two personages were descended the greater part of the Yemenite tribes, who still existed at the time of the rise of Islamism. The Himyarites seem to have settled in the towns, whilst the Kahlanites inhabited the country and the deserts of Yemen. ... This is the substance of all the information given by the Arab historians." _F. Lenormant and E. Chevalier, Manual of Ancient History of the East, book 7, chapter 1-2 (volume 2)._ ARABIA: Sabæans, The. "For some time past it has been known that the Himyaritic inscriptions fall into two groups, distinguished from one another by phonological and grammatical differences. One of the dialects is philologically older than the other, containing fuller and more primitive grammatical forms. The inscriptions in this dialect belong to a kingdom the capital of which was at Ma'in, and which represents the country of the Minæans of the ancients. The inscriptions in the other dialect were engraved by the princes and people of Sabâ, the Sheba of the Old Testament, the Sabæans of classical geography. The Sabæan kingdom lasted to the time of Mohammed, when it was destroyed by the advancing forces of Islam. Its rulers for several generations had been converts to Judaism, and had been engaged in almost constant warfare with the Ethiopic kingdom of Axum, which was backed by the influence and subsidies of Rome and Byzantium. Dr. Glaser seeks to show that the founders of this Ethiopic kingdom were the Habâsa, or Abyssinians, who migrated from Himyar to Africa in the second or first century B. C.; when we first hear of them in the inscriptions they are still the inhabitants of Northern Yemen and Mahrah. More than once the Axumites made themselves masters of Southern Arabia. About A. D. 300, they occupied its ports and islands, and from 350 to 378 even the Sabæan kingdom was tributary to them. Their last successes were gained in 525, when, with Byzantine help, they conquered the whole of Yemen. But the Sabæan kingdom, in spite of its temporary subjection to Ethiopia, had long been a formidable State. Jewish colonies settled in it, and one of its princes became a convert to the Jewish faith. His successors gradually extended their dominion as far as Ormuz, and after the successful revolt from Axum in 378, brought not only the whole of the southern coast under their sway, but the western coast as well, as far north as Mekka. Jewish influence made itself felt in the future birthplace of Mohammed, and thus introduced those ideas and beliefs which subsequently had so profound an effect upon the birth of Islam. The Byzantines and Axumites endeavoured to counteract the influence of Judaism by means of Christian colonies and proselytism. The result was a conflict between Sabâ and its assailants, which took the form of a conflict between the members of the two religions. {123}