The Origin of Jedda and the Problem of al-Shuʿayba

Author(s): G. R. Hawting
Source: Arabica , Nov., 1984, T. 31, Fasc. 3 (Nov., 1984), pp. 318-326
Published by: Brill

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 THE ORIGIN OF JEDDA
AND THE PROBLEM OF AL-SHU'AYBA

BY

G. R. HAWTING

THE aim of this note is to draw attention to two related questions:

what are the origins of the present city of Jedda, the port of Mecca
on the Red Sea, and where was al-Shueayba, which is sometimes
mentioned by Muslim tradition as the port of Mecca before Jedda took
over that role 1 ? An answer to the latter question has been proposed by
the Saudi scholar, Hamad al-Jasir2, but the question of the origin of
Jedda has not been examined critically. In particular there is a problem
about whether it existed before Islam or is to be seen as a creation of the
Islamic period.
There are a number of reports in Muslim tradition which, referring to
the Jahiliyya and the early Islamic period, mention al-Shu'ayba and
sometimes explain that it was the port of Mecca. Perhaps the most
common reference to al-Shueayba occurs in the reports about the
rebuilding of the Kaeba by Quraysh when the Prophet was still a youth.
At that time, we are told, a ship was wrecked at al-Shueayba, which was
then the port of Mecca (wa-hiya yawma'idhin sdhil3 Makka qablu Judda),
and Quraysh used wood obtained from the ship in their building4. In
some versions the ship is said to have come from Abyssinia 5, and in

1 I leave aside here the problem of <correct>> vocalisation, and use the common English
Jedda and, in Arabic, the possibly hyper-correct Judda. For a useful summary of opinions
about the vocalisation and meaning of the name see A. Pesce, Jiddah, Portrait of an Arabian
city, London 1974, p. ix.
2 See below, p. 322.
On the use of sahil in the sense of (<port>> or ?coastal entrepot for inland commerce>>
see the discussion by J. Wansbrough, ?Africa and the Arab geographers>>, in Language
and history in Africa, ed. D. Dalby, London 1970, 92, with further references.
4 Al-Azraqi, K. Akhbdr Makka, apud F. Wiistenfeld, Die Chroniken der Stadt Mekka,
4 vols., Leipzig 1857-61, i, 107;'Abd al-Razzaq, Al-Musannaf, Beirut 1970f., v, no. 9103;
Yaqiut, Mu'jam al-bulddn, Leipzig 1866-73, iii, 301.
s e.g., H. Zotenberg (tr.), Chronique de ... Tabari traduite sur la version persane
d'Abou-Ali-Mo'hammed-Bel'ami, Paris 1867-74, ii, 388-9. Most frequently the ship is
described as rim7 (see previous note for references), as is the carpenter or captain of the
ship whose help Quraysh enlisted for their rebuilding. Tab./Bel'aml, loc. cit., has one

Arabica, Tome xxxi, Fascicule 3

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 [2] THE ORIGIN OF JEDDA 319

various other references al-Shueayba is sometimes associated in some

way with Abyssinia: the first muhafiruin departed from al-Shueayba to
Abyssinia 6, an expedition was led by'Alqama b. Mujazziz to drive off
300 Habasha whose ships the people of al-Shu'ayba (explained as sihil
bi-ndhiya Makka) had seen7.
Other traditions assume the existence of Jedda in the Jahiliyya, even
that it was the port of Mecca. Alexander the Great departed from Jedda
for the bildd al-maghrib after coming to Mecca to accomplish the hajj8.
In one of the versions of the story which explains how the original
monotheism of the Meccan sanctuary came to be corrupted it is said that
certain idols were washed up at Jedda after the Deluge and later brought
to Mecca where they were set up around the Kaeba9. Al-Ya'qibi lists
Jedda as the last of the makhalTf or kuwar of the Yemen in the pre-
Islamic period O. Jedda is, of course, closely associated with Eve in
Muslim tradition, probably on account of the similarity between its
name and the Arabic word for grandmother (jadda)' 1, and it is
frequently named as the place where Eve was set on earth after the
expulsion from Paradise 12. At the time of Babel, it is reported, Amr b.
Ma'add was dwelling at JeddaI3I
Occasionally, different versions of the same report have Jedda and
al-Shu'ayba as variant readings. For example, some versions of the story

