Mukkaribs

The Mukkaribs "priest-kings," were the first rulers of the early South Arabian states. They were later replaced by ordinary maliks (muluk) "kings."

Although precise dating of the establishment of these states is still a matter of study and controversy, all were apparently in existence before the time of Lehi.^[1]. They established colonies along the inland caravan route to the north, at such sites as Yathrib (Medina), Didan/Dedan al-Khuraybah, and Al-Hijr/Hijra), around which later coalesced tribal groups that formed the less well developed states of Saba'a, Ma'een, Thamud and Lihyan in Western and Southern Arabia.^[2]

References

1. ^ Van Beek, "Frankincense and Myrrh," 2:104, 107, 126; Albright, "Chronology of Ancient South Arabia," 6, 8–9, and n. 8, following the high dating of Maria Höfner; cf. Moscati, Ancient Semitic Civilizations, 182–85; Peter M. Holt, Ann K. S. Lambton, and Bernard Lewis, eds., The Cambridge History of Islam (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970), 1:7–9.
2. ^ SEHA presentation at BYU, 22 October 1983, published by Hope A. and Lynn M. Hilton, as "The Lihyanites," Sunstone (January–February 1984): 4–8; note however the caveat of David J. Johnson and Richard N. Jones in "Reader's Forum," Sunstone (April 1985): 2–3; cf. G. Lankester Harding, An Index and Concordance of Pre-Islamic Arabian Names and Inscriptions (Toronto: University of Toronto, 1971), 512–13.