Product Code Database
Najran ( ; ), is a city in southwestern Saudi Arabia. It is the capital of Najran Province. Today, the city of Najran is one of the fastest-growing cities in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. As of the 2022 census, the city population was 381,431, with the population of the governorate of Najran being 592,300. Today, the population is primarily Ismailism with a Sunni Islam minority.
The ancient city of Najran is now largely in ruins, the archaeological site Al-Okhdood, located south-east of the present-day city. In ancient times, this Najran was a major urban, agriculture, industrial (cloth, leather), and trade (incense) center, located in the midst of a fertile wadi (valley), called the Wadi Najran. Najran was also located at the intersection of two main caravan routes: one running from Hadhramaut, to the Hejaz, to the Eastern Mediterranean, and another running from the northeast through Al-Yamama and into Mesopotamia. Its pre-Islamic history is notable for its Christian community, including its central role in South Arabian Christianity and the massacre of this community by the king Dhu Nuwas.
The name Najran is used by local Sabaic inscriptions, as well as Greek, Latin, Nabataean, and Ge'ez sources. Minaean and Jawf inscriptions prefer Ragmatum ( Rgmtm), which appears to derive from the name of an old royal residence. In the second-third centuries, the main settlement of the oasis briefly came to be called either Najran or Ẓirbān, before the name returned to just Najran by the sixth century. Najran, however, always remained the name of the oasis as a whole.
Dedan today traded in saddlecloths with you. Arabia and all the princes of Qedar today were your favoured dealers in lambs, rams and goats. In these they did business with you. The merchants of Sheba Saba’ and Ra‘mah Najran traded with you; for your wares they exchanged the finest of all kinds of spices and precious stones, and gold. Haran, Kanne and Eden traded with you, and merchants of Assur and Media traded with you.In this time, the inhabitants of Najran likely spoke some variant of North Arabic, while the inscriptions are in the Sabaic script (and more rarely, in Minaic). Three centuries later, another inscription shows continuing Sabaean rule over Najran. As the dominance of Sheba in the region waned, Najran entered into an alliance of small, trade-focused kingdoms under the leadership of the Kingdom of Ma'in. By the 2nd century BC, Amirum eclipsed Ma'in in the Jawf area and took control of Najran. During this period of time, the considerable role played by Najran in the caravan trade led to the great god, Dhu Samawi, being adopted across Yemen, including by the earlier Ma'in kingdom. The only other gods affiliated with Najran in this time are Athtar and the "Master of Mkntn". In later periods, some longer deity lists enumerate all the gods of Najran.
In 24 BC, the Roman Empire briefly conquered Najran during the siege of South Arabia led by the Roman prefect Aelius Gallus. According to the geographer Strabo, Aelius "came to the town of Negranes Najran, a peaceful, fertile region. The king fled and the town was taken by assault" ( Geography 16.4.24). Najran was then used as a launching point to put Marib, the Sabaean capital, under siege. However, the Romans had to retreat from the area shortly afterwards. In the second century, Ptolemy described Najran as a "metropolis" ( Geography 6.7.37).
In the second and third centuries AD, rule over Najran switched multiple times. A briefly revitalized Sabaean kingdom retook it, before it passed into the hands of the Himyarite Kingdom during its conquest of Saba. In the first decades of the third century, the Ethiopian Kingdom of Aksum was able to conquer and hold on to it, as described both by Sabaean and Ethiopian sources. By the mid-third century, Himyar regained control over the area. Later in the fourth century, the Namara inscription records that the Lakhmid king Imru al-Qays I waged a campaign against Najran, which it describes as the "city of Shammar" (or Shammar Yahri'sh, the Himyar king). The campaign by Imru al-Qays may have been waged on behalf of the Roman emperor, Constantine, and it has been suggested that a triggering factor for the conflict involved Shammar's expansion into the territory called Arabia Deserta.
Najran had a local prince/king who held the title ʿāqib as far back as the 2nd century AD. The person holding this office had a civilian purpose, being the administrator of the city and the one maintaining public order, but apparently did not play a military role. This title was also used for the local ruler of other settlements in South Arabia. One named chief, Arethas of Najran (also known as Ḥārith ibn Kaʿb), was one of the victims of the famous massacre of the Christians of Najran. The prestige of the role he played in the city, tied with his martyrdom, led to his clan renaming itself by his name, and their ascendancy in Najranite politics. However, this family lost its power soon after the Islamic conquests.
The Christian community of Najran experienced waves of persecution before the massacre of the Jewish king Dhu Nuwas, likely beginning around 470. The Martyrdom of Azqir reports that Najran's first priest, Azqir, was transferred to the Himyarite capital Zafar where he was beheaded on the advice of a group of rabbis to create an example against introducing a new religion into the region. The first bishop of Najran, named Paul, was stoned to death sometime afterwards but before 500. Ethiopian sources describe a persecution of Najran's Christians during the reign of the Himyarite king Sharhabil Yakkuf (468–480 AD). Later, the Syriac poet Jacob of Serugh wrote a letter of consolation to the Christian community of Najran (his Letter to the Himyarites), sometime before his death in 521, indicating another wave of persecution prior to the massacre of 523. Finally, the Book of the Himyarites says that an (unidentified) bishop named Thomas appealed to the aid of the Kingdom of Aksum in the face of the Himyarite persecution of the Najran Christians.
