Yemeni Inscriptions, Iraqi Chronicles, Hijazi Poetry: A Reconstruction of the Meaning of Isrāʾ in Qur'an 17:1

Abstract The term isrāʾ, based on the first verse of sūra 17, is typically rendered as ‘Night Journey’. There is little compelling evidence that this was the original meaning of the Qur'anic text, and medieval lexicographers and exegetes preserved a number of alternative meanings, such as that asrā was a denominal verb meaning ‘to travel through the uplands (al-sarāh)’. Another explanation is that asrā is a denominal verb of the noun sariyya (pl. sarāyā), a military expedition. By drawing on early historiographical descriptions of sarāyā and South Arabian inscriptions, which give evidence that the word sariyya is of Sabaic origin, the Qur'anic meaning of asrā was evidently something like ‘to send on a royal expedition’. Early Islamic Arabic poetic texts also offer extremely compelling evidence that the first Muslims were familiar with some of the key concepts of South Arabian royal authority as they appear in Sabaic inscriptions.

command goes out to representatives of human groups who are, in turn, in command over their kin group, be it a tribe or a smaller family unit-the distinction between the two being quantitative rather than qualitative in such social contexts. This then implies a certain sociopolitical context to the use of the verb, especially in the situation of the Israelites following Moses, who are frequently depicted in a military context in the Qur'an; the Jews under Moses are consistently encouraged to bravely wage war for the Holy Land. 21 The israʾ verse is followed by Q. :-, which describes the Jewish Scripture's (al-kitab) foretelling of two Israelite transgressions and two subsequent punishments; for most Biblically literate readers this evokes the destruction of the First Temple by Nebuchadnezzar in  BCE and the Second by the Romans following the Jewish revolt of - CE, but most Muslim exegetes saw the cause of the first destruction as the killing of the prophet Zachariah and the precipitating sin of the second the killing of John the Baptist (Yaḥ yāibn Zakariyyaʾ). 22 In either case, the Jews here are engaged with politico-military forces, albeit against the backdrop of the consistent Biblical and Qur'anic spiritual struggle for monotheistic purity.
A final, grammatical characteristic of the verb asrāin the Qur'an sets it apart from extra-Qur'anic usages, in that it is consistently used transitively with the preposition bi-. This is worth emphasising since asrābi-hi is evidently distinguishable from the verb asra, used intransitively and meaning quite clearly 'to travel by night', by the use of this preposition. According to the lexicons, there is no difference between asrahu, where the object is expressed by a pronominal suffix, and asrābi-hi. 23 This is a problematic assertion, however, as in this case the bimust be superfluous (zaʾida), but it is also said that the preposition in asrab i-hi functions as it does in akhadha bi-l-khit ̣ am (take hold of the nose-rein), which would typically be considered as expressing close attachment or adherence (ilṣ aq)-it is not superfluous. 24 In fact, asrāin the earliest sources is always intransitive. For example, all three examples given in Lisan al-ʿArab are intransitive: from Labıd we have the expression asrāal-qawmu (the tribe departed in the night), asrat ilay-hi min al-Jawzaʾi sariyatun (a night-travelling cloud came to him in the night), from al-Nabigha, and the proverbial israʾ qunfudh (the night travel of a porcupine). 25 To all appearances then, the biin asrābi-hi is to make the verb transitive (baʾ al-taʿdiya), but this construction is typical of Form I verbs, not Form IV. The construction asrābi-hi is used consistently in all six instances of the verb in the Qur'an, while it is not 21 Q. :; :; :; :. 22 Al-Ṭ abarı, Tafsı̄r, xiv, pp. - (=Muṣ tafa al-Ḥ alabı/Bulaq xv, pp. -). For al-Ṭ abarı, there are two issues each for both the first and second catastrophes: the sin and the agents of destruction. The sin of the first destruction was either the killing of Zachariah (emphasised in Ibn ʿAbbas traditions) or Isaiah (as emphasised by Ibn Isḥ aq): see especially xiv, p. . Candidates for the agent of the Lord's destruction in this case included "Ṣ anḥ abın (Ibn ʿAbbas tradition, p. ), Shapur II (Dhūal-Aktaf, from Ibn Wahb, p. ), and Nebuchadnezzar (from a prophetic ḥ adıth transmitted by Ḥ udhayfa ibn al-Yaman, p. ), but was most likely, according to al-Ṭ abarı, either Jalut/Goliath (several sources, pp. -), or Sennacherib (several sources, pp.  ff., p. ). It is possible there was no combat (pp. -). As for the second destruction, there is no dispute, al-Ṭ abarıt ells us, that it was due to the killing of Yaḥ yāibn Zakariyyaʾ (pp. ,  ff.), and most versions give Nebuchadnezzar as the destroyer (pp.  ff.). There is no reference to the Romans, except for a 'king of the Romans' (malik Rumiyya) named Qaqus ibn Isbaȳus, perhaps a corruption of Titus, the son of Vespasianus (pp. -, with variants of the name given in  n.  and in al-Thaʿlabı, Tafsı̄r, (ed.) Ibn ʿĀshur, (Beirut, ), vi, p. )? 23 Lisan, xiv, p. b, s.v. 'SRY'. 24 Lisan, xiv, p. a; c.f. Wright, Grammar, II, p. . 25 Lisan, xiv, p. b; and Labıd, Sharḥ dı̄wan Labı̄d ibn Rabı̄ʿah al-ʿAmirı̄, (ed.) I. ʿAbbas (Kuwait, ), p. ; W. Ahlwardt, The Divans of the Six Ancient Arabic Poets Ennabiga, ʻAntara, Tharafa, Zuhair, ʻAlqama and Imruulqais (London, ), p. , no. , l. . used at all in the poetic corpus (discussed below), or if it is, with such rarity that the examples would have little evidentiary value. This hints, despite lexicons' assertions, at differential etymologies for asrāand asrābi-hi.
As used in the Qur'an, the meaning of 'night travel' for the verb asrāis thus untenable. It is used irregularly with adverbs of time denoting night, a redundancy; it is used in hierarchical situations where another dimension of meaning besides nocturnal movement seems to be intended; and its grammatical construction, frequently in the imperative and always with the preposition baʾ, suggests an idiomatic construction with a specific meaning. The traditional meaning of 'night travel', and more particularly the canonical interpretation of 'in a single night' for laylan (or rather, for the variant min al-layl), relies on the Prophet's biography. All these considerations argue for seeking another candidate for the meaning of asrat han 'night travel', either from Arabic or from another Semitic language.

. Sariyya: Lexicographical Definitions in Light of Non-Arabic Sources
The term asrāis partially elucidated by a comparison with other Semitic languages. Among the Northwest Semitic languages, the root SRY does not mean 'to travel by night', but denotes in all cases, e.g. Hebrew šara, 'to loosen', 26 a meaning absent from Arabic sara( SRY), but present in sarā(SRW), as in sarawtu al-thawb ʿannı̄(I threw off the garment from me). 27 In Aramaic and its dialects, the meaning of 'to untie' leads, through the sense of the motion of unpacking, to the verb š e rēʾ (or š e raʾ, š e rê) meaning, 'to encamp, to dwell'. 28 There is no particular reason to assume that the Qur'anic asrāis derived from SRY rather than SRW, as the distinction would not be manifest in most form IV conjugations. Thus, the Arabic verb asrā(SRW), a denominal form derived from sarah (the back or highest part of anything, mountains), does not mean 'to travel by night', but 'to travel towards or in the uplands'. At least one commentator has suggested that this may be the meaning of asrābi-ʿabdhi in Q. :. 29 For that matter, SRW/Y gives us at least two other Arabic words: sarā(SRW) can also mean 'to be liberal, generous', and its Form VIII, istara, can mean 'to select the best of something'.