reference to the carpenter as a Copt. The name of the captain/carpenter, when it is supplied,
is always Baqiim, and, in spite of attempts to derive this from the Coptic form of
Pachomius (e.g., Th. N6ldeke, article <Arabs (Ancient)>> in Hasting's Enc. of Rel. and
Ethics), E. Littman's suggestion that it should be derived from Ethiopic Enbaqom
(Habakkuk) seems more acceptable (see K. A. C. Cresswell, Early Muslim Architecture,
2Oxford 1969, i, 5, citing letters from Littman).
6 Tabarl, Ta'rlkh, Leiden 1879-91, i, 1181-2; Wdqidi, Maghdzi, Oxford 1966, 744.
7 Wdqidi, 983.
8 Dinawari, K. al-Akhbar al-tiwdl, Cairo 1960, 34.
9 Ibn al-Kalbi, K. al-Asnam, Paris 1969, 48f; J. Wellhausen, Reste arabischen Heiden-
tums, 'Berlin 1927, 15.
0 Ya'qiibli, Ta'rfkh, Beirut 1970, i, 201.
" Ibn al-Mujawir, Sifat bildd al-Yaman, Leiden 1951, 1954, i, 52: innamd summiyat
Judda ... illa annaha dufina bihd ummU 'I-bash Tr' Hawwd ... fa-hiya jaddatU jamT' 'l-'alam.
Until 1926, when it was destroyed by the Wahhabis, there existed a sanctuary at Jedda
which, according to Muslim and western sources, was revered as the tomb of Eve
(C. A. Nallino, Raccolta di scritti editi e inediti, Rome 1939-48, i, 155). References to this
sanctuary in Muslim sources are rather sparse and it does not seem possible to say when it
originated-our earliest references are al-Idrisli and Ibn al-Jubayr, both in the 12th century.
One may surmise that the tomb is older than that, although, of course, the association with
Eve may be secondary. On this tomb, see now A. Pesce, Jiddah, 126-30.
12 Tabari, Ta'rfkh, i, 120-1.
13 3Yaqt, Bulddn, ii, 41.

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 320 G. R. HAWTING [3]

of the rebuilding of the Kaeba by Quraysh have the ship wrecked at

Jedda instead of the, in this instance, better attested al-Shu'ayba14.
Describing the flight of Safwan b. Umayya from Mecca at the time of
its conquest by the Prophet, a tradition given by Ibn Ishiiq says that he
fled towards Jedda, while in the version given by al-Wdqidi he fled to
al-Shueayba 5.
What these reports seem to show is that al-Shu'ayba is named with
relative infrequency, that it occurs only in a limited group of traditions,
and that there was a tendency to supplant it with the name of Jedda. It
seems clear that, where both Jedda and al-Shu'ayba are named in
different versions of the same report, al-Shueayba represents the
?original>> reading and Jedda a later emendation since, in the Islamic
period, al-Shueayba had no importance and there would be no reason to
substitute it for Jedda. On the other hand, the fact that the name of
al-Shueayba is often followed by an explanatory gloss seems to point to a
lack of familiarity with it in the Islamic period, and the substitution of
Jedda for al-Shu'ayba may sometimes be an involuntary reading back
into the Jahiliyya of the conditions of the Islamic period. Those
traditions associating Jedda with Eve could be relatively late attempts
to provide it with a religious significance of the sort analysed by von
u16
Grunebaum 6
However, the basic questions still remain unanswered. Was Jedda in
fact in existence in the pre-Islamic period? If so, did it then exist
alongside al-Shu'ayba and what was its raison d'etre? When did Jedda
take over the role of the port of Mecca, and what became of al-Shu'ayba
in the Islamic period? Another possibility is that we should think in
terms of a continuity of site but a change of names.
Presumably on the basis of traditions like those referred to above,
modem works generally accept that Jedda existed in the pre-Islamic
period, although saying little or nothing about its pre-Islamic con-
dition-whether, for instance, we should envisage merely a scatter of
dwellings, a village or something bigger"7. Muslim traditions about the

14 Tabari, Ta'rTkh, i, 1135;'Abd al-Razzaq, Musannaf, v, no. 9106.

15 Ibn Hisham, Sfra, 2Cairo 1955, 417 (= Tabari, Ta'rTkh, i, 1644-5); Waqidi, Maghdzi,
853.
16 G. E. von Grunebaum, ?The sacred character of Islamic cities>>, in Melanges Taha
Husain, Cairo 1962, 25-37. Possession of the tomb of Eve puts Jedda in the first two of the
three categories of sanctity which von Grunebaum suggested may be applied to various
Islamic cities.
17 Encyclopaedia of Islam2, article <<Djuddao>; Abd al-Quddiis al-Ansari, <<Judda 'abra
'l-ta'rnkh>>, in al-Manhal, 1381, p. 595; Hamad al-Jasir, H shamdl gharb al-Jaz7ra, Riyad