Beginning in 522, the Jewish king of Hummer, Dhu Nuwas, initiated a series of campaigns against Christians in South Arabia, including Himyarite locals and Aksumites in the region. The massacre is also recounted in a celebratory manner in an inscription (Ja 1028) commissioned by one of the army commanders of Dhu Nuwas. According to his inscriptions, Dhu Nuwas himself captured and burned down the churches of the cities of Zafar and Al-Mukāʾ. Then, three inscriptions (Ja 1028, Ry 507, and Ry 508) describe the campaigns of Sharahil Yaqbul dhu-Yazan against Najran (despatched by Dhu Nuwas) and the ensuing massacre. According to these inscriptions, Sharahil "positioned himself against Najran" (laying it to siege). He blocked the Najran's caravan route to the northeast that would have led to both Qaryat al-Faw and eastern Arabia to put economic pressure on the city. After a thirteen month long siege, Sharahil captured Najran, which resulted in a large plunder of the area and a stated execution of 12,500 people from the city. Part of the success of the capture involved, according to Simeon's letters, an offer made by Dhu Nuwas that relinquishing control of the area would result in guarantees for the safety of the Christians, which Dhu Nuwas was said to have sworn an oath over, on a Torah scroll, and in the presence of several rabbis. However, Dhu Nuwas broke his promise, and the massacre ensued. The massacre became a moment of international outrage among Christians, with Syriac authors writing many works about the massacre of the Christian community of Najran, including the Book of Himyarites and Simeon's Letter on the Himyarite Martyrs.Simon's letter is part of Part III of The Chronicle of Zuqnin, translated by Amir Harrack (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 1999), pp. 78-84. There is also the Greek Martyrdom of Arethas. A particular moment of outrage, according to Simeon's letters, was how Dhu Nuwas ordered the bones of Najran's bishops to be exhumed, collected in a church, and then burned up there alongside other Christian laity and clerics. At Najran, Christians built churches, monasteries, and martyria. In the aftermath of the massacre, the clan of Arethas of Najran of the Christian community built a martyrium dedicated to the martyred Christians known as the Kaaba of Najran, one of several pre-Islamic Arabian Kaabas. This Kaaba became a point of pilgrimage, and its custodians were from Banū ʿAbd al-Madān, the chief clan of the tribe of Balḥārith. As such, Najran became one of the holy cities of Eastern Christianity. The Kaaba may be identical to another building named the Martyry of Arethas in sources, constructed around 520 in the memory of the martyrdom of Arethas. In addition to the Kaaba Najran, three churches from Najran are known: the Church of the Ascension of Christ, the Church of the Holy Martyrs and the Glorious Arethas, and the Church of the Holy Mother of God. Monasticism (involving Monk and Monastery) is also documented.
Najran was the only episcopal see in the Arabian Peninsula apart from those in Eastern Arabia. The first bishops of Najran are mentioned by the letter written in 524 of Simeon, the bishop of Beth Arsham. According to Simeon, Philoxenus of Mabbug consecrated two bishops, both called Mar Pawlos (Paul). Both died during the massacre, the first during the siege of Zafar, and the second in Najran before its final surrender to Dhu Nuwas. The consecration being done by Philoxenus, a leading member of the Syrian Orthodox Church, indicates a Miaphysite, non-Chalcedonian Christianity at Najran. Other bishops are mentioned in Islamic sources, including the legendary Quss Ibn Sa'ida al-Iyadi, a contemporary of Muhammad. Bishops are attested for Najran into the Islamic era, up until the 9th and 10th centuries.
The Christian community of Najran was also linked with Syriac Christianity and some of the clerics located at Najran were trained in Syriac monasteries.Robert Hoyland (2025). 9781614910732, The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. ISBN 9781614910732 This link is also indicated by a letter sent to the Christians of the city by the Syriac poet and bishop, Jacob of Serugh.
Two strands of the Islamic tradition commented on Christian community of Najran: those sources commenting on the Quranic story of the People of the Ditch, believed by many to be about the massacre of Najran's Christians, and South Arabian Muslims with an antiquarian interest in the regions pre-Islamic history.
In 1633, the Principality of Najran was established, a state that was initially under the suzerainty of a Yemeni kingdom, although control over it later moved to the Ottoman Empire as part of the formation of Ottoman Arabia.
After taking Najran in 1934, the local Jewish population was recorded by Saudi Arabia at around 200 at the time. In 1949, they were permitted to leave to the Yemen city of Aden, where they rejoined the Yemenite Jewish community that were migrating to Israel.
With the arrival of Mishʻal bin Suʻūd as the governor of Najran in 1996, tensions between local authorities and the Ismaʻili population increased, culminating in a watershed confrontation between armed Ismaʻili demonstrators and police and army units outside Najran's Holiday Inn hotel on April 23, 2000. Three months earlier, police had closed all Tayyibi Ismaʻili on a religious holiday. On April 23, after security forces and religious morality police arrested an Ismāʻīlī cleric, a large demonstration took place outside the Holiday Inn, where Governor Mishʻal resided. After the governor refused for hours to meet the petitioners, an exchange of fire between security forces and armed demonstrators left two Ismāʻīlīs dead and, according to some government accounts, killed one policeman as well. Believing their religious identity to be under attack, Ismāʻili men erected defences around Khushaywah, the seat of the Ismaʻili religious leader Da'i al-Mutlaq. Khushaywah, which includes the Manṣūrah Mosque complex, was also the spiritual capital of Sulaymani Ismaʻilis, a community with followers in India and Pakistan as well as Saudi Arabia and Yemen. The army surrounded the Ismaʻili positions and placed the city under its control. The standoff ended later the same day without further bloodshed.
In 1981, construction for the Najran Valley Dam was completed, in the Wadi Najran about southwest of the main city. Its purposes include water supply, flood control and groundwater recharge.
| + Notable Sports Clubs and Centers in Najran ! scope="col" style="width: 30%;" | Name ! scope="col" style="width: 30%;" | Arabic Name ! scope="col" style="width: 20%; text-align: center;" | Founded ! scope="col" style="width: 20%; text-align: center;" | Type |
|
|
