Академия Корана:Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān/(Al-) Ukhdūd

Christian Julien Robin, "(Al-) Ukhdūd" in: Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān, General Editor: J. D. McAuliffe, Georgetown University, Washington DC.

Substantive (or proper name) found in the qurʾānic expression aṣḥāb al-ukhdūd (q 85:4):

[They] were destroyed, the men of the furnace (aṣḥāb al-ukhdūd), a fire (q.v.) abundantly fed, while they were sitting by it, and they were witnesses of what they did to believers (see belief and unbelief), and they ill-treated them for no other reason than that they believed in God (q 85:4-9).

Islamic tradition is almost unanimous in identifying these aṣḥāb al-ukhdūd with those involved in the persecution at Najrān (q.v.; a large oasis in southern Saudi Arabia, on the border with Yemen [q.v.]), in November 523 c.e. (regarding this event and the sources dealing with it, see Beaucamp et al., La persécution), but quite often without specifying whether they mean the Jewish persecutors (directed by the king Zurʿa dhū-Nuwās Yūsuf, the Yūsuf Asʾar Yathʾar of Ḥimyarite inscriptions; see jews and judaism) or their Christian victims (see christians and christianity). For Wahb b. Munabbih (d. ca. 114/732; Tījān), Ibn Ḥabīb (d. 245/860; Muḥabbar) or Nashwān al-Ḥimyarī (d. 573/1178; Mulūk Ḥimyar), they are the persecutors, since these authors call the king Yūsuf ṣāḥib al-ukhdūd, but others remain rather vague (Ibn Isḥāq, Sīra, followed by Ṭabarī, Taʾrīkh; Nashwān al-Ḥimyarī, Shams al-ʿulūm, ad h̲-d-d, etc.)

As a consequence of this identification, tradition interprets al-Ukhdūd as a place name of the Najrān oasis (Bakrī, Muʿjam mā staʿjama, i, 121, ad «al-Ukhdūd»; al-Ḥasan al-Hamdānī, Ṣifat jazīrat al-ʿArab, specifies that «the ancient city is the site of ‘al-Ukhdūd’»). In pre-Islamic sources (principally the inscriptions of south Arabia, but also external sources such as Christian hagiographies relating to the persecution, written in Greek and Syriac), however, no evidence is available for such a place name; in inscriptions, the oasis and main city are first of all called Rgmtm (res 3943/3; Maʿīn 9/5; M 247/2; in Hebrew Raʿmā, in Greek Ragma, in Gen 10:7 = I Chron 1:9, and Ezek 27:22), then, after the start of the Christian era, Ngrn (in Arabic Najrān; see arabic script). There is good reason to believe that the name «al-Ukhdūd» bestowed upon the ruins of Najrān (already indicated in the tenth century c.e. by al-Hamdānī and still used nowadays, see Philby, Arabian highlands) postdates Islam and is derived from an interpretation of q 85.

Other observations have led the majority of contemporary scholars to doubt the identification of the aṣḥāb al-ukhdūd with those responsible for, or the victims of, the Najrān persecution. While the Qurʾān speaks of a ditch filled with fire (for R. Blachère, a furnace), since the meanings given to the Arabic ukhdūd (pl. akhādīd) are «ditch, cavity, pit» (for references in Yemeni dialects, see Serjeant, Ukhdūd), scholars note that, according to Christian hagiographies, those executed were not thrown into a furnace but put to the sword. Besides, the text of the Qurʾān, which gives no indication of location or time, at no point suggests that the «believers» were Christians (see people of the ditch).

For al-Ṭabarī (d. 310/923), followed by some Islamicists, most recently Régis Blachère, the Qurʾān is alluding to the «fiery furnace» (Daniel 3:6, 11, 15, 17, 20, 21, 23 and 26) into which the three young men are thrown. Other scholars, such as Rudi Paret, following Hubert Grimme and Joseph Horovitz, prefer an eschatological interpretation (see eschatology): the aṣḥāb al-ukhdūd will be the wicked cast into hell (see hell and hellfire) at the time of the last judgment (q.v.) because of their crimes against believers, even if it is very unusual to use the term «ditch» to describe hell (see reward and punishment).

