Qedarite (also Kedarite and Kedar or Qedar) refers to a largely nomadic Arab people that lived in an area extending eastward from the western boundary of Babylon in the 8th century BC.[1][2][3] Moving into areas of the Transjordan and southern Syria in the 7th century BC, by the 5th century, they had spread into the Sinai and as far as the Nile Delta.[1][4] The Qedarites are eponymously named for Qedar, the second son of Ishmael, mentioned in the Bible's books of Genesis (25:13) and Chronicles (1:29).[1][5]

The Oxford Encyclopedia of Archaeology in the Near East (2006) describes the Qedarites as an "Arab tribal confederation".[3] Philip J. King describes them as "an alliance of nomadic Arab tribes living in the northwest Arabian desert" that were "an influential force" from the 8th to 4th centuries BC.[2] Herodotus places the Qedarites as living in northern Sinai near the Egyptian border where it is thought that they may have been engaged by the Achaemenid authorities to keep that border secure.[1] Israel Eph'al writes that, "Such breadth of Qedarite distribution suggests a federation of tribes with various sub-divisions."[1]

Historical references

The first documented mention of the Qedarites dates is from an 8th century BC stele of Tiglath-Pileser III that lists the leaders from the western part of Mesopatamia.[1] In Assyrian, the Qedarites were known as Qidri or qi-id-ri.[4][5] Statements about the Qedarites in the annals of Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal indicate that the term "Kedar" was almost synonymous with "Arabia".[5] Yauta (Yautha), a king of the Qedarites, is noted to have paid tribute to the Assyrian monarchs in the form of 10 minas of gold, 1,000 precious stones, 50 camels, and 1,000 leather pouches of aromatics of all kinds.[6] Some time after paying this tribute, Yauta is said to have "fled to the Nabataeans."[7] Ammuladi and 'Iauta (Uaite), son of Hazael, are also listed as kings of Qedar who were defeated after they marched against the kings of the Amurru in the annals of Ashurbanipal.[5] 'Iauta, a vassal of the Assyrian empire and grand-nephew of Yauta, is said to have "roused the people of Arabia to revolt with him."[5][7] Captured and taken to Nineveh, Ashurbanipal records, "I put a dog chain upon him and made him guard a kennel."[5] Abiyate was appointed king in his place and soon joined with the Nabataeans to revolt against Assyria again, prompting Ashurbanipal to take a second expedition into Arabia to quash this revolt.[7]

Old South Arabic inscriptions mention qdrn ("Qadirān" or "Qadrān") as a person or people.[5] The "king of Qedar" is also mentioned in a late 5th century Aramaic inscription on a silver vessel found at Tell Maskhuta in the eastern Nile Delta in lower Egypt.[8] The inscription names the Qedarite king as "Qainū son of Gashmu" with the vessel described as an "offering to han-'Ilāt".[1][8] Herodotus notes of the Qedarites that they assisted Cambyses of the Persian empire in his invasion of Egypt.[4] Citing the many historical references, Geoffrey Bromiley writes, "A conclusion that Kedar was a prominent Arabian tribe living SE of Damascus and E of the Transjordan is thus reasonable."[5]

Biblical

The descendants of Abraham and Hagar are called Ishmaelites, after Ishmael, their firstborn, and the Qedarites are named for his second son, Qedar.[9] The Bible refers to both the Qedarites and Qedar frequently.[2] Old Testament references include Genesis (25:13), Isaiah (21:16-17, 42:11, 60:7), Jeremiah (2:10, 49:28-33), Ezekiel (27:21), and Chronicles (1:29).[4] Twice, Qedar is used to refer to the actual son of Ishmael, as in the books of Genesis and Chronicles, while remaining references are to his descendants, referring either to his most prominent North Arabian sons, or to the Arabs and Bedouins as a more general collective.[10] The "tents of Kedar" equated with "the peace-hating Meshech" mentioned in the Book of Psalms (120:5) were likely a Qedarite sub-group.[10] In Canticles (1:5), the Qedarites are described as dark-skinned.[10]

