AFRO ARABIAN ORIGINS OF THE EARLY YEMENITES AND THEIR

CONQUEST AND SETTLEMENT OF SPAIN DANA MARNICHE

AUGUST 6, 2009 19 COMMENTS

Afro-Arabian origins of the Early Yemenites and their Conquest and Settlement of Spain

Shem was especially blessed black and beautiful

Ham was blessed black like the raven

The above written between the 1st to 2nd century AD by Rabbi Eli`ezer of Israel, from the Pirqe,
pereq 24 cited by Yafeu Taom ha Levi (of the Resource Center for African Jews in America)
http://www.fortunecity.com/millenium/zebedee/67/index.htm

The Arabs used to take pride in their darkness and blackness and they had a distaste for a light
complexion and they used to say that a light complexion was the complexion of the non-Arabs
Al Mubarrad, 9th century born in Basra, Iraq.

these tribes with the exception of the Harasis have a tradition of African origin, the order
of their local antiquity being Shahara, Bautahara, Mahra, Qara. The South Eastern Borderlands
of Rub-al Khali Bertram Thomas vol. 73 (LXXIII) No. 3 March 1929. on the descendants of
Kahtan (Joktan).

Yafa Tribe of Yemen

The inhabitants of this part of Arabia nearly all belong to the race of Himyar. Their complexion
is almost as black as the Abyssinians
cited in Geography of southern Arabia by Baron von Maltzan in Proceedings of the Royal
Geographical Society of London, Vol. 16, No. 2 p. 121 published between 1871-1872, on the
tribes of Southwest Arabia near modern Yarim the Aram of Genesis.

The people of Dhufar are of the Qahtan tribe the sons of Joktan mentioned in Genesis: they are
of Hamitic or African rather than Arab types in A Periplus of the Persian Gulf Arnold
Wilson. The Geographical Journal Vol. 69l, No. 3 March 1927, pp. 235-255. See page 236.

There is a considerable mass of evidence to show that there was a very close resemblance
between the proto-Egyptians and the Arabs before either became intermingled with Armenoid
racial elements.
Written by anatomist Grafton Elliot Smith see p. 61 The Proto-Dynastic Egyptians , Gorgias
Press, 2007 originally published 1923.
In the 9th century Photus of Constantinople in his Bibliotheca quotes the Greek Nonnos of 533
AD saying the Ethiopians, Himyarites and Saracens were the most powerful nations of this
time
(Sir Richmond Palmer p. 207, Bornu Sahara and Sudan 1970, originally published 1936 by John
Murray).

Terms to Know

bin or banu (beni) son or children of

The Yemen the name for the southern parts of Arabia including what is now the area of the
modern nations of Hadramaut, Yemen, and southern parts of Oman and Saudi Arabia.

Canaan the name of a tribe and their land in western Arabia south of Mecca stretching from
the southern Hejaz and Tehama southward into the Himyarite region of Yemen. Some emigrated
north before 1200 B.C. and named the region of Canaan in Syria after themselves. Also
considered cursed with blackness in later Eurasiatic tradition.

Ad or Ait known also as Athir (Adhar) in Arabian tradition the Gether of the Genesis book.
The Adites called sons of the fire mist after Adah their ancestral mother were considered by
Medieval Muslim writers to be the same people as the Mahra and Shahara. The mythological
man from Ad was Adapa in Babylonian texts whose name was also that of the ancient ruler
Ityop of Abyssinian king lists. In Greek legend Ethiopais, son of Ethiops is a title of
Bacchus/Dionysus. (Garnier, 2006, p, 38)

Qahtan- name for the ancestor of ancient Sabeans and Himyarites. Brother of Peleg or Faligh in
Arabic and Hebraic tradition. He is also known as Joktan.

Yemen as with the rest of Arabia is a rich mixture of populations including the original Arabian
people, and later Iranians (Persians) as well as the Byzantines and Turks numerous slaves
brought in from all over surrounding world. Turks and other subjected people of the Turks also
played a part in settling the Yemen as Egypt and North Africa. Not too long ago in about the year
1900 British colonial observer of the British Yemeni Society remarked, If Turks were thrown
out of Yemen a wonderful field of commerce would be opened (Zwemmer, 1900, p. 62)

The descriptions of the Arabs of both the Yemen in the south and the northern part of the
Arabian peninsula in early Christian and Islamic times, say the people were largely still of dark-
brown or black African appearance with kinky hair. While people that were fair-skinned were
recognized by Arabs as descendants of subject peoples and slaves. The northernwestern and
north eastern part of the peninsula, in fact, remained as such until a few hundred years ago. Even
the Armenoid elements mentioned by Elliot Smith above were actually early prominent nosed,
stockier built Eurasiatics whose ancestors were also once based in Syria and Iran have also been
absorbed by later European populations entering the Near East and are not as predominant as
they once were.
Not to be-labor the point, but the idea of blacks in Africa being the predominant slaves of the
Arabs comes from not knowing the history of the peninsula or in fact not being able to read
Arabic, otherwise it would have been recognized that the Arabs were usually designated as
black and dark brown. It is apparent a fair-skinned person such as we find in parts of Arabia
today, before a few centuries ago, would have been recognized by Arabians as a descendant of
some other group of people.

