Abraha

Abraha (Tigrinya: አብርሃ) (also spelled Abreha, died after CE 570; r. 525–at least 553), also known as Abraha al-Ashram (Arabic: أبرهة الأشرم‎), was an Aksumite army general, then the viceroy of southern Arabia for the Kingdom of Aksum, and later declared himself an independent King of Himyar. Abraha ruled much of present-day Arabia and Yemen from at least 531–547 CE to 555–570 CE.

Life

Dhu Nuwas, the Jewish Himyarite ruler of Yemen, in the period c. 523–525 or c. 518–20 launched military operations against the Aksumite Christians and their local Arab Christian allies. The Aksumites in Zafar were killed, their fortresses in the Yemeni highlands destroyed, and Najran sacked.

Najran fell in 518 or 523 and many members of the Himyarite Christian community were put to death evoking great sympathy throughout the Christian regions of the Orient and prompting an intercontinental Aksumite military intervention using the massive Aksumite fleet aided by a small extra Byzantine fleet first made in 518/523.

Procopius identifies Abraha as the former slave of a Roman merchant who did business in Adulis. Later, Abraha was either one of the commanders or a member of one of the armies led by King Kaleb of Axum against Dhu Nuwas. In al-Tabari's history, 'Abraha is said to have been the commander of the second army sent by Kaléb after the first failed, led by 'Ariat.

Abraha was reported to have led his army of 100,000 men with hundreds of elephants to successfully crush all resistance of the Yemeni army and then, following the suicide of Dhu Nuwas, seized power and established himself at Sana‘a. He aroused the wrath of Kaléb, however, by withholding tribute who then sent his general 'Ariat to take over the governorship of Yemen. 'Abraha rid himself of the latter by a subterfuge in a duel resulting in 'Ariat being killed and 'Abraha suffering the injury which earned him the sobriquet of al-Asräm, "scar-face."

According to Procopius, 'Abraha seized the control of Yemen from Esimiphaios (Sumuafa' Ashawa'), the Christian Himyarite viceroy appointed by Kaléb, with the support of dissident elements within the Aksum occupation force who were eager to settle in the Yemen, then a rich and fertile land. Stuart Munro-Hay, who proposes a 518 date for the rise of Dhu Nuwas, dates this event to 525, while by the later chronology (in which Dhu Nuwas comes to power in 523), this event would have happened about 530, although a date as late as 543 has been postulated by Jacques Ryckmans.

An army sent by Kaléb to subdue 'Abraha joined his ranks and killed the ruler sent to replace him (this is perhaps a reference to 'Ariat) and a second army was defeated. After this Kaléb had to accord him de facto recognition before earning recognition under Kaleb's successor for a nominal tribute.

Rule

Abraha is seen as then becoming a prominent figure in Yemen's history, promoting the cause of Christianity in the face of the prevalent Judaism and the paganism of Central Arabia. A zealous Christian himself, he is said to have built a great church at San'a' and to have repaired the principal irrigation dam at the Sabaean capital of Ma'rib.

Epigraphic sources chronicling 'Abraha's career include an inscription on the Marib Dam recording the quelling of an insurrection backed by a son of the deposed ruler, Esimiphaios, in the year 657 of the Sabaean era, i.e. between 540–550; vital repairs effected to the dam later in the same year; the reception of envoys from the Negus, from Byzantium, from Persia and from Al-Harith ibn Jabalah, the phylarch of Arabia; and the completion of repairs to the dam in the following year, followed by a great feast of rejoicing.

The royal title adopted by 'Abraha "King of Saba' and dhü-Raydän and Hadhramaut and Yamanat and of their Arabs on the plateau and the lowland." was of the Himyarites

National Museum of Saudi Arabia

According to the National Museum of Saudi Arabia in Riyadh, Abraha built Al-Qullays in Sana'a. He also built a similar one in Najran for Bani Al-Harith, the House of Allat in Taif for the tribe of Thaqeef, the House of Yareem and the House of Ghamdan in Yemen.

The traditions also say that Abraha is said to have built a cathedral at San'a' known as al-Qullays (from the Greek Ekklesia) to rival the Kaaba at Mecca and specifically came with his forces of elephants to destroy the Kaaba.

Death

Munro-Hay dates his death to some time after 553 based on the inscription at Murayghän. Islamic tradition places it immediately after his expedition to Mecca. He was succeeded on the throne by two of his sons, Yaksum and Masruq, born to him by Raihäna, a Yemenite noblewoman whom 'Abraha had abducted from her husband.

Between 570 and 575 the pro-Persian group in Yemen made contact with the Sassanid king through the Lakhmid princes in Al-Hirah. The Persians then sent troops under the command of Wahriz, who helped the semi-legendary Sayf ibn Dhi Yazan drive the Aksumites from Yemen and Southern Arabia became a Persian dominion under a Yemenite vassal within the sphere of influence of the Sassanian empire.

Islamic tradition

Islamic tradition credits Abraha with a military expedition against the Quraysh of Mecca in an invasion of Hejaz in 570, known as the Year of the Elephant. According to these Islamic traditions, Abraha was building a cathedral in the city of Sanaa to act as a center for pilgrimage. Realizing that the Kaaba was already in use for such a purpose, Abraha set out to destroy the Kaaba in order for all the pilgrims to direct themselves to his new cathedral and maximize his profits. Abraha added one elephant to the expeditionary forces. Muhammad's paternal grandfather, Abd al-Muttalib, put the favor in God's hands realizing that he could not take on the forces of Abraha. As Abraha's forces approached the city, the story goes:

The next day, as they prepared for battle, they discovered that their elephant (called Mahmud, a good Islamic name) refused to approach Mecca. Even worse, birds came from the sea, each of which brought three small stones, which they dropped on the soldiers of Abraha. Everyone hit by these stones was killed. Abraha himself was hit repeatedly and slowly dismembered. By the time he reached Sanua, he had nothing but a miserable stump of a body. His heart burst from his chest, and he died. So the year of the War of the Elephant was a year of death. But it was also a year of life, for in that same year Muhammad was born.

Outside of later Islamic tradition, there is no mention of Abraha's expedition. The story contains historical oddities, such as why Abraha would send a single elephant for the battle. Historical-critical scholars see the story as a later Islamic tradition designed to explain the "Men of the Elephant" in Qur'an 105:1-5: “Hast thou not seen how thy Lord did with the Men of the Elephant? Did He not make their guile to go astray? And He loosed upon them birds in flights, hurling against them stones of baked clay, and He made them like green blades devoured”.