Biblical descriptions indicate there were two major types of Qedarites: nomads (Arabic: warbariya) living in tents and sedentary people (Arabic:ḥaḍariya) living in villages.[5] Jeremiah describes them as "a nation at ease, that dwells securely." (49:31).[5] Isaiah recalls their warrior activities and skill with the bow. (21:16f) [5] Ezekiel associates "Arabia and all the princes of Kedar", and indicates that they engaged in sheep/goat trading with the Phoenicians.[5][10] The three books list the flocks of the Qedarites as including lambs, rams, goats and camels.[5] Gashmu, the king of the Qedarites mentioned above, is also known as "Geshem the Arab" or "Geshem the Arabian" whom Nehemiah lists as one of his adversaries.[11][5]

Cultural legacy

The Qedarites are among a number of North Arabian tribes whose interactions with Arameaen tribes beginning in the 8th century BC resulted in cultural exchanges between these two large Semitic groups.[12] Arab tribal groups like the Qedarites used the Aramaic alphabet to write before the development of the Arabic alphabet.[12] Aramaic civilization and its peoples were gradually absorbed by the Arabs with Arabic dialects in Palestine, Syria, and Iraq in particular exhibiting the huge influence of Aramaic.[12]

Geneaology

Historical tradition among the Arabs holds that they are descended from Ishmael, Abraham's first son,[13] According to Irfan Shahîd,

"Geneaological Ishmaelism was viewed with suspicion as a late Islamic fabrication beause of the confusion in Islamic times which made it such a capacious term as to include the inhabitants of the south as well as the north of the Arabian Peninsula. But shorn of this extravagance, the concept is much more modest in its denotation, and in the sober sources it applies only to certain groups among the Arabs of pre-Islamic times. Some important statements to this effect were made by the Prophet Mohammed when he identified some Arabs as Ishmaelites and others as not."[14]

Ishmaelism thus holds that Ishmael was both an important religious figure and eponymous ancestor for some of the Arabs of western Arabia.[14] Prominence is given in Arab geneaological accounts to two of Ishamel's twelve sons, Nebaioth (Nabīt) and Kedar (Qāydar), who are also prominently featured in the account in Genesis.[14] It is likely that these two sons lived in northwestern Arabia and that their tribes were historically the most important of the 12 Ishamelite tribes.[14]

The Kedarites and Nabataens were known to enjoy close relations, even engaging as wartime allies against the Assyrians. It is possible that the Kedarites were eventually incorporated into the Nabataen state which emerged as the strongest Ishmaelite presence in northwestern Arabia until at least the 2nd century AD.[14] In The Cambridge Ancient History, some of the '(Arab) Nabataens' mentioned by Diodorus in the year 312 are said to be Qedarites.[15]

In accounts tracing the ancestry of the prophet Mohammed back to Ma'ad, Arab scholars alternate, with some citing the line as through Nebaioth, others Qedar.[16] Many Muslim scholars see Isaiah 42 (21:13-17) as predicting the coming of a servant of God who is associated with Qedar and interpret this as a reference to Mohammed.[17]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g Eshel in Lipschitz et al., 2007, p. 149.
  2. ^ a b c King, 1993, p. 40.
  3. ^ a b Meyers, 1997, p. 223.
  4. ^ a b c d Blenkinsopp, 1988, p. 225.
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Bromiley, 1997, p. 5.
  6. ^ Coogan, 2001, p. 8.
  7. ^ a b c Paton, 2008, p. 269.
  8. ^ a b Guzzo et al., 2002, p. 11.
  9. ^ Alexander and Alexander, 1839, p. 50.
  10. ^ a b c d Freedman et al., 2000, p. 761.
  11. ^ Malamat and Ben-Sasson, 1976, p. 177.
  12. ^ a b c Greenfield et al., 2001, p. 158.
  13. ^ Shahîd, 1989, p. 334.
  14. ^ a b c d e Shahîd, 1989, p. 335-336.
  15. ^ Boardman et al., 1988, p. 148.
  16. ^ Hussain al-Mousawi in Boudreau et al., 1998, p. 219.
  17. ^ Zepp et al., 2000, p. 50.

