King Abraha

Last updated: May 30th, 2025 at 1:05 pm · Est. Reading Time: 7 minutes

Abraha (Abrāhah اَبرَاهَه) was a king of Yemen, well known for his failed invasion of Mecca.

Origin

Abraha was originally a slave of a Roman merchant involved in shipping in Adilus.  He came to Yemen as a common soldier in the army of King Ella Esbeha.¹ 

Rise to Power

The invading army of King Ella Esbeha had installed a puppet king in Yemen.  His name was King Sumuyafa Ashwa.  King Sumuyafa Ashwa could not tackle two challenges to his regime.  The Arab population of Yemen was bitterly divided on religious lines before Sumuyafa Ashwa’s ascent to power.  He could not unite the population under any slogan.  Secondly, he could not pacify the big Ethiopian diaspora living in Yemen.  Only after five years of his rule, common soldiers of the Ethiopian army rebelled against the officers and the elite due to dissatisfaction over the distribution of material advantages of their hard-earned triumph.  Abraha became the leader of this rebellion.²  He could oust Sumuyafa Ashwa from power and could kill him.³  Abraha could thus grab the power.

Dating of Abraha’s Ascent to Power

As Sumuyafa Ashwa was still managing the affairs by February of 531 CE, according to an inscription written by him, Abraha might have come to power only later this year.⁴

Abraha’s policies

Insurrectionaries had brought Abraha to power.  Though Christian and ethnic Ethiopian, Abraha was not Ethiopia’s handpicked man.  He proved to be an able ruler and was the last independent monarch of Yemen.  Abraha solved the two administrative problems that bugged his predecessor.  He could, somehow, pacify the Ethiopian diaspora living in Yemen and could maintain his leadership among them.  He could also make allies among the Arab tribes of Yemen, while suppressing those who were opposed to Ethiopia’s rule.  Abraha took a Himyar woman into marriage as a confidence-building measure.  Later on, he pardoned the Himayr murderers of one of his officials, who had acted high-handedly towards Himyar’s women.  These gestures of his pacified much resistance from the Himyars.⁵  His inscription CIH 541 mentions at lines 25 and 26 both Ethiopians and Himyarites fighting on his side.⁶  In the beginning, he continued to send tributes to Ella Asbeha, and after him to his successor.  At the same time, he successfully fought off attempts by Ethiopians to oust him.⁷

Abraha’s success is partly indebted to changes in geopolitics.  Emperor Justinian of Byzantine Rome signed the ‘Eternal Peace’ with Khosrow I Anushirwan of Sasanian Iran in 532 CE.  After that, Justinian no longer needed the springboard of Yemen.  He diverted his empire-building efforts to southern Europe.⁸  The Byzantine-Ethiopia axis did not find any excuse to exist after ‘Eternal Peace’.  Ethiopia was a rising power from the first to the sixth centuries CE.  It is evident by a gradual increase in its imports from the first to sixth centuries, according to archaeologists.  After a sixth-century decrease in imports, particularly luxury items such as glass, can be detected.⁹  Muro-Hay opines that Ethiopia had stretched itself too much by interfering in the internal affairs of Yemen and invading around the Red Sea, “was Aksum’s swan-song as a great power in the region.”¹⁰  The Death of King Ella Asbeha, followed by the ascension to the throne of a weaker king, was the last jackpot Araha could expect in international politics.

Unapprehensive of the Ethiopian policy of hegemonism, Abraha started building his clout.  He is reported to be a staunch Christian in Islamic traditions.¹¹  He successfully used Christianity to build a bridge between his Ethiopian and Arab subjects, pushing Judaism to the back foot.  By 548 CE, Abraha felt strong enough to assume the title of king and, according to a lengthy inscription at Marib Dam, now preserved in Marib Museum (inv no BAR 2), he received embassies from no less than five neighbouring powers: the Ethiopians, the Byzantines, the Iranians, Mundhir of Lakham, Haith bin Jabalah of Ghassan, and his kinsman Abu Karib bin Jabalah (Abū Karīb bin Jabalah اَبُو كَرِيب بِن جَبَلَه).¹²  According to this inscription, he also managed to quell a revolt by Yazid ibn Kabasha, whom he had appointed as deputy (khlft) over Kindah at a time when it had no deputy.’  It means Abraha had started his empire-building efforts over the Tribal Zone just before 548 CE.  A dated inscription found at a rock in the vicinity of the well of Murayghaan describes Abraha’s campaign to subdue tribes of Central Arabia who had come under the influence of Lakhmids after the weakening of Kindah.  This inscription reads:

“By the power of the Merciful One (al-Rahmān الرحݥن) and His Messiah, the king Abraha, who is in Yemen, the king of Saba’ and dhū Raydān and Ḥaḍramawt and Ymnt and their Bedouins in the highlands and the lowlands, wrote this inscription when he had raided Ma‘add in the fourth raid (razzia), in April when all the Banu ‘Amir had revolted.  Now the king sent Abu Jabr with the Kindah and ‘Ali and Bishr son of Hisn with Sa’d and Murad, and these two commanders of the army were present [= fought along with] Kindah and ‘Ali against Bani ‘Amir in the valley of Ḍmrh, and Murad and Sa’d in the wadi at the well of Turaba, and they slew and made captive [the enemy] and took booty in great numbers.  And the king, [on the other hand], did battle at Haliban, and the [troops] of Ma‘add submitted to [his] protection and gave hostages.  And then ‘Amr son of Mundhir [the Lakhmids] negotiated [with Abraha] and gave his son as hostage, and [the king?] appointed him as viceroy (khlf) on M’add.  So [Abraha] returned from Haliban by the power of the Merciful, in September, of [the year] 662.”¹³  The year of the Himyarite era given in this inscription corresponds to 552 CE.  This campaign has been identified by Kister as ‘the expedition of elephant’, and this is the year from which Quraysh used to count their calendar.¹⁴

Robin differs from Kister.  There is an undated inscription called Ryckmans 506 in which Abraha claims another expedition to central Arabia in which he could reach up to Yethrib.  Robin thinks that this expedition took place after the expedition of Haliban, and that is, according to Robin, the actual ‘expedition of an elephant’.¹⁵

Failed invasion of Mecca

Ibn Ishaq alleges that during the expedition, of elephant Abraha threatened to attack the Ka’ba in Mecca but failed to do so miraculously.¹⁶  Ma’mar asserts that during the threat, all Quraysh escaped the town except Abdul Muttalib (‘Abd ul Muṭṭalib عَبدالمُطَّلِب), who stayed there.¹⁷

Islamic traditions insist that the goal of the Araha in the ‘expedition of elephant’ was to destroy the Ka’ba so the pilgrims could be redirected towards the church he had built in San’a.¹⁸ If true, Arbraha was trying to impose his authority over the Tribal Zone of Arabia through the promotion of Christianity.

Death of Abraha

Early Islamic sources report that Abraha died of a pox-like disease on the way back to Yemen.¹⁹  According to Kister’s analysis, this event took place in 552 CE, while according to Robin’s analysis,    it should be dated to shortly after 558 CE.²⁰

Further reading

https://historyofislam.org/pre-islamic-arab-politics

End notes

 

