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
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 ...
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
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, ...
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 ...
ic
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.
See also
*
Tihamah Region, a federal region in Yemen
*
Kingdom of Hejaz
The Hashemite Kingdom of Hejaz (, ''Al-Mamlakah al-Ḥijāziyyah Al-Hāshimiyyah'') was a state in the Hejaz region of Western Asia that included the western portion of the Arabian Peninsula that was ruled by the Hashemite dynasty. It was self ...
*
Najd
Najd is a Historical region, historical region of the Arabian Peninsula that includes most of the central region of Saudi Arabia. It is roughly bounded by the Hejaz region to the west, the Nafud desert in Al-Jawf Province, al-Jawf to the north, ...
References
Further reading
*
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