The history of the modern ruling families in the Persian Gulf is a good example of how
migration has changed the complexion of the peoples of the peninsula. According to their own
documented history within the last four centuries the ancestors of these tribes many of whom are
quite fair in color began emigrating into the Arabian peninsula from Syria and Mesopotamia.
They are descendants of earlier tribesmen originally from the far south of Arabia known as Banu
Tayyi and Murad (or Amurat) clans of the bin Anizza (Anazah or Anz bin Wail) and other
Madhij who had settled in northern Arabia and further north where they mixed with Syrian and
Mesopotamian people after the Islamic period. These Yemenite tribes of Tayyi and his brother
Madhij were notoriously black and the early Arabic writings make clear that they also held fair-
skin in derision or low regard. But , after over a thousand years of living among the non-Arab
people so called white Syrians and intermixing with their women and concubines from the
countries as far north as Circassia and Russia, these Arabs of what could be considered diluted
blood made their way back to the Nejd and the Gulf. Many of course now think of them the
stereotypical Arabs.

The modern Saud family claim to descend from the Murad, (Murayd or Amarat), and other
clans of the Ruwalla bin Anaesa (Anaeza) bin Wail who had come to the Nejd in late Islamic
times. In the Yemen and Hadramaut these clans were known as Anz or Ans or Anazah, Ruwayn
and Murad and were recognized clans of the ancient Maddhij or Khawlan and Himyarite tribes
of Hadramaut and Yemen. Thus ibn Khaldun wrote in the 14th century : The country of
Maddhij is inhabited by the Banu Ans, Zubayd and Murad sub-tribes of the Maddhij. (Kay,
1892). In the North the Anaesa or Anazah had settled in Syria near Damascus and in Iraq
(Hudson, 1979, p. 170) and in Central Arabia where they traded slave concubines and
intermarried amongst each other. The Saud family continued the tradition of legally importing
white slave-concubines from the North (Armenia) until the 20th century (Herb, 1999, pp.
38,39 and 90). (Others say the trade has never stopped.)

However, the early Arabian ancestors of Saudis were not the complexion of Persians and
Syrians. The Anaesa or Anaza bin Wail, who like the Maaza bin Wail, Bakr and Taghlib bin
Wail were all of ancient Yemenite affiliation and were Ethiopic in appearance. (We have
already discussed the appearance and origins of the Bakr and Taghlib in Part I and II of Fear of
Blackness.) We know this because of the numerous writings of early Persians, Iraqis and Syrians
and others who claimed these tribes, described them as being mostly dark brown and/or
black in color and who asserted quite frankly that fair skin was very rare and held in disfavor
by true Arabs. (See quotes in this article.)

We know the Arabs were so predominantly black in color that even the term white in earlier
days, according to Arabic linguistic specialists (like Ibn Mandur) meant a black man with a clear
skin and light brown cast as is characteristic of Barack Obama and so many African
Americans, or, in fact, the present Imam of Mecca.

On the other hand many black Africans have been brought into Arabia as slaves more recently in
the last several centuries. Many of the people that were taking black slaves from Africa were in
fact not Arabs in the strict sense of the word but rather Muslim Iranians, Iraqis, Turkish, white
Syrians and other Arabized settlers or inhabitants in the Near East, Arabia and North Africa.
Even black sub-Saharan traders like the Tibbu or Teda (stretched from Sudan through Chad)
were involved in the trade until the European colonial era.

Most slaves, however, before the fall of Constantinople (Istanbul) in the 15th century were
whites coming from the north and mixing with the very dark-skinned black and near black
groups of people known as Arabs in Spain, North Africa and the Near East. Thus, from the
peoples named Slav north of the Arabs came the word slave in western parlance. And thus,
many Arabic speaking historians asserted up until the 14th century that the Arabs equated slave
origins with fair skin or vice versa.

One of these Arabic speakers, the Syrian , Al Dhahabi wrote in the 14th century Red, in the
speech of the people from the Hijaz, means fair-complexioned and this color is rare amongst the
Arabs. This is the meaning of the saying, a red man as if he is one of the slaves. The speaker
meant that his color is like that of the slaves who were captured from the Christians of Syria,
Rome and Persia. See, Seyar al Nubalaa, Al Dhahabi of Damascus Syria, also cited on p. 55,
The Unknown Arabs, 2002.

The 9th century hadith (commentary) from the Book of Oaths (Kitab al Aiman) Book 15,
Number 4046 reads: Ayyub said: We were sitting in the company of Abu Musa that he called
for food and it consisted of flesh of fowl. It was then that a person from Banu Tamim visited
him. His complexion was red having the resemblance of a slave. (The Book of Oaths was
written by a true Arab Imam of the Qusayr tribe). We know, therefore, that many modern ruling
families of Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf are not the complexion of early Arabs, but would
have been considered the color of their slaves.