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 [4] THE ORIGIN OF JEDDA 321

origins of Jedda are scarce and problematic. Ibn al-Mujawir (d. 1291)
has two reports which could be taken to refer to its origins. One of them
describes Jedda as a construction (bind') of one of the Sasanids, although
the name of its founder is corrupt in the text and does not allow the date
to be suggested with much certainty: the report may envisage Jedda as a
construction of the Sasanids before Islam, or it could be that the name
of its builder is meant as that of a grandson of Yazdagird III, the last
Sasanid ruler of Persia, which would of course mean that Jedda was
built in the early Islamic period 18. The other report of Ibn al-Mujawir
says that the family of Salman al-Farisi settled in Jedda (sakanuiha).
They had heard that he had accepted Islam, so they came, accepted Islam
at the hands of the Prophet, and settled in Jedda because they were
merchants 9. The way these two stories are presented by Ibn al-Mujawir
seems to show that he regarded them as alternative versions of the
foundation of Jedda. What they have in common, of course, is the
connexion between Jedda and Persians, and I am inclined to see both
reports as reflexions of the fact that in the late 4th/lOth century Jedda did
receive an influx of, and was developed by, merchants from Persia. This
followed the decline of Siraf on the Gulf and is reported in detail by Ibn
al-Mujawir , and the Persian connexion is also alluded to by some
geographers of the 4th/lOth century21. The suggestion that Jedda was
founded by Persians does not occur in our earliest sources, but is made, in
a general way, by the 14th century traveller Ibn Battuita22.
The most frequent account of the circumstances in which Jedda
became the port of Mecca associates it with the caliph 'Uthman.
According to the most detailed version of this account, inthe year 26/647
'Uthman officially made Jedda the port of Mecca at the request of the

1970, 174; E. F. Gautier, Mwurs et coutumes des musulmans, Paris 1931, 68; A. Pesce,
Jiddah, 61 (on p. 3 he suggests that it was no more than a fishermen's hamlet in antiquity).
Note, however, that A. Sprenger, Die alte Geographie Arabiens, Berne 1875, 39, says that
its existence before Islam is ?questionable?).
18 Ibn al-Mujawir, Sifat, i, 42. The editor, 0. Lofgren, has suggested that the name
could be read as Khusraw b. Fayriuz b. Yazdagird b. Shahriyar b. Bahram. Yazdagird III
had a son called Fayruiz (see Mas'iidi, Muruj, Paris 1861-77, ii, 241) and was himself the
son of Shahriyar. But Mas'iidi, also mentions a Fayruiz b. Yazdagird b. Bahram in the
time of Mazdak (ii, 195).
19 Ibn al-Mujawir, Sifat, i, 42.
20 ibid., i, 45. For the 10th century ruin of Siraf, see G. Le Strange, Eastern caliphate,
258-9.
21 Ibn Hawqal, K. Surat al-ard, Paris 1964, i, 31; al-Maqdisi, Ahsdn al-taqdsfm, 2Leiden
1906, 79.
22 H. A. R. Gibb (tr.), The travels of Ibn Battuta, Cambridge 1958f., i, 360-1.

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 322 G. R. HAWTING [5]

