Besides North Korea and Somalia, there is no country where Christians suffer more for their faith than in Yemen. As well as their sad place in the top three of the Open Doors list of worldwide persecution, the country is known for civil war, famine, deep poverty, Islamic extremism and hostility towards Israel. But it was not always this way.
The area of modern-day Yemen was once described as Eudaimon Arabia (“pleasant Arabia”) by the Ancient Greek writer Pleiades, and Arabia Felix (“Happy Arabia”) in Latin sources. Unlike the images of arid deserts which enter our minds when we imagine the Arabian lands, this region was rather green and pleasant in ancient times. While this part of the world is now often overlooked, its ancient connections to the Christian world are fascinating, and offer amazing insights into the pre-Islamic world of Arabia.
Up until the end of the third century AD, the area of modern-day Yemen was split among various Arabic kingdoms. These kingdoms gained considerable wealth with their lucrative spice trade, owing their success to the rains which fell upon their lands in those days and their location upon important trade routes. Among the goods traded by these kingdoms were frankincense and myrrh, and there are even some traditions which suggest the Three Wise Men had come from these South Arabian kingdoms, bringing with them their precious local produce.
Chief among these states was the Kingdom of Sheba, a name which should sound very familiar, as 1 Kings 10 narrates a visit to Solomon’s courts in Israel by the queen of Sheba, who brings with her a large amount of gold and other expensive gifts. The presence of Jewish influence in the region presumably started with the connection between her realm and that of Israel – something which becomes important later.
During the course of the third century AD, the region was gradually united under the Himyarite kingdom, the borders of which encompassed most of what is now modern Yemen. Within this kingdom there was a powerful Jewish presence, and at the end of the third century the Himyarite king, Malkikarib Yuhamin, even converted himself and the ruling class to Judaism. This meant that, for a few decades, there was a Jewish kingdom in southern Arabia! Something which would be unimaginable today, considering the state of modern Yemen.
Although Christianity spread fast in the ancient Middle East after Pentecost, it would take until the fourth century for a merchant from southern Arabia to return home from Constantinople (the later capital of the Roman empire) and spread the Christian faith which he discovered there to his own people. From that initial seed, watered by the arrival of other missionaries, grew a substantial Christian presence not only in Yemen, but across the whole peninsula.
Eventually, a flourishing Christian community formed in the city of Najran. Before Islam spread to modern-day Yemen, there was not just a flourishing Jewish and Christian presence. From ancient records it seems there was also another monotheistic religion which traced its roots back to Abraham. This monotheism (called Hanifism) was described as the unadulterated transmission of Abraham’s faith by its adherents, and it is very possible that a remnant of Abraham’s teachings was transmitted through some of his descendants from the line of Ishmael. In southern Arabia specifically, there are inscriptions mentioning a high deity termed Rahmanan (“The Merciful”, a title still in use by Muslims for Allah today). What is even more interesting, is that Rahmanan was sometimes given the title of “Lord of the Jews”, implying that they had started to see their high God as equivalent to the one the Jews worshipped.
But what eventually happened to the Christians in ancient Yemen?
In the fourth century, a Christian king became the ruler of the land (imagine that today!). But the Jewish warlord Dhu Nuwas was not happy about what he saw as the expanding influence of the Christian Eastern Roman empire. The successor of this Christian king was deposed by this Jewish warlord, but that was not enough for him. He wanted to rid the kingdom of all Christians.
On a rampage, he murdered almost everyone in the community of Najran, along with those from other Christian communities in the area. The cruelty of his massacres became well-known across the ancient Christian world. As a result, the Roman emperor Justin I persuaded his Christian ally king Kaleb of Axum (in today’s Ethiopia) to conquer the kingdom. He removed the Jewish warlord from his position and for a period the area was ruled by Christian Ethiopian rulers, until it fell to the Persians in 570 AD. It is under Persian rule that the area would be converted to Islam in the following century and gain the name Yemen.
Nothing is now left of that original Christian and Jewish presence in Yemen (though Yemeni Jews remained there until the end of the last century). Yet in all the current chaos of today’s Yemen, a new Christian community has formed, not unlike the community of Najran all those centuries ago. The number of Christians in Yemen is very small, and they face persecutions of many kinds under their Islamic rulers and neighbours, similar to the persecutions the ancient Yemini Christians once faced. As was the case then, the Church bears witness to their suffering. Discriminated against by the government, rejected by their communities, beaten by religious fanatics, and killed for apostasy through Islam, they share in our Saviour’s sufferings, in the sure hope that one day they will also share in his glory.