We also know that the tribe of Banu Tamim bin Murra just mentioned was not in general the
color of Arab slaves, like modern fair skinned Saudis because of such stories as that of Abou-
Miskeen ed Darimi, a 7th century poor man of the Darim clan of the Banu Tamim bin Murra.
Miskeen is said to have gotten mad because a woman he sought snubbed him for a fair skinned
rich man that was not purely Arab in origin. All he could do was arrogantly proclaim: I am
Miskeen to those who know me. My color is black, the color of the Arabs!

The aggravated tensions and color consciousness between Iranians (Persians called Ebna) and
Arabs in the south of the Arabian peninsula was well under way in the time of Muhammed and
Miskeen , until long afterwards. Writings have evidently come down from the Tunisian linguist
Ibn Mandour and al Mubarrad, a Basra born grammarian explaining why early Arabs like Fadl
ibn al Abas of the Qureish tribe and the 7th century Miskeen al Darimi bragged about their
blackness. Ibn Mandour, Manduri or Manzuri (also known as Ibn Mukarram, a Tunisian born
linguist who died in Cairo) wrote in Lisan al Arab in the 13th century, It is said that he (Al
Fadl) meant that he is from the purest of the Arabs because most Arabs are black-skinned.
Manduri also said kinky hair was the hair Arabs had and that lank hair was the hair of the
Persian. Abdellah Ibn Berry, the 12th century grammarian explains Al Fadl ibn Al Abbass
words by saying, He means by this that his genealogy is pure and that he is a pure Arab
because the Arabs describe their color as black and they describe the color of the non-Arab
Persians as red. Cited by Tariq Berry on www.savethetruearabs.com.

Apparently al Mubarrad, grammarian of the 9th century Iraq also said, What he (Fadl) meant by
I am the green one is the dark one, the black one. The Arabs used to take pride in their darkness
and blackness and they had a distaste for a light complexion and they used to say that a light
complexion was the complexion of the non-Arabs.

Iraqi born al Jahiz 9th century and Ibn Athir (born circa 1160), a Kurd from Turkey also said
similarly that the Arabians that were black or jet black such as the Sulaym and all the tribes of
the Harrah and the various clans of Qureysh and Kenaaniyya (Canaan) belonged to the pure
Arabs.

We thus know from these and many other writers that not only were the early Arabs not fair or
pale, but that they were often darker than many sub-Saharan Africans and in fact saw fair-skin
like many modern Arabians as a non-Arab trait acquired from slaves and other subject peoples.
Arabs proudly called themselves the blacks to distinguish themselves from others who were
just speaking Arabic.

African Origins and the Yemen

Contrary to what European historians of the past have implied many of the Arabians invading
Europe did have complex civilization where the arts and sciences related to agriculture,
navigation and astronomy were already fully developed. In fact, by the centuries immediately
preceding the Islamic era, the Arabians (Saracens and Himyarites) and the Axumites (Agiezyan)
are spoken of in more than one historic texts as the most powerful nations in the world in the
time just previous to Mohammed. In the 9th century Photius of Constantinople in his
Bibliotheca quotes the Greek Nonnos of 533 AD saying the Ethiopians, Himyarites and
Saracens were the most powerful nations of this time. (Palmer, p. 207)

The same Saracens of the Arabian peninsula whom Marcellinus said in the 4th century were
derived from the cataracts of the Nile originally and were customarily overrunning different
countries, with the aid of swift and active horses and speedy camels, alike in times of peace and
war , are the Saracens that later overran North Africa and Spain and are then mentioned at the
Battle of Tours in France with Charles Martel and in the Chanson (Song) de Rolande. It is of
course, these same Saracens often called Moors that are mentioned mainly as jet black and
melted pitch black in color with nothing white except their teeth in the European epics and
Song of Roland. This was the kind of black in the peninsula that ancient Syrians, Iranians and
Romans were familiar with, for people that were the dark brownish color of many sub-Saharans
and African Americans were called green yellow and white among the Arabs and not
black.

The member of the prominent Yemeni tribe of Maddhij (said to have descended from Kahlan or
Khawlan brother of Himyar) mentioned previously was stating a simple fact in his time when he
said fair-skinned Arab is something inconceivable. For the early Arabs had been African
since the stone age, and the people and culture in these regions were essentially one and the same
before the coming of the Persians (Iranians) in the centuries immediately after Christ.

It is important to understand that according to historical documentation the original populations

of the Arabian peninsula were the eastern Ethiopians of the ancient world. Thus, 4th century
Roman general Ammianus Marcellinus referred to the numerous Arabian bedouin tribes or
Saracens from Palmyra in Syria to the Himyarites of the Yemen as people originated
primarily from the country of Nubia or Ethiopia. ( See Ammianus Marcellinus, Roman
History, book 14, 4. )

It is these same Ethiopic Saracens later known as the Arabs that were famous for their
expertise in the arts of falconry and poetry, horse breeding and had brought several thousand
years of musical, agricultural, mathematical and astronomical knowledge with them into the rest
of Asia and Europe in the centuries after Christ.

