The Historical And Cultural Heritage Of The Middle East

[Kamal900]

In 528 CE, the Roman Emperor Justinian installed Al-Ḥārith ibn Jabalah (aka Flavios Arethas) as king of the Ghassanids.

As king, Al-Ḥārith was responsible for the movement of state resources such as gold, supplies, equipment and garrisoned troops within Byzantine Arabia.



A staunch Miaphysite, Al-Ḥārith was personally involved in leading the anti-Chalcedonian revival of the 6th c CE.

Appealing to Empress Theodora's Miaphysite leanings, Al-Ḥārith managed to get Miaphysite bishops appointed in Syria, including Jacob Baradaeus and Theodore.



Jacob Baradaeus in particular would prove a very capable and charismatic religious leader.

Jacob and his 'Jacobite' followers converted a great many Arabs in the late 6th c CE, greatly expanding and strengthening the organization of the Arab Miaphysite church.


In November 563, Al-Ḥārith visited Emperor Justinian in Constantinople, to discuss his succession and the raids against his domains by the Lakhmid ruler Amr ibn Hind, who was eventually bought off with subsidies.


Al-Ḥārith left a vivid impression in the capital, not least by his physical presence: John of Ephesus records that years later, the Emperor Justin II (r. 565–578), who had descended into madness, was frightened and hid himself when he was told "Arethas is coming for you!"


In June 554 near Chalcis, the Ghassanids (probably led by Al-Ḥārith) faught the Lakhmids, in one of the most famous battles in pre-Islamic Arabia: The Day of Halima.

The Lakhmids were defeated and their king Mundhir was killed, and Al-Ḥārith lost his eldest son Jabalah.


For more on the Ghassanids and Lakhmids, we encourage you to read this helpful article by Professor Philip Wood:
https://www.academia.edu/42295994/Dr...e_Great_Powers

https://twitter.com/NaqadStudies/sta...19663524851714

[Kamal900]

The Mehri people of Arabia, a modern South Arabian Semitic ethnic group:

[Synapsid]

The Mehri people of Arabia, a modern South Arabian Semitic ethnic group:

I heard Mehris were the closest group in Arabia to Horners. Also in socorta they were still nestorian until the Portuguese invasion

[Kamal900]

I heard Mehris were the closest group in Arabia to Horners. Also in socorta they were still nestorian until the Portuguese invasion

While Mehris are genetically no different from Arabs of Arabia, the native peoples of Socorta have one of the highest J1 haplogroup in the world while their mtDNA is similar to the native tribals of Southern India which goes up to 35%. In any case, Southern Arabians have a close cultural links with horners since ancient times, and you can find plenty of ancient artifacts in Ethiopia and Eritrea here:
https://www.theapricity.com/forum/sh...=1#post6518755

[Kamal900]

The history of the Arabic language by Ahmad Al-Jallad who's mentor is the great Micheal C.A Macdonald:


The manual for the grammar and history of the Arabic language:
https://www.academia.edu/38100372/Al...mmar_of_Arabic

[Kamal900]

In 2015 an inscription was discovered in eastern Jordan containing a dual Ancient North Arabian-Canaanite text. The Canaanite component is undeciphered, but the Arabic part contains a prayer formula invoking the Gods of the Kingdoms of Edom, Moab, and Ammon, all in the southern Levant, attesting to the contact between the two groups. Thus the text is aged to the IA2 period (1,000 - 500 BC). It reads:

- h mlkm w-kms w qws b-km ʕwḏn hʔsḥy m-mdwst

- ها مالكوم وكماش وقوس بكم عوذنا هاء أساحية ممدوسات

- Oh Malkom, Chemosh, and Qaws, we place under your protection these wells against ruin

[Kamal900]

Ahmad Al-Jallad:

#HappyPassover 2020 - let's look at a couple of Jewish texts from pre-Islamic N. Arabia. The 1st is from the al-Ulā area of the N. Ḥigāz, carved in the Hebrew script:
ברכה לעטור בר מנחם ורב ירמיה
'Blessings to ʿAṭūr son of Menaḥem and Rabbi Jeremiah'


The text is impossible to date precisely. I wondered if there were any Safaitic texts plausibly carved by Jewish tribes. There are a couple of personal names that could suggest so. C 2214 was carved by a man named: ʾasham ben yahūdā (ʾshm bn yhd), known only from a hand copy...