Amongst Arabian Semitic languages, in Safaitic, however, we do find that s¹ry means 'to travel' and perhaps even 'to travel by night,' although it is only attested twice in the corpus of inscriptions for that language. 30 In Sabaic there are no other common words from SRW/ Y, although s¹r means a valley or wadi. 31 This could have several etymologies, but sarı̄, meaning 'a stream, rivulet', in Q. :, is a very likely cognate. If this is the case, the root of s¹r could be SRY, and both words related to the Arabic verb yasrı̄, used of water flowing. A general etymological connection is evident in both Arabian and other Semitic 26 M. Zammit, A Comparative Lexical Study of Qur'anic Arabic (Leiden, ), p. . 27 Lisan, xiv, p. b. 28 Dictionary of Targumim, Talmud and Midrashic Literature, p. , s.v. 'ŠRʾ'. This field of meaning seems the second most probable to me, after my own, argued here. The verb is much more common in Aramaic than in Hebrew (thanks to Michael Rand for pointing this out to me). 29 Lane, Lexicon, p. , s.v. 'asra'. languages: to loosen; to travel; to alight; to travel (by night); to flow; river-valley. Again very generally, this larger context is helpful for realising that reading asrāas 'night travel' means passing up numerous other fields of meaning associated with movement. However, a view too wide, or a longue durée approach to a word's meaning lacks historical specificity. If it is possible to read asrāas something other than 'night travel', it must be situated within the context of the pre-Islamic Arabian milieu. 32 Once we abandon assumptions about Muḥ ammad's night journey, a large number of possibilities present themselves. As we have seen, Neuwirth has suggested 'exile', although this is insufficient in explaining all usages in the Qur'an. Two additional possibilities from the medieval Arabic lexicographical tradition have already emerged, that asrāmeans to travel into the sarah (highlands), or that it means simply sayyara, or some similar term denoting travel without reference to night. These meanings are not incompatible with the pre-Islamic Arabian milieu. A final, stronger possibility is that asrāis the denominal verb of an as-yet unsuggested noun; the word sariyya suggests itself, as it carries with it notions of hierarchy and command that seem implicit in the Qur'anic usage of asra, and there is more evidence for its usage in pre-Islamic inscriptional and Arabic texts. Instances of asrā(form IV) meaning 'to send forth a sariyya' are admittedly lacking, but sarrā(form II) can mean just that, and form IV asrācould carry the same meaning as its form II, sarra, as is so often the case with Arabic verbs.
Ironically, medieval lexicographers also struggled to relate the word sariyya, a sort of military expedition, to night travel. This confusion results from the medieval lexicographical strategy of explaining a non-Arabic word with reference to a more wellknown Arabic root. Thus in al-Azharı's (d. /) Tahdhı̄b al-lugha, we find that the sariyya is so named "because it travels by night (tasrı̄laylan) in secrecy, so as not to give any warning to the enemy, who might then be cautious and avoid it". 33 This is etymologically possible, but what little evidence we have suggests that there was no actual relationship between the sariyya and time of day. The earliest texts give examples of sariyya meaning a military expedition taking place during the day. For example, during the battle of Dhat al-Riqaʿ, al-Waqidı̄tells us that the Prophet sent saraȳāthat returned at nightfall. 34 A hadith related by both al-Tirmidhı̄and AbūDawud on the authority of Ṣ akhr ibn Wadaʿa al-Ghamidı̄has the Prophet sending all armies and saraȳāat dawn (idhābaʿatha sariyya aw jayshan baʿathahum min awwal al-nahar). 35 Lane 32 It is also for this reason that reading asrāas, for example, a metathesis of SYR (a possibility already anticipated by al-Farisı; see n. , above), which is clearly in some way semantically related, is not satisfying. That all these roots belong to overlapping fields of meaning sheds no specific light on the cultural or social valence of the vast array of derived lexemes in our region and period.  Lane also gives a verse from the Ḥ amasa that I am unable to locate. Al-Waqidı̄does, in his descriptions of saraȳa, sometimes describe the combatants as travelling secretly by night (in  out of  cases, nos. , , , -, , , , , , . See Appendix a). The fact that he specifies this tactic in some cases indicates that the sariyya did not by definition take place at night. attempts to rationalise these inconsistencies away by supposing that this is the origin of the word, but that it came to be "afterwards applied to such as march by day", as was the case in later medieval usage.
There are two arguments that could be brought against such a reconstruction based on traditional Arabic lexicography. The first is the Sabaic origin of the word sariyya. 36 The Sabaic inscriptions were left by monarchs, governors, and other notables of South Arabia, emerging early in the first millennium and continuing until the mid-sixth century CE. 37 By the sixth century Yemen was controlled by Abraha, a general of Kaleb Ella Aṣ bəḥ a, the emperor of Aksum, located in present-day Eritrea and northern Ethiopia. Abraha had seized power following a Byzantine-supported Aksumite invasion and subsequently ruled from about -. 38 While not ethnically South Arabian, Abraha continued to use the inscriptional language and regnal titles of previous Ḥ imyarite monarchs, although he replaced the Judeo-monotheistic formulae of the later Ḥ imyarites with Christian expressions. He also followed Ḥ imyarite practice in attempting to exercise control over the Arabs of the southern and central Arabian Peninsula via a group of Arab client-tribes, many of whom (e.g. Kinda), well-known to the Arabic literary sources, were still present at the advent of Islam. His military campaigns were recalled in a legendary fashion in Q.  (Surat al-Fıl). 39 These legends had some basis in reality; one of his inscriptions, Ry , dated to  CE and located at Murayghan, about half-way between Sanaa and Mecca, offers one such testimonial to the suppression of a tribal group called Maʿadd. Inscriptions disappear after  CE, and the literary tradition tells us that the Sasanians exercised loose control over Yemen from the s, a state of affairs that prevailed until Islam's appearance.
If we look to one particular inscription, CIH , dated from March  CE, chiefly commemorating Abraha's rebuilding of the famous Maʾrib dam, we find a cognate and the likely source of the Arabic word sariyya, the Sabaic s¹rwt. CIH  records the suppression of a revolt of one Yzd (perhaps as the Arabic Yazıd) bn Kbs  t, who had been named governor (ḫ lft) over the Arab tribe of Kinda (Kdt). A larger number of other notables joined in the rebellion, but when Abraha led an expedition himself, Yzd came to him and reaffirmed his allegiance. At this time, news of a breach in the important dam at Maʾrib reached Abraha and he successfully concluded the affair in order to return and oversee repairs, with which the rest of the inscription deals.  In three locations in CIH , the word s¹rwt is used. 40 The word can be rendered several ways, as 'soldiers', 'troops', or 'expeditionary force'. 41 In the first instance, the s¹rwt seem to refer to Ḥ imyarite (Ḥ myrm-as opposed to Aksumite) soldiers under the command of two 'governors' or 'generals' (ḫ lyf) named Waṭ ṭ ah and ʿAwıdhah. 42 These troops were sent against the rebels and were sufficiently numerous to lay siege to the rebels' fortified area, Kadur. 43 After submitting, the rebels travelled to Maʾrib in the company of these s¹rwt in order to give their allegiance again to the king. This s¹rwt is the most likely candidate for the etymology of sariyya, rather than 'night travel'; 44 it was a large-scale, logistically complex, hierarchical endeavour, and in this case, overseen by a regional monarch and taking place over a wide (ranging between Maʾrib and Ḥ aḍ ramawt) geographical area.
This usage of s¹rwt as a group of soldiers actually accords much more fully with definitions given in some of the lexicographical and historical sources. Based on the inscriptional evidence, if we were to hypothesise about another Arabic word cognate with it, it could be the word sarı̄(SRW), meaning 'generous, noble, a chief'. 45 Perhaps a sariyya then is led by an individual of the sarı̄rank. There is, unfortunately, no textual or inscriptional evidence for this. Together ḫ lyf, s¹rwt forms two modes of deputisation which are strikingly similar to Muḥ ammad's, who would leave a khalı̄fa in charge of Medina when he went out on expeditions and put an amı̄r in charge of a sariyya when he was unable to personally take charge.
The second argument against the reconstructed derivation of sariyya from 'night travel' comes from lexicographical sources, where the sariyya is simply a part of an army of a certain significant size, and in fact, there is much more evidence that this is the original sense than any speculative etymological connection with night travel. The lexicon al-Ṣ iḥ aḥ by al-Jawharı̄(d. ca. /) defines sarriya as qiṭ ʿatun min al-jaysh (a part of an army), stating that the best sariyya is four hundred men. 46 The number four hundred originates in a hadith, quoted by al-Waqidı̄(/), that "the best [number] of companions is four men, the best of all saraȳāhas four hundred men, and the best of all armies ( juyush) four thousand". 47 In his 40 L. -, as s  rwt-hmw, 'his (lit. 'their', the king's) soldiers' and variants s  rwytn (determinate plural), l.  and s  rwtn (determinate singular or plural), l. .     Al-Waqidı, al-Maghazı̄, p. ; al-Tirmidhı, Sunan al-Tirmidhı̄, iv, p. , no. . The hadith appears in several canonical collections, see e.g. Sunan al-Tirmidhı̄, iv, p. , no. . Al-Waqidı̄actually gives us quite enough data to test whether this hadith may have been put into practice. Excluding assassinations, he gives numbers for  expeditions. The arithmetic mean is indeed ., not far off from , but the median is . lexicon al-Muḥ kam (/), Ibn Sıdah gives two definitions: that a sariyya ranges from five to three hundred, or that it consists of four hundred horse (khayl). 48 This is similar to what we might infer from the Sabaic attestations, however, the term sariyya as such has never been adequately explored.
As we have seen, the term asrāin the Qur'an assumes a distinctly hierarchical and perhaps military context. The reading of asrāas a denominal verb meaning 'to send a sariyya' is grammatically plausible and should be understood as the best fit for the hierarchical contexts in which the term appears in the Qur'an. A brief survey of the meanings associated with s¹rwt has demonstrated that sariyya originates in South Arabia, and that the original meaning was suited to use by regional monarchs in a strongly hierarchical social milieu. It may not have been the case that this meaning was imported lock, stock, and barrel into Arabic, but the term sariyya has unfortunately never been the object of individual study. An examination of the historiographic texts is therefore necessary to confirm the etymological impressions given thus far.