The rock art of the region of Yemen shows that populations similar to those across the Red Sea
in Nubia and the Horn had been present since the Neolithic period and Paleolithic. The culture of
Tehama region which was the original land of the Kenaaniyya or Canaan of the Old Testament in
the southern Hejaz of western Arabia and the Central Arabian deserts was also closely linked
culturally to that of Nubia and other parts of the African side of the Red Sea. And, due to the
colonizations of Iranians, Syrians and Turks in the Yemen beginning after the start of
Christianity nationalist feelings began to develop among the Arabs and black nationalist ones
at that. For the late Scythic Iranians had brought into the Nearer East and into India their own
distorted myths which talk of fair-skinned peoples slaying black-skinned Dahae or Daasas in Iran
descendants of the Arabian ruler Al Daa (also known as Az Dahakk, Zohak) whom they had
pushed back into the sea centuries before they arrived in the Yemen. (See part IV, Fear of
Blackness) Meanwhile the anti-black or anti-Arab sentiment began to take hold with the writings
of the Roman Syrian, Ephraim of Nisibis (Turkey), who had evidently very little acquaintance
with the people who authored the myth or their Arabian forebearers had interpreted and modified
the story of Noah to say Canaanites were made black because of his being cursed.

Needless to say as far as many modern Western historians are concerned none of the above were
black, neither Semites, nor Arabians nor Canaanites nor their Berber or Moorish descendants,
nor their Yemenite ancestors. As we all know black people in the Near East, Moorish Spain and
the Arab world and in the Bible were just Abid or slaves and related to modern Zanj from
Zanzibar.

Tribes of Himyar and Kahlan, sons of Saba in Spain: Descriptions and Genealogy
The Yemen in particular had been a crossroads of civilization for thousands of years where the
culture of the Levant and the Fertile Crescent had met that of the Nile. It is primarily from this
region that were derive many of the early black tribesmen of Arabia that conquered Syria and
Iraq and Iran both in Christian and Islamic times and in fact over a thousands years before as
Akkadians and Amorites and Hyksos.

Sometime previous to the 2000 B.C. the area to the Southern Arabia began to develop into the
region that was to become known as the kingdoms of Iram (Aram), Saba (Sheba) and Himyar.
The genealogy of the tribes of Himyar and his brother Kahlan were that they were sons of Saba
(or Seba/Sheba son of Yashjub son of Yarab/Arab or Yarub son of Qahtan (Joktan of Genesis).
Another genealogy states that Saba was son of Yarab son of Yashjub son of Qahtan son of Abir
or Abar (Eber of Genesis). The tribes take their names from their ancient chiefs, Saba, Qahtan,
Abar or Abir (Eber) who are in fact the Biblical children of Shem. So it should be a surprise
that the remnants of this people claimed to have colonized Arabia from Africa in a remote
period. Thus, in a 1929 publication, Bertram Thomas mentions that the Shahara (Banu Shahir),
Mahra or Maheyra, Bautahara and Qarra or Kara had a tradition of African origin see The
Southeastern Borderlands of the Rub-al Khaliin Geography Journal, Vol. 73, 3.

The major tribes of Khawlan or Kahlan brother of Himyar son of Saba include the Maddhij
(otherwise known as Malik ibn Udad) originally a very large tribe in the Yemen. The
appearance, history and genealogy of their clans are well documented in early sources. One
source by the 14th century Syrian ibn Kathir says that, after the torrent or flood of al Arim or
Aram four tribes fled to Syria while 6 remained in Yemen. These were Maddhij, Kinda, Anmar
and the Asharis. Anmar was the father of Khatham, Bajila and Himyar, so these were the six
tribes from Saba who remained in Yemen. See (Gassick, 2000. p. 9).

By the time of Herodotus several centuries B.C. and later Josephus around the time of Christ,
Meroe (Marwa) in Nubia and other offshoots of the Nile like the Astaboras had been settled by
the Sabaeans. Strabo and Diodorus considered the inhabitants of Meroe to be Arabians, just as
earlier writings refer to the Arabian peninsula as Ethiopia. Strabo said, the country between
the Nile and Arabian Gulf is Arabia (Book 17.1.21),

In the 19th century it was written of the more recent descendants of Himyar, son of Saba, still
living in modern Yarim (ancient Arim/Aram) in the Yemen, The inhabitants of this part of
Arabia nearly all belong to the race of Himyar. Their complexion is almost as black as the
Abyssinians cited in Geography of the Southern Arabia by Baron von Maltzan in
Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society of London, Vol. 16, No. 2 p. 121. This land was
the area of ancient Aram or Arim whose famous dam burst sending the tribes of Azd or Asad
(sometimes written Zayyed) better known in the West as Aramaeans fleeing to different
regions of the peninsula in the time of Moses as well as to Africa.

