The Martyrs of Najran
AD 523 (or 518), estimated dateEstimated date
Yusuf, the Jewish king of Himyar in south Arabia, makes war on the Christian town of Najran. Syriac writers report that he put its leading men, with their chief Harith (Arethas), and many women to death. Kaleb, king of Aksum, then crosses the sea and overthrows him.
A rock inscription at Bir Hima in south-western Arabia was cut for a commander of Yusuf As’ar Yath’ar, whom it calls king of all the tribes; the Syriac writers call him king of the Himyarites (Zachariah, Chronicle 8.3 (letter of Simeon of Beth Arsham)). The inscription asks the blessing of the God of heaven and earth on the king and ends by invoking the Lord of the Jews. It says that the king burned the church and killed the Abyssinians at Zafar, made war on four other peoples and moved against Najran, and that the writer stood guard against Najran while the king held the coast against the Abyssinians. It counts more than twelve thousand killed and eleven thousand prisoners in the campaign (Ja 1028 lines 1–12). The commentary on the inscription notes that Arabic tradition remembers this king as Dhu Nuwas (Ja 1028 commentary of N. Nebes on lines 1 and 10–11).
What was done inside Najran is told by Christian writers in Syriac. Simeon of Beth Arsham, a bishop and envoy of the Christians of the Persian empire, wrote that he was in the camp of Mundhir, a king of the Saracens, when an envoy arrived with a letter from the king of the Himyarites. In the letter, as Simeon reports it, the king said that he had seized the throne on the death of the king whom the Ethiopians had set up, had killed 280 priests and the Ethiopians who guarded their church, and had turned it into a synagogue. He had then besieged “Nagrin”, sworn safe conduct to its chiefs, and broken his oath. He burned the church with those who had taken refuge in it and the bones of the bishop, Paul, and called on the people to deny Christ and become Jews. When they would not, he put the leading men to death and then their wives (Zachariah, Chronicle 8.3 (letter of Simeon of Beth Arsham)).
Simeon adds what a messenger sent to Najran reported: 340 leading men were killed. Their chief, the aged Harith son of Khanab, told the king that he would not deny Christ; he was beheaded with his companions in a wadi (Zachariah, Chronicle 8.3 (letter of Simeon of Beth Arsham)). In Greek he is Arethas (Book of the Himyarites introduction, pp. xxiv–xxvi). The Book of the Himyarites, a Syriac work that survives in fragments, calls the king Masruq, tells in its chapter headings of the burning of the church of Najran with its clergy and of the deaths of men, women and children (Book of the Himyarites index of chapters 7–27 (Moberg, pp. cii–ciii)), and puts the martyrdom of Harith on a Sunday, 25 November (Book of the Himyarites chapter 19 (Moberg, p. cxv)).
Simeon closed by asking that the patriarch of Alexandria write to the king of the Ethiopians to come to the help of the Himyarites (Zachariah, Chronicle 8.3 (letter of Simeon of Beth Arsham)). The Book of the Himyarites told how a Himyarite Christian brought the news to Kaleb, king of Abyssinia, and how Kaleb crossed with his army and appointed a king in the land (Book of the Himyarites index of chapters 38–49 (Moberg, p. civ)). Moberg identifies Kaleb with the king whom Greek writers call Elesbaas (Book of the Himyarites introduction, p. xlii). Cosmas, a merchant who visited the port of Adulis, speaks of Elesbaan, king of the Aksumites (the people of Aksum), preparing an expedition against the Himyarites (Cosmas, Christian Topography 2 (McCrindle pp. 55–56)). Procopius gives the outcome in a few lines: Hellestheaeus, the Christian king of the Ethiopians, sailed against the Himyarites because they were oppressing the Christians there, defeated them, killed their king and set up a Christian Himyarite, Esimiphaeus, who was to pay tribute (Procopius, Wars 1.20.1). A Himyarite inscription dated seven years after Yusuf’s was set up by nobles who had fortified a stronghold when the Abyssinians killed the king of Himyar; the first of them is named Sumyafa’ Ashwa’, a name close to the Esimiphaeus of Procopius (CIH 621 lines 1, 6–10).
