caliphal court, ending the "anarchy". Although the Abbasid Caliphate was able to stage a modest recovery in the following decades, the troubles of the "Anarchy at Samarra" inflicted great and lasting damage on the structures and prestige of the Abbasid central government, encouraging and facilitating secessionist and rebellious tendencies in the Caliphate's provinces. Al-Muntasir became caliph on December 11, 861, after his father al-Mutawakkil

3400-401: The civil administration. His policies were resisted, and in July 869 he too was deposed and killed. His successor, al-Muhtadi , also tried to reaffirm the Caliph's authority, but he too was killed in June 870. With Muhtadi's death and the ascension of al-Mu'tamid , the Turkish faction around Musa ibn Bugha , closely associated with Mu'tamid's brother and regent al-Muwaffaq , became dominant in

3485-419: The clan to which Muhammad belonged. During the Muslim conquest of Persia , the Shaybani al-Muthanna ibn Haritha played a leading role in the conquest of Iraq. For the most part the Shayban remained active, as in pre-Islamic times, mainly in Mesopotamia , but especially in the district of Diyar Bakr , where they settled in numbers, and from there to the adjacent Armenian Highland . By virtue of this proximity,

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3570-425: 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

3655-470: The famous Isa ibn al-Shaykh al-Shaybani line. However the Banu Shayban of Southeastern Anatolia are organized loose and they do not have a Sheikh as a head of their tribe, like it is common in Arab countries. Pre-Islamic Arabia Pre-Islamic Arabia ( Arabic : شبه الجزيرة العربية قبل الإسلام , romanized :  shibh al-jazirat al-'arabiyat qabl al-islām ), referring to the Arabian Peninsula before Muhammad's first revelation in 610 CE,

3740-416: The first of a long line of Shaybani governors and the progenitor of the Mazyadid dynasty that ruled in Shirvan as autonomous and later independent emirs ( Shirvanshah ) until 1027. Another successful Shaybani line was that of Isa ibn al-Shaykh al-Shaybani , governor in Syria and Arminiya in the 860s–880s. His son Ahmad exploited the chaos following the " Anarchy at Samarra " and established himself as

3825-400: The government after his ascension. Included among these were his secretary, Ahmad ibn al-Khasib , who became vizier , and Wasif , a senior Turkic general who had likely been heavily involved in al-Mutawakkil's murder. Al-Muntasir's reign lasted less than half a year; it ended with his death from unknown causes on Sunday 7 June 862, at the age of 24 years (solar). There are various accounts of

3910-470: The hands of powerful rival military groups. The term derives from the then capital and seat of the caliphal court, Samarra . The "anarchy" began in 861, with the murder of Caliph al-Mutawakkil by his Turkish guards. His successor, al-Muntasir , ruled for six months before his death, possibly poisoned by the Turkish military chiefs. He was succeeded by al-Musta'in . Divisions within the Turkish army leadership enabled Musta'in to flee to Baghdad in 865 with

3995-450: The head of the bay behind the islands of Bahrain. Bahrain was referred to by the Greeks as Tylos , 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 this islands, and he found

4080-405: The illness that led to his death, including that he was bled with a poisoned lancet. After the death of the previous Caliph, al-Muntasir (who had not appointed any successors), the Turkic military leaders held a council to select his successor. They were not willing to have al-Mu'tazz or his brothers; so they elected Ahmad ibn Muhammad, son of the Abbasid prince Muhammad ibn al-Mu'tasim , who took

4165-405: 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. Ares was also worshipped by the ancient Baharna and the Greek empires. 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

4250-648: The land with maritime trade between diverse regions as the Indus Valley and Mesopotamia in the early period and China and the Mediterranean in the later period (from the 3rd to the 16th century CE). Dilmun was mentioned in two letters dated to the reign of Burna-Buriash II (c. 1370 BCE) 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

4335-433: The last possession of the family, Amid , and imprisoned Ahmad's son Muhammad . The Shayban as a whole are not frequently mentioned in the later centuries, as opposed to its many sub-tribes or splinter groups originating from it. Some Shayban are mentioned in later times in southern Iraq as poets, grammarians and philologists, chief among them the Shaybani mawla Abu Amr Ishaq ibn Mirar al-Shaybani (died 825). Members of