These Ethiopic people in fact occupying the Yemen who fled to Syria were the descendants of
the peoples which had become known in the early Hebrew texts as the tribes of Canaan, Esau
(known as El Ais in Arabic). Many are still known under their ancient names in Yemen and
Africa.
HIMYAR (Humayr) According to Arabic texts of the early Islamic period the clans of the
Himyar (which is possibly the Canaanite Hamor of the Bible book of Genesis) included the
Ruayn (or Ruhawiyyen, Rahawain, or Rahawi), Al Kala, Bahila a clan of Al Kala, the Dhu
Tarkhun, Dhu Yazan, as -Sawadah (Sauda) bin Amr, Hannah, al Sama a clan of Al Sawadah,
Khabair, Muqri (Machir), al-Sulaf (Sheleph was a son of Joktan brother of Peleg), Mahra,
Hadramaut (Hazarmaveth was son of Joktan), Al Sadif, Sheban , Maafir, al Jabza (Jebuzites), a
clan of the Maafir or Muafir, Juba, Awza and Yahsub or Yahshub a large tribe. See (Madaj
,1988, p. 91).

There can be little doubt that the names of these medieval Yemenites are the clans of Esau called
Horites of Genesis 36, and the Canaanites called Hivites. The tribal ancestor Ruayn or
Rahawiyyen, Bahila, Hannah, al Sama, Sheban are the names of the tribal ancestors respectively
Reuel (Rahawi), Bilhan, Anah, Shamma son of Reuel, Eshban brother of Hamdan of the
Hebrew book of Genesis 36 (El Tabari refers to Eshban or Ishban was the Yashbin or Beshman).
While Awza, Job and Yashub are obviously Uz son of Aram, Job of the land of Uz who is called
Jashub in Numbers 26:24.) Jasshub was the third son of Issachar son of Jacob (Yakub).

HAMDAN Originally Hamdan was a tribe of region of Saba (Sheba) mentioned in ancient
Sabaean inscriptions. The clans of Hamdan included Bakil, Faish Hashid( the Biblical Chesed
was brother of Uz, son of Aram), Yam (Banu Yam or Benjamin), Shibam (the Shebam or
Shibmah of Numbers 32:3), and al Sabi (or Sabai).

Hamdan in Genesis 36 of the Bible is brother of Eshban (Ishban or Eseban) and Cheran or Keran
sons of Dishon, whose brother was Dayshan son of Seir the Horite or Hevite of Canaan. The
Madhij themselves are sometimes referred to as a tribe of the Hamdan. These tribes of Sheban
the Himyarite (Eshban or Ishban) and Cheran who was Qaran a tribe of Maddhij are in fact
called black children of Canaan in early Muslim writings of Masudi of Iraq and Ibn Qutayba
of 9th century Iraq (Kitab al-Maarif, ed. Tharwat Ukasha, 2nd ed. (Lewis, 1992, p. 124.,
Goldenberg, p. 2003, p.107)

In David Goldenbergs, the Curse of Ham, we find that, The Akhbar al Zaman counts among
the descendants of Sudan, son of Canaan the Ishban, the Zanj, and many peoples that
multiplied in the Maghrib (Goldenberg, 2003, p. 107). The Akhbar al Zaman is thought to
have been written by the 9th century al Masudi of Baghdad.
RUAYN One of the larger tribes of Himyar or the Himariyyin were the Ruayn (also written
Ruha, Rahawiyyin or Rahawain). The original sources show that the clans of Ruayn included
the Yafi or YafiI (Yifi a son of Chesed), Radman, Qitaban, Jayshan (Dishan), Janad or Ganad
known also in tradition as Qanadi (Akan son of Ezer a Horite Genesis 36 ) Hajr (Hagar) , Amluk
(Amalek of Genesis 36, son of Eliphaz son of Esau), Dhubhan also written Zubyan or Dhubyan
(Zibeon son of Dishon 36: 20), Abal (Abel). See (Madhaj 1988. p. 91).

As with other descendants of the Sabaeans (Sabai) the Rahawayn or Ruayn moved back in
ancient times to Africa and most notably make up a major clan of the Somali (bin Samaal) today
in Africa. According early sources mentioned by Madaj (1988) from the womb or batn of the
Ruayn came Banu Jayshan (Dishan brother of Dishon of the clan of the Hivite Horites
mentioned Genesis 36) and Dhubyan or Zubyan (Zibeon son of Dishon) called a Hivite (Genesis
36:2) and Horite in Genesis 36: 20.

The tribe of Ruayn settled in Rayya, Spain, with the Banu Nahd bin Zayid or Nahid (Nahath
was a son of Reul) and in Sidonia and on the river Guadalquivir near Seville. (see also the land
of Nod Genesis 4: 16 of the Bible). (Madhaj p. 91) Taha p. 148) The Hamdan had a whole
region to the south of Granada they had settled called Hamdan or iqlam Hamdan.