There are some ambiguous cases, too. For example the name msy is attested in WH 981:

l-msy bn śbr bn sry
'by MSY son of śāber son of Sary'

Is MSY a rendering of Moses? Mūsē? or is it derived from the name for 'night' masāy (= masāʾ-)?


Safaitic ISB 330 is by a man named Joseph:

l-ysf bn ʾbġḍ
'By Joseph son of ʾabġaḍ'

But unfortunately there is nothing to tell us about the religious affiliation of this writer.

There is even a Safaitic prayer to Allāt for 'security' for the Jews.

KRS 37:
hā-llāt qeblāl ʾeslām ʾahl-oh salām le-yahūd wa-ragaʿa be-ʾebl raʿāy...
O Allāt, may he be safely reunited with his family; may the Jews be safe, and he returned with camels (to the Ḥarrah) to pasture


The laconic wording leaves much to speculation. The prayer to Allāt makes it unlikely that he himself was Jewish. Perhaps he was an Arabian ally of the Herodian rulers of the Hawran.
And now for a neo-Safaitic blessing
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See this article for a nice index of the inscriptions of the Jews of the Ḥigāz:
https://www.academia.edu/9659736/The...r_Inscriptions

Inscription in first tweet published here:


Bibliography:
Pics and tracings < OCIANA, from editions

ISB: Oxtoby, W.G. Some Inscriptions of the Safaitic Bedouin. (American Oriental Series, 50). New Haven, CT: American Oriental

KRS: Safaitic published on OCIANA

C: Ryckmans, G. Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum: Pars Quinta, Inscriptiones Saracenicae Continens: Tomus I, Fasciculus I, Inscriptiones Safaiticae. Paris: E Reipublicae Typographeo, 1950–1951.

https://twitter.com/Safaitic/status/1247943209189289984

[Kamal900]

Ahmad al-Jallad:

A Safaitic prayer for the occasion -

KRS 68
ʾennak boġy-oh w qaf{y}at-oh {w} be-ḫafrat-ak foltān mem-mawt

Trans. (put in first person):
'You are the one I seek and you are my path; and through your guidance comes deliverance from death'


While the text is undated, inscriptions of this type are around 2000 years old. We can be sure that this particular text is pre-Christian as it is a commemorative inscription recording a camel sacrifice to the god śayʿ haq-qawm, wa-ʾaṣmaya nāqata.

pic: OCIANA.

https://twitter.com/Safaitic/status/1249301089003999232

[Kamal900]

Ahmad al-Jallad:

We discovered this beautiful depiction of a standing female figure on the perimeter wall of an abandoned camp last season. She was once surrounded by a text, but it has been effaced and is sadly no longer legible. There seems to be another figure...


to her right, and perhaps one more before her. Depictions of female figures like this, sometimes among warriors in battle, are not uncommon in the rock art. While traditionally identified as goddesses, there is no evidence yet to confirm this hypothesis.

Looking closely at the photograph, we may suggest the following:

the letters ʾ s r are clear at the bottom right and there may be a badly damaged t after. That would produced the word ʾsrt /ʾasīrat/ captive. Before this word, it is possible to read h- 'this, the', and before that clearly a personal name although its reading is complicated. Thus, this would follow the standard rock art signature l- 'for' Personal Name + h 'this' + name of drawing. If the reading is correct, then this would be a drawing of a woman captured in a raid There is a w after the word 'captive', which seems to begin a new clause that isn't readable (without great effort).

