The Himyarites had decided to establish a…
540 CE
The Himyarites had decided to establish a vassal state to control Central and North Arabia when the Adnani tribes of northern Arabia became a major threat to the trade line between Yemen and Syria in the fifth century.
The Banu Kinda tribe had gained the strength and numbers to fill that role, so from 425 the Himyarite king Hasan ibn Amr ibn Tubba’ made Hujr Akil al-Murar ibn Amr the first King of Kinda.
At this time, the Ghassanids, Lakhmids and Kindites were all Kahlani Qahtani vassal kingdoms appointed by the Romans, Persians and Himyarites, respectively, to protect their borders and imperial interests from the raids of the then rising threat of the Adnani tribes.
The Kindites had been the most successful in pacifying the Adnani tribes of Central Arabia through alliances and focused on wars with the Lakhmids.
The conversion of the Himyarite kings to Judaism in the late fifth century had led to the conversion to Judaism of the Kindites.
The transition of the power in Yemen to Christian Axumites in 525, when the latter invaded Himyar, appears to have significantly undermined Kindite Judaism, however; the Kindites had gradually declined, their kingdom splitting within three years into several small polities, subsequently destroyed in the 530s and 540s in a series of uprisings of the Adnani tribes against the Kindite kings.
Hujr, the last king of the Banu Kindah, had failed to revive the kingdom ruled by his father and had been assassinated sometime in the 530s.
His grieving son, Imru’ al-Qais ibn Hujr al-Kindi, writes moving poetry and forgoes the pleasures of wine and women until he can take revenge upon his father’s assassins.
Upon completing his mission, al-Qais goes on to enliven the stereotyped genre of Arabic poetry called the “qasidah” (ode) with personal love experiences and richly descriptive detail.
Raised in luxury as a prince, he suffered because he was deprived from ruling after his father’s assassination, which is why Arabs called him al-Malek-al-Delleel or the Shadow King.
(He dies around 544, believed to have been assassinated on the orders of Emperor Justinian, who had sent him a poisoned cloak after al-Qays had an affair with a princess at his court.)
In 540, the Lakhmids destroy all the Kindite settlements in Nejd, forcing the Banu Kindah to move back to the Hadhramawt.
With the Axumites ruling in Western Yemen, the Kindites and most the Arab tribes will soon switch their alliances to the Lakhmids.
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