Tihamah or Tihama ( ') is the

Red Sea The Red Sea is a sea inlet of the Indian Ocean, lying between Africa and Asia. Its connection to the ocean is in the south, through the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait and the Gulf of Aden. To its north lie the Sinai Peninsula, the Gulf of Aqaba, and th ...

coastal plain A coastal plain (also coastal plains, coastal lowland, coastal lowlands) is an area of flat, low-lying land adjacent to a sea coast. A fall line commonly marks the border between a coastal plain and an upland area. Formation Coastal plains can f ...

of the

Arabian Peninsula The Arabian Peninsula (, , or , , ) or Arabia, is a peninsula in West Asia, situated north-east of Africa on the Arabian plate. At , comparable in size to India, the Arabian Peninsula is the largest peninsula in the world. Geographically, the ...

from the

Gulf of Aqaba The Gulf of Aqaba () or Gulf of Eilat () is a large gulf at the northern tip of the Red Sea, east of the Sinai Peninsula and west of the Arabian Peninsula. Its coastline is divided among four countries: Egypt, Israel, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia. ...

to the

Bab el Mandeb The Bab-el-Mandeb (), the Gate of Grief or the Gate of Tears, is a strait between Yemen on the Arabian Peninsula and Djibouti and Eritrea in the Horn of Africa. It connects the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden and by extension the Indian Ocean. ...

Etymology

Tihāmat is the

Proto-Semitic language Proto-Semitic is the Linguistic reconstruction, reconstructed common ancestor of the Semitic languages. There is no consensus regarding the location of the linguistic homeland for Proto-Semitic: scholars hypothesize that it may have originated i ...

's term for '

sea A sea is a large body of salt water. There are particular seas and the sea. The sea commonly refers to the ocean, the interconnected body of seawaters that spans most of Earth. Particular seas are either marginal seas, second-order section ...

Tiamat In Mesopotamian religion, Tiamat ( or , ) is the primordial sea, mating with Abzû (Apsu), the groundwater, to produce the gods in the Babylonian epic '' Enûma Elish'', which translates as "when on high". She is referred to as a woman, an ...

(or

Tehom Tehom ( ''təhôm'') is a Northwest Semitic and Biblical Hebrew word meaning "the deep" or "abyss" (literally "the deeps"). It is used to describe the primeval ocean and the post- creation waters of the earth. It is a cognate of the Akkadian word ...

, in masculine form) was the ancient

Mesopotamia Mesopotamia is a historical region of West Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the Fertile Crescent. Today, Mesopotamia is known as present-day Iraq and forms the eastern geographic boundary of ...

n god of the sea and of chaos. The word appears in the

Hebrew Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...

Bible The Bible is a collection of religious texts that are central to Christianity and Judaism, and esteemed in other Abrahamic religions such as Islam. The Bible is an anthology (a compilation of texts of a variety of forms) originally writt ...

as təhōm (

Genesis Genesis may refer to: Religion * Book of Genesis, the first book of the biblical scriptures of both Judaism and Christianity, describing the creation of the Earth and of humankind * Genesis creation narrative, the first several chapters of the Bo ...

1:2), meaning "primordial ocean, abyss".

History

Era of Muhammad

During the era of the Islamic prophet

Muhammad Muhammad (8 June 632 CE) was an Arab religious and political leader and the founder of Islam. Muhammad in Islam, According to Islam, he was a prophet who was divinely inspired to preach and confirm the tawhid, monotheistic teachings of A ...

, many military expeditions took place here including the Battle of Hamra al-Asad and caravan raids. Beginning in January 623 CE, some of the Muslims resorted to the tradition of raiding the Meccan caravans that traveled along the eastern coast of the

from

Mecca Mecca, officially Makkah al-Mukarramah, is the capital of Mecca Province in the Hejaz region of western Saudi Arabia; it is the Holiest sites in Islam, holiest city in Islam. It is inland from Jeddah on the Red Sea, in a narrow valley above ...

to the Syrian region. While at Ḥamra' al-Asad (), Muhammad made an agreement with Mabad al-Khuzaah at Tihamah, in which Mabad pledged not to conceal anything from him. Mabad was then sent to Mecca to dissuade

Abu Sufyan ibn Harb Sakhr ibn Harb ibn Umayya (; ), commonly known by his ' Abu Sufiyan (), was a prominent opponent-turned companion and father-in-law of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. He was the father of the first Umayyad caliph Mu'awiya I () and namesake of the S ...

from fighting. In Mecca, Mabad met with Abu Sufyan and exaggerated that Muhammad had gathered a great force to fight Abu Sufyan. Abu Sufyan and his companions were planning a massive and decisive attack on

Medina Medina, officially al-Madinah al-Munawwarah (, ), also known as Taybah () and known in pre-Islamic times as Yathrib (), is the capital of Medina Province (Saudi Arabia), Medina Province in the Hejaz region of western Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, ...

to finish off the Muslims once and for all. Hearing Mabad's talk of the great military strength of Muhammad, Abu Sufyan retreated from his plan of an immediate attack on the Muslims. In this fashion Muhammad successfully managed to prevent the massive onslaught the Meccans were planning.