Ps. The inscriptions are in the Safaitic script and are roughly 2000 years old, from NE Jordan.

https://twitter.com/Safaitic/status/1250038161348210688

[Kamal900]

Ahmad Al-Jallad:

I highly recommend this fun app - congrats
@AlwinKloekhorst
! Brilliant idea and nicely executed. The app gives you a few sentences and allows you to see how they develop from reconstructed Proto-Indo-Anatolian to the present day. Let's try that with Proto-Semitic to Arabic.
https://twitter.com/AlwinKloekhorst/...74380484464643

Our sentence:
'his daughter has guarded sheep in the land'
Proto-Semitic: *tantθˀur bintu-su ʔartɬˀum tɬˀaʔnam

Proto-West Semitic: *natθˀarat bintu-su bi-ʔartɬˀim tɬˀaʔnam

Changes:
1) West Semitic develops a new perfective, and
2) locative prep. bi-, competing w locative

Central Semitic: No change.
Proto-Arabic:
*natθˀarat bintu-hu pī-ʔartɬˀin tɬˀaʔnan

Changes:
1) *s > h in the pronouns.
2) mimation becomes nunation.
3) development of new prep. pī from the word 'mouth'; bi remains optional.

Realization of the emphatics are unclear; no article

Proto-Arabic > Classical Arabic
ḥarasat bintu-hū fi-l-ʔarɮˁi ɮˁaʔnan

Changes:
1) loss of verb naṯ̣ara meaning 'guard'
2) polarization of length in suffixed -hu
3) vl/vC definite article, from ʔal < han
4) p > f change
5) voicing and pharyngalization of emphatics

Proto-Arabic > Safaitic:
naθˁarat bent-oh pī(OR: be)- haʔ-ʔarɬˁ ɬˁaʔna

Changes:
1) deaffrication of emphatics; glottalization > pharyngealization
2) loss of nunation; final short high vowels
3) haC article most common, but ʔa and ʔal possible
4) short high vowels lowered

Proto-Arabic > Old Ḥigāzī (QCT)
ḥarasat bintu-h fī-ʔal-ʔarɮˁ ɮˁānā

Changes:
1) an# > ā, then loss of nunation
2) loss of final short vowels
3) deaffrication, pharyngealizatin, voicing of emphatics
4) loss of glottal stop
5) p > f (?)
6) article ʔal, no assimilation of l

Proto-Arabic > (Old) Nabataean Arabic
naθˁarat bento-h pī ʔal-ʔarɬˁe ɬˁaʔna

Changes:
1) deaffrication of emphatics; glottalization > pharyngealization
1) loss of final short vowels
2) loss of nunation
3) short high vowels lowered
4) definite article ʔal introduced

Old Nabataean > (3rd c. CE) middle Nabataean Arabic (Ḥegrā)
naθˁarat bent-oh fī ʔal-ʔarɬˁo ɬˁaʔno

Changes:
1) generalization of nominative case on all (triptotic) nouns.
2) Status of emphatics unclear.
3) p > f (?), unclear

3rd c. CE Nabataean Arabic > 6th c. CE Nabataean Arabic (Petra)
naɮˁarat bent-oh fī ʔal-ʔar(e)ɮˁ ɮˁa(ʔ)n

Changes:
1) Probably merger of θˁ and ɬˁ to ɬˁ (ḍād); voiced and pharyngealized emphatics
2) loss of final short vowels
3) epenthesis to break up certain CC# clusters.

Status of glottal stop unclear.
--

Well, that's enough for today. I certainly cannot do all of Arabic so I pass it on to our colleagues to continue the changes into the varieties they know
@Jonassibony
(among others), and paging
@bnuyaminim@OlaWikander for a NWS follow up

and maybe Ethiopic, @AmlakDawit. @PhDniX Berbero-Semitic even?

Adding another:
Proto-Arabic > Modern Central Arabian
rigbat bint-ih ðˁānin fi-l-arðˁ

1) nṯ̣r replaced by *rqb
2) merger of *ṣ́ and *ṯ̣ to ðˁ
3) han > ʔan > ʔal/C > al/C
4) unstressed *u and *i > i
5) v > 0 / _#
6) loss of ʔ
7) syncope v(-strs,+high) in _.

https://twitter.com/Safaitic/status/1250145805958369289