. The Sariyya in Early Muslim Historiography
Ella Landau-Tasseron, in an important essay on the pre-conquest Muslim armies, has distinguished several types of warfare, based on strategic and tactical considerations: caravan looting, raids against bedouin, attacks on settled communities, frontal encounters, and defensive warfare. 49 She points out that it is difficult to discern a linear development among these modes, 50 but nevertheless, in an examination of Muḥ ammad's system of delegation, concludes that the expeditions' command structure was ad hoc and innovative. 51 She does not therefore extensively analyse pre-Islamic forerunners of the early Muslim military structure, although she does note that early Muslims were urban, and that Qurashı̄logistical affairs (in contrast to those of the Muslims) are depicted as relatively centralised and sophisticated. 52 In discussing delegation, Landau-Tasseron neglects to distinguish between two types of expedition named in early historiographical texts, the sariyya and the ghazwa. A further consideration of the distinction between these two types of expedition in early Islamic history and historiography is therefore necessary to elucidate the issue. Both are often rendered as 'raid', but they are discussed by early Islamic historians as two distinct types of expedition. The sariyya, in particular, was delegated by Muḥ ammad to a deputy. Landau-Tasseron's analysis of Muḥ ammmad's military delegation has recently been further explored in a very comprehensive article by Michael Cook in which he examines whether there is any common   Ibid., p. . 51 Ibid., pp. , . 52 Ibid., p. . stratum of historical reality behind the numerous references to Muḥ ammad's deputies in Medina during his campaigns in the second-and third-century AH historiographical sources, chiefly al-Waqidı, Ibn Hisham (d./), and Khalıfa ibn Khayyaṭ (d. /). 53 Cook provides lists of every deputy mentioned in these sources, and while there is a certain degree of overlap between them in terms of the individuals named, there is wide disagreement regarding which individual was put in charge of Medina during any given expedition. Cook offers two plausible explanations for the disagreement: that at some point (but not at the earliest stage) in the development of Islamic historiography, information about deputies became a generic necessity, thus causing compilers to generate names for each ghazwa that the Prophet participated in; and that the names of some deputies were lost if they lacked powerful or numerous offspring to transmit their deeds. Nevertheless, he argues, "the assumption that the sources do in fact convey to us a significant measure of truth … does not seem unreasonable", 54 a point that I agree with.
Our present concern lies not in the deputies themselves but in the terms used for the expeditions: ghazwa and sariyya, which appear to be terminologically different. As we have seen, an etymological difference may have underlain the difference in usage, as sariyya is drawn from the Sabaic s¹rwt. The more common word for a military expedition, ghazwa, is also present in Sabaic inscriptions as gżt or gżwt (pl. gżwy). 55 However, cognates of ghazwa are found quite widely in other Arabian Semitic languages; it was, for example, also used for raids in Safaitic, indicating that ĠZW is an older and more widely-spread root, and perhaps that its use entered into the sedentary Sabaic language cultures from nomadic Arabian tribes.
In the Arabic sources, historians clearly felt that ghazwa should be used for raids led personally by the Prophet, while a sariyya was deputised. For example, Ibn Hisham in an appendix to his biography of the Prophet asserts, citing Ibn Isḥ aq, that the Prophet led  ghazawat (wa-kana jamı̄ʿ māghazārasul Allah … bi-nafsihi sabʿan wa-ʿishrı̄n ghazwa). 56 In contrast, "those expeditions that he sent, and his saraȳa, were  in number (wa-kanat buʿuthuhu … wa-saraȳahu thamaniyan wa-thalathı̄n)". 57 Al-Waqidı̄operates on a similar assumption, although giving some different numbers: the Prophet led  ghazawat (al-ghazawat … allatıḡ hazābi-nafsihi), of which he fought personally in nine. 58 His saraȳāwere  in number. 59 Khalıfa ibn Khayyaṭ does not give a central list of saraȳa, and in fact his text possesses much less information than either al-Waqidı's or Ibn Hisham's, but his chronicle does feature year-by-year lists of saraȳa, all of which are marked as delegated by the word baʿatha ('he dispatched'). 60 The question emerges, however, as to whether or not these prefatory and summary statements match the historians' actual documentation of the battles, since there are immediately evident internal inconsistencies. A fuller discussion of this issue is impossible here, but a summary of the consistency of this usage in the three historians Cook makes use of is of some  value both in the present discussion, and as a continuation of his research. While Cook in his article lists the dates and locations of expeditions led personally by Muḥ ammad, along with the personality to whom the oversight of Medina was delegated, we are concerned here with the obverse activity, the expeditions delegated by Muḥ ammad to a commander while he remained in Medina. Following Cook's methodology, I have taken al-Waqidı's list of deputised expeditions in the introduction to the Maghazı̄as my basis. Following al-Waqidı's chronological sequence for the sake of convenience, 61 I give data on the same expeditions as found in Ibn Isḥ aq/Ibn Hisham and Khalıfa ibn Khayyaṭ . The complete data is given in Appendix  but can be summarised here. There are several issues: the terminology of saraȳaā nd ghazawat, and the nature and composition of the saraȳa; the ideological and ritual aspects of delegation; and the identity of the commanders of the delegated expeditions.
The data on the terminology is quite noisy, but the early historians all operate on the assumption that there is a distinction between ghazawat and saraȳa, and that this distinction is not merely terminological, but rather inherent in their sources. Al-Waqidı̄is the most consistent on this point. In his list, despite his count of , there are  deputised expeditions,  of which are termed ghazwa in the list, while  are termed sariyya. In the body of his text,  are termed sariyya, eight ghazwa, and four have no clear appellation. 62 Ibn Hisham seems to give almost the opposite impression, in that the term ghazwa predominates in his descriptions of deputised raids. While he asserts that the Prophet delegated  expeditions, I count . Seven are termed sariyya in the body of the text and  are termed ghazwa. 63 The rest have no specific appellation. This inconsistency may be the result of a lack of terminological rigour; he also uses both terms, sariyya and ghazwa, for at least two expeditions, and two expeditions are termed baʿth (expedition) and one simply ması̄r ( journey). 64 Crucially though, both Ibn Hisham and al-Waqidı̄strictly avoid use of the term sariyya for those expeditions led by the Prophet. Khalıfa's terminology also favours the term sariyya as a term for a delegated expedition, although since he usually simply gives lists without using either term in detailed narrative exposition, his text provides less data.
Al-Waqidı̄gives the most information about the composition of the saraȳa. He uses the term for three types of expedition: military offensives, assassinations, and once, a proselytising mission. Khalıfa largely observes the same usage, the logic being that any delegated expedition is a sariyya. Ibn Hisham also observes the same usage in his lists but is not as consistent in the body of his text, describing some assassinations as ghazawat, for example. 65 For the purpose of potential comparison with the Qur'anic israʾ, the most interesting use of the term sariyya is as a military-cum-missionary activity (indeed, the English term 'mission' carries both senses as well). After the conquest of Mecca, al-Waqidı̄describes how the Prophet sent Khalid ibn al-Walıd to bring Islam to the nearby tribe of Jadhıma. 66 61 For a cogent discussion of the emergence of chronological schemas in early Arabic historiography, including al-Waqidı, see F. Donner, Narratives of Islamic Origins (Princeton, ), pp. -.  When he made contact with them, they asserted that they had already adopted Islam. The various accounts are contradictory, but Khalid clearly felt Jadhıma's professions of faith were some kind of tactical ruse, and thus imprisoned them, and then ordered the prisoners executed. The accounts accordingly emphasise that the sariyya was sent in peace; al-Waqidı̄has it that, "the Prophet sent him to BanūJahdıma, and he sent him to call them unto Islam (daʿiyan la-hum ilāal-islam), he did not send him for combat (muqatilan)". 67 This was, according to Ibn Isḥ aq, part of a larger operation: "the Prophet sent saraȳācalling to God Almighty, and he did not command them to engage in combat". 68 Many other missions were in fact potentially proselytising, as the Muslims were enjoined to call the enemy to submission to Islam before engaging in hostilities. 69 As this protocol became normative in Islamic law, we would be right to be on guard for retrojection in the sources. Without assuming that the call to submission was standardised during the Prophet's lifetime, the controversy around Khalid still suggests that the observance of such a protocol was being advocated for from the earliest period.