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4420-428: The late fourth millennium to 1800 BCE. Dilmun was very prosperous during the first 300 years of the second millennium. Dilmun's commercial power began to decline between 2000 BCE and 1800 BCE because piracy flourished in the Persian Gulf. In 600 BCE, the Babylonians and later the Persians added Dilmun to their empires. The Dilmun civilization was the centre of commercial activities linking traditional agriculture of

4505-404: The leaders of the Turkic guard chose al-Muhtadi as the new Caliph on 21/22 July. As a ruler, al-Muhtadi sought to emulate the Caliph Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz , widely considered a model Islamic ruler. He therefore lived an austere and pious life—notably removing all musical instruments from the court—and made a point of presiding in person over the courts of grievances ( mazalim ), thus gaining

4590-404: The most prominent communities were the Thamud , who arose around 3000 BCE and lasted to around 300 CE; and the earliest Semitic-speaking civilization in the eastern part was Dilmun , which arose around the end of the 4th millennium BCE and lasted to around 600 CE. Additionally, from around the second half of the 2nd millennium BCE, Southern Arabia was the home to a number of kingdoms, such as

4675-440: The opportunity to incite the people against him and his brother, Muhammad ibn Bugha . Muhammad was brought to trial on accusations of embezzlement and was condemned. Although al-Muhtadi had promised a pardon, Muhammad was executed. This cemented the rift with Musa: the latter marched on the capital with his army and defeated the troops loyal to the Caliph. He refused to abdicate but tried to preserve his life and office by recourse to

4760-423: The parts which they now inhabit, began at once, they say, to adventure on long voyages, freighting their vessels with the wares of Egypt and Assyria... The Greek historian Strabo believed the Phoenicians originated from Eastern Arabia. Herodotus also believed that the homeland of the Phoenicians was Eastern Arabia. This theory was accepted by the 19th-century German classicist Arnold Heeren who said that: "In

4845-453: The population of Eastern Arabia consisted of Christianized Arabs (including Abd al-Qays ), Aramean Christians, Persian-speaking Zoroastrians and Jewish agriculturalists. According to Robert Bertram Serjeant , the Baharna may be the Arabized "descendants of converts from the original population of Christians (Aramaeans), Jews and ancient Persians (Majus) inhabiting the island and cultivated coastal provinces of Eastern Arabia at

4930-447: The regime of al-Musta'in in Baghdad. The civil war and the ensuing general anarchy only worsened the situation, as revenue stopped coming in even from the environs of Baghdad, let alone more remote provinces. As a result, al-Mu'tazz refused to honor his agreement with Ibn Tahir in Baghdad, leaving him to provide for his own supporters; this led to unrest in Baghdad and the rapid decline of the Governor's authority. The turmoil in Baghdad

5015-446: The regnal name al-Mustaʿin. He reigned for four and half years and then abdicated in favor of al-Mu'tazz because of the Abbasid civil war . As part of the terms of al-Musta'in's abdication, he was to be given an estate in the Hijaz and allowed to travel between the cities of Mecca and Medina . On January 12, Muhammad brought a group of judges and jurists to witness that al-Musta'in had entrusted his affairs to him. Delegates carrying

5100-438: The religious status of the caliph, and the support of the people. He was nevertheless murdered on 21 June 870, and replaced by his cousin, al-Mu'tamid ( r.  870–892 ). At the end of Anarchy at Samarra, a rebellion broke out famously known as Zanj Rebellion . It grew to involve slaves and freemen, including both Africans and Arabs , from several regions of the Caliphate and claimed tens of thousands of lives before it

5185-418: The second half of the 2nd century CE, reaching its greatest size. The kingdom of Hadramaut was eventually conquered by the Himyarite king Shammar Yahri'sh around 300 CE, unifying all of the South Arabian kingdoms. The ancient Kingdom of Awsān in South Arabia (modern Yemen), with a capital at Ḥagar Yaḥirr in the wadi Markhah, to the south of the Wādī Bayḥān, is now marked by a tell or artificial mound, which

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5270-403: The second in line of three heirs of his father al-Mutawakkil , al-Mu'tazz was forced to renounce his rights after the accession of his brother al-Muntasir and was thrown in prison as a dangerous rival during the reign of his cousin al-Musta'in . He was released and raised to the caliphate in January 866, during the civil war between al-Musta'in and the Turkish military of Samarra . Al-Mu'tazz

