Tabalah,_Saudi_Arabia

Tabalah, Saudi Arabia

Tabalah, Saudi Arabia

Place in 'Asir, Saudi Arabia

Tabalah (Arabic: تبالة, romanized: Tabāla) is a village and wadi in the Asir Province of Saudi Arabia.[2] It is situated about 240 kilometers (150 mi) south of Ta'if,[3] 200 kilometers (120 mi) east of the Red Sea coastline and 100 kilometers (62 mi) west of Bisha.[2] In the 2010 census, Tabalah had a population of 5,670, of which 4,990 were citizens of Saudi Arabia and 680 non-citizens.[1]

Quick Facts تبالة, Country ...

History

Tabalah on a map depicting the major towns of 8th-century Arabia

During the pre-Islamic period (pre-7th century), Tabalah was home to the shrine of the idol of Dhu'l-Khalasa.[2] In the early Islamic period (7th–13th centuries), it was a large and prosperous town on the pilgrimage route to Mecca from Yemen, in between the way-stations of Bisha and Ajrab.[2] According to al-Baladhuri and al-Tabari, the inhabitants of Tabalah accepted Islam without resistance and the Islamic prophet Muhammad imposed a poll tax on the Christians and Jews of the town and nearby Jurash.[4] Muhammad had led or dispatched expeditions against members of the Khath'am tribe in Tabalah in 629 and 630 CE.[2] The medieval Arabic geographers note that the town contained several springs and wells which watered the town's date palm groves and agricultural fields.[2] According to the 10th-century geographer al-Hamdani, most of its inhabitants hailed from the Quraysh tribe of Mecca.[2] It is most known in the medieval sources as being the short-lived governorship of al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf,[5] who considered it an insignificant post because it was hidden by a hill.[2]

References

  1. [1]
    "The General Population and Housing Census, 2010:Number of inhabitants in cities with a population greater than (5000) people" (excel). General Authority of Statistics, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. 2010. Retrieved 30 January 2020.
  2. [2]
    Smith 2000, p. 10.
  3. [3]
    Oseni 1982, p. 129.
  4. [4]
    Hitti 1916, p. 91.
  5. [5]
    Larsson 2003, p. 188.

Bibliography
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