The act of delegation of command was accompanied by ritual acts. Both Ibn Hisham and al-Waqidı̄consider it important to note the first sariyya delegated by the Prophet. This was, according to al-Waqidı, the sariyya led by the Prophet's uncle, Ḥ amza ibn ʿAbd al-Muṭ ṭ alib, which intercepted a Qurashı̄caravan taking the road by the sea from the Levant to Mecca, without, however, engaging in combat. 70 There were competing accounts, however, for this prestigious claim, and according to other sources followed by Ibn Hisham, ʿUbayda ibn al-Ḥ arith, a cousin of the Prophet and early convert, was the first commander of a delegated expedition. He encountered Quraysh at a watering place called Thaniyyat al-Murra, but there was no fighting here either. 71 Ibn Hisham does also cite a poem put into the mouth of Ḥ amza, al-Waqidı's candidate, about commanding the first expedition. 72 Both writers, however, depict the command as an honour conveyed by the Prophet accompanied by a bestowal of a banner (Ibn Hisham uses the term raȳa, 73 and al-Waqidı̄liwaʾ 74 ) that the Prophet 'bound' (ʿaqadha), presumably to a spear, as seen below. 75 67 Ibid., p. .   As an aside it is worth noting here that both Ibn Hisham and al-Waqidı̄specify that the first two expeditions consisted of 'riders' (rakib) (al-Waqidı, al-Maghazı̄, pp. , , and Ibn Hisham, al-Sı̄ra al-nabawiyya, i, pp. , ) which typically refers to camel-riders rather than horsemen. The presence or absence of horsemen is not otherwise noted very frequently in the accounts of saraȳa, so it is difficult to see if there is any evidence for the lexicographical definitions of saraȳāas consisting of khayl (cavalry). In general, there is little description of tactical procedures distinctive of the sariyya, although ʿAlı's expedition to Yemen does provide a description of what amounts to a large-scale razzia, with some of the men on camels and some on horses, with horses being used for a dawn raid (al-Waqidı, al-Maghazı̄, pp. -). This tactic, however, appears singular in the material dealing with sariyyas, and cannot be taken as representative.
Aside from the liwaʾ or raȳa, the headgear (or turban, ʿimama) of the commander of a sariyya is also sometimes specified. Before leaving on an expedition to Dumat al-Jandal, the Prophet re-wrapped the black cotton turban of ʿAbd al-Raḥ man ibn ʿAwf so that "about four fingers (in length) hung loose in the back". 76 A highly elaborated version of the conferral of the liwaʾ and ʿimama together are given for the expedition of ʿAlı̄to Yemen: the Prophet of God bound his banner for him on that day; he took a turban (ʿimama) and folded it and refolded it (mathniyyatan murabbaʿatan) and bound it to the head of the spear, and gave it to [ʿAlı] and said, "thus is the banner (al-liwaʾ)". Then he tied his turban on his head, wrapping it thrice, leaving a cubit (dhiraʿ) [hanging] in front and a span (shibr) behind. Then he said, "thus is the ʿimama". 77 The liwaʾ on the spear represents the authority conferred upon and borne by the leader of the sariyya. The specific manner in which the ʿimama is folded, with its ends intentionally left hanging, resembles nothing so much as a provincial version of the Hellenistic diadem, "a flat strip of white cloth tied around the head with the ends left loose and hanging". 78 Versions of the diadem were adopted throughout the Near East. Among others, the Sasanian kings of kings were prominently depicted with diadems in their rock reliefs. 79 The Arabic accounts dealing with the ʿimama perhaps represent later attempts to put a Prophetic imprimatur on an obscure early practice. 80 For our purposes, the relevant question is whether the tradition represents an early Hijazi practice-not whether it was necessarily Prophetic-and there is no reason to doubt that this was the case.
The commander of a sariyya is invariably called an amı̄r. The term does not appear as such in the Quran or in early poetry, 81 and scholars have thus tended to assume that it is an Islamic innovation. 82 If this is the case, it most likely emerged at a very early stage; the expression is used frequently in hadith where the amı̄r of a sariyya is described, 83 and it appears in the earliest Egyptian papyrological evidence (in Greek as amiras) from /, 84 about ten years after the death of the Prophet. The term could be used for almost any level of military leader, up to provincial leaders, governors, and apparently even the caliph. 85    The term occurs copiously in early historiography and other texts. This is evident, for example, in the formula al-Waqidı̄uses multiple times in his list of saraȳa: thumma sariyyat … amı̄ruhā(then the sariyya of such-and-such, its commander so-and-so). 86 A particularly interesting usage is the term amı̄r al-muʾminı̄n (commander of the faithful) for the leader of a sariyya, a term that was later, of course, reserved exclusively for the caliph. 87 In many passages, al-Waqidı̄gives the clear impression that the sariyya by definition was led by a surrogate for the Prophet. For example, Saʿıd ibn Zayd was amı̄r al-qawm (the commander of the group) until the Prophet arrived, and the phrase amı̄r al-nabı̄(the Prophet's commander) appears twice. 88 There are two points on which the evidence relating to the amı̄r of the sariyya in early Islamic texts may appear suspiciously consistent: the names of leaders, and the use of the actual term amı̄r. With regard to the first, the leaders of the saraȳāaccording to Ibn Hisham, al-Waqidı, and Khalıfa are exceedingly consistent. As Cook phrases it, "We tend to be suspicious if the sources agree too much or too little with each other-too much because it would suggest interdependence, too little because not enough is corroborated". 89 While there are some deviations between al-Waqidı, Ibn Hisham, and Khalıfa-in particular, Ibn Hisham includes three unique reports of expeditions, and Khalıfa six-for the most part they overwhelmingly agree on the names of the leaders. There is, however, a small quantity of isnad evidence given in Ibn Hisham and al-Waqidı̄to cautiously suggest that they were not drawing on the same sources. There are four instances in which both al-Waqidı̄and Ibn Hisham give isnads for saraȳa: al-Waqidı's expedition nos. , , , and . In all but no.  (Dumat al-Jandal II), the isnads have no common links. 90 In the case of the deputies put in charge of Medina, Cook supposes that at some point, "the idea emerged that no account of an expedition led by Muḥ ammad was complete without the identification of his deputy in Medina". 91 In that case, the earlier historian Ibn Isḥ aq appears to very infrequently (only four out of  times) mention the delegated ruler of Medina during Muḥ ammad's expeditions, while the later historians al-Waqidı̄and Ibn Hisham disagree fairly frequently on the leaders but consistently identify someone or other as being in charge. In our case, it seems to be rather that the information on the leaders of delegated expeditions appears earlier; in the case of Ibn Hisham, he directly cites Ibn Isḥ aq    for  out of  expedition leaders. 92 If the data on the leaders is accurate, we can conclude that, unlike the information on the deputies put in charge of Medina described by Cook, the Islamic community recorded the names of the leaders of deputised military expeditions at an earlier point. It might also more tentatively be posited that this information is more likely to be accurate than the names of deputies in charge of Medina.
There is however, a growth or increasing consistency over time in the use of the term amı̄r. I only find two instances in all of Ibn Hisham where the term is used. 93 It is quite possible that while accurate information on the leader of the saraȳāwas recorded at an early date, and enough evidence points to the Prophet clearly delegating the role to his subordinates, the terminology in historiographic texts became more consistent with time. It is curious that while the Egyptian papyrological evidence shows the term had widespread currency, it is not used by the Baghdad-based Ibn Isḥ aq. Perhaps there were regional differences in early usage.
In sum, the solidity of an early stratum of real records on the saraȳāis somewhat more convincing than in the case with Cook's subject, the delegated governorship of Medina. It is worth noting, in passing, that Cook concludes that the term khalı̄fa for the 'governor' of Medina is earlier than ʿamil; khalı̄fa, like sariyya, has a Sabaic cognate. 94 As noted above, cognates of these two terms appear in close proximity in CIH , implying that Muhammad's system of delegation had something in common with that used by Abraha. 95 As far as the sariyya is concerned, there is a fair degree of uniformity with regard to its being a delegated expedition, and with regard to the names of the leaders involved. Early historians do not seem to have been drawing on the same sources for this information, and they also debate with each other over significant ritual acts: the liwaʾ or raȳa, the rumḥ , and the ʿimama. In both places, they were probably drawing on earlier material. They almost certainly did so with regard to nomenclature, particularly in using the term sariyya and even more so with regard to amı̄r.
The sariyya then, as it was brought into early Islamic governance, entailed a ritualised system for delegating authority. This system does not appear to have existed in nomadic Arabian culture, and the nearest sedentary polity on which the early Muslims could have drawn was Ḥ imyar. Although numbers are unreliable, these expeditions could have been larger, up to , men, and long-range, reflecting political concerns akin to those of the South Arabian monarchs. Early Muslims modified the sariyya for their own ideological needs, endowing the military 'mission' with a proselytising function that was undoubtedly messier in early practice than in later theory.
The sariyya was thus central to early Islam. Muslims adapted an institution of regional royal power and remade it as a vehicle for Prophetic authority and military hierarchy in an  Ibn Hisham, al-Sı̄ra al-nabawiyya, i, p. , and in a poem in ii, p. . Here, the phrase raʾsu l-sariyya Marthad wa-amı̄ruhā(Marthad, the chief of the sariyyia and its amı̄r) appears in a poetic text attributed to Ḥ assan ibn Thabit, but it is a passage that Ibn Hisham reports was considered suspect by poetry specialists in his day. 94 Cook, 'Muḥ ammad's Deputies in Medina', p. .