This last objection has disappeared following the publication of texts from Qumrān, in which Sheol is constantly referred to by the Hebrew šaḥat, «ditch». Marc Philonenko, who stresses this point, equally notes the expressions bny h-šḥt, «sons of the ditch», and ʾnšy h-šḥt, «men of the ditch», to denote the wicked, the damned or rather those who suffer punishment (see chastisement and punishment; good and evil) on judgment day. The qurʾānic expression aṣḥāb al-ukhdūd could be an exact equivalent of the expressions from Qumrān.

Bibliography

Primary

• al-Bakrī, al-Wazīr Abū ʿUbayd ʿAbdallāh b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz al-Andalusī, Muʿjam mā staʿjama, ed. M. al-Saqqā, 4 vols. in 2, Cairo 1945, repr. Beirut 19033
• R. Blachère, Le Coran. Traduction selon un essai de reclassement des sourates, 3 vols., Paris 1947-51, ii, 119-20, no. 43
• al-Hamdānī, Abū Muḥammad al-Ḥasan b. Aḥmad b. Yaʿqūb, Ṣifat jazīrat al-ʿArab, 2 vols., ed. D.H. Müller, al-Hamdānī's Geographie der arabischen Halbinsel, Leiden 1884-91, repr. Leiden 1968, 169f.
• Ibn Ḥabīb, Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad, Muḥabbar, ed. I. Lichtenstädter, Hyderabad 1942, repr. Beirut n.d., 367-8
• Ibn Isḥāq, Sīra, 24-5
• Ibn Isḥāq-Guillaume, 15-16
• Nashwān b. Saʿīd al-Ḥimyarī, Mulūk Ḥimyar wa-aqyāl al-Yaman, ed. ʿA. al-Jarāfī, Cairo 1378/1958-9, 148 (poem with commentary)
• id., Shams al-ʿulūm. Die auf Südarabien bezüglichen Angaben Našwān’s im Šams al-ʿulūm, Leiden/London 1916, 31-2
• Ṭabarī, Taʾrīkh, ed. de Goeje et al., i, 919/922-5
• trans. C.E. Bosworth, The history of al-Ṭabarī. v. The Sāsānids, the Byzantines, the Lakhmids, and Yemen, Albany 1999, 191, 198—202
• Thaʿlabī, Qiṣaṣ
• trans. W.M. Brinner, ʿArāʾis al-majālis fī qiṣaṣ al-anbiyāʾ or «Lives of the prophets», Leiden 2002, 728-32
• Wahb b. Munabbih, Kitāb al-Tījān fī mulūk Ḥimyar, Ṣanʿāʾ 1347/1928-9, 323—501

Secondary

• J. Beaucamp, F. Briquel-Chatonnet and Ch. Robin, La persécution des chrétiens de Nagrān et la chronologie ḥimyarite, in Aram 11/12 (1999—2000), 15-83
• H. Grimme, Mohammed, 2 vols., Münster 1892-5, ii, 77 n. 4
• Horovitz, ku , 12
• R. Paret, Aṣḥāb al-Uk̲h̲dūd, in ei 2 , i, 692 (complete bibliography)
• H. Philby, Arabian highlands, New York 19762, esp. chap. 14, Ukhdud, 254-5 (map of the Najrān wādī and al-Ukhdūd area); 266-7 (sketch of the site between)
• M. Philonenko, Une expression qoumrânienne dans le Coran, in Atti del Terzo Congresso di Studi Arabi e Islamici (Ravello, 1-6 September 1966), Napoli 1967, 553-6 (complete bibliography)
• R. Serjeant, Uk̲h̲dūd, in bsoas 22 (1959), 572-3.
• Sigla: M: Iscrizioni sudarabiche. i. Iscrizioni minee, Naples 1974
• Maʿīn 9: Ch. Robin and G. Gnoli, Inventaire des Inscriptions sud arabiques, iii, Paris/Rome 1998
• RES: Répertoire d'épigraphie sémitique