Hadhramaut - Etymology

Etymology

The origin of the name is not exactly known. There are various theories. One theory is that the region is named after a nickname of Amar bin Qahtan (عمرو بن قحطان), meaning "death has come", from /ḥaḍara/ (Arabic for "has come") and /maut/ ("death"), the reason being that whenever he entered a battle, there were always many people who died. Another theory is that after the destruction of Thamud, the Islamic prophet Saleh relocated himself and about 4,000 of his followers to the area known as Hadhramaut and it was here where he died and thus, the region was called "death has come".

Another theory is that it is related to Hazarmaveth in Genesis 10:26 and 1 Chronicles 1:20 in the Bible (meaning "court of death", according to various Bible dictionaries). There, Hazarmaveth is the name of a son of Joktan, one of the sons of Shem in the table of the Sons of Noah in Genesis 10—i.e., the founders of nearby nations including Sheba, also a son of Joktan. As Southern Arabia was and is one of the homelands of the South Semitic language subfamily, a Semitic origin for the name is highly likely. If the name did reflect a biblical- or pre-biblical-era naming convention in the Near East, this would make it ancient indeed, pre-dating both Islam and Greco-Roman civilization.

A third theory is that the name derives from the Greek υδρευματα (hydreumata), or enclosed (and often fortified) watering stations at wadis. A hydreuma (singular) is a manned and fortified watering hole or way station along a caravan route. Juris Zarins, rediscoverer of the city claimed to be the ancient Incense Route trade capital Ubar in Oman, described that site in a Nova interview:

The site that we uncovered at Shisur was a kind of fortress/administration center set up to protect the water supply from raiding Bedouin tribes. Surrounding the site, as far as six miles away, were smaller villages, which served as small-scale encampments for the caravans. An interesting parallel to this are the fortified water holes in the Eastern Desert of Egypt from Roman times. There, they were called hydreumata.