The Sabaean Kingdom came into existence from at least the eleventh century BC.[4] There were four major kingdoms or tribal confederations in South Arabia: Saba, Hadramout, Qataban and Ma'in. Saba is believed to be biblical Sheba and was the most prominent federation.[5] The Sabaean rulers adopted the title Mukarrib generally thought to mean "unifier",[6] or a "priest-king".[7] The role of the Mukarrib was to bring the various tribes under the kingdom and preside over them all.[8] The Sabaens built the Great Dam of Marib around 940 BCE.[9] The dam was built to withstand the seasonal flash floods surging down the valley.
There were recurrences of the plague in Syria–Palestine about every decade between 688/89 and 744/45. [35] "The Umaiyad [sic] dynasty was literally plagued by this disease ", in the words of Dols. [36] The deaths of the Umayyad caliphs Mu'awiya II ( r . 683–684 ), Marwan I ( r . 684–685 ), Abd al-Malik ( r . 685–705 ), Sulayman ( r . 715–717 ) and the Umayyad governors in Iraq al-Mughira ibn Shu'ba ( r . 661–671 ) and Ziyad ibn Abihi ( r . 685–673 ) may all possibly have been caused by the plague epidemics in Syria and Iraq. [37] [21] The caliphs routinely withdrew from the cities to their desert palaces when the plague emerged during the summer months. [36] Notable among them was Caliph Hisham ( r . 724–743 ), who preferred his palace at Rusafa over Damascus because he viewed the latter to be unhealthy. [38]
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