| Kinda | |
|---|---|
| Kahlanite Arab tribe | |
| Nisba | Kindī |
| Descended from | Thawr ibn Ufayr |
| Branches |
|
| Religion | Arabian polytheism (until 630s), Judaism (until 630s), Mazdakism (very limited in 520s), Christianity (early 6th century), Islam (630s and after) |
Geneaology
editThe Kinda's genealogy, real or perceived, traced them back to the semi-legendary Kahlan, making them, and other South Arabian tribal groups such as the Azd, ethnically distinct from non-Arab South Arabians, such as the Himyar. The name 'Kinda' was a nickname for the tribe's progenitor, Thawr ibn Ufayr. His sons were the progenitors of the Kinda's principle branches, the Banu Mu'awiya, the Sakun and the Sakasik. The latter two are often grouped together in the literary sources as the Ashras group.[1]
The Banu Mu'awiya was the leading branch of the tribe.[1] From its Banu Amr subbranch descended the royal households of Kinda, namely the Banu Akil al-Murar in Najd and the Yamama in central Arabia (see below) and the Banu Wali'a in the Hadhramawt in southern Arabia. After the advent of Islam, preeminent leadership of the tribe passed to another division of the Banu Mu'awiya, the Banu al-Harith al-Asghar.
Pre-Islamic history
editRelations with Saba and Himyar in South Arabia
editSeveral Sabaean inscriptions mention the Kinda, pronounced "Kdt" in the South Arabian script. The chronology of the inscriptions in not clear, though it is possible the earliest dates to the 3rd century CE.[2] That particular inscription mentions that a king of Kinda named Malik led a tribal confederation, one of whose members, Imru al-Qays ibn Awf, attacked Saba. As a result, Malik and the lesser-ranking chiefs of the confederation were compelled by Saba to surrender Imru al-Qays and provide compensation and hostages from the tribe.[2] In other inscriptions from about the same time, the Kinda are mentioned together with other nomadic Arab groups, including the Madhhij, as being subordinated under a Sabaean officer called "kabir of the Arabs of the king of Saba, and Kinda and Madhhij".[2] According to the historian A. F. L. Beeston, the Kinda and Madhhij were likely auxiliaries to the army of Saba.[2]
The Kinda, as well as Arabs of the Madhhij and Murad confederations, continued their role as nomad auxiliaries under the Himyarite king Dhu Nuwas in the early 6th century CE.[2] Dhu Nuwas placed them under a Sabaean commander from the aristocratic Yaz'an family during campaigns against nomadic tribes in central Arabia.[2] The Kinda in Hadhramawt, likely due to their dependence on the Jewish Himyarites, at least partly adopted Judaism.[3]
Kings of Ma'add in central Arabia
editIn the mid-5th century, part of the Kinda, with support from Himyar, migrated into central and northern Arabia and asserted dominance over the large Arab tribal confederation of Ma'add. The Kindites were led by Hujr, founder of the tribe's royal household, the Banu Akil al-Murar.[1] The subordination of the nomadic tribes of Ma'add to the Banu Akil al-Murar was the initiative of the Ma'add, especially its Bakr division, to bring order to its constantly feuding constituent tribes. The Bakr sent envoys to the king of Himyar, inviting him to be their king. Instead, the king delegated the role to Hujr for unclear reasons.[4]
After his death, Hujr was succeeded in the Najd (northern central Arabia) part of his domains by his eldest son, Amr al-Maqsur. His younger son, Mu'awiya al-Jawn, founder of the Banu al-Jawn house, ruled over the Ma'add in the Yamama (southern central Arabia).Although there are no particular achievements attributed to Hujr's sons, his grandson, al-Harith ibn Amr, became the best-known Kindite king, under whom the Kinda reached their zenith.[1]
Kindite assaults on the Byzantine frontier in the Levant prompted the empire into an arrangement with the Kinda under al-Harith (who they called Arethas) to act as their federates, guarding the imperial border.[1] Sometime during the reign of the Sasanian king Kavad I (r. 498–531), al-Harith captured the Lakhmid capital of al-Hira in Iraq. His rule there was short-lived, but during that time he adopted the Iranian religion of Mazdakism. After his brief rulership over al-Hira he returned to the Byzantines fold. He was granted a phylarchate in Palestine, but after a conflict with its governor he fled into the desert. There, in 528, he was slain by the Lakhmid king al-Mundhir III or the Banu Kalb tribe.[1]
