Dhu Nuwas

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Dhu Nuwas

Yusuf Dhu Nuwas, (also called Yusuf Asar Dhu Nuwas , Dhu Nowas and Dhu Nu'as and Dunaan); fl.

Floruit

Floruit refers to a period of time during which a person, school, movement or even species was active or flourishing. It is the third person, singular, perfect tense, indicative, active form of the Latin verb florere ? "to flourish"....
510s) was the last king of the Himyarite kingdom of Yemen

Yemen

Yemen , officially the Republic of Yemen is an Arab country located on the Arabian Peninsula in Southwest Asia. Yemen has an estimated population of more than 23 million people and is bordered by Saudi Arabia to the North, the Red Sea to the West, the Arabian Sea and Gulf of Aden to the South, and Oman to the east....
.

Some sources state that he was the successor of Rabia ibn Mudhar, a member of the same dynasty; the archeologist Alessandro de Maigret believes he was an usurper. According to a number of medieval historians, who depend on the account of John of Ephesus

John of Ephesus

John of Ephesus was a leader of the Oriental Orthodoxy Syriac-speaking Church in the sixth century, and one of the earliest and most important of historians who wrote in Syriac....
, Dhu Nuwas, who was a convert to Judaism

Judaism

Judaism is a set of beliefs and practices originating in the Hebrew Bible , as later further explored and explained in the Talmud and other texts....
, announced that he would persecute the Christian

Christian

A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, a Monotheism#Christian view religion centered on the life and teachings of Jesus and interpreted by Christians to have been prophesied in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament....
s living in his kingdom because Christian states persecuted his fellow co-religionists in their realms; a letter survives written by Simon, the bishop of Beth Arsham in 524 CE, recounts Dhu Nuwas' (where he is called Dimnon) persecution in Najran

Najran

Najran is a city in southwestern Saudi Arabia near the frontier with Yemen. It is the capital of Najran Province. Designated a New town by the Saudi Government in 1965, Najran is one of the fastest-growing cities in the kingdom, its population having risen from 47,500 in and 90,983 in 1992 to 246,880 in 2004 ...
(modern al-Ukhdud in Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, KSA , is an Arab country and the largest country of the Arabian Peninsula. It is bordered by Jordan on the northwest, Iraq on the north and northeast, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates on the east, Oman on the southeast, and Yemen on the south....
).

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Yusuf Dhu Nuwas, (also called Yusuf Asar Dhu Nuwas , Dhu Nowas and Dhu Nu'as and Dunaan); fl.

Floruit

Yemen

John of Ephesus

Judaism

Christian

Najran

Saudi Arabia

Qur'an

The Qur?an is the central religious text of Islam. Muslims believe the Qur?an to be the book of divine guidance and direction for mankind, and consider the original Arabic text to be the final revelation of God....
(al-Buruj:4).

According to the contemporary sources, after seizing the throne of the Himyarites, in ca. 518 or 523 Dhu Nuwas attacked the Aksumite (mainly Christian) garrison at Zafar

Zafar

Zafar may refer to:*The ancient city of Zafar, Yemen in Old South Arabian and modern Arabic) in Yemen, see Zafar, Yemen.*The boy's name Zafar is of Arabic origin, and its meaning is "victory." ....
, capturing them and burning their churches. He then moved against Najran

Najran

Christianity

Christianity is a Monotheistic religion #Christian view religion centered on the life and teachings of Jesus as New Testament view on Jesus' life....
and Aksumite stronghold. After accepting the city's capitulation, he massacred those inhabitants who would not renounce Christianity. Estimates of the death toll from this event range up to 20,000 in some sources.

Dhu Nuwas then proceeded to write a letter to the Lakhmid king Mundhir of al-Hira

Al-Hirah

Al Hira was an ancient city located south of al-Kufah in south-central Iraq. It was a significant city in pre-Islamic Arab history. Originally a military encampment, in the 5th and 6th centuries CE it became the capital of the Lakhmids....
and King Kavadh I

Kavadh I

Kavadh I , son of Peroz I , was the nineteenth Sassanid Empire King of Persia from 488 to 531. He was crowned by the nobles in place of his deposed and blinded uncle Balash ....
of Persia, informing them of his deed and encouraging them to do likewise to the Christians under their dominion. Al-Mundhir received this letter in January 519 as he was receiving an embassy from Constantinople

Constantinople

Constantinople was the empire capital of the Roman Empire , the Byzantine Empire , the Latin Empire , and the Ottoman Empire . Strategically located between the Golden Horn and the Sea of Marmara at the point where Europe meets Asia, Byzantine Constantinople had been the capital of a Christendom empire, successor to ancient ancient Greece...
seeking to forge a peace between the Roman Empire

Roman Empire

The Roman Empire was the Roman Republic phase of the Ancient Rome, characterised by an autocracy form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
and Hira. He revealed the contents of the letter to the Roman ambassadors who were horrified at its contents. Word of the slaughter quickly spread throughout the Roman and Persian realms, and refugees from Najran even reached the court of the Roman emperor Justin I

Justin I

Flavius Iustinus , known in English as Justin I, was a List of Byzantine Emperors , who rose through the ranks of the army of the Byzantine Empire and ultimately became its emperor, in spite of the fact he was illiterate and almost seventy years old at the time of accession....
himself, begging him to avenge the martyred Christians.

The slaughter of the Axumite garrison in Zafar

Zafar

Kaleb of Axum

Kaleb is perhaps the best-documented, if not best-known, king of Kingdom of Axum. Procopius of Caesarea calls him "Hellestheaeus", a variant of his throne name Ella Atsbeha or Ella Asbeha ....
, King of Axum. Procopius

Procopius

Procopius of Caesarea was a prominent Byzantine Empire scholar of the family Procopius . A participant himself in the wars of the Emperor Justinian I, he was the major historian of the 6th century, writing the Wars of Justinian, the Buildings of Justinian and the celebrated Secret History....
reports that Kaleb (whom he calls Hellesthaeus) with the help of Justin, the Roman Emperor, collected a fleet and crossed from Africa

Africa

Africa is the world's second-largest and second most-populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km? including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area....
to Yemen, where he defeated Dhu Nuwas about the year 520 or 525 (1.20). Kaleb then appointed his Christian South Arabian follower Sumuafa' Ashawa' to rule Yemen as his viceroy

Viceroy

A viceroy is a royal official who governs a country or province in the name of and as representative of the monarch. The term derives from the Latin prefix vice-, meaning "in the place of" and the French word roi, meaning king....
.

Arab tradition states that Dhu Nuwas committed suicide by riding his horse into the sea. De Maigret reports that another South Arabian inscription from Husn al-Ghurab may indicate that he was killed in battle fighting against Kaleb's army. De Maigret also reports that in 1951, three inscriptions were found just north of al-Ukhdud, which refer to a military campaign led by Dhu Nuwas (where he is called Yusuf Asar Yathar), and are dated to the year 633 of the Himyarite era, equivalent to AD 518 or 523.

External links

- 1906 Jewish Encyclopedia article.