To the north of Yathrib was situated the district of Chaibar, which was entirely inhabited by Jews, who constituted a separate commonwealth. The Jews of Chaibar are supposed to have been descendants of the Rechabites, who, in accordance with the command of their progenitor, Jonadab, the son of Rechab, led a nomadic and Nazarite life; after the destruction of the First Temple, they are said to have wandered as far as the district of Chaibar, attracted by its abundance of palms and grain. The Jews of Chaibar constructed a line of castles or fortresses, like the castles of the Christian knights; the strongest of them was Kamus, built upon a hill difficult of access. These castles protected them from the predatory incursions of the warlike Bedouins, and enabled them to offer an asylum to many a persecuted fugitive. Wadil-Kora (the valley of the villages), a fertile plain a day's journey from Chaibar, was also inhabited exclusively by Jews. In Mecca, where stood the sanctuary of the Arabs, there probably lived but few Jews. They were numerously represented, however, in southern Arabia (Yemen), "the land," its inhabitants boasted, "the very dust of which was gold, which produced the healthiest men, and whose women brought forth without pain." But unlike their brethren in Hejas, the Jews of Arabia Felix lived without racial or political cohesion, scattered among the Arabs. They nevertheless in time obtained so great an influence over the Arab tribes and the kings of Yemen (Himyara), that they were able to prevent the propagation of Christianity in this region. The Byzantine Christian emperors had their desires fixed upon these markets for Indian produce. Without actually meditating the subjection of the brave Himyarites (Homerites), they desired to gain their friendship by converting them to Christianity; the cross was to be the means of effecting a commercial connection. It was not until the end of the fifth or the beginning of the sixth century that the Christian envoys succeeded in converting to Christianity an Arab prince and his tribe, whose capital was the commercial town of Najara.--Arabia owned only half the island of Yotabe (now Jijbân), in the Red Sea (60 miles to the south of the capital, Aila); a small Jewish free state had existed there since time immemorial.