5355-419: The site of Greek athletic contests. The name Tylos is thought to be a Hellenisation of the Semitic, Tilmun (from Dilmun ). The term Tylos was commonly used for the islands until Ptolemy's Geographia when the inhabitants are referred to as 'Thilouanoi'. Some place names in Bahrain go back to the Tylos era, for instance, the residential suburb of Arad in Muharraq , is believed to originate from "Arados",

5440-403: The starting point for a trader's route, making the location within the archipelago of islands comprising the modern Kingdom of Bahrain , particularly the main island of Bahrain itself, another possibility. Various other identifications of the site have been attempted, Jean Baptiste Bourguignon d'Anville choosing Qatif , Carsten Niebuhr preferring Kuwait and C Forster suggesting the ruins at

5525-419: The strongest ruler of the Jazira, controlling Diyar Bakr and the Armenian borderlands of Taron and Antzitene , although he faced competition from the Taghlibi Hamdan ibn Hamdun and the Turk Ishaq ibn Kundajiq , ruler of Mosul . Ahmad managed to capture Mosul after Ibn Kundajiq's death, but was driven out by the resurgent Abbasid Caliphate under al-Mu'tadid in 893. After his death in 898, al-Mu'tadid seized

5610-413: The support of some Turkish chiefs ( Bugha the Younger and Wasif ) and the Police chief and governor of Baghdad Muhammad , but the rest of the Turkish army chose a new caliph in the person of al-Mu'tazz and besieged Baghdad , forcing the city's capitulation in 866. Musta'in was exiled and executed. Mu'tazz was able and energetic, and he tried to control the military chiefs and exclude the military from

5695-433: The support of the common people. Combining "strength and ability", he was determined to restore the Caliph's authority and power, that had been eroded during the ongoing "Anarchy at Samarra" by the squabbles of the Turkish generals. Al-Muhtadi faced Alid risings in the provinces, but the main threat to his power was the Turkic commanders. When Musa ibn Bugha left to campaign against the Kharijites , al-Muhtadi took

5780-478: The terms of abdication were sent to Samarra, where al-Mu'tazz personally signed the document and agreed to the conditions. The delegates returned to Baghdad with the signed document on January 24, accompanied by a group of emissaries sent to secure al-Musta'in's allegiance to al-Mu'tazz. On Friday, January 25, al-Mu'tazz was acknowledged as caliph in the mosques throughout Baghdad. Instead of finding refuge at Medina, al-Musta'in found himself kept in Baghdad. There he

5865-449: The time of the Arab conquest". Other archaeological assemblages cannot be brought clearly into larger context, such as the Samad Late Iron Age . 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. The Dilmun civilization

5950-410: The time when such migration had supposedly taken place. With the waning of Seleucid Greek power, Tylos was incorporated into Characene or Mesenian, the state founded in what today is Kuwait by Hyspaosines in 127 BCE. A building inscriptions found in Bahrain indicate that Hyspoasines occupied the islands, (and it also mention his wife, Thalassia). From the 3rd century BCE to arrival of Islam in

6035-499: The tribe are also mentioned among the early followers of the Qarmatians in the Sawad of Iraq, and again in northern Syria in the late 10th and 11th centuries, after which "the tribe of Shayban as such is less often mentioned, and it is difficult to follow the subsequent fortunes of this highly-fragmented group" ( Thierry Bianquis ). But still Arabs from the Diyar Bakr region in Turkey are tracing their tribal origins back to this tribe. Some families are even claiming descendant from

6120-524: The tribe was "celebrated ... for the remarkable quality of its poets, its use of a very pure form of Arabic language and its fighting ardour" (Th. Bianquis), a reputation its members retained into the Islamic period, when histories remark both on their own skills as, and on their patronage of, poets. During the time of Muhammad and his immediate successors, the Shayban were allies of the Banu Hashim ,

6205-561: The west side of the Persian Gulf . More accurately, the ancient city of Gerrha has been determined to have existed near or under the present fort of Uqair . This fort is 50 miles northeast of al-Hasa in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia . This site was first proposed by Robert Ernest Cheesman in 1924. Gerrha and Uqair are archaeological sites on the eastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula . Prior to Gerrha,

