Tharan Yuhanim

Thaʾrān Yuhanʿim
King of the Himyarite Kingdom
Reign324–375 CE
PredecessorDhamar Ali Yuhabirr
SuccessorMalkikarib Yuhamin
Diedc. 375
Yemen
FatherDhamar Ali Yuhabirr
Religion

Thaʾrān Yuhanʿim (c. 324–375) was a king (Tubba', Arabic: تُبَّع) of the Himyarite Kingdom (in modern-day Yemen), and was the second king of the new dynasty founded by his father Dhamar Ali Yuhabirr. He had an unusually long reign, on the order of fifty to fifty-five years and his son, Malkikarib Yuhamin, appears to have entered the throne at an advanced age.[1]

Iwona Gajda has proposed that the oldest known monotheistic Himyarite inscription (YM 1950), dating either to 363 or 373, comes from his reign.[2] More recently, Christian Julien Robin has identified an earlier monotheistic inscription from his reign that dates earlier than 355.[3]

Byzantine historians more prominently know of a conversion to Judaism during the reign of his son and successor, Malkikarib.[4]

He is known to the Islamic-era Yemeni traditionalist al-Hasan al-Hamdani as Yunʿim Tārān, and was conceived by this author to be the founder of a dynasty. He is also known to Muhammad ibn Habib al-Baghdadi as Bārān Yuhanʿim in his al-Muḥabbar.[1]

  1. ^ a b Robin 2012, p. 264–265.
  2. ^ Gajda 2002.
  3. ^ Nebes, Norbert (2008). "Die Märtyrer von Nagrān und das Ende der Ḥimyar. Zur politischen Geschichte Südarabiens im frühen sechsten Jahrhundert". Aethiopica (in German). 11: 17, n. 45. doi:10.15460/aethiopica.11.1.141. ISSN 2194-4024.
  4. ^ Hughes 2020, p. 26–29.