Simeon says that he wrote so that the bishops might “celebrate the memory of the illustrious martyrs” (Zachariah, Chronicle 8.3 (letter of Simeon of Beth Arsham)). Moberg notes that the Ethiopian calendar keeps the day of the martyrs of Najran on 26 Hedar (Book of the Himyarites introduction, p. lviii).
How this is dated
Estimated date. A scholarly estimate from primary evidence, with a margin of years.
The year is disputed between 523 and 518, and the evidence is of three kinds.
The Syriac letter of Simeon of Beth Arsham stands in the chronicle under the year 835 of the Greeks, the sixth year of the emperor Justin, and Simeon says that he set out on 20 January of that year and learned of the massacre on the journey (Zachariah, Chronicle 8.3 (letter of Simeon of Beth Arsham)). The year 835 of the Seleucid era runs from October 523 to September 524, so the letter puts the killings in the months before January 524. The Book of the Himyarites dates the death of Harith to Sunday, 25 November (Book of the Himyarites chapter 19 (Moberg, p. cxv)). Its editor, Axel Moberg (The Book of the Himyarites, 1924), held to 523 and supposed the day of the month to be one too low, but he pointed out that 25 November 523 was a Saturday and that the nearest years in which it fell on a Sunday were 518 and 529 (Book of the Himyarites introduction, p. lviii). He also records that the letter had been judged authentic by some scholars and a forgery by another (Book of the Himyarites introduction, pp. xxiv–xxvi).
The inscription of the king’s officer near Najran is dated in the month dhu-Madhra’an of year 633 of the Himyarite era (Ja 1028 lines 1–12). Its conversion depends on where that era begins. Norbert Nebes, in the commentary reproduced with the inscription, counts from 110 BC, following J. Beaucamp, F. Briquel-Chatonnet and C. Robin, “La persécution des chrétiens de Nagrān et la chronologie ḥimyarite”, Aram 11–12 (1999–2000), and so dates it to July 523 (Ja 1028 commentary of N. Nebes on lines 1 and 10–11); an era beginning five years earlier would give 518. The inscription from Husn al-Ghurab that mentions the killing of the king of Himyar is dated seven years later, in 640 (CIH 621 lines 1, 6–10).
Cosmas, finally, says that the king of Aksum was preparing an expedition against the Himyarites when he visited Adulis “at the beginning of the reign” of Justin, about twenty-five years before he wrote (Cosmas, Christian Topography 2 (McCrindle pp. 55–56)). Justin became emperor in July of the year 829 of the Greeks, which is 518 (Zachariah, Chronicle 8.1). Whether that was the expedition that followed the massacre or an earlier one is part of the dispute; the chapter headings of the Book of the Himyarites speak of a first departure of the Abyssinians before the persecution and of Kaleb’s arrival after it (Book of the Himyarites index of chapters 7–27 (Moberg, pp. cii–ciii)) (Book of the Himyarites index of chapters 38–49 (Moberg, p. civ)). The timeline shows 523 and gives both years.
Primary sources
The Syriac Chronicle Known as That of Zachariah of Mitylene
- Zachariah, Chronicle 8.3 (letter of Simeon of Beth Arsham)tertullian.org
- Zachariah, Chronicle 8.1tertullian.org
Inscription of Sharah’il Yaqbal at Bir Hima (Ja 1028)
- Ja 1028 lines 1–12web.archive.org
- Ja 1028 commentary of N. Nebes on lines 1 and 10–11web.archive.org
The Book of the Himyarites
- Book of the Himyarites introduction, pp. xxiv–xxviarchive.org
- Book of the Himyarites index of chapters 7–27 (Moberg, pp. cii–ciii)archive.org
- Book of the Himyarites chapter 19 (Moberg, p. cxv)archive.org
- Book of the Himyarites index of chapters 38–49 (Moberg, p. civ)archive.org
- Book of the Himyarites introduction, p. xliiarchive.org
- Book of the Himyarites introduction, p. lviiiarchive.org
History of the Wars
- Procopius, Wars 1.20.1penelope.uchicago.edu
In context
Grows out of
- c. AD 330–356, estimated date