Page 23 - Arabian Studies (V)

The Identification of the Wadi *l-Qura 13

1 I had said to al-Nu‘man the day I met him going to raid the
Banu Hunn at Burqat Sadir,
2 Steer clear of the Banu Hunn, for encounter with them is
indeed hateful, even though they be encountered by a man of
fortitude (in battle)
3 They arc those who, overcoming, slew al-Ta’I, Abu Jabir, at
al-Hijr and raped [his wife], Umm Jabir.
4 They are those who protected it against all [the tribes] of
Quda'ah and Mudar the Red at [times of] inter-raiding.
5 They are those who drove Baliyy out of it, so that in the
morning Baliyy found themselves in a deep valley of
Tihamah.
6 So how can you aspire to occupy Wadi ’l-Qura and its sur­
roundings seeing that they had protected it against all other
people.
7 They are those who defended Wadi ’l-Qura from their foes, an
army destroying a foe that rivalled them in number.96
The Arabic sources relate that Qusayy b. Kilab, chief of the
Quraysh, and ancestor of the Prophet, who gained the leadership
of Mecca, was raised among the ‘Udhrah. His father died when
Qusayy was still a child, and his widowed mother remarried a man
from the ‘Udhrah. Rizah b. RabTah, a leading figure from the
‘Udhrah, was half-brother to Qusayy, and becaue of this relation­
ship he and Quda‘ah fought with Qusayy in the attack on, and
victory over, Mecca.97 The sources also mention Qusayy b.
Munabbih, founder of the tribe of Thaqlf, in al-Ta’if, lived for a
long period with an old Jewish woman in Wadi ’l-Qura, and it is
said that he introduced the cultivation of grape-vines from Wadi
’l-Qura to al-Ta’if.98 Ibn al-Kalbl relates that ‘Amr b. Luhayy, who
is credited with the introduction of the worship of idols amongst
the Arabs, exhibited certain images during a gathering of the
people, summoning them to worship them. The first to respond to
the call was ‘Awf b. ‘Udhrah, who carried the image of the god
Wadd from Mecca to Wadi ’l-Qura, and thence to Dumat al-
Jandal." This god was a traditional idol of the Mineans in Dedan,
the ancient capital of Wadi ’l-Qura.100 Levi Della Vida quotes from
al-Ya‘qubi that the ‘Udhrah worshipped an idol representing the
sun.101
These are some of the references to Wadi ’l-Qura, during the
Jahiliyyah period, contained in the Arabic sources. The inhabitants
were composed of idolaters and Jews. Ahmad Amin in his Fajr al-
Islam refers to Christian places of worship in Wadi ’l-Qura,102 but
in my view there were no Christian inhabitants, and he perhaps