About two years after al-Harith's death the Byzantines, seeking to build an alliance against the Sasanians, dispatched envoys Julian and Nonossus to enlist Ethiopia, Himyar, and the Kinda. Through Byzantine diplomacy, the Kindite king in Najd, Qays, likely the son of Salama ibn al-Harith, agreed to enter Byzantine service and leave his territory under the rule of his brothers Yazid and Amr. Qays went to the Byzantine capital Constantinople and was thereafter given a command in Palestine.[1] Al-Harith had split command of the Ma'add among four of his sons, Hujr, Ma'di-Karib, Shurahbil and Salama. Rivalries broke out among the brothers, leading to the deaths of Shurahbil and Hujr, before al-Harith's death. The Kindite monarchy was consequently left in a state of disorder.[1]
By the late 6th century, Kindite power throughout central Arabia was fraying. The wars between al-Harith's sons had weakened them in Najd. In the neighboring Yamama, the al-Jawn became involved in a war between constituents of the Ma'add,[5] leading to their defeat at the battle of Shi'b Jabala in Najd, dated variously by modern historians to circa 550, 570 or 580.[6][7] Their loss there and in a subsequent battle contributed to the Kinda's abandonment of the Yamama and return to their Hadhramawt ancestral homeland.[5] The Kindite migration back to Hadhramawt included some 30,000 members of the tribe departing their settlements of Ghamr Dhi Kinda in Najd and Hajar and al-Mushaqqar in the Yamama.[8]
State of affairs in the late 6th–early 7th centuries
editIn Yemen and the Hadhramawt, Kindite territories were divided between different branches of the tribe. On the eve of Islam in the 620s–630s, the medieval Islamic sources mention that the fortress of al-Nujayr was controlled by the house of Ma'dikarib, a leading family of the Banu Harith al-Asghar, itself belonging to the Amr branch of the Banu Mu'awiya.[9] Another fort, Tarim, was controlled by a descendant of the Banu Akil al-Murar, Abu al-Khayr Amr.[10] While the leading Kindite families in the Hadhramawt may have been referred to as 'kings' in the literary sources, their domain was usually restricted to a particular wadi (seasonal stream or river valley).[11]
The previous preeminent leadership of the Banu Akil al-Murar did not prevail over all the Kindites of the Hadhramawt, where the Banu al-Harith al-Wallada, in particular its Banu Wali'a house, vied for paramountcy. The Wali'a, which consisted of at least five brothers, Mikhwas, Mishrah, Jamd, Abdu'a, and Suraqah, and an influential sister, Ammarada, may have had the secret backing of the Sasanian rulers of Yemen at that time, as the Muslim sources claim that Abu al-Khayr, or alternatively Abu al-Jabr ibn Amr ibn Yazid ibn Shurahbil (great-great grandson of the king al-Harith ibn Amr), was poisoned by the Persians. Afterward, the Banu al-Harith al-Wallada achieved supremacy over the Kinda in Hadhramawt.[12]
Islamic history
editRelations with Muhammad
editThe Wali'a, and Ash'ath ibn Qays, a leader of the Banu Ma'dikarib, sent deputations to the Islamic prophet Muhammad (d. 632) and accepted Islam. Reports in the early Muslim historical tradition note that Muhammad granted the Wali'a a designated portion of the tax revenue collected from the Hadhramawt and mandated that the people of that region to deliver it to them annually.[13] The Tujib clan of the Sakun also embraced Islam after meeting Muhammad, while a king of the Sakun in the north Arabian oasis town of Dumat al-Jandal, al-Ukaydir ibn Abd al-Malik, accepted the religion during Muhammad's lifetime.[3]
Activity in the Ridda wars
editRole in the early Muslim conquests
editUmayyad and Abbasid periods
editTujibid emirate in al-Andalus
editUkaydir ibn Abd al-Malik al-Sakuni al-Kindi was an Arab Christian king of the oasis city of Dumat al-Jandal in northern Arabia during the early 7th century.
