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Showing posts from March, 2008

A last (?) look at the Akhdam

After the last post , I poked around the library a bit to see if I could find more substantive information on Yemen's Akhdam and their traditional association with the region's 6th C. Aksumite conquerors. I found "Akhdam tribe in servitude," a 1976 Geographical article by James Horgen. His version of the "commonly held myth about their ancestry...heard from both illiterate tribesmen and learned scholars" goes something like this: After 570, Sayf ibn dhi-Yaz'an, the Jewish Himyarite aristocrat who'd successfully entreatied Sassanid Persia to deliver his people from Aksumite Christian dominion, was installed as Persia's vassal. He killed the surviving Aksumite fighters, save for a few who were kept as a ceremonial guard for his processions. Ceremonial or not, the Aksumites still carried spears. They played along with the pomp for a while, but one day, they turned those spears on Sayf ibn dhi-Yaz'an and assassinated him. This prompted the