1. For Abraha being a slave, see: Procopius. History of the wars, Books I and II, ed. and trans. H. B. Dewing (London: William Heinemann, 1914), 1:191.; Muhammad Ibn Ishaq, The Life of Muhammad, Ed. and Trans. Alfred Guillaume, (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2013), 18.
2. Pseudo-Aṣma’ī, Niyāyat al-irab fī Akhbār al-furs wa-l-‘arab, (London: unpublished British Museum manuscript Ms. Br. Mus.. Add 23298), folio 196 b.
3. Muhammad Ibn Ishaq, The Life of Muhammad, Ed. and Trans. Alfred Guillaume, (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2013), 20.
4. For the dated inscription see: Carlo Cinti-Rossini, Chrestomathia Arabacia Meridionalis Epigraphica, (Rome: Instituto per l’Oriente, 1931), 77; G. Ryckmans, “Inscriptions sud-arabes.  Sixième série,”  Le Museon 52 (1939): 297 – 319. (CIH 621).
5. Muhammad Ibn Ishaq, The Life of Muhammad, Ed. and Trans. Alfred Guillaume, (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2013).
6. Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum, Pars Quarta,  ed. Joseph Derenbourg, (Paris: e Reipublicae Typograhpeo, 1881), 278, inscription no. 544.
7. Procopius. History of the wars, Books I and II, ed. and trans. H. B. Dewing (London: William Heinemann, 1914), 1:191-195.; Stuart C. Munro-Hay. Aksum: A Civilization of Late Antiquity. (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1991), 87.
8. Procopius. History of the wars, Books I and II, ed. and trans. H. B. Dewing (London: William Heinemann, 1914), 1:209.
9. S. C. Munro-Hay, Excavations at Aksum: An Account of Research at the Ancient Ethiopian Capital Directed in 1972 – 4 by the Late Dr. Neville Chittick (London: British Institute in Eastern Africa, 1989), 208.
10. Stuart C. Munro-Hay. Aksum: A Civilization of Late Antiquity (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1991), 88.
11. Muhammad Ibn Ishaq, The Life of Muhammad, Ed. and Trans. Alfred Guillaume, (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2013), 20.
12. Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum, Pars Quarta,  ed. Joseph Derenbourg, (Paris: e Reipublicae Typograhpeo, 1881), 278, inscription no. 544.; Avraam G. Lundin, “Juznoarabskaja istoriceskaja nadpis’ VI v. n. e. iz Mariba,” Epigrafika Vostoka 9 (1954) 3 – 23. (CIH 541; Sadd Ma’rib 5)
13. Gonzague Ryckmans, “inscriptions sud-arabes. Dixième sèrie,” Le Musèon 66 (1953): 319 – 342.  For English translation see:  Alfred F. L. Beeston, “Notes on the Mureighan inscription,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 16 no. 2 (1954): 389 – 92. (RY 506; Murayghān 1).  Some scholars locate the well of Turaba about 100 km east of Taif.  See: Lawrence I. Conard, “Abraha and Muḥammad: Some Observations Apropos of Chronology and Literary “topoi” in the Early Arabic Historical Tradition,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 50 no. 2(1987):  227.
14. For identification of the campaign see:  Meir J. Kister, “The Campaign of Hulaban: a New Light on the Expedition of Abraha,” Le Museon 78 (1965): 425 -36.  For Quraysh’s start year of the calendar, see: Muhammad Ibn Ishaq. The Life of Muhammad, ed. and trans. Alfred Guillaume, (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2013), 239.
15. C. Robin, “Abraha and the reconquest of deserted Arabia: a re-examination of the inscription Ryckmans 506= Murayghān 1,” Jerusalem Studies on Arabic and Islam 39 (2012): 1 – 93.  It is still possible that none of Abraha’s inscriptions represent the ‘expedition of an elephant’.  According to Islamic sources, he died on the way back to Yemen.  In this case, he might never have gotten a chance to get his adventure engraved.
16. Muhammad Ibn Ishaq. The Life of Muhammad, ed. and trans. Alfred Guillaume.  (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2013), 22 – 28.
17. Ma‘mar ibn Rāshid. The Expeditions, ed. Joseph E. Lowry, trans. Sean W. Anthony, (New York: New York University Press, 2015), 3.
18. Muhammad Ibn Ishaq, The Life of Muhammad, Ed. and Trans. Alfred Guillaume, (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2013), 22.
19. Muhammad Ibn Ishaq. The Life of Muhammad, ed. and trans. Alfred Guillaume, (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2013), 22 – 8.
20. Meir J. Kister, “The Campaign of Hulaban: a New Light on the Expedition of Abraha,” Le Museon 78 (1965): 425 -36.; Robin, Christian Julien, “Abraha et al Reconquete de l’Arabie deserte: un reexamen de l’inscreption Ryckmans 506 = Murayghan I,” Jerusalem Studies on Arabic and Islam 39 (2012): 1 – 93.