Researcher found that the droughts during the 6th century may have led to the fall of the Himyar kingdom and the rise of Islam.
Socioeconomic and societal change caused by droughts and the consequent fall of the 1400-year-old Himyar kingdom created fertile ground for Islam as it emerged in the 7th century CE, posited a study from the University of Basel in Switzerland published in the peer-reviewed Science publication on Thursday.
“The population was experiencing great hardship as a result of starvation and war. This meant Islam met with fertile ground.”
Dominik Fleitmannat
How the Himyar kingdom fell
The Himyar kingdom relied on rainfall to sustain their agriculture. Although the weather in the Middle East is very dry and hot, the kingdom was able to reconstruct irrigation systems and convert spans of the desert into fertile fields.
This system demanded tens of thousands of Himyarites to maintain the irrigation system.
“Water is absolutely the most important resource. It is clear that a decrease in rainfall and especially several years of extreme drought could destabilize a vulnerable semi-desert kingdom,” said professor Dominik Fleitmannat at the University of Basel.
The agricultural system was unable to cope with a sudden drought. As a result, the kingdom entered into a period of social and political upheaval, according to Fleitmannat.
Fleitmann, who was one of the main researchers on this study, consulted with historians to assess how long the drought lasted, which appeared to be several years. Droughts that last this long are generally supraregional. Historians and Fleitmann were able to determine this through traces of the kingdom that can still be found today.
War with neighbors
Another issue was that the kingdoms’ neighbors, the Byzantine and Sasanian Empires, were constantly fighting the Himyarites, only weakening their functional kingdom.
The Himyarites struggled to maintain their kingdom, but it wasn’t until Aksum, in modern-day Ethiopia, overthrew the Himyar Kingdom and sealed their fate. It can’t be completely confirmed that droughts were the primary factor leading to the fall of the kingdom, but it was a critical one.
“The population was experiencing great hardship as a result of starvation and war. This meant Islam met with fertile ground: People were searching for new hope, something that could bring people together again as a society. The new religion offered this,” Fleitmann stated.