Qedarites

Qedarite Confederation
𐪄𐪕𐪇[1]
9th century BC–1st century BC
Qedarites in the 5th century BC
Qedarites in the 5th century BC
CapitalDūmat
Common languagesDumaitic
Old Arabic
Aramaic[2]
Religion
North Arabian polytheism
GovernmentMonarchy
King 
Historical eraAntiquity
• Established
9th century BC
• Absorbed into the Nabataean state
1st century BC
Succeeded by
Nabataean Kingdom

The Qedarites (Ancient North Arabian: 𐪄𐪕𐪇, romanized: qdr) were an ancient Arab tribal confederation centred in their capital Dumat al-Jandal in the present-day Saudi Arabian province of Al-Jawf. Attested from the 9th century BC, the Qedarites formed a powerful polity which expanded its territory throughout the 9th to 7th centuries BC to cover a large area in northern Arabia stretching from Transjordan in the west to the western borders of Babylonia in the east, before later consolidating into a kingdom that stretched from the eastern limits of the Nile Delta in the west till Transjordan in the east and covered much of southern Judea (then known as Idumea), the Negev and the Sinai Peninsula.[3][4]

The Qedarites played an important role in the history of the Levant and North Arabia, where they enjoyed close relations with the nearby Canaanite and Aramaean states and became important participants in the trade of spices and aromatics imported into the Fertile Crescent and the Mediterranean world from South Arabia. Having engaged in both friendly ties and hostilities with the Mesopotamian powers such as the Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian empires, the Qedarites eventually became integrated within the structure of the Achaemenid Empire.[5] Closely associated with the Nabataeans,[6] who may have eventually assimilated the Qedarites at the end of the Hellenistic period.[7]

The Qedarites also feature within the scriptures of Abrahamic religions, where they appear in the Hebrew and Christian Bible and the Qurʾān as the eponymous descendants of Qēḏār/Qaydār, the second son of Yīšmāʿēʾl/ʾIsmāʿīl, himself the son of ʾAḇrāhām/Ibrāhīm.[6][8][7] Within Islamic tradition, some scholars claim that the Islamic prophet Muhammad was descended from ʾIsmāʿīl through Qaydār.[9]

  1. ^ Hayajneh 2012, p. 127.
  2. ^ Graf 1997, p. 223.
  3. ^ Stearns and Langer, 2001, p. 41.
  4. ^ Eshel 2007, p. 149.
  5. ^ Retsö 2013, pp. 119–211.
  6. ^ a b Bechtel 1908.
  7. ^ a b Shahîd 1989.
  8. ^ Fulton 1979.
  9. ^ al-Mousawi 1998, p. 219.