page_title: History of the Arabs
section_title: Classical kingdoms
hierarchical_section_title: History of the Arabs / Antiquity / Classical kingdoms
caption_attribution_description: English: Pergamon Museum ( Berlin ). Exhibition "Roads of Arabia": Fragment of a wall painting with a banquet scene ( 1st/2nd century AD ), black and red paint on white plaster, 58x32 cm, from Qaryat al-Faw, residential district ( Department of Archaeology, King Saud University, Riyadh ). Deutsch: Pergamon Museum ( Berlin ). Ausstellung "Roads of Arabia": Fragment einer Wandmalerei - Bankettszene ( 1./2. Jhdt. n.Chr. ), schwarze und rote Farbe auf weißem Putz , 58x32 cm, aus Qaryat al-Faw, Wohnbezirk ( Department of Archaeology, King Saud University, Riyadh ).
context_page_description: The history of the Arabs begins in the mid-ninth century BC, which is the earliest known attestation of the Old Arabic language. The Arabs appear to have been under the vassalage of the Neo-Assyrian Empire; they went from the Arabian Peninsula to Mauritania. Arab tribes, most notably the Ghassanids and Lakhmids, begin to appear in the southern Syrian Desert from the mid-third century CE onward, during the mid to later stages of the Roman and Sasanian empires. Tradition holds that Arabs descend from Ishmael, the son of Abraham. The Arabian Desert is the birthplace of "Arab", as well other Arab groups that spread in the land and existed for millennia.
  Before the expansion of the Rashidun Caliphate, "Arab" referred to any of the largely nomadic and settled Semitic people from the Arabian Peninsula, Syrian Desert, North and Lower Mesopotamia. Today, "Arab" refers to a large number of people whose native regions form the Arab world due to the spread of Arabs and the Arabic language throughout the region during the early Muslim conquests of the 7th and 8th centuries.
context_section_description: Proto-Arabic, or Ancient North Arabian, texts give a clearer picture of the Arabs' emergence. The earliest are written in variants of epigraphic south Arabian musnad script, including the 8th century BCE Hasaean inscriptions of eastern Arabia, the 6th century BCE Lihyanite texts of southeastern Saudi Arabia and the Thamudic texts found throughout the Arabian Peninsula and Sinai (not in reality connected with Thamud).
  The Nabataeans were nomads who moved into territory vacated by the Edomites – Semites who settled the region centuries before them. Their early inscriptions were in Aramaic, but gradually switched to Arabic, and since they had writing, it was they who made the first inscriptions in Arabic. The Nabataean alphabet was adopted by Arabs to the south, and evolved into modern Arabic script around the 4th century. This is attested by Safaitic inscriptions (beginning in the 1st century BCE) and the many Arabic personal names in Nabataean inscriptions. From about the 2nd century BCE, a few inscriptions from Qaryat al-Faw reveal a dialect no longer considered proto-Arabic, but pre-classical Arabic. Five Syriac inscriptions mentioning Arabs have been found at Sumatar Harabesi, one of which dates to the 2nd century CE.
  Arabs arrived in the Palmyra in the late first millennium BC. The soldiers of the sheikh Zabdibel, who aided the Seleucids in the battle of Raphia (217 BC), were described as Arabs; Zabdibel and his men were not actually identified as Palmyrenes in the texts, but the name "Zabdibel" is a Palmyrene name leading to the conclusion that the sheikh hailed from Palmyra. Palmyra was conquered by the Rashidun Caliphate after its 634 capture by the Arab general Khalid ibn al-Walid, who took the city on his way to Damascus; an 18-day march by his army through the Syrian Desert from Mesopotamia. By then Palmyra was limited to the Diocletian camp. After the conquest, the city became part of Homs Province.
  Palmyra prospered as part of the Umayyad Caliphate, and its population grew. It was a key stop on the East-West trade route, with a large souq (market), built by the Umayyads, who also commissioned part of the Temple of Bel as a mosque. During this period, Palmyra was a stronghold of the Banu Kalb tribe. After being defeated by Marwan II during a civil war in the caliphate, Umayyad contender Sulayman ibn Hisham fled to the Banu Kalb in Palmyra, but eventually pledged allegiance to Marwan in 744; Palmyra continued to oppose Marwan until the surrender of the Banu Kalb leader al-Abrash al-Kalbi in 745. That year, Marwan ordered the city's walls demolished. In 750 a revolt, led by Majza'a ibn al-Kawthar and Umayyad pretender Abu Muhammad al-Sufyani, against the new Abbasid Caliphate swept across Syria; the tribes in Palmyra supported the rebels. After his defeat Abu Muhammad took refuge in the city, which withstood an Abbasid assault long enough to allow him to escape.
caption: Fragment of a wall painting showing a Kindite king, 1st century CE.
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