The Martyrs of Najrân

Hearing Other Voices: Christian Women And The Coming Of Islam

“…Behold how with unveiled face I am going out of your city in which I have lived as if in a temporary dwelling, so that I may journey, I and my daughters, to the other city, because it is to that place that I have betrothed them. 46 The use of veiling as a literary mechanism in the imagery of marriage to Christ does not compromise the other information we are given about Ruhayma's veiling and seclusion. Ruhayma's uncovering and unveiling are pronounced features of her martyrdom, remarked upon in the narrator's and the king's voices, as well as in her own.…”

“…In testifying that she is a woman of independent wealth, Ruhayma appeals to the experience of women who have been guests in her home and have seen her treasures: "There are those among you women who, together with their daughters, have seen these in my house." 44 Finally taken before the king, Ruhayma is unveiled, and, Simeon tells us, unashamed, which implies that under normal circumstances she should have felt shame. In the version of the story recorded in the Book of the Himyarites, the king says, "Verily thou art mad who hitherto hast let thyself be seen only by few men and, when thou hast been summoned to appear before me, now, behold thou standest without shame as a harlot."…”

“…Upon learning that the king, after killing many of the Christian nobility of Najran, has offered to spare her life if she will deny Christ, she goes to the marketplace of the city unveiled, and the narrator tells us that she is one "whose face no one had ever seen outside the door of her house and who had never walked during the day in the city until that day when she stood before the whole city, with her head uncovered." 42 The phrase, "during the day" evokes an Arabian sex-segregation practice of women's visiting after sundown, when the streets were emptied and dark. 43 The respectable woman of Najran, the texts also suggest, received only women as guests in her private apartments.…”

“…Of the resulting massacres, the killings in Najran are only the most famous. Massacres also occurred in Zafar and in Hadramawt, 20 and among the Christian coastal tribe of Ash c ar. 21 In spite of the massacre, and in spite of the removal of large numbers of Najran Christians to Iraq after the Muslim conquest, Najran remained the seat of a bishop and still maintained a monastery into the next century after the coming of Islam, and Christians continued to live in the city for at least two hundred years after the Prophet.…”

Citizenship in the Arab World : Kin, Religion and Nation-State

“…Despite disputes on the authenticity of the narrative, Jews and Christians in the Arabian peninsula were soon almost entirely uprooted. A case in point is the deportation of the entire Christian population of Najrān in a new settlement in Iraq (al-Najrānīyah; Shahid 1971).…”