Bibliography

  • Alexander, James Waddell; Alexander, Joseph Addison (1839), Geography of the Bible, by J.W. and J.A. Alexander, Oxford University
  • Blenkinsopp, Joseph (1988), Ezra-Nehemiah: A Commentary, Westminster John Knox Press, ISBN 0664221866, 9780664221867 ((citation)): Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help)
  • Boardman, John; Bury, John Bagnell; Cook, Stanley Arthur; Adcock, Frank E.; Hammond, N. G. L.; Charlesworth, Martin Percival; Lewis, D. M.; Baynes, Norman Hepburn; Ostwald, M.; Seltman, Charles Theodore (1988), The Cambridge Ancient History (2nd, illustrated, reprint, revised ed.), Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0521228042, 9780521228046 ((citation)): Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help)
  • Boudreau, Claire; Cogné, Daniel; Vachon, Auguste (1998), Genealogica & heraldica: proceedings of the 22nd International Congress of Genealogical and Heraldic Sciences in Ottawa, August 18-23, 1996 (Illustrated ed.), University of Ottawa Press, ISBN 0776604724, 9780776604725 ((citation)): Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help)
  • Bromiley, Geoffrey W. (1994), International Standard Bible Encyclopedia: K-P (Revised ed.), Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, ISBN 0802837832, 9780802837837 ((citation)): Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help)
  • Coogan, Michael David (2001), The Oxford history of the biblical world (Illustrated ed.), Oxford University Press US, ISBN 0195139372, 9780195139372 ((citation)): Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help)
  • Beck, Astrid B.; Myers, Allen C. (2000), Eerdmans dictionary of the Bible (Illustrated ed.), Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, ISBN 0802824005, 9780802824004 ((citation)): Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help)
  • Greenfield, Jonas C.; Stone, Michael E; Pinnick, Avital (2001), Al kanfei Yonah: collected studies of Jonas C. Greenfield on Semitic philology (Illustrated ed.), BRILL, ISBN 9004121706, 9789004121706 ((citation)): |first2= missing |last2= (help); Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help)CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  • Guzzo, Maria Giulia Amadasi; Schneider, Eugenia Equini; Cochrane, Lydia G. (2002), Petra (Illustrated ed.), University of Chicago Press, ISBN 0226311252, 9780226311258 ((citation)): Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help)
  • King, Philip J. (1993), Jeremiah: An Archaeological Companion (Illustrated ed.), Westminster John Knox Press, ISBN 0664224431, 9780664224431 ((citation)): Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help)
  • Lipschitz, Oded; Knoppers, Gary N.; Albertz, Rainer (2007), Judah and the Judeans in the fourth century B.C.E. (Illustrated ed.), EISENBRAUNS, ISBN 1575061309, 9781575061306 ((citation)): Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help)
  • Malamat, Abraham; Ben-Sasson, Haim Hillel (1976), A History of the Jewish People (11th, reprint, illustrated ed.), Harvard University Press, ISBN 0674397312, 9780674397316 ((citation)): Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help)
  • Meyers, Eric M.; American Schools of Oriental Research (1997), The Oxford Encyclopedia of Archaeology in the Near East (Illustrated ed.), Oxford University Press, ISBN 0195112180, 9780195112184 ((citation)): Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help)
  • Paton (2008), The Early History of Syria and Palestine, BiblioBazaar, LLC, ISBN 0554479591, 9780554479590 ((citation)): |first1= missing |last1= (help); Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help)
  • Shahîd, Irfan (1989), Byzantium and the Arabs in the fifth century (Illustrated, reprint ed.), Dumbarton Oaks, ISBN 0884021521, 9780884021520 ((citation)): Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help)
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