KUDHAA Qudhaa,(Kodhaa, Qataa or Qitaa) was a major tribe of the Himyarites. In

Arabian and modern Ethiopian myth he is referred to as Kouth, Kuti or Quti child of Ham or as
Qahit brother of Qahtan and Peleg. In the Bible however, he is Kohut or Kohath son of Levi,
whom Josephus calls Kaath. They were later called in the European Hebraic writings Kuthi,
Kuthim or Kuzi the well-known name for the Samarians (Samaritans said to be the earliest
Jewish sect) i.e., the Samran or Banu Simran of the Yemen (Edersheim, 2002, p. 37) This word
Kuthi or Kohut came also to be transcribed as Kushi and Kushan. (Goldenberg, 2003, pp. 206
and 375, fn. 32) The name was probably derived from the Kudhaa tribe of Khushayn or
Qushayn. (see below)

Ibn Ishaq gave the genealogy of the Qudhaa as Qudhaa bin Malik bin Himyar bin Saba bin
Yashjab bin Yarab bin Qahtan. Otherwise the tradition goes Qudhaa was the son of Malik bin
Amr bin Murra bin Zayd bin Malik bin Hamid bin Saba. The tribes descended from the Arabian
Qudha or Kuth were many and well known. Of the Yemen Al Hakami of the 12th century wrote,
Mahra, son of Haydan son of al Haf son of Kudaah (Kuth or Kaath) reigned over the countries
of Kudaah. This the land of the Yemen. Elsewhere he writes,Ash Shahr was a country also
known as Mahra. It produces frankincense bounded on the west by the Indian Ocean and on the
East and south by Aden. This is the land of the Banu Shahr or Shahara Arabs.

See photos of the Shahara and Mahra:

Mahra of Arabia practices falconry Shahara and

Kathir Children

The Mahra of southern Arabia were described as tall and were of a dark brown color. The tribes
of the Mahra today actually extend from Oman and Hadramaut to Somalia in the Horn of Africa.
The Mahra in Arabia were considered a pure remnant of the Adites or Ad according to ibn
Mudjawir who lived in the 13th century, and al-Hamdani (a 9th century Yemenite of the Hamdan
tribe) who says the camels of the Mahra were called Idite (Adite) camels. (Boswell et al, 1983, p.
83). Ibn Mudjawir and other writers make it clear that the Mahra, Shahra people and the Ad were
one and the same. Amlukh or Amalek and Saba are descendants of Ad who is himself said to be
the child Uz son of Aram, while Amalek is the son of Arams brother Lud in another Arab
tradition. The living tribes of Amalik and Ad are mentioned along with the Mahra in 19th
century colonial writings east of Mokalla by Robert Latham in 1858. See Descriptive Ethnology
Vol. II p. 83

BALIYY of the Kudhaa They come from Imran bin al Haf (Ephah) bin Codha or Qudaa.
Baliyy or Beli who had settled in Africa are the black horsemen or El Beliyyun nomadized in
the Bedja country described Al Idrisi, born in Morocco in the 11th century. Idrisi said, This
country is sometimes subject to incursions of black cavaliers known as Al Beliun. It is said they
are Rum who have professed the Christian religion since the time of the Kipt before the coming
of Islam They wander in the country of the Bedja and Abyssinians, and come as far as Nubia:
they are nomads without settled abode, like the Lamtuna of the desert of the Maghrib-el Aksa.
They were also called Balaw or Belawi. They like other Kudhaa tribes settled in Syria and were
early Jacobite Christians before they became Muslims. (The word Rum in this context refers to
the Ruhm who was son of Afrik or Ibn Ifriki or Ifrikus, the Himyarite or Canaanite chief. )

According to Tahas, The Muslim Conquest and Settlement of North Africa and Spain the tribe
of Qudhaa settled west of Castellon de la Plana. The Baliyya clan were led by an al Balawi.
Baliyy settled Mawru, Moron de la Frontera, al Arha near Sidonia, Seville and Elvira. The Udhra
or Uzdra (Ezrah or Ezdra) a clan of the Qudaa settled Jaen and Algericas and Saragossa. They
also settled in the Upper March and in Almeria. (Taha, 1989, p. 126 and 127).
The Juhayna (Guhayna, Djeheyne) clan of the Qudaa were in small numbers in Cordoba. The
clan of Khushayn (Qushayn, Kushan) of the Qudhaa settled in Elvira, Jaen, Algeciras and
Ubeda (Taha, p. 127).

The tribe of Yahsub settled near Almeria and Alcala Real. The Sad al Ashira clan of the
Maddhij settled in Guadix northeast of Granada and Seville (p. 125). Considerable numbers of
Al-Kala settled in Seville and Niebla in Spain(p. 142). They evidently made it over to Sicily as
well where in Palermo there was a district known as Al-Kala. The Yashjub were numerous in the
same district.

The Sadif clan are also mentioned in Saragossa, Tudila and Ecija . They settled between Seville
and Cordoba in a place called el Sadif. (Taha, p. 142 ). The Hadrami tribe from Hadamaut at one
time came to be too numerous in Seville to count (p. 141). The principle settlement of the tribe of
Khawlan (brother of Himyar) was in Algeciras. Banu Naji of the Khawlan or Kaulan settled near
Elvira( p. 124). They were also found in Seville and Cordoba. Khatham (Gatam was son of
Eliphaz brother of Reuel in Genesis 36) settled in Sidonia and Elvira (p.124). The tribe of Bajila
settled al Andalus near Narbonne. 124. Bajila in Arab genealogical tradition was a sister of
Khatham and Himyar.

A few of the El Sabi or Sabai group of Hamdan settled in Cordoba and Elvira (Taha, p. 126).
Hamdans major place of settlement was in Elvira and in a place named iqlim Hamdan, south of
Granada (p. 138).
Geneology of the MADDHIJ and their settlements in Spain

According to tradition, Arib (Arab or Yarab) brother of Malik bin Zayd was ancestor of the Banu
Tayy, Maddhi(j), Murrah and Ashar.

