History of Hadramawt

Pre-Islamic history

The name Hadramawt appears as early as the Book of Genesis (x, 26): 'Hazarmaveth' contains the same radicals as Hadramawt. The origin of the name is obscure; some people see it as derived from the name of the national pre-Islamic prophet Hud, or from his last words, which are said to have been 'Ladara al-mawt,' 'Death has come.'

According to legend, Hud was one of the descendants of 'Ad, son of Joktan, mentioned in Genesis (Joktan was the son of Shem, one of the sons of Noah); and it was the family of 'Ad who first settled the valley.

When the sons of 'Ad had passed away, it is reputed that the sons of Hadramawt, descended from another son of Joktan, Hazarmaveth, came to power. According to this version of the origin of the name, 'Hadramawt' was the nickname of 'Amr, who lived in such troublesome times (perhaps created them?) that he was called 'Death is present.' Finally, the tribes of Kindah, who still live in the wadi, triumphed. They claim descent from Joktan by yet another son, Ya'arub.

The Kindah tribes bring us into historic times, for the name appears in some of the earliest inscriptions, and Kindah tribes furnished some of the famous early leaders in the wadi. But the Kindah remained nomads, distinct from the urban populations, until a few centuries before Islam.

The growth of settled life in the wadi is still shrouded in the mists of time. Evidence from the inscriptions of the kingdoms to the west, however, suggests that the towns evolved as entrepôts controlling an increasingly valuable trade route, probably dealing mainly in aromatic incenses (and possibly in foreign imported goods brought across the Indian Ocean) in the latter part of the second millennium B.C. Just as these rich kingdoms, Ma'in, Saba' and Qataban, to name them in descending order from north to south, seem to have developed their elaborate irrigation works, hillside terracing and great dams to support the population needed to engage in the trade, so Wadi Hadramawt and its tributary wadis seem to have developed the same kind of irrigation works in order to increase the yield of incenses and balsams. In addition, the wàdi itself needed general security, which led to the creation of a succession of towns and fortified posts to protect and house the valuable goods that were passed up the length of the valley en route to the great Mediterranean markets in the north.

At a certain distance beyond the west end of the wadi, however, settled life could no longer be sustained. Between the last of the Hadrami cities, Shabwah, and the Kingdoms of Qataban and Saba' farther west lay the desert of Saihad, a 'dangerous desert' (al-Bakri).

So Shabwah became a gathering point for the formation of the huge armed caravans needed to shepherd the valuable goods in safety across the arid wastes in the face of the threatened depredations of the desert nomads. Later, as the demand for incense grew, and Dhofar far to the east became a second major source for the supply of frankincense, the importance of Shabwah increased still further: it was to this city that the Dhofar frankincense was taken prior to its dispatch to the north, after much of it had been shipped down the coast to the Hadrami port of Qana', now known as Bit 'All. (According to one Roman source, Qana' was also the port to which trade goods from India were carried-muslins, silks, tortoiseshell, pepper, cinnamon, cotton, indigo and precious stones, as well as ivory from Africa and pearls from the Gulf.)

To understand the importance of the trade from Hadramawt to the test of the ancient world, it is worth looking at the role played by incense in the daily life of the great civilizations. Because of the vagueness of ancient terminology, it is not easy to be certain whether the incenses referred to always include the frankincense of Hadramawt or Dhofar. Nevertheless, since frankincense was afterwards judged to have the sweetest perfume of all incenses, it was very probably in demand from an early time.

BACK

Back To Index