Qualla: Najran Province https://qualla.com/najran-province en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:29 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/s/g/p/7/najran-province-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Najran Province https://qualla.com/najran-province Najran Province: Introduction https://qualla.com/najran-province/ Photo credit TacoJeddah, CC BY-SA 3.0. In February 523 AD, a Jewish king named Dhu Nuwas, ruler of the Himyarite kingdom in what is now Yemen, arrived at the gates of Najran. The city had already surrendered. He accepted the capitulation and then, according to a letter preserved by Simeon, the bishop of Beth Arsham, he demanded that the Christian inhabitants renounce their faith. Those who refused were massacred. Some sources place the death toll as high as 20,000. The site of that massacre, Al-Ukhdud, still lies in ruins at the edge of modern Najran, and the Quran itself, in Surah Al-Buruj, remembers those who were thrown into a flaming trench. Christian, Jewish, Ismaili Muslim, Sunni Muslim; Najran has been all of these, and it has paid for each transition.

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Image: TacoJeddah | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/g/p/7/najran-province-wp/sgp7-najran-province-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Najran Province: The Incense Crossroads https://qualla.com/najran-province/ Photo credit Mansour mohsen, CC BY-SA 4.0. According to Greek and Roman sources, Najran was a focal point of the ancient Incense Route. All caravans leaving Yemen for the north or west had to pass through here, where the route split: one branch ran north through the Hijaz to Egypt and the Levant, another ran northeast tow...

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]]> Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/g/p/7/najran-province-wp/sgp7-najran-province-the-incense-crossroads.mp3 0:06 2 full Najran Province: The Christians of Najran https://qualla.com/najran-province/ Photo credit Heritage Commission, CC BY-SA 4.0. Christianity arrived in Najran in the 5th century, perhaps earlier. According to the early Muslim historian Ibn Ishaq, it was the first place in South Arabia where Christianity took root. The community flourished. When the Jewish king Dhu Nuwas came in 523, they were a wealthy an...

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]]> Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/g/p/7/najran-province-wp/sgp7-najran-province-the-christians-of-najran.mp3 0:06 3 full Najran Province: The Jews of Najran https://qualla.com/najran-province/ Photo credit Mansour mohsen, CC BY-SA 4.0. Najran also had a Jewish community dating to pre-Islamic times, historically associated with the Banu al-Harith tribe, originally Yemenite Jews who had conquered the city and ruled it before the Christian arrival. With the Saudi conquest of Najran in 1934, pressure on the communi...

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]]> Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/g/p/7/najran-province-wp/sgp7-najran-province-the-jews-of-najran.mp3 0:06 4 full Najran Province: The Ismaili Majority https://qualla.com/najran-province/ Photo credit Mansour mohsen, CC BY-SA 4.0. Today Najran is inhabited primarily by the Yam tribe, a significant portion of whom are Sulaymani Ismaili Muslims, followers of one of the two main branches of contemporary Ismailism, with co-religionists in India, Pakistan, and Yemen. In Najran city, the Khushaywah compound and ...

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]]> Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/g/p/7/najran-province-wp/sgp7-najran-province-the-ismaili-majority.mp3 0:06 5 full Najran Province: A Valley Between Mountains and the Empty Quarter https://qualla.com/najran-province/ Photo credit Retlaw Snellac Photography, CC BY 2.0. The province covers 149,511 square kilometers, making it one of the largest in Saudi Arabia by area but one of the smallest by population. Its geography is tripartite: the flat central area (including the fertile Najran valley itself), the mountainous west and north where weather...

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]]> Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/g/p/7/najran-province-wp/sgp7-najran-province-a-valley-between-mountains-and-the-empty-quarter.mp3 0:06 6 full