Meccans. They has asked him to change (yuhawwilu) the sdhil from
al-Shu'aybiyya (sic in the text), which was the sahil of Mecca in the
Jahiliyya, to Jedda, which ?is its sdhil today>>. The reason why they
wanted the change was the greater proximity of Jedda to Mecca. In
response to their request, 'Uthman, who was in Mecca for the perfor-
mance of an 'umra, went out to Jedda, saw its position, and ordered the
changing of the sahil to it. He went into the sea, made ghusl in it, and
said that it was mubdrak. He then ordered those who were with him to
do the same, and everyone who did so wore a mi'zar. 'Uthman then left
Jedda for Medina, and at that time the people abandoned the sdhil of
al-Shu'aybiyya.
This detailed tradition appears, so far as I know, only in a compa-
ratively late source, the I'lam of al-Nahrawili, who died in 990/158223.
He cites as his source the Ta'r-kh of al-HIIfiz Najm al-Din 'Umar b.
Fahd, whose literary activity was in the second half of the 9th/15th
century, and who was a pupil of al-Fsli, the author of the Shifa 24. In
the Shifd', however, 'Uthman's action is mentioned only briefly, not in
the detail which al-Nahrawali provides 25, and there has to be some
doubt, therefore, about the source and antiquity of al-Nahrawali's
details. F. Wiistenfeld, L. Caetani and Hamad al-Jasir who all cite
the tradition, are all dependant on al-Nahrawalil26. Al-Fdsi's briefer
reference to the substitution by 'Uthman comes presumably from the
3rd/9th century al-FHkihi. Although I have been unable to locate the
tradition in the Leiden ms. of al-Fdkihli's work, al-Fsli's chapter Fadl
Judda is largely a citation of al-Fdkihli's chapter Dhikr Judda wa'l-
tahaffuz bihd27, and Ibn al-Mujawir, too, cites al-Fdkihi as the source
for the statement, ?the first who took Jedda as a sdhil was 'Uthman b.
'Afflan and before that it was at a place called al-Shu'ayba? 28*
It seems, then, that we can trace back to the 3rd/9th century the
tradition that it was the caliph 'Uthman who instituted Jedda as the port
of Mecca and cancelled the previous role of al-Shu'ayba. The tradition

23 Qutb al-Din al-Nahrawali, K. al-I'lam bi-a'lim bayt Alldh al-haram, apud

Wiistenfeld, Chron. Mekka, iii, 79.
24 C. Brockelmann, GAL, ii, 175, Sii, 225; F. Rosenthal, A history of Muslim
historiography, Leiden 1952, index.
25 Al-Fdsl, Shifd' al-gharam bi-akhbdr al-balad al-hardm, Cairo 1956, 87.
26 F. Wustenfeld, Geschichte der Stadt Mekka, apud his Chron. Mekka, iv, 122;
L. Caetani, Annali dell'Islam, 26 A.H., ?51; Hamad al-Jasir, Fi shamdl gharb al-Jazfra, 175.
27 Al-Fdkihli, Ta'rikh Makka, ms. Leiden Or. 463, 413b-414a. I am grateful to the
Library of Leiden University for supplying me with a copy of this ms.
28 Ibn al-Mujawir, Sifat, i, 42.

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 [6] THE ORIGIN OF JEDDA 323

does not appear to be widely known: al-Fakihli appears to be the sole

source, and al-Azraql, the slightly earlier historian of Mecca who is the
source of much of al-FRkihi's material, does not have it29. The report of
al-Fakihi leaves us in doubt about whether Jedda already existed as a
settlement of some sort when 'Uthman substituted it for al-Shu'ayba,
and so too does the more detailed account of al-Nahrawali, although the
latter gives a general impression that the site was unoccupied. Against
that we have to set the two inconclusive reports of Ibn al-Mujawir and
also, for what it is worth, a reference by Ibn al-Jubayr (d. after 1217) to
one, or possibly two, mosques in Jedda founded by the caliph 'Umar30.
Ibn al-Jubayr's report assumes, of course, that Jedda existed, and was
even the centre of a sizeable population, before the time of 'Uthman.
None of this seems sufficient as evidence for the origins of Jedda or
whether it existed before Islam. On ground of common sense it is difficult
to see why the Meccans should have used al-Shu'ayba as a port if a more
convenient site was at hand and also why they would need to get the
caliph's agreement to use Jedda instead of al-Shueayba. In general the
tradition of 'Uthman's institution of Jedda as the port of Mecca, as well
as being poorly attested, does riot sound convincing. Its point may be to
stress the sanctity of Jedda and its association with the haram of Mecca.
Jedda is not now regarded as part of the haram but in the past there
seems to have been reluctance to allow non-Muslims to disembark
there3 1 Al-Nahrawali gives the report about 'Uthman's measure as an
appendage to his account of the same caliph's renewal of the ansdb al-
haram (understood as boundary stones marking the edge of the haram),
and it seems possible that the tradition associating 'Uthman with the
instituting of Jedda as the port of Mecca may have developed as an
elaboration of that of 'Uthman's renewal of the ansdb al-haram, as part
of a series designed to illustrate the fa4d'il Judda32.
Muslim sources, then, are of doubtful value when it comes to
answering the various questions about the origins of Jedda. Non-Muslim

29 Cf. Hamad al-Jasir, FT shamdl gharb al-Jaz7ra, 175, who says that al-Shaykh 'A
al-Sinjari cites the report about 'Uthman's substitution from al-Azraql. Hamad al-Jasir
notes that it is not in the published text of al-Azraqi.
30 Ibn Jubayr, Rihla, Leiden 1852, 76 (cited by Fdlsi, Shifd', 88).
31 See the citations from Lodovico de Varthema and Andrea Corsali in A. Pesce,
Jiddah,
29-30.
32 In the Shifa', al-Fdsi gives the traditions about Jedda under the heading Dhikr shay'
min fadl Judda sdhil Makka.