95
The cognate of the Arabic istakhlafa is also found in Ry  (l. ) dated to  or  CE: Abraha appoints (w-s¹tḫ lf-hw) one 'ʿmrm bn Md̲ rn' (ʿAmr ibn Mundhir) over the tribal confederation Maʿadd. My thanks to Suleyman Dost for pointing this out to me. otherwise relatively egalitarian community, and an instrument of an idealistic 'foreign policy' of missionising/conquest. 96 It is by no means arbitrary then, that although it does not appear as a noun in the Qur'an, it should underlie the verb asra. It only remains to demonstrate that there is significant further evidence, in the form of poetry corroborated by inscriptional usage, for such ideological borrowings from South Arabia.

. Ḥ imyar Revisited: Poetic Connections between the Hijaz and Yemen
The relationship between the early Muslim Arabians of the Hijaz and South Arabia has already drawn extensive scholarly attention, most of it revolving around a few key topics such as the massacre at Najran in the year  CE or the so-called expedition of the Elephant connected to Q. . 97 To a large extent, concern for these topics has revolved around their inherent interest as sources of influence on early Islam, that is, they are viewed through the lens of religious developments. 98 Scholars have generally been swift to suppose that epigraphic evidence might shed light on obscure areas of the Qur'an's text, 99 but there has been less analysis of the political influence of the South Arabian polity on the early Islamic state.
Yet some degree of political influence must also have occurred. Christian Robin has argued consistently for a very strong reading of South Arabia's influence on Arabia Deserta, including the Hijaz. Abraha left inscriptions describing his dominance of local Arabs in Murayghan, about halfway between Sanaa and Mecca. In this he was continuing earlier incursions by the Ḥ imyarite monarchs, dating back at least to the mid-fifth century. These inscriptions describe the suppression of the tribal confederations of the Maʿadd and Muḍ ar.
What were the mechanisms of South Arabian influence on the Arabs of the peninsula? The mid-fifth century CE Ry , at Maʾsal al-Jumḥ , is approximately , km north of Ẓ afar, the Ḥ imyarite capital, yet carefully describes the military equipage that the kings travelled with-lower ranking noblemen (qwl, pl. ʾqwl; Arabic qayl, pl. aqyal), some sort of equestrian corps (ṣ yd), officials and tributary Arab tribes. As Robin points out, "a document that describes the peaceful movement of all the accoutrements of royal pomp, without mentioning any other power, implies Ḥ imyar's political domination of the region". 100    imagine the impression that such a spectacle would have made on Arabian tribesmen. And yet, in contrast to the fairly copious information preserved in the Arabo-Islamic literary tradition on Kinda and the Ḥ ujrids, there seems to be little awareness of Ḥ imyarite power amongst the Arabs, a fact that Robin himself notes. 101 In fact, on several points, it is difficult to say with much precision anything about Kinda's relationship with Ḥ imyar. Although the Ḥ imyarites were Jewish (or more precisely, Judaising monotheists), less is known about Kinda's religious affiliations-although at least some members of the tribe were likely also Jewish. 102 While inscriptional evidence confirms, as found in the Arabo-Islamic tradition, that the Ḥ ujrids claimed kingship for themselves, 103 Ḥ imyar did not actually grant this title, and we are left to speculate about the Ḥ ujrids' actual political duties, perhaps as tax-collectors. 104 It is often asserted that Kinda's capital was Qaryat al-Faw, 105 but this rests on inscriptions found in southern Arabia testifying to South Arabian monarchs' attacks on 'Qryt dht-Khlm', associated with Qaryat al-Faw by its excavator, A. R. al-Ansary. 106 Kinda is mentioned in connection to the region, but it is far from clear that Qaryat al-Faw functioned as their 'capital'. The findings at Qaryat al-Faw are outstanding and are still not well-enough known, but all that can be said with certainty linking the site with Kinda is that there is some kind of relationship.
Because several inscriptions have been found at Maʾsal al-Jumḥ , Robin speculates that this was the "seat of Ḥ imyar's power in central Arabia", 107 and that it was perhaps the site of pilgrimage or markets. 108 Again here, there is little evidence of any awareness of the site in the Arabo-Islamic tradition. Robin asserts that Maʾsal al-Jumḥ 's "strong symbolic power" is confirmed by its appearance several times in pre-Islamic poetry. 109 This is not at all the case; rather, the term 'Maʾsal' (the term appears on its own, which already weakens its association with Maʾsal al-Jumḥ ) appears in conventional lines of poetry that list place names with little specificity. Al-Namir ibn Tawlib, for example, opens a poem, as so many poets do, bemoaning the dereliction of the former abodes (aṭ lal) of his beloved, Jamra, which entails naming them:  Khl is evidently the name of a deity worshiped in Qaryat al-Faw, as its name is found in walls and coinage found in the site, so the assumption that Qryt dht-Khlm is Qaryat al-Faw is quite reasonable. 107 Robin, 'Les Arabes', p. . 108 Robin, 'Le Royaume Ḥ ujride', p. . 109 Robin, 'Les Arabes', p. .
Maʾsal is the abode of wild animals, Jamra's former abodes; Sharaʾ and Yadhbul are desolate-she no longer dwells there. 110 Labıd, in ubi sunt mode, describes how death comes for every created thing, no matter where it dwells, even in mountainous redoubts: If anything were to live forever (kana … khalidan), the white-footed [ibex] that haunts the sunny slopes of Maʾsal, might find a safe refuge … 111 Pre-Islamic poetry is replete with such toponyms; they almost certainly represented real places, but great care must be taken in locating them precisely. 112 In both of these instances of Maʾsal's usage, for example, the poem rhymes in lam, which perhaps dictates the particular toponyms mentioned. Robin is, however, certainly correct to look for the influence of South Arabian modes of rule on tribal Arabia and, by extension, early Muslims, urban Hijazis as they were (rather than nomadic pastoralists). There are several terms from Sabaic that made their way into Arabic, most likely reflecting an actual exchange between the two cultures. Setting aside the numerous cognates in religious language, several early Arabic political and military terms have Sabaic cognates. Sariyya and s¹rwt have already been extensively discussed, and, in passing, we have seen that CIH  uses the term ḫ lft for a 'governor' or some such subordinate ruler, evidently cognate with Arabic khalı̄fa; this governor was normally a vassal from within Kinda. 113 Other examples are worth citing; Sabaic ḫ ms  meaning 'the main force of an army' is cognate with the Arabic khamı̄s, meaning 'army', which medieval lexicographers strove to relate to 'five' (Ḫ MS); Sabaic mṣ nʿt meaning 'fortification' is found in Q. ., 'Do you build fortresses (maṣ aniʿ) because you hope to be immortal?'; the term for nomads used by (urban) Muslims, Aʿrab, has a long history, but seems to be cognate with Sabaic ʾʿrb. 114 These people are constantly spoken of derisively in the Qur'an, indicating that the sedentary Hijazis and South Arabians viewed them similarly. 115 The lexical borrowings from South Arabia are in all likelihood more extensive than from any other Semitic source. Martin Zammit has noted that the number of Qur'anic cognates with terms found exclusively in South Semitic (.% of the Qur'anic corpus) almost equals those of purely Northwest Semitic usage (.%), which is "particularly significant given that the lexical evidence available from this area of Semitic is no match for the extensive lexical resources available in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Syriac". 116  For example, the toponyms mentioned by Imruʾ al-Qays in his famous lightning-storm description are spread throughout the Arabian peninsula, giving that section of the text all the appearance of a pastiche according to U. Thilo, Die Ortsnamen in der altarabischen Poesie; ein Beitrag zur vor-und frühislamischen Dichtung und zur historischen Topographie Nordarabiens (Wiesbaden, ), pp. -; in contrast the toponyms used by ʿAntara are relatively consistent, having recently been carefully located, with the help of a professional cartographer, by J. Montgomery (trans.), ʿAntara ibn Shaddad, War Songs (New York, ), p. lxiix. 113 Robin, 'Ḥ imyar, Aksum, and Arabia Deserta', p. . Very few Sabaic cognates of the sort discussed occur with any frequency in pre-Islamic poetry, nomadic (or pseudo-nomadic) as it is, leading one to suppose that they were part of the vocabulary of urban Arabians, reflecting a more cosmopolitan interaction with sedentary South Arabia. However, in order to demonstrate the influence of South Arabian culture on Arabia Deserta, poetic evidence is helpful, drawing frequently as it does on lines of transmission very different from the prose accounts of pre-Islamic lore. Three examples are relevant to our discussion: on the usage of sariyya in poetic texts; an instance of a military conflict between Hijazi tribes and Ḥ imyarite client-tribes named in inscriptions; and most significantly, an instance of South Arabian titulature found in a poem in praise of the Prophet.