They are listed as a clan of the Hamdan tribe. Hence, the name of the clan of Sabai among them.
Among the sub-tribes of Madhhijites according to ibn Khaldun are the Banu Jufi, Zubayd,
Hakam and Simhan, derived from Sad al Ashira son of Madhhij, also the Banu Ans, Banu
Murad, Banu Jald, Bani Hurab, Nakha or An-Nakha, Munabbih or Janb and the Banul Harith
ibn Kab (Kay, 1892, p. 217).

Sinhan was also written Samhein. Ans bin Wail is sometimes said to be Anazah bin Wail.
Hurab equals Horeb. The name Maddhij appears to be the Madiau of Josephus more famously
known as Madian while their clan of An-Nakh or Nakha appears to be Anoch or Henoch son of
Midian (Genesis 25:4). Tayyi was the brother of Maddhij, as was Ashar or Ashair (probably
the same as Ashur or Ashurim grandson of Midians brother Jokshan). In Genesis Madian,
Madan, Jokshan Zimran are children of Keturah (Bait Kathir still live in the Yemen). See
photograph in this article.

The early Islamic texts of Yemen mention the Ghutayf and their clans of Abs and Zubyan or
Dhubyan as batns (clans) of the Maddhij or Murad. (Madaj, p. 91). Other of the clans in Spain
that are recognized as of the Maddhij from the Yemen included Sad al Ashira, Nasirah, Zubayd
or Zabid, Ruha (Reu), Hawt, Qaran and Raduman. The genealogy of the Qaran is, Qaran son of
Raduman son of Naji son of Murad. This name Qaran is sometimes used simultaneously in
Arabic writings for the Murad branch of the Maddhij.

Some of the Madhij settled in Cordoba and Algeciras, some under the name Siraj.

Tahas sources like other sources mention the clans of Maddhij in Spain as Murad, Ans, Awd,
Nakha, Zubayd and Sad al Ashira. (p.124) Tayyi settled south of Murcia in the region of
Tudmir. They were also settled in Jaen (p. 145). Tribes of the Murad in Spain included Awd or
Lud, Muzaynah and Naji or Najiyah, Abd Allah and the Janb or Munabbih . Murad were also
settled in Granada, Seville, Makkada, Toledo, Saragossa, Cabra and other places (Taha, p. 125)

The clan of Awd of the Madhij ruled in southern Portugal during th 11th century. Muzayna a
clan of Awd was found at Baena. The cousin clans of Abs and Zubyan or Dhubyan of the
Ghutayf (Ghatafan) lived in Ubeda in the province of Jaen and in Elvira (p. 131-132) El Nakha
settled in Cordoba and Algeciras in Spain.

The Morad or Amurath clans of Syria and northern Arabia today are much paler than their
kinsmen in Yemen. In Yemen as in Sudan today the modern Murad clans often tall and dark
reddish brown. (The name of the Murad or Amurath appears to be related to that of the Amorites
of Canaan.)
The sources also mentioned that many people of Murad of the Maddhij lived in various places
such as Granada, Seville, Makkada, in the province of Toledo, Cabra, Huesca, Saragossa, and
Alicante. (see Taha, p. 125) The Murad with other Maddhij, Tayyi and other Yemenites moved
into Syria and Iraq in both pre-Islamic times and early Islamic times. The descendants of the
Murad who left during the early Islamic era the first centuries after the birth of the Muslim
prophet, Muhammed and settled Syria and North Arabia came to be known as the Amurat, a
clan of the Ruwalla bin Anaesa or El Ais (Reul son of Esau).

The clan Muzayna originally a clan of El Awd (Lud), a batn or clan of Maddhij, settled south of
present Portugal in Faro and in Baena in Spain (p. 131), while the Sad al Ashira clan settle about
53 km northeast of Grenada and Seville. Zubayd or Zebid, few in number, settled in Seville.

The Abs were also originally a clan of the Murad or Qaran of the Yemenite Madhij who had
settled in the southern Hejaz. They were said to be black in color. The Abs and the Bani
Ghutayf, a subdivisions or batns of the Murad, (see Lecker, 1995) and (Madaj, 1988). They
lived in Al Juruf or Jawf in the area of Saba in Yemen. An early eyewitness upon seeing the Abs
tribe in Arabia describes them as black-skinned men shaking their spears and digging in the
earth with their feet. (From Ibn Abd Rabbu of Andalusia, El Iqd El Fareed, vol. 6, cited in The
Unknown Arabs, p. 78). Banu Rachid of the Abs clan settled in the valley of the River Guadiana
(Taha, p. 171).

Rashaida of SudanModern Banu Rashaid or Rachid like many

clans of Arabia live in Eritrea and northern Sudan. In both Arabia and Sudan today where like
many Arabs of Yemen they range from near dark brown and near black with a strong reddish
caste to near white due to their numerous fair-skinned concubines.

