Page 4 - Himayar_Neat

jewisn Munarcny,

and i > Z°ne Iun(^red years following the unification of the kingdoms of Himyar
I 3 * }erG ^e^an a religious revolution that aimed to overcome differences
e ween t e kingdom s earlier subjects, who had now become integrated in the various
(. omains of the united kingdom. Before unification, each of the earlier kingdoms had

had its own religion and rich and varied pantheon. As emerges from archaeological
evidence, the Himyarite government brought an end to idolatry and adopted the Jewish
version of monotheism no later than 384 CE, during the reign of King Malkikarib
Yuha’amin (375-400). In fact, religious reform had already begun in the days of King
Tha’ran Yuhan'im (324-375), whose reign was marked by political stability and
economic development.5 The most significant hallmark of this process was that the
many stone inscriptions documenting the names of the kings and their exploits—such
as the dedicatory inscription of Malkikarib Yuha’amin and his two sons, Abukarib and
Dhara”amar, of 384 CE—no longer mentioned the names of idols but the name of “the
Merciful One, the God of heaven” or “the God of the heavens and the earth.”6 Not long
before, Malkikarib Yuha’amin had established a house of prayer which was called
mikrdb, having named it by the Judeo-Aramaic name, Barik (“blessed”).7
In this manner, Judaism became the official state religion and spread mainly among the
ruling circles and upper class. It appears that the great reforms in the area of religion
were made in the days of King Abukarib As'ad (c. 400-440), the son of Malkikarib
Yuha’amin. The three dedicatory inscriptions that were discovered in Zafar, the capital
of Himyar, and in other places reveal that Zafar not only had a Jewish community with a
synagogue, and that the Himyarite government adopted Judaism, but also that the king
8
saw himself as part of the people of Israel.
The adoption of Jewish monotheism by the Himyarite government was most likely
influenced by the presence of the Jewish communities that were scattered throughout
the kingdom.9 At least from the beginning of the 3rd century there is evidence that
there were in the kingdom of Himyar established Jewish communities, which sent their
dead to be buried in the prestigious cemetery at Beth She'arim in the Lower Galilee.
Moreover, there was a Jewish synagogue in the important port city of Qani’.10 Thus, the
Christian priest and missionary, Theophilus (3), who was sent to Himyar as ambassador
by the Emperor Constantius II (r. 337-361) in order to convert its inhabitants to
Christianity, tells of Jews he met from older local Jewish communities. According to the
historian Philostorgius, who describes the journey of Theophilus in Himyar, the only
objection of the Himyarite ruler in Zafar had to changing his religion to Christianity was
the Jews, whom he called “insane” and “stiff-necked.”11 From these anecdotes, it
appears that idolatry ceased to be practiced, and that the elite strata of the Himyarite
society who abhorred it sought a more personal religion. The struggle was, therefore,
between Judaism and Christianity, with the Jewish communities having the upper hand,
because the rulers of Himyar preferred to adopt Judaism for political reasons. It is worth
noting that, in converting to Judaism, the rulers of Himyar also drew after them many
Arab tribes, the chief of whom was the powerful Kinda tribe. This tribe, whose place of
origin is in Hadramawt, served as agent to the kingdom of Himyar, and established a
kingdom whose hegemony extended to central Arabia, and whose chief city, Qaryat al-
Faw, was an economic, religious, political, and cultural hub.12
Christian Robin, an expert on South-Arabic inscriptions, has even explained the use of
the title of “Israel” in the dedicatory inscriptions as going beyond the internal affairs of
the local Jewish community and reflecting rather the adoption of Judaism as the state
religion in the kingdom of Himyar.13 He points out that religious reforms were enacted
by Abukarib As‘ad precisely at a time when the Jews in Palaestina had lost all hope of re­
establishing an independent political entity in their own country, after the death of the
Emperor Julian in 363 and the triumph of Christianity. It was at this time also that the
institution of the Jewish Patriarchate ceased to exist, with the death of Gamhel VI in 425
and formal abolition of the office in 429-

The Persecution of Christians and the War with the Kingdom of Axum
There is still no doubt that the spread of Judaism as the state religion not only stemmed
from the internal developments within the kingdom of Himyar but also was influenced
by external relations with the kingdom’s powerful neighbors, especially Axum in
northern Ethiopia, on the African side of the Erythrean Sea, opposite South Arabia. In
the wake of the Edict of Milan, which granted formal tolerance of Christianity and all
religions in the Roman Empire in 313, the kingdom of Axum being the closest power
to the kingdom of Himyar, and its biggest competitor in trade between the Roman
rmniro and India in Hw Par Pact— adnntaJ ChrictianiH, ac tho ctatn rolicrinn arnnnd ?/.n