Najrān

Najrān, town, oasis, and minṭaqah (province), southern Asir region, southwestern Saudi Arabia, in the desert along the Yemen frontier. It is bounded by the provinces of Riyadh (north), Al-Sharqiyyah (east), and Asir (west). The province is composed of the Asir plateau (west), Najrān plateau (center), and the Rubʿ al-Khali (“Empty Quarter”) desert (east).

First visited by the Romans in 24 bce, it was the seat of an important Christian colony in 500–635 ce. Najrān was one of the main centers producing frankincense and myrrh to supply the Mediterranean basin and the Middle East between 1000 bce and 600 ce. An attack on the town by the Ḥimyarite king Yūsuf Asʾar Yathʾar (also called Dhū Nuwās) sometime around 520 ce precipitated the fall of his kingdom: news of a massacre and persecution led to intervention from Aksum, which succeeded in overrunning the Himyarite kingdom in 525 and replacing it with a protectorate under the viceroyalty of Abraha. The proximity of these and subsequent events to the rise of Islam in Mecca, in both time and space, left an impact on the formative literature of the religion, in which it is reported that the Prophet Muhammad reached an agreement of tolerance with Najrān’s Christian community in an event known as the Mubāhalah. Many of the town’s inhabitants were deported to Iraq, however, under the caliphate of ʿUmar.

In the mid-20th century Najrān was the subject of controversy between Saudi Arabia and Yemen (Sanaa). By the Treaty of Al-Ṭāʾif in 1934, it was given to Saudi Arabia, but the boundary was disputed for decades by Yemen (Sanaa) and later by the united Yemen state until the two countries finalized demarcation of the border. An extremely fertile agricultural area, the oasis produces dates and grains and is used for stock raising. The town of Najrān is the southern terminus of highways from Mecca and Riyadh. Pop. (2010) town, 298,288; province, 507,106.