The Qedarites (also Kedarites/Cedarenes, Cedar/Kedar/Qedar, and Kingdom of Qedar) are a largely nomadic, ancient Arab tribal confederation.
At the peak of its power in the 6th century BCE, it controls a large region between the Persian Gulf and the Sinai Peninsula.
Biblical tradition holds that the Qedarites are named for Qedar, the second son of Ishmael, mentioned in the Bible's books of Genesis (25:13) and 1 Chronicles (1:29), where there are also frequent references to Qedar as a tribe.
The earliest extrabiblical inscriptions discovered by archaeologists that mention the Qedarites are from the Neo-Assyrian Empire.
Spanning the 8th and 7th centuries BC, they list the names of Qedarite kings who revolted and were defeated in battle, as well as those who paid Assyrian monarchs tribute, including Zabibe, queen of the Arabs (šar-rat KUR.a-ri-bi).
There are also Aramaic and Old South Arabian inscriptions recalling the Qedarites, who further appear briefly in the writings of Classical Greek and Roman historians, such as Herodotus, Pliny the Elder, and Diodorus.It is unclear when the Qedarites ceased to exist as a separately defined confederation or people.
Allies with the Nabataeans, it is likely that they were subsumed into the Nabataean state around the 2nd century CE.
Arab genealogical scholars widely consider Ishmael to be an ancestral forefather of the Arab people, and assign great importance in their accounts to his first two sons (Nebaioth and Qedar), with the genealogy of Mohammed, the founder of Islam, alternately assigned to one or the other son, depending on the scholar.
