Ma'add

Maʿadd ibn ʿAdnān (Arabic: مَعَدّ ٱبْن عَدْنَان) was a mythic Arab ancestor, traditionally regarded as the son of Adnan and the forefather of several northern Arab tribes, including Mudar and Rabi'ah. He is considered a key figure in Adnanite genealogy, linking the northern Arabs to Ishmael ibn Ibrahim (Ishmael, son of Abraham) through Adnan.

While Maʿadd eventually became an individual ancestor in Islamic genealogies, the term is first known from pre-Islamic inscriptions where it refers to a group of nomadic and semi-nomadic groups occupying central Arabia, beyond the territorial domain of the major powers of its day: north of the direct territorial control of the Himyarite Kingdom, and south of that of the Lakhmids. Ma'addites retained independence and protected their northern and southern frontiers because they lived in remote areas and had militarized societies. From the fourth to sixth centuries, they were centered at Ma'sal al‐Jumh in the Najd. Ma'add coexisted among other regional identities, including Ghassan, Himyar, and Tayyi'. They are first mentioned in the Namara inscription (328 CE).

The word "Ma'add" was used in related, but different ways, in other sources. Pre-Islamic literature beyond the peninsula composed in Greek and Syriac used it not for a peoples but for militarized camel-herding Bedouin in north Arabia beyond imperial control more generally. In pre-Islamic Arabic poetry, "Ma'add" was a communal identity and ethnonym functioning in the way that the word "Arab" does today. As such, Ma'add encompassed all peoples, including both northern and southern Arab tribes. In Islamic genealogical accounts, which were written at a time when Ma'add began to be thought of as a tribe as opposed to a central Arabian confederation, "Ma'add" could either refer to a figure named Ma'add, the eponymous ancestor of the Ma'add tribe, or to the tribe itself. The tribe was understood in genealogies to be one of several northern Arab tribes that collectively descended from Ma'add's father, Adnan. By contrast, the tribes of South Arabia traced their ancestry to Qahtan. Ma'addite may have been the Arabic dialect that pre-Islamic qasidas were composed in, and it may have a common ancestor with Hijazi Arabic.

The word Ma'add underwent many semantic shifts in the Islamic era. First, the Ma'add geography transitioned from central Arabia to the Fertile Crescent as a result of the movement of peoples during the early Muslim conquests. Then, the word Ma'add went from being used as an ethnonym, to a tribe. To reassert its hegemony in the face of the spread of pan-Arab identity (and as the term 'Arab' came to adopt the communal sense of 'Ma'add' in earlier times) in the eighth century, the Ma'add tribe was traced to a founder figure (named Ma'add) who became the earliest ascertainable ancestor of the Arabs. By the ninth-century, however, Arab genealogical history was extended further back, first to Ma'add's father Adnan, and then his grandfather Udad, and eventually, Ishmael, as the ancestor of all Arabs. Yet another genealogical model then became dominant, which delineated South Arabs as a distinguished line of Arabs descending not from Ishmael or Adnan, but Qahtan. By the end of the ninth century, Ma'addite identity had become largely lost.

The first well-dated text that uses the word Ma'add (as MʿDW) is the Namara inscription (c. 328 CE), discovered at Namara in southern Syria. In this Arabic inscription, Ma'add is mentioned in a list of the Arabian groups, including Nizar and Asdayn, subjugated by the Lakhmid king Imru' al-Qays ibn 'Amr, along with other Arab nations from north, west central and South Arabia. In this context, Imru' al-Qays is described as the "King of the Arabs" (malik al-ʿarab) and "King of Maʿadd" (malik maʿadd), indicating his submission of the Ma'add in this time. The inscription is ambiguous regarding the geography of Ma'add. According to Webb, the inscription could imply that they were located in South Arabia, possibly near Najran. Irfan Shahid argues that the inscription offers little specificity as to the locale of Ma'add in Arabia, or whether it was a tribe or a confederation. Shahid speculates the group could have formed out of the chaos among the Arab tribes following either the Roman annexation of the Nabatean Kingdom in 106 CE or the fall of the Palmyrene Empire to Rome in 272, both polities having wielded significant influence or control over Arab tribal life in northern Arabia. After the submission to Imru' al-Qays of the Lakhmids, Ma'add again appears in a successive series of conflicts from 340 to 360 CE, in having to confront Himyarite expeditions against them. A century later, in a source found at Maʾsal Jumḥ, the Himyarite king Abu Karib celebrates a conquest of Ma'add in an expedition that involved an alliance with the tribes of Sabaʾ, Hadhramaut, and Kinda. Another source from 521 CE in the same place describes a Himyarite expedition launched further north from the same region, indicating the maintenance of Himyarite possession over subsequent decades. After another revolt, Abraha finally and permanently defeated Ma'add in 552 CE at Haliban.

The 'Land of Maʿadd' (ʾRḌ MʿDM) is mentioned in an inscription, Jabal Riyām 2006–17. The date of the inscription is unclear, although the editors have placed it in the 3rd century CE. If correct, it would be the earliest source for Ma'add. The inscription ʿAbadan 1 (c. 360 CE) describes campaigns by the Himyarite Kingdom against nomadic groups, among them Ma'add.

Ma'add is mentioned in two Middle Sabaic texts which suggest Ma'add is in central Arabia, slightly at odds with the Namara inscription, potentially signifying fluid borders. Inscriptions during and around the time of Abraha (a Himyarite king) in the 6th century more firmly localize Ma'add to central Arabia. Some corroboration for the idea that the Ma'add belonged to the Himyarite sphere of influence comes from the mid-6th century writings of the Byzantine historian Procopius and Ibn Habib's al-Muhabbar (9th century). From these sources, it may be concluded that the Ma'add were generally north of the territory under Himyarite control, and south of the territory of Lakhmid control. Therefore, they existed beyond the domains of immediate territorial control of the major powers of their time.

A new inscription from the late 3rd century CE allows the territorial extent of Ma'add to be confidently assessed at this point in time. It was centered on Maʾsal Jumḥ. To the southeast, it reached Yabrīn, and to the southwest, it reached Ḥalibān. To the north, it reached ʿĀqil and Wādī al-Ruma, including the valley of al-Kharj.