6290-575: The writings of Aristotle , Ptolemy , and Pliny . Before the rise of Islam , approximately between 400 and 600 CE, the Thamud completely disappeared. Anarchy at Samarra The Anarchy at Samarra ( Arabic : فوضى سامراء , romanized :  fawḍā Sāmarrāʾ ) was a period of extreme internal instability from 861 to 870 in the history of the Abbasid Caliphate , marked by the violent succession of four caliphs, who became puppets in

6375-623: The year 570 CE. Eastern Yemen remained allied to the Sassanids via tribal alliances with the Lakhmids , which later brought the Sassanid army into Yemen, ending the Aksumite period. The Persian king Khosrau I sent troops under the command of Vahriz ( Persian : اسپهبد وهرز ), who helped the semi-legendary Sayf ibn Dhi Yazan to drive the Aksumites out of Yemen. Southern Arabia became

6460-412: Was 2 miles from the Persian Gulf near current day Hofuf . The researcher Abdulkhaliq Al Janbi argued in his book that Gerrha was most likely the ancient city of Hajar, located in modern-day Al Ahsa , Saudi Arabia . Al Janbi's theory is the most widely accepted one by modern scholars, although there are some difficulties with this argument given that Al Ahsa is 60 km inland and thus less likely to be

6545-422: Was a powerful and highly organized ancient Arab kingdom that played a vital cultural and economic role in the north-western region of the Arabian Peninsula and used Dadanitic language. The Lihyanite kingdom went through three different stages, the early phase of Lihyan Kingdom was around the 7th century BC, started as a Sheikdom of Dedan then developed into the Kingdom of Lihyan tribe. Some authors assert that

6630-710: Was able to raise a large-scale revolt by the Najdat Kharijites in the 690s against al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf , as did the Kharijite revolt led by al-Dahhak ibn Qays al-Shaybani in 745–746. Under the early Abbasid Caliphate , the most prominent Shaybani were the family of Ma'n ibn Za'ida al-Shaybani , a former Umayyad servant who secured the pardon of al-Mansur . His sons and especially his nephews, Yazid ibn Mazyad al-Shaybani and Ahmad ibn Mazyad al-Shaybani , occupied high offices. Yazid ibn Mazyad served Caliph Harun al-Rashid with success as general, even subduing

6715-471: Was an important trading center which at the height of its power controlled the Persian Gulf trading routes. The Sumerians regarded Dilmun as holy land . Dilmun is regarded as one of the oldest ancient civilizations in the Middle East . 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

6800-468: Was assassinated by members of his Turkic guard. Although he was suspected of being involved in the plot to kill al-Mutawakkil, he was able to quickly take control of affairs in the capital city of Samarra and receive the oath of allegiance from the leading men of the state. Al-Muntasir's sudden elevation to the Caliphate served to benefit several of his close associates, who gained senior positions in

6885-512: Was described by Strabo as inhabited by Chaldean exiles from Babylon , who built their houses of salt and repaired them by the application of salt water. Pliny the Elder (lust. Nat. vi. 32) says it was 5 miles in circumference with towers built of square blocks of salt. Gerrha was destroyed by the Qarmatians in the end of the 9th century where all inhabitants were massacred (300,000). It

6970-575: Was determined to reassert the authority of the caliph over the Turkic military but had only limited success. Despite these successes, the Caliph could not overcome the main problem of the period: a shortage of revenue with which to pay the troops. The financial straits of the Caliphate had become evident already at his accession—the customary accession donative of ten months' pay for the troops had to be reduced to two for lack of funds—and had helped bring down

7055-552: 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 . Oman and

7140-420: Was put to death on 17 October 866 by the order of al-Mu'tazz. Carrying al-Musta'in's head to the Caliph, "Here," cried the executioner, "behold thy cousin's head!" "Lay it aside," answered al-Mu'tazz who was playing chess, "till I have finished the game." And then, having satisfied himself that it was really al-Musta'in's head, he commanded 500 pieces to be given to the assassin as his reward. Originally named as

7225-511: Was worsened by al-Mu'tazz, who in 869 dismissed Ubaydallah and replaced him with his far less capable brother Sulayman . In the event, this only served to deprive the Caliph of a useful counterweight against the Samarra soldiery, and allowed the Turks to regain their former power. As a result, by 869 the Turkic leaders Salih ibn Wasif (the son of Wasif al-Turki) and Ba'ikbak were again in

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