The Nazarean Legacy Religious Conflict in Pre-Islamic Arabia as Seen through Crew-Roman Eyes

Abstract

After Pompey Magnus’s conquest of the Hellenistic East in 64 B.c., the
Roman administrators of Asia Occidentalis divided the Arabian peninsula
into three realms: Arabia Petraea (Rocky Arabia), which stretched
from Greater Syria to the Gulf of Ayala (Aqaba), and whose capital in
Petra (the Rock) was carved out by the Nabateans from sandstone on the
slopes of Ain Musa; Arabia Deserta (desert Arabia) with Bostra (Busra)
as the commercial capital in Hawran; and Arabia Felix (happy Arabia)
or Yemen with the capital city of Mariaba (Ma’rib). Arabia Petraea,
despite its wilderness, played a significant role in the political life of the
empire.’ Because of the natural supply of pure water in the barren land,
it was a midpoint on the ancient caravan route from Hadramaut to Egypt
and Syria. A variety of goods-the myrrh and frankincense of the
Sabaean Arabia Felix, ivory, gold, and slaves of East Africa, spices,
gems, and precious wood of India- were transported via Petra and
Gerasa (Jerash) to Damascus, Alexandria, and Rome. In Arabia Petraea,
the Prophet Yusuf was cast into a well by his brothers from which he was
found and brought to Egypt, where he was sold. Many readers of the
Bible believe that Ain Musa near Petra is the spring that the Prophet
Musa caused to gush forth. In the time of the Prophet Sulayman, Arabia
Petraea was populated by the semitic tribes of Edom and Moab. During
the rule of the Babylonian Nabuchadnezzar who sacked Jerusalem in 587
B.c. and deported Judean rebels to Babylon, the Edomites established a
kingdom of Sela in the land of Seir. But at the end of the sixth century
B.c., the Nabateans forced them to migrate to Idumea. Under the
Nabatean rule, Petra was recognized as the ancient “duty-fire” city. The
Nabatean desert kingdom survived as an independent state until the ...