The Jewish Communities of Arabia
Jewish tribes lived in the oases of Arabia and in Yemen — farmers, jewellers and warriors; in Himyar Judaism briefly became the religion of the kingdom.
Long before Islam, the Arabian peninsula held Jewish communities. How they arrived is uncertain: some probably came after the destruction of the Second Temple and the Bar Kokhba war, others along trade routes from Babylonia and the Land of Israel.
In the oasis of Yathrib — the future Medina — lived three large tribes: Banu Qaynuqa, Banu Nadir and Banu Qurayza. They held palm groves, smithies and armouries, with fortified compounds, their own chiefs and their place in alliances with Arab tribes. Further north, at Khaybar, stood a chain of Jewish fortresses among date orchards; Jewish clans also lived at Tayma and Fadak.
The most striking chapter is Yemen. In the late fifth and early sixth century the Himyarite kingdom adopted Judaism: inscriptions survive in which the king addresses the Lord of Heaven with no pagan names. The last of these kings, Yosef Dhu Nuwas, went to war with Christian Ethiopia; in 4283, after a massacre of the Christians of Najran, an Ethiopian army backed by Byzantium crushed Himyar. But the Jewish community of Yemen remained another fifteen centuries, until the mass emigration to Israel in 5709.
Arabian Jews spoke Arabic and composed poetry in the Arabic tradition — the poet Samawal ibn Adiya became an Arab proverb for keeping one's word. Yet they kept the Sabbath, the dietary laws and their houses of study, and their neighbours knew of Jewish Scripture long before Muhammad.