The poetic tradition makes use of other words derived from the root SRY that clearly have to do with night travel. 117 The word al-sarı̄(night traveller) is used quite often and is invoked most frequently as the object of hospitality. Al-Nabigha, for example, boasts that he camps in the open, where his fire is visible to any guest, as evidence of his wealth and generosity. 118 When a poet wishes to boast about his own night travel, however, the verbal noun for night travel (al-sura) is used, most often projected onto the speaker's weary but persevering camel. Suwayd ibn Abı̄Kahil al-Yashkurı, for example, describes his camels as "[emaciated] as thin arrows, experienced in night travel (ʿarifatin li-l-sura)". 119 Although these examples are by no means exhaustive, usage of the terms al-sarı̄and al-surāare largely confined to these themes, both of which are relatively common, thus prohibiting extensive analysis here.
On the other hand, the verb asrāand the noun sariyya are extremely uncommon in pre-Islamic Arabic poetry. The usage of asrāis virtually restricted to the line of Labıd cited in lexicons, and which is indeed also found in his dı̄wan. When it does appear it is intransitive and means 'to travel by night', and I can find no example of asrābi-hi. Since the terms sariyya and asrā(bi-hi) are quite common in the Qur'an and in early Islamic historiography, we can conclude tentatively that they are reflective of urban Hijazi usage rather than that of the semi-and pseudo-nomadic tribal elites of Najd and the Hijaz who produced the bulk of extant poetry.
The noun sariyya occurs relatively conclusively in only two early poetic texts that I have been able to locate. In both cases the plural form saraȳāis used. In ʿAntara, the speaker's enemies are described as fighting in saraȳa: As if the saraȳābetween Qaww and Qara were flocks of birds making for water […] 117 Chronologically speaking, it is probable that the use of authoritative poetic citations (shawahid) antecedes the attempted application of the 'night travel' semantic range to sariyya and israʾ as discussed above.  Harun (Cairo, ), p. , no. , l. . see also, for example, ʿAntara, l.  of the Muʿallaqa (Ahlwardt, Six Divans, p. ). While this motif is common enough in the pre-Islamic period, it becomes de rigueur in the central raḥ ı̄l section of the tripartite qaṣ ı̄da only in the Umayyad period. This usage is absent from poets such as those of the Hudhayl tribe that lack pre-Islamic camel-boasts and raḥ ı̄ls.

fighting-bands (kataʾib), above each of which a banner (liwaʾ)
fluttered like the shadow of a passing bird. 120 The term sariyya appears to be synonymous with katı̄ba, a word which denotes a larger-scale military expedition. The saraȳāare not associated here either with small-scale raiding, or with night travel. As in al-Waqidı, the groups are designated by a liwaʾ, a term which in this context indicates a tribal grouping's banner. Labıd compares the bray of an onager to the scream of a leader fearing saraȳāand unexpected attack (ightiyal). 121 Here too, the point seems to be that the onager is hoarse, as a man screaming in the midst of a particularly extensive battle, indicated by the use of the term saraȳa.
There are several other texts of less certain authenticity or transmission where the word sariyya occurs. While little can be concluded from these usages, there does seem to be a trend of tribes associated geographically (i.e. they inhabited the southern Hijaz) or politically with early Muslims to use the term. In an elegy for her brother, Suʿdābint Shamardal (Juhayna) calls him hadı̄sariyyatin (the guide of the sariyya). 122 Khufaf ibn Nadba, or Nudba, (Sulaym) laments the death of Ṣ akhr and Muʿawiya, the brothers of the poetess al-Khansaʾ; Ṣ akhr was "abandoned to the sariyya (li-l-sariyyati ghadaruhu)". 123 An almost certainly inauthentic lament for al-Muṭ ṭ alib, the brother of the Prophet's paternal grandfather ʿAbd al-Muṭ ṭ alib, attributed tentatively by Ibn Hisham to Maṭ rud ibn Kaʿb (Khuzaʿa) describes the Hashimites as "ornaments of the saraȳa'". 124 A poem by al-ʿAbbas ibn Mirdas (Sulaym) refers to the saraȳāof which the Prophet of God is the amı̄r. 125 This usage, of course, contrasts strongly with the amı̄r as the leader delegated by the Prophet that we have seen already. Finally, Taʾabaṭ ṭ a Sharran (Fahm), puts a boastful self-description into the mouth of one Umm Malik, who sees him and his companions "dishevelled and dust-covered after a sariyya". 126 These are not a particularly reliable set of citations. Of these five instances, those of Suʿda, Khufaf, and Taʾabbaṭ a Sharran rely on variant readings, while the poems of Maṭ rud and al-ʿAbbas ibn Mirdas (and perhaps the folkloric Taʾabaṭ ṭ a Sharran as well) are probably inauthentic. Taken in addition to the two lines by Labıd and ʿAntara, we have in total seven instances of sariyya being used in poetry and the data perhaps has some collective value. There is a noteworthy tribal distribution; with the exception of ʿAntara, all of the poets hail from tribes that are either southern Hijazi (Sulaym, Juhayna, Fahm, Khuzaʿa) 120 Ahlwardt, Six Divans, p. . . This is probably preferable, as hadısariyyatin does not fit the poem's meter (kamil) unless we read the long 'ı' in hadı̄as short, which is possible (see Wright, Grammar, ii, p. D), or suppose a slight metrical irregularity, which is not uncommon with poetry from this period.   Al-Iṣ bahanı, Aghanı̄, xxi, p. ; Taʾabbaṭ a Sharran, Dı̄wan Taʾabaṭ ṭ a Sharran wa-akhbarihi, (ed.) ʿAlı̄Dhuā l-Faqar Shakir (Beirut, ), p. . For tabuʿan li-athari l-sariyya the variant qalı̄la l-inaʾi wa-l-ḥ aluba (with few vessels or milch-camels) exists, and the accompanying anecdote tells the comical story of Taʾabbaṭ a Sharran and some companions on a sariyya-here clearly meaning a dawn raid to steal camels-being defeated by disguised women. It is likely the transmission of the poem was affected by its attachment to the prose account. or who directly interacted with the early Muslims (as did Labıd, who reportedly converted). Particularly prominent are poets connected to the tribe of Sulaym ibn Manṣ ur; Suʿda, although of Juhayna, laments her brother killed by a Sulamı, while al-ʿAbbas is Sulamı̄himself, as is Khufaf. Three of the texts are from elegies and bear some similarity to the style of the Sulamiyya al-Khansaʾ, and indeed, al-ʿAbbas was said to be al-Khansaʾ's son, 127 and Khufaf her cousin. 128 Even if the poems represent distorted oral traditions or outright forgeries, the overall tone of these texts could reflect a historical kernel. Taken collectively, these citations seem to support the entrance of the word sariyya into Arabic via a Hijazi adoption of the South Arabian term.
Two further examples of interaction between South Arabia and the Hijaz more fully confirm the strength of interaction. One example is military. Aṣ maʿiyya no. , by al-ʿAbbas ibn Mirdas, records a long-range feud between his tribe Sulaym, who, as we have seen, made the most use of the term sariyya in the poetic tradition, and a clan called Zubayd, which dwelt somewhere far to the south of Mecca. The relevant portion of the poem is: . But leave [this talk with Asmaʾ]-has she not heard of how we drove forth lank steeds, 129 weighed down [with armour], against our enemies? . with a force making for both sons of Ṣ uḥ ar, and Zubayd's people (al Zubayd), . upon strong young camels, ascending the barren heights, where the chameleon sits like a graying old man, 130 . we made our way for twenty-nine nights, crossing the settled valleys (al-aʿraḍ ), traversing the mirage-filled wastes. 131 The names are initially obscure, but the overall context is clear. The speaker is leading a long-distance expedition, and he gives the distance in terms of nights travelled. This method of reckoning (counting nights rather than days) appears to be the same as we find in early Islamic historiography, both for lunar month dating and for military expedition distance and is not necessarily related to 'night travel', as is evident from his description of the 127 This is probably not the case. There is no internal evidence in their poetry for the relationship, and al-ʿAbbas and al-Khansaʾ as two famous Sulamı̄converts were simply associated with each other. For sources on the issue see Yaḥ yāal-Jabburı's introduction to the edition of al-ʿAbbas ibn Mirdas, Dı̄wan, p. .  Al-thiqal al-kawadis, following a variant from al-Aghanı̄that Harun and Shakir endorse, would typically refer to horses. In line , quluṣ refers to camels. It would appear the Sulamıs travelled by camel through the desert and then attacked on horses. 130 Literally, 'in which [deserts] you would think the ḥ irbaʾ were an old man, with white in his black hair, sitting'. The ḥ irbaʾ most likely refers here to the veiled chameleon, the males of which are green, with yellow or blue bands. Their present-day range of Yemen and the southern Hijaz is exactly the territory ʿAbbas is describing. The contrast between the chameleon's colours is compared with the contrast of white and black of a man whose hair is going grey. chameleon, which proverbially stares at the sun, and is a stock feature of scorched desert landscapes. The expedition is heavily armed and includes horse-mounted cavalry and the use of (expensive) armour. The scale of such an undertaking indicates a political conflict, rather than local concerns over bloodwit or pasture.