Geography

The region is sometimes subdivided into two parts, ''Tihāmat Al- Ḥijaz'' (; northern part) and ''Tihāmat ʿAsīr'' (; southern part). The Yemeni part () is an extension of ''Tihamat ʿAsir''. The plain is constricted and attains its greatest widths, , south of

and Mecca. The cities of Yanbu,

Jeddah Jeddah ( ), alternatively transliterated as Jedda, Jiddah or Jidda ( ; , ), is a List of governorates of Saudi Arabia, governorate and the largest city in Mecca Province, Saudi Arabia, and the country's second largest city after Riyadh, located ...

and Al Qunfudhah are located in the Hijazi part of the Tihamah. The Asiri-

Yemen Yemen, officially the Republic of Yemen, is a country in West Asia. Located in South Arabia, southern Arabia, it borders Saudi Arabia to Saudi Arabia–Yemen border, the north, Oman to Oman–Yemen border, the northeast, the south-eastern part ...

i part of the Tihami plain includes the cities of

Jizan Jizan () is a city and the capital of Jazan Province, which lies in the southwest corner of Saudi Arabia. Jizan is situated on the coast of the Red Sea and serves a large agricultural heartland that has a population of 173,919 as of 2022 and over ...

and

Al Hudaydah Hodeidah (), also transliterated as Hodeda, Hodeida, Hudaida or al-Hudaydah, is the fourth-largest city in Yemen and its Hudaydah Port, principal port on the Red Sea and it is the centre of Al Hudaydah Governorate. As of 2023, it had an estimate ...

. The temperatures in Tihamah are probably some of the hottest on earth. ''Tihamah'' in Arabic means severe heat and lack of wind.

Flora

The extensive sandy coastal plain (the Tihamah) is a hot and inhospitable area parallel to the Red Sea, and most of it, north of

Zabid Zabid () (also spelled Zabīd, Zabeed and Zebid) is a town with an urban population of around 52,590 people, located on Yemen's western coastal plain. It is one of the oldest towns in Yemen, and has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1993. Ho ...

(Yemen), is devoid of trees. However, in a few places there is dense shrub composed almost exclusively of ''

Vachellia flava ''Vachellia flava'', Synonym (taxonomy), synonym ''Acacia ehrenbergiana'', is a species of drought-resistant bush or small tree, commonly known as salam in Arabic. It is found in the Sahara, the northern Sahel, parts of East Africa, the Arabian ...

'' and it may be assumed that this was originally the dominant natural vegetation of the Tihamah. ''

Salvadora persica Salvadora may refer to: * Salvadora Medina Onrubia (1894-1972), Argentine poet, anarchist, feminist * ''Salvadora'' (snake), a genus of patchnose snakes in the family Colubridae * ''Salvadora'' (plant), a genus of flowering plants in the fami ...

'' occurs in thickets, and there are odd trees of '' Balanites aegyptiaca'' and colonies of wild doum palm ('' Hyphaene thebaica''), as well as planted

date palm ''Phoenix dactylifera'', commonly known as the date palm, is a flowering-plant species in the palm family Arecaceae, cultivated for its edible sweet #Fruits, fruit called dates. The species is widely cultivated across North Africa, northern A ...

s (''Phoenix dactylifera'').

Archaeology

Over sixteen

megalith A megalith is a large stone that has been used to construct a prehistoric structure or monument, either alone or together with other stones. More than 35,000 megalithic structures have been identified across Europe, ranging geographically f ...

menhir A menhir (; from Brittonic languages: ''maen'' or ''men'', "stone" and ''hir'' or ''hîr'', "long"), standing stone, orthostat, or lith is a large upright stone, emplaced in the ground by humans, typically dating from the European middle Br ...

s were discovered by Edward Keall, director of the

Royal Ontario Museum The Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) is a museum of art, world culture and natural history in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is one of the largest museums in North America and the largest in Canada. It attracts more than one million visitors every year ...

's Canadian Archaeological Mission near the village of Al-Mutaynah () in the Tihami area. The stones were made of

granite Granite ( ) is a coarse-grained (phanerite, phaneritic) intrusive rock, intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly coo ...

and weighted up to . Three of the upright stones measured around tall with one fallen being over in length.

Copper Copper is a chemical element; it has symbol Cu (from Latin ) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkish-orang ...

tools suggested to date to the same era as the construction of the stones were dated to around 2400 to 1800 BCE. An even more archaic lithic

industry Industry may refer to: Economics * Industry (economics), a generally categorized branch of economic activity * Industry (manufacturing), a specific branch of economic activity, typically in factories with machinery * The wider industrial sector ...

was found along with pottery

sherd This page is a glossary of archaeology, the study of the human past from material remains. A B C D E F ...

s that were dated between 1200 and 800 BCE.

References

External links

{{Subject bar, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Asia, Middle East Megalithic monuments in the Middle East Landforms of Saudi Arabia Landforms of Yemen Plains of Asia Historical regions in Saudi Arabia Regions of Yemen Historical regions Tiamat Coastal plains Geographical regions of the Arabian Peninsula