Emran El-Badawi Profile picture
Dec 24 7 tweets 3 min read
#MerryChristmas

Did you know scholars increasingly believe Arabia was predominantly monotheistic by 6th C, even Christian?

The background of Christian Arabia set the scene for how queens and prophets exercised power, and changed our world.
We have virtually no evidence of an Arabic-speaking church prior to the spread of Islam. What we have are early Arabic inscriptions demonstrating that by the 5-6th C, Christianity had reached truly remote fringes of Arabian society.
These include Hima (Yemen), and Zabad (Syria). However, the brief honorific or funerary nature of these writings do not divulge to what church those communities belonged.
The absence of explicit sectarian leanings in those texts has led scholars to speculate broadly about the influence of provinces and cities supporting a sizeable Christian community: Roman Arabia, al-Hirah, or Najran.
The avalanche of scholarship on pre-Islamic Christian Arabs posits Syriac or Greek as their liturgical language. This state of affairs is certainly true for their ranks among the West Syrian, East Syrian, and Chalcedonian churches to which Arabian communities largely belonged.
But what liturgical or ecclesiastical space did Arabic-speaking Christians occupy, if any, both before the fruition of these official churches and outside the Christian auspices of the Tanukhids near Aleppo, Lakhmids in al-Hirah, Ghassanids in Bosra, or the enclave in Najran?
To find out you have to read my book!

Queens and Prophets How Arabian Noblewomen and Holy Men Shaped Paganism, Christianity and Islam

oneworld-publications.com/work/queens-an…

@OneworldNews

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with Emran El-Badawi

Emran El-Badawi Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @emrane

May 9, 2021
#HappyMothersDay.

Did you know that stories of Fatimah al-Zahra’ (daughter of prophet Muhammad) portray her as regnal heir and mother goddess?

Check it out!
Fatimah was most sought-after bride by rapacious Qurashi noblemen rushing to succeed Muhammad as ‘king of Arabia’. He refused to give his daughter’s hand in marriage to the shrewd Abu Bakr or furious ‘Umar, but consented to the request of his young cousin and confidant ‘Ali.
Rejected suitors were clearly offended & came into conflict with Fatimah after Muhammad’s passing when they disputed her birthright, & when ‘Umar is said to have mortally wounded her, & when Abu Bakr offered apologies during the intervening days before her untimely death
Read 10 tweets
Feb 14, 2021
#HappyValentines

How did the Romans and Arabs of late antiquity settle their conflict? With a Love Story!

The 1st Arab-Roman marriage in recorded history saved the empire & birthed Christian Arabia. It's also a lesson in Diversity going back almost two millenia

Check it out!
After beating the Roman-Byzantines on the battlefield. The defender of Arabia—Queen Mavia (d. 425; Mawiyah bt. ‘Afzar, malikat al-‘arab)—enacted a peace agreement with Emperor Valens (d. 378). She was now bound to Constantinople by peace treaty (Cf. Lat. foedus).
The Queen dispatched her Tanukhid military auxiliaries to fight the Goths in Thrace. But she first gave her daughter, Chasidat, in marriage to a Roman officer named Victor.
Read 8 tweets
Nov 13, 2020
Want to get MARRIED? Wondering why modern MARRIAGE is so complicated? Behold!

There were over 20 MARRIAGE TYPES and conjugal unions in late antique Arabia.

Check it out!

(forgive preliminary mistakes)
Bukhari reports a Hadith listing four types of pre-Islamic marriages,
To summarize:

(1) Polygamous Marriage (nikah al-nas, al-sadaq or al-bu‘ulah)
(2) Breeding Marriage (nikah al-istibda‘; al-istifhal; al-musharakah)
(3) Polyandrous Group Marriage (nikah al-raht; al-sifah)
(4) Polyandrous Temporary Marriage (nikah al-baghaya; al-rayat or mut‘ah)
Read 11 tweets
Nov 2, 2020
Tomorrow is the world’s most anticipated democratic election.

But did you the only person to explicitly condemn absolute DICTATORSHIP and hold PARLIAMENT in the Qur’an was a WOMAN ?

Check it out!

#USElections2020 #ElectionDay #Democracy
Q 27:23-44 re-tells the biblical story of King Solomon conquering the Queen of Sheba (Saba’, South Arabia), & made famous in the medieval Ethiopian national epic, “the Glory of Kings” (Kebra nagast). In the passage following the hoopoe’s mission, king Solomon sends a stern letter
..demanding the queen’s unconditional surrender (vv. 28-31). Upon receiving the harshly worded epistle the queen, like all true leaders, soberly consults with her advisors without whom she makes no decision (v. 32).
Read 12 tweets
Oct 9, 2020
Did you know the final ARABIAN GODDESS WAS BLACK?

Read the finale:

"Destruction of al-‘Uzza" (Part 3/3)

Check it out!
Two decades after passing of the Lakhmid king, Muhammad undertook national conquest of Arabia, this time not in the name of Christianity, but Islam. This new world did not take kindly to goddesses.

After its desecration by Christian iconoclast...

..Zuhayr b. Janab al-Kalbi, destruction of al-‘Uzza’s shrine at Nakhlah came at hands of Khalid b. al-Walid; ‘Ali b. Abi Talib smashed idol of Manat at Qudayn, near the Red Sea & al-Mughirah b. Shu‘bah claimed Allat’s shrine in Ta’if

Read 13 tweets
Sep 17, 2020
Did you know the Christian chieftain Zuhayr b. Janab al-Kalbi (d. 564) began a wave of iconoclasm/destruction of Arabian pagan shrines in 6th C? How did it pave the way for Muhammad’s purging of Kaaba idolatry?

Behold:

Destruction of al-‘Uzza (Part 2/3)

Check it out!
If you have not already, read Part 1/3 and get caught up!

Word of a pagan shrine reached Zuhayr, indefatigable poet-chieftain of Quda‘ah, throwing the zealous champion into a rage. His Kalbid men & Qaynid kin massacred pagan Ghatafanids, destroying the shrine of al-‘Uzza & slaying a prisoner spilling his blood to desecrate it.
Read 8 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Don't want to be a Premium member but still want to support us?

Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal

Or Donate anonymously using crypto!

Ethereum

0xfe58350B80634f60Fa6Dc149a72b4DFbc17D341E copy

Bitcoin

3ATGMxNzCUFzxpMCHL5sWSt4DVtS8UqXpi copy

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us on Twitter!

:(