Sudan Archiveالعربية

8 THE PRE-ISLAMIC ARABIAN ELEMENT 1. 1. xvii.

an incursion into the Sudan and advanced as far as the Moghrab.

This story evidently points to a Himyaritic expedition into the Sudan

by way of Abyssinia. Abraha's son Afrikus, or Ibn Afriki, invaded

northern Africa probably about 46 B.C.

XVIII There are grounds for supposing that these invasions were

followed by two distinct Himyaritic settlements in the interior of

Africa.

In the first place, numbers of them are said to have settled west

of Egypt among the Libyan tribes and multiplied with these under

the common name of Berbers : such is the origin assigned with very

reasonable probability to the Sanhaga and Ketama sections of the

Berber^. In this connection it may be noted that at the battle of Actium Arabs of the Yemen fought for Antony on the galleys of

Cleopatra^.

Secondly, it seems certain that colonies of Himyarites settled in

Nubia, though it is hard to say whether the traces of Himyaritic

carnayn' ('^ deux cornes'). Les uns pretendent que c'est parce qu'il avait deux Eminences sur la tete, d'autres parce qu'il avait deux cornettes k sa couronne, d'autres parce qu'il avait deux longues tresses de cheveux pendantes, d'autres parce qu'il subjugua I'univers, de I'Orient reel k I'Occident reel, etc La de- nomination d' 'Alexandre aux deux cornes' est I'analogue de celle de Jupiter Ammon." (Perron, ap. el Tunisi, Voy. an Ddrfour, pp. 456, 458.)

* Caussin de Perceval (i, 70) points out that Caesar in 46 B.C. was opposed in Africa by the Numidians of Juba, i.e. by the Libyo-Berber tribes, and that these

latter were compelled to retreat before meeting Caesar because of an invasion of Juba's state at the instigation of Caesar bj^ a certain Sittius at the head of an army of adventurers. Sittius may be Afrikus, and the name Afrfkus may have been merely conferred in honour of the expedition. Ibn Khaldun (i, 27) calls him "ibn

Saifi." Concerning the expedition itself see Ibn Khaldun, I, 168-176 (citing Ibn el Kelbi) ;Pococke, Spec. Hist. Ar. p. 60 ; Abu el Fida, pp. 116, 117; Caussin de Perceval,

I, 69 (citing the above and el Nuwayry's Hist. Imp. Vet. Yoct. p. 52); Carette, Explor. Scietit. de VAlgerie, iii, 306; and Leo Africanus (Hakluyt ed.), i, 122.

^ See Ibn Khaldun, i, 27 and 184, and 11, 178; and cp. el Mas'udi, iii, 240. Ibn el Rakik {q.v. ap. Carette, loc. cit. p. 49) says that the first people to inhabit Barbary were five colonies of Sabaeans under Ibn Afrfki, king of Yemen, and that they gave birth to 600 tribes of Berbers. These five colonies were taken to be the Sanhaga, Masmuda, Zenata, Ghomdra, and Howara. Ibn Khaldun only allows the

Himyaritic origin of the Sanhaga and the Ketama. He says 0-* vOf^' J>y^*<^'

ly^ ^y>\ *^^*:^J'9| lj.cUoJ JlSujsS ^J\^ <Ui«JI (ed. ar., vi, 97, Bk in). He puts down the rest as related to the Philistines and descended from Canaan.

Cp. also Ibn Ba^uta, 11, 196. This traveller visited Zhafar, a month's journey by land from Aden, and records the striking resemblance between the food, the habits and the women's proper names among the people there and among those

in the Moghrab. He says

(" This resemblance bears out the statement that Sanhdga and other tribes of the

Moghrab are of Himyaritic origin.")

' Caussin de Perceval, loc. cit. p. 70, quoting Virgil, Aeneid, viii, 706.

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