Imru' Al-Qais - Ancestry

Ancestry

The tribe of Kindah had its origins in the mountains of southern Arabia and migrated north to Najd sometime in the 4th or 5th century AD. Sometime in the 5th century they asked the king of Yemen to select them a king, and Hujr the "eater of bitter herbs" became the first Kindite king. He was succeeded by his son 'Amr, who was succeeded by his son al-Harith, who was the greatest of all the Kindite kings. One of al-Harith's sons was Hujr, and he made him regent over the tribes of Asad and Ghatfan, and Hujr was the father of Imru' al-Qais.

Of al-Harith, it is told that when the Persian emperor Kavadh I adopted the teachings of the religious revolutionary Mazdak, al-Harith converted to Mazdakism with him. This caused Kavadh to make al-Harith king of the Hirah, a region in the south of modern-day Iraq, and expel his previous Arab vassal al-Mundhir. Kavadh's son Khosrau I rejected Mazdakism and rebuked al-Harith, restoring al-Mundhir to the throne of the Hirah. It is not known for sure how al-Harith died, but some reports indicate he was captured by al-Mundhir as he fled al-Hirah, and then killed along with two of his sons and more than forty of his kinsmen. Imru' al-Qais mourns this tragedy in one of the poems attributed to him:

Weep for me, my eyes! Spill your tears

And mourn for me the vanished kings

Hujr ibn 'Amru's princely sons

Led away to slaughter at eventide;

If only they had died in combat

Not in the lands of Banu Marina!

No water was there to wash their fallen heads,

And their skulls lie spattered with blood

Pecked over by birds

Who tear out first the eyebrows, then the eyes.

(Diwan, Poem 2)

In 525 AD Yemen was occupied by the Negus (Emperor) of Axum (modern-day Ethiopia). With their sponsor destroyed, the Kindah monarchy quickly fell apart. It is probably during this period that the tribe of Asad rebelled and killed Imru' al-Qais' father, Hujr.