From the Murrah came the Muafir or Maafir tribe This clan was mentioned as far back as 500
B.C. in an ancient text (Houtsma, p. 139) and was probably the first Arab clan to settle in Spain
(Taha, p. 122). They crossed with Tariq b. Ziyad led by Abdulmalik al Muafiri and played a
great role in the occupation of Algericas and Quarajuna and Torre de Cartagena. Later some
Muafir entered Spain again with the Syrians settling at Losha, Luja located southwest of
Granada.

From Hamdan also came the tribes of Kinda and Jodham and Thawr (Shur) ibn Kalb (Caleb).
Such tribes are also known as the Azdites. Azd are famous for being among those early Christian
groups to settle Syria from Arabia. The notable tribes of the early Azd included the originally
Christian tribes such as Tanukh, Azd Shanuah or Sanuah , Azd Uman or Oman and Ghassan or
Kassan, Khazraj and Khazaa.

The phrase black as the Azd or is found in certain early commentaries of the Quran as in the
9th century Tarikh Futuh al Sham (Conquests of the land of Sham) cited by Tariq Berry. The
phrase black as if he was from the Sanuah is used for Ubadah bin Samit of the Khazraj clan of
Salim bin Auf . One of the hadiths or commentaries cited by Tariq Berry and written by a 16th
century Sufi scholar Najim al-Din (on the Quran describes the Hebrew Moses as jet black
skinned as if he were one of the Azd.

The Banu Daus or Daws (Jeush was brother of Reuel and son of Esau through a granddaughter
of Zibeon) whose remnant are the Dawasir earlier sometimes written as Jowaser, a branch of the
Azd settled in Tudmir. The largest settlement of the Daws Azdites tribes in Spain was in Tudmir
in the area of Murcia (p. 119 and 120). Most famous of these were Banu Shahir bin Zura and
Beni Harun bin Zura ( p. 119-120).

The Dawasir and Shehera (also written Shahara, Shehr or Shahr) tribes have already been
described in Part I and II. The Dowaser who lived in Central Arabia in the Nejd and around the
Persian Gulf were in the last two centuries said to be very tall men, and almost black by John
Lewis Burkhardt, Charles Forster and others.

Forster in a book first published in 1844 also described them as the most famous pirates in the
Persian Gulf in that time. He calls them Jowaser. See p. 225 Part II The Historical Geography of
Arabia reprint 2004 (See also photo Part II and photo of Shahara children in this article) and see
references in When Arabia Was Eastern Ethiopia part II on this blog. Interestingly many
aristocrats in the Gulf claim today Dawasir origin.

Other great families of the Azd continued to live in Murcia many centuries after the Muslim
conquest Banu Wahib settled firstly in Lora, Illora, in the province of Granada and later
moved to Seville. p. 120 Taha

Of the Ghassan of the Azd, ibn al Khatib mentions a town called Ghassan near Granada ( Taha,
p. 138).

The Kindites were composed of clans of Thaur and Kalb. Thaur was a son of Kalb son of
Wubareh son of Taghlih son of Hulwan son of Imran son of al Haf son of Qudaah. Kalbah
settled in Walbah or Walmah near Elvira and in Niebla and Seville (Taha, p. 138 and 222).

The Yafi (Yifi was a son of Chesed) and their clan of Yahar claim descent from Qudaah through
al Haf. Like the Mahra and Ruhawayn many of them live in Somalia. Many of the Yafi in Arabia
are still indistinguishable from east Africans.

Large numbers of the Banu Gudham or Judham branch of the Azd were settled in Rayya (p. 147)
while others were in Algeciras, Sidonia, Tudmir, andCalatrava (p. 146) and the Banu Hud settled
in an area called the Upper March or Aragon while others lived in Elvira in the 12 and 13th
centuries.

Banu Ghafiq from Udthan (Ethan) bin Hazzan b. al Azd had at one time settled 35,000 strong in
Egypt. Their principle settlements in Spain were in the region of Seville, Cordoba and to some
extent Toledo, Elvira, Granada and Al Sharaf west of Seville and the place known as al Ghafiq.
It was a Ghafiqi named Abdul Rahman who led the men of Andalusia in the battle against
Charles Martel the Belgium born ruler the tribes of Franks at the Battle of Tours or Poitiers.
Thus, the 17,000 Saracens Europeans fought and mentioned in their texts and their famous leader
Abdul Rahman were of Azd stock.

It shows that the same Moors that Western writers are now doing intellectual somersaults to
make into some a light-skinned Syrian looking people were in fact a historical Arab people that
looked down on people the color of Syrians and that were described as jet black in both
European writings and commentaries on the Quran.

For though most early Arabs were darkbrown in color like modern northern Sudanese, the Azd
were an obvious exception to the rule, being usually described as people of absolute or jet
blackness.

This ends the ethnic description of the Saracen tribes of the Arabians north and south who came
to be known as the Moors in Spain. Their resemblance to the unmixed black populations
Mauri of coastal North Africa who themselves claimed to have come long ago from the land of
the Kanaaniyya in the Yemen and Tehama are the reason these early Saracens or true Arabs
became known as Moors.

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