Page 151 - UAE Truncal States_Neat

•W

Chapter Four

The Islamic Basis of I
Society

1 The Islamisation of the area

Religion in the area before Islam
There are no known records of exactly how and when Islam came to
the tribes of Trucial Oman, but it was probably simultaneous with
the well documented conversion of Oman and al Bahrayn to the
faith.1 As elsewhere on the Arabian Peninsula before Islam, the
majority of the population were probably worshippers of the moon or
the stars2, others may have been under the influence of the beliefs of
the frequent Persian invaders, while animistic religions were also
widespread. As in Oman and al Bahrayn, communities which had
been converted to Christianity were among them.
The Christianisation of Yemen must have greatly enhanced the
position of Christians in other parts of the Arabian Peninsula. The
first mission to the Yemeni tribes was led by the monk Frumentius.3
In the second half of the fourth century ad the ruling elite of the
Himyarite empire were converted to Christianity by Theophilus
Indus. He was born near Karachi and taken to Rome as a hostage, but
he later became a missionary on behalf of Emperor Constantine II
and built three churches in the region under Himyarite rule, one of
which may have been at Suhar. i
Oman had a bishop from the 5th century; the first was John and the
last one mentioned was Stephan (Etienne), in ad 676. There was
certainly a large Christian population in Oman at the end of the 6lh
century. The conversion to Christianity of a famous shaikh of the
'Abs, Qais bin Zuhair, and a large part of his tribe in ad 563 was not
an isolated incident; there was at that time a church in Suhar,
whither he retired as a monk. Neither the Julanda’ princes ruling the
126