A prose summary of the expedition is given by Abūal-Faraj al-Iṣ fahanı̄in the Kitab al-Aghanı̄, on the authority of AbūʿUbayda Maʿmar ibn al-Muthannā(d. ca. /). 132 Abu'l-Faraj's use of isnads is not always rigorous, 133 but his account from AbūʿUbayda has a ring of authenticity. He identifies the tribe attacked as a southern or Yemeni one, namely, Murad, even though they are not directly named in the text of the poem. ʿAmr ibn Maʿdıkarib was said to have responded to al-ʿAbbas's poem. 134 ʿAmr does not belong to Murad, but he does belong to its sister tribe, Saʿd al-ʿAshıra. 135 Abūal-Faraj does not quote the entirety of al-ʿAbbas's poem, as he states that only the beginning is sung, and therefore the rest is not of interest. 136 He does not quote from ʿAmr ibn Maʿdıkarib at all, although he gives the location of the battle as 'Tathlıth, in Yemen', a southern site according well with a battle with Murad or Saʿd al-ʿAshıra. All of this gives the air of an editor transmitting genuinely received material, the content of which he is uninterested in altering or distorting.
ʿAmr ibn Maʿdıkarib's text confirms (or is the source of) the battle location as Tathlıth, and his poem survives as citations in disparate sources, one of which is AbūʿUbayd al-Bakrı's (d. /) geographical dictionary, Muʿjam māistaʿjam, in the entry on 'Tathlıth'. Al-Bakrı̄quotes al-Hamdanı̄(d. /) as stating that Tathlıth lies three and a half stages (maraḥ il) to the north of Najran, and as belonging to BanūZubayd, ʿAmr ibn Maʿdıkarib's clan. 137 The geographer Yaqut states that the site is mentioned numerous times elsewhere in the Arabic poetic tradition as a location of battles. 138 It is not, thus, in Yemen, as Abuā l-Faraj asserts, but apparently near present-day Tathlıth  This text, of which only two lines are given, was clearly composed in response to al-ʿAbbas's poem. As a muʿaraḍ a, both are written in the same rhyme (-(i)sa) and meter (al-ṭ awı̄l). ʿAmr's poem addresses al-ʿAbbas directly and gives the placename of Tathlıth. Without relying on al-Hamdanı, it is identified internally as near Ṣ aʿda, in the northwest of present-day Yemen (about  km south of Tathlıth). Such a location, distant from Sulaym's territory, accords with the long-distance journey described by al-ʿAbbas (Tathlıth is about  km southsoutheast of Medina). Finally, the authorship of ʿAmr or someone from his tribe is tentatively confirmed by a line, cited elsewhere but evidently originating in the same poem, mentioning 'banı̄ʿUṣ m', another ancestral clan of ʿAmr. 140 Given all these details in multiple sources, there is little reason to doubt the general outline of the narrative of AbūʿUbayda/ Abūal-Faraj in explication of al-ʿAbbas and ʿAmr's poems. Further confirmation of their pre-Islamic content comes from several important South Arabian inscriptions. To begin with, ʿAmr's father bears the name of South Arabian nobility-Maʿdıkarib-indicating that his tribe was not only a military client, but culturally influenced by South Arabia. For example, Madhḥ ij, which according to classical genealogical handbooks was the father-tribe of ʿAmr's tribe Saʿd al-ʿAshıra, is mentioned as supporting the Ḥ imyarite king Maʿdıkarib Yaʿfur on a military expedition commemorated in an inscription at Maʾsal al-Jumḥ , Ry , dated to . 141 Murad, Saʿd, and Madhḥ ij are all mentioned as military clients of South Arabian monarchs, sometimes in inscriptions found in the area dealt with in the poems. Ja , for example, deals with the events connected to the massacre at Najran in  CE, and is located  km north-northeast of Najran, almost midway between it and Tathlıth. Both Madhḥ ij and Murad (inscriptional Md̲ ḥ gm and Mrdm) are mentioned there supporting the Ḥ imyarite noble Sharaḥ ʾıl Yaqbul dhu-Yazʾan in retaking control of Najran. 142 The most striking appearance of these tribes, however, is that of Saʿd (generally understood as Saʿd al-ʿAshıra) and Murad together in Ry , dated to , in which Abraha commemorates his victories in Arabia Deserta, with Saʿd among his vassals. This inscription was found at Murayghan, about  km from present-day Tathlıth, lending historical credibility and a sense of the political stakes at play to the fight at Tathlıth between al-ʿAbbas and ʿAmr. Given that Yaqut mentions that numerous battles in the 'Ayyam al-ʿArab' tradition took place at Tathlıth, it thus very much appears that al-ʿAbbas and ʿAmr were continuing the long-distance feud instigated by Abraha's incursions into Arabia Deserta, and that warfare between two groupings of tribes, Hijazi and Yemeni, continued for some time around this strategic site.  141 Robin, 'Ḥ imyar, Aksum, and Arabia Deserta', p. . 142 Ibid., pp. -. Murad and Madhḥ ij are also mentioned together in ʿAbadan , and Ry . Madhḥ ij is also mentioned in al-ʿIrafa .
We have, then, one model by which cultural interaction continued to take place in the early sixth century at the time of Islam's emergence. The poems of al-ʿAbbas ibn Mirdas and ʿAmr ibn Maʿdıkarib indicate not only that the client-tribes of the South Arabian monarchy continued to inhabit approximately the same territory as in the early-sixth century, but that South Arabian culture continued to influence them, and that military conflicts continued to take place between South Arabia and the Hijaz. The raid described by al-ʿAbbas can be seen, in effect, as an antecedent of the sariyya sent to Yemen carried out by ʿAlı̄ibn Abı̄Ṭ alib as commanded by the Prophet, and both, in turn, as a continuation of events set off by Abraha's incursion. It is within this context that the exchange of military and logistical terms such as sariyya and khalı̄fa would have taken place. Continued long-distance military feuds between client-tribes would have continued long after the dissolution of the South Arabian monarchy, but because of their lesser political significance to any chroniclers, they would have received less attention. After the Second Persian War between the Byzantines and Sasanians (-), the Ghassanids and Lakhmids, their Arab clients, continued fighting for years afterwards, but in their case Procopius (d.  CE) took note of the struggle. 143 Absent the attention of a Procopius, some local or sub-imperial conflicts-independent of but engendered, maintained, or exploited by imperial powers-will have left their traces in history only in the form of poems and etymologies.
A second example of poetry seems to indicate that Arabians of the Hijaz were actually aware of South Arabian royal titulature, and that it potentially offered a model for their own ideological projects. Beginning in the year ca.  CE, the kings of Ḥ imyar began to add the title, 'kings … of the Bedouin of the highlands and the coast' (mlk … ʾʿrb Ṭ wd w-Thmt) to their titulature. This expression first appears in the inscription Ry , located at Maʾsal al-Jumḥ , 144 and continued in use until  CE, about two generations preceding the advent of Islam. 145 Robin argues that Ṭ wd refers more or less to what is known as Najd in Arabic (both words meaning 'upland'), and that it was inhabited by the tribal confederation Maʿadd. Ḥ imyar ruled it via the client Ḥ ujrid dynasty of Kinda. 146 There is a fair degree of evidence for such an arrangement from Byzantine chronicles dealing with Roman diplomacy in Arabia, and some inscriptional evidence. There is less evidence for Thmt, but Robin equates it with the Hijaz, particularly its northern oases, inhabited by a confederation known as Muḍ ar and ruled over by the pro-Byzantine BanūThaʿlaba. 147 He does also suppose that Quraysh would have fallen under Muḍ ar's sway. 148 There has hitherto been essentially no direct evidence-as opposed to the indirect testimonial of the impact of Abraha's elephant in their collective memory-that Quraysh was directly affected in other ways by South Arabian incursions. Robin broaches the possibility, however, that the pairing of ʾʿrb Ṭ wd w-Thmt is paralleled by the pairing of Najd and Tihama in Arabic. The opposition of Najd and Tihama is actually relatively widespread in Arabic, and forms a merism, a 143 common rhetorical device, especially in Semitic languages, by which entirety of a thing is expressed via two contrasting opposites (as in the 'heavens and the earth' to refer to all of creation). Kister had already noted a tradition according to which the Persian emperor Kavadh I (-) attempted to impose Mazdakite teachings on all Arabs, ahl al-Najd wa-Tihāma (the people of [both] Najd and Tihama). 149 As Kister recognised at the time, this tradition is probably spurious, and the meaning "the Arabs of the highlands and the lowlands", i.e. "all Arabs", may have no political valence. Such is the case in the vast majority of similar usages. 150 A poem preserved in the Ashʿar al-Hudhaliyyı̄n in praise of the Prophet by one Usayd ibn Abı̄Iyas of Kinana gives one such example of the Najd/Tihama pairing used in a political sense. Al-Sukkarı̄tells us, transmitting from al-Aṣ maʿı, that the Prophet had declared Usayd's blood licit, and that Usayd came to the Prophet while the latter was at al-Ṭ aʾif to apologise. 151 From the poem, it appears that Usayd had composed invective against the Muslims. Of interest here is the first line: taʿallam rasula llahi annaka qadirun ʿalākulli ḥ ayyin, mutihimı̄na wa-munjidıK now O Messenger of God that you hold power over every tribe, those of Tihama and those in Najd. 152 This poem deals with more than a rhetorical merism. If the poem were an inauthentic later fabrication, one would expect a more common expression of the totality subjected to Islam, such as that of al-ʿAjam wa-l-ʿArab (Arabs and non-Arabs/Persians), a merism of more interest to post-conquest Muslims. Usayd opts, however, for a geography which does not even encompass the entire Arabian Peninsula, but which very closely resembles the Sabaic inscriptional formula describing Arabia Deserta, Ṭ wd and Thmt, the 'highlands' and the 'lowlands'. We have, then, another merism, but one with a political valence; the speaker is clearly paying allegiance to Muḥ ammad, as his addressee, and makes use of an imagined historical geography which obtained among Muslims only for a very short time, describing the largest relevant political sphere as the 'highlands and the lowlands' of Arabia Deserta last dominated, a generation or two before Muḥ ammad, by Abraha and Ḥ imyar. Muḥ ammad is being addressed, in effect, as a successor to the defunct monarch of South Arabia. 153 Given that Muḥ ammad sent expeditions to conquer/convert Yemen in his lifetime and given that his system of delegation owed something to South Arabian influence, Usayd is making an apt assumption.   Ibid.

