640 or 642 The “Victory of Victories” by the Arabs over the Persians at Nehavend. The last great Persian army is shattered. The nobles gradually yield to the Arab chiefs. Yezdegerd is driven from place to place, continually shorn of more and more power until he is murdered in 651, and Persia becomes part of the Mohammedan dominions.
THE ARABS
THE PRE-MOHAMMEDAN ERA
Before the Mohammedan conquests, Arabia is divided into a number of local monarchies. In these we recognise two distinct origins.
(1) Those ruled by a race of southern origin—the genuine or Kahtanee Arabs. Their monarchies form a rim around the wild and desert centre of the peninsula.
(2) The centre of Arabia is occupied by nomadic races—the Mustareb Arabs, of northern origin, descendants of a mythical Adnan.
THE KAHTANEE KINGDOMS (ca. 380 B.C.-634 A.D.)
The kingdom of Yemen is the most important and powerful of these. It occupies a portion of the ancient Arabia Felix. Descendants of Kahtan and Himyar—names of African origin—its monarchs rule over the whole of southern Arabia from about 380 B.C., with but few interruptions. The capital is first at Mareb and then at Sana. The northern kingdoms are more or less tributary. The Persians, Greeks, and Macedonians make no attempts upon Arabia, if we except the frontier skirmishes of Antigonus and Ptolemy. Rome had an eye to its conquest. Pompey, the first to attempt it, is foiled, and it was not until
B.C.
25 when Ælius Gallus, the prefect of Egypt, undertakes an expedition at the command of Augustus. His army is unable to support the hardships of the desert, and the following year the Arabs drive the remnant out. Later attempts under Trajan and Severus do not succeed beyond the frontier, and Bosrah and Petra mark the extreme limits of Roman dominion.