Ukaydir
editUkaydir ibn Abd al-Malik hailed from the Sakun line of the Kinda tribe. The Kinda were based in Yemen and the Hadhramawt (eastern Yemen) but around 450 CE they established a kingship over the nomadic tribes of central and northern Arabia. While the Kindite kings belonged to the Kinda's Banu Mu'awiya branch, the bulk of the Kindites who arrived with them in northern Arabia were from the Sakun. The Kindites and their ruling house were forced to return to the Hadhramawt, but remnants of the Sakun and Sakasik, another branch of the Kinda, dispersed throughout northern Arabia.[14]
References
edit- ^ a b c d e f g h Shahid 1986, p. 118.
- ^ a b c d e f Beeston 1986, p. 120.
- ^ a b Shahid 1986, p. 119.
- ^ Bamyeh 2006, p. 40.
- ^ a b Shahid 1986, pp. 118–119.
- ^ Bosworth 1999, p. 267, note 641.
- ^ Caskel 1966, p. 564.
- ^ Lecker 1994, p. 336, note 7.
- ^ Lecker 1994, p. 335.
- ^ Lecker 1994, p. 336.
- ^ Lecker 1994, p. 337.
- ^ Lecker 1994, pp. 336–337.
- ^ Lecker 1994, pp. 338–339.
- ^ Caskel 1966, p. 48.
Bibliography
edit- Bamyeh, Mohammed A. (2006). "The Nomads of Pre-Islamic Arabia". In Chatty, Dawn (ed.). Nomadic Societies in the Middle East and North Africa: Entering the 21st Century. Leiden: Brill. pp. 33–48. ISBN 90-04-14792-6.
- Beeston, A. F. L. (1986). "Kinda — The relations of Kinda with Saba and Himyar". In Bosworth, C. E.; van Donzel, E.; Lewis, B. & Pellat, Ch. (eds.). The Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition. Volume V: Khe–Mahi. Leiden: E. J. Brill. p. 120. ISBN 978-90-04-07819-2.
- Bosworth, C. E., ed. (1999). The History of al-Ṭabarī, Volume V: The Sāsānids, the Byzantines, the Lakhmids, and Yemen. SUNY Series in Near Eastern Studies. Albany, New York: State University of New York Press. ISBN 978-0-7914-4355-2.
- Caskel, Werner (1966). Ğamharat an-nasab: Das genealogische Werk des His̆ām ibn Muḥammad al-Kalbī, Volume II (in German). Leiden: Brill.
- Lecker, Michael (November 1994). "Kinda on the Eve of Islam and during the "Ridda"". Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society. 4 (3): 333–356.
- Lecker, Michael (October–December 1995). "Judaism among Kinda and the Ridda of Kinda". Journal of the American Oriental Society. 115 (4): 635–650. doi:10.2307/604732.
- Olinder, Gunnar (1927). The Kings of Kinda of the Family of Ākil al-Murār. Lund: Hakan Ohlsson.
- Shahid, I. (1986). "Kinda". In Bosworth, C. E.; van Donzel, E.; Lewis, B. & Pellat, Ch. (eds.). The Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition. Volume V: Khe–Mahi. Leiden: E. J. Brill. pp. 118–120. ISBN 978-90-04-07819-2.
- Shahid, Irfan (1995). Byzantium and the Arabs in the Sixth Century: Volume I, Part 1: Political and Military History. Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection. ISBN 0-88402-214-5.
- Shahid, Irfan (1989). Byzantium and the Arabs in the Fifth Century. Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection. ISBN 0-88402-152-1.
- Shahid, Irfan (1984). Byzantium and the Arabs in the Fourth Century. Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection. ISBN 0-88402-116-5.