153
Early sources for Ibn Hisham also convey the notion that they conceived of Muḥ ammad's realm as Hijazi, for example a pre-Islamic Jew refers to Muḥ ammad as malik al-Ḥ ijaz (the king of the Hijaz). A. Ibn Hisham, al-Sı̄ra al-nabawiyya, ii, p. .
have entailed territorial claims. For the Qur'an, it was the prerogative of God to bequeath both land and scripture. 162 The early Muslims would not only have identified with the BanūIsraʾı̄l as exiles, but also experienced a sense that they had surpassed them spiritually, just as they had the Meccans; the sins of pride in plentiful sons and wealth, and the resulting hubris and polytheistic disregard for God's sovereignty, are shared by both the Jews and Quraysh according to Q. , as Neuwirth points out. 163 While on a more immediate polemical level, the Muslims are promised to inherit the Meccan polytheists, the community may have been catching a glimpse of the possibility that they would also be heirs to the entire topographica sacra of the Hijaz. The same language of the righteous 'inheriting the earth' is used of corrupt pre-Islamic communities (bywords for the transitory nature of the world's glories), for the Jews in the Holy Land, and for the Muslims' territories in the Hijaz, principally Yathrib. 164 The israʾ as a spiritual 'mission' to Jerusalem anticipates this reality, which Muḥ ammad and the first generation of Muslims' military-proselytising saraȳāwould later strive, eventually successfully, to fulfil.
The militaristic connotation of israʾ also has repercussions for how the understanding of the mythologising night journey narratives came about. 165 The earliest Muslims consisted of a core of more or less devout believers, and a much larger body of Arabian converts (nomadic tribes, Quraysh in Mecca and Thaqıf in al-Ṭ aʾif) who submitted to Islam for more pragmatic reasons. These two groups would have viewed the personality of the Prophet differently and it is the latter who would have contributed to the origins of the mythologising 'night journey' narratives. Based on the evidence discussed above, some features of the early days of the israʾ narrative can here be suggested.
Usayd ibn Abı̄Iyas's dim awareness of Sabaic royal titulature allows us to conjecture that early converts imagined God the king with some of the lineaments of a South Arabian monarch. Deputising long-distance military expeditions was the prerogative of such a figure. As befitted such a monarch's status, these expeditions would have been mounted and initiated with suitable delegation ceremonies such as we see in the earliest saraȳādescribed in the Sı̄ra, which also notes that the fighters were mounted (rakib).
Early converts would have imagined Muḥ ammad being similarly deputised by God. In the case of Muḥ ammad's israʾ, the mount becomes mythologised as Buraq, a figure that several scholars have noted is evidently an indigenous Arabian element in the narrative, rather than, say, a later accretion influenced by Jewish apocalypticism. Neuwirth notes that the interpretation of israʾ as a "movement on horseback" is "alien to the horizon of qur'anic imagery", while Reuven Firestone supposes that Buraq's presence reflects the strong equestrian culture of pre-Islamic Arabia. 166 Al-Azraqı̄also notes that Abraham used Buraq to travel between 162 See Q. : and : for examples. 163 Neuwirth, 'From the Sacred Mosque to the Remote Temple', passim. 164 For the first, see Q. :, for the second Q. :, , and :, and for the third, Q. :. 165 Recent research has uncovered numerous reasons not to believe that any element of the israʾ narrative obtained at all in the earliest days of Islam: there is no reference to it in the Dome of the Rock, which one would expect if the trip to Jerusalem existed in historical consciousness before the s (Busse, 'Jerusalem', p. ); the heavenly journey has clear roots in Late Antique Jewish apocalypticism (Busse, 'Jerusalem', pp. , -); and the debates about whether Muḥ ammad saw God in person, and the related question of whether the night journey was physical or a vision, are, per van Ess, most likely Umayyad. 166 R. Firestone, Journeys in Holy Lands: The Evolution of the Abraham-Ishmael Legends in Islamic Exegesis (Albany, N.Y. ), p. . R. Paret, EI  , 'Buraḳ ': 'The possibility must also be envisaged that the name Buraḳ goes back to a Syria and Mecca, 167 and if this is an ancient report, Muḥ ammad's journey on Buraq may reflect his status as a new Abraham from the originally non-Muslim but henotheistic, Arabian perspective of early converts. They would, after all, have associated Abraham and the Meccan sanctuary before the emergence of Islam; the Qur'an presupposes the connection.
A final concession is in order. What if there is no connection between israʾ and sariyya? This is possible. Ideally, further evidence for the connection awaits discovery, but it may not exist. Be that as it may, the purpose of this essay is certainly not at all to simply be contrarian, but rather to attempt a serious methodological exercise, one that simultaneously keeps in view documentary and literary evidence-inscriptions, chronicles, and poetry. There is really no compelling reason to continue to interpret Q. : in light of the Sı̄ra, which constitutes the only basis for reading it as 'night journey' in the first place. Once this is recognised and the Sı̄ra-inspired interpretations are discarded, we must seek elsewhere for more logical etymologies, and only some of these may be found in traditional tafsı̄rs. In the past few decades, a great deal of critical work has gone into unpicking what we thought we knew about early Islam. Much has been done to resituate early Islam in the Late Antique milieu. Although they have not been entirely neglected, sources relevant to the fact that Islam was, after all, an Arabian religion have been downplayed and under-utilised. The reasons for this are self-evident: early Arabic poetry is difficult, some of it is fabricated, and South Arabian inscriptions require specialised knowledge. Both fields are understudied.
Thus, even if there is no connection between israʾ and sariyya, the methodology here employed has, through the careful sifting of related evidence, still produced a number of compelling conclusions. By contrasting early historiographical texts with inscriptional evidence, we have seen that Muḥ ammad's system of military delegation via the sariyya owed something to South Arabian practice, probably via Quraysh's interactions with Abraha and his successors. Some adaptations took place, the extent of which is difficult to estimate, but the sariyya's roots in interaction between the Hijaz and Yemen remain palpable. The same political interaction is visible in the poetic texts, again reading them against inscriptional evidence, of al-ʿAbbas ibn Mirdas, ʿAmr ibn Maʿdıkarib, and Usayd ibn Abı̄Iyas. The conflicts between Abraha and the Arabians of the Hijaz continued into the seventh century CE and provided one vector for the exchange of cultural and political concepts. Usayd ibn Abı̄Iyas gives us a glimpse of how, drawing on indigenous Arabian notions of leadership, coerced converts would have constructed an acceptable and appealing image of the Prophet as a political leader. This is a valuable insight into the earliest moment of mass conversion to Islam. Further, and potentially very valuable insights, await the continued use of such interdisciplinary material.

NATHANIEL MILLER
University of Cambridge nm@cam.ac.uk pre-Islamic tradition now unknown to us. In general, much that is reported about the steed of the miraculous "night-journey" will derive from pre-Islamic tradition'; Neuwirth, 'From the Sacred Mosque', p. , .