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 324 G. R. HAWTING [7]

sources certainly provide no grounds for thinking that it existed before

Islam, in spite of the general assumption in modem works that it did.
Jedda does not appear to be mentioned in any pre-Islamic source, either
south Arabian or classical. This argument from silence is not in itself
positive evidence, but it is striking that, in contrast to Jedda, we do
have pre-Islamic attestation of Yanbui' (Jambia), the port of Medina
(Yathrib) 33.
Turning now to al-Shu'ayba, the difficulty is to find any trace of it
outside the rather sparse information given by Muslim tradition. As we
have seen, that information consists mainly of the occurrence of the
name al-Shu'ayba in connexion with particular incidents said to have
taken place in pre-Islamic and early Islamic times, notably the rebuilding
of the Kaeba by Quraysh, and the explanatory gloss which is sometimes
given that it was the port of Mecca before Jedda. Apart from that, only
Ibn al-Mujawir adds anything original, referring to it as a great bay
(khawr 'azTm) and situating it ?opposite Wadi 'I-Muhram>> 34, but he
gives no source and, apart from the vague geographical reference, even if
we accept the factual basis of the statement, it does not much increase the
information to be gleaned from other sources. It is true that Hamad al-
Jasir has claimed that al-Idrisi referred to al-Shu'ayba and gave details of
its distance from Jedda and Mecca as well as certain other information
which indicated that it survived as a port into the Islamic period.
According to Hamad al-Jasir, al-Idrisli described al-Shu'ayba as a
populated settlement (qarya 'amira) and referred to its role as a (former?
port of Mecca35. According to the critical Italian edition of al-Idrisi,
however, the passage in question does not mention al-Shu'ayba, a name
which, indeed, seems not to occur anywhere in al-Idrisil's work. The
first part of the passage which, according to Hamad al-Jasir, refers to
al-Shu'ayba, in fact relates to a place which is given variantly as al-sqyt
or al-sfyh (Jaubert's French translation had it as Saqin). This is al-Idrisl's
qarya ira. The following part of Hamad al-Jasir's citation clearly
relates to Jedda, which is the next place dealt with by al-Idrsi, so that,
even if one is prepared to read sqyt/sfyh as Shu'ayba, it is not this place

33 A. Sprenger, Die alte Geographie Arabiens, 26, no. 24 (lambia); A. F. von Pauly &
G. Wissowa, Realenzyclopddie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft, Stuttgart 1893f., s.v.
lambia. Sprenger's suggestion, p. 39, no. 39, that the Jadda of Stephanus Byzantinus may
be a reference to Jedda does not seem supportable-see Pauly-Wissowa, Realenzyclopddie,
s.v. Gadda.
34 Ibn al-Mujawir, Sifat, 42-3.
3 Hamad al-Jasir, FT shamdl gharb al-Jazira, 174.

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 [8] THE ORIGIN OF JEDDA 325

but Jedda which is the port of Mecca. Desire to <discover>> al-Shu'ayba

seems to have led to misinterpretation of the text36.
Neither does Hamad al-Jasir's claim to have found the present day site
of al-Shu'ayba, and even to have visited it, sound convincing. His
description of the taxi ride to the place, with the driver getting lost,
finally reaching a bay on the coast, announcing ?there is al-Shueayba in
front of you>>, but refusing to linger because he has no papers for the car,
makes a lively interlude in the book but hardly qualifies as a scientific
expedition. In fact the identification of al-Shu'ayba seems to be entirely
conjectural37.
Among western scholars only A. Sprenger seems to have been
concerned to identify al-Shueayba, but his identification is equally
unsatisfactory. He suggests an identification with a place called Kentos
which is mentioned by Ptolemy, and Sprenger thought that this might be
a free translation of the Arabic al-Shu'ayba in the sense of ?the space
between the two horns of an animal>>. He also referred to a place called
Shayba standing at latitude 20042' north on the Admiralty Map, and
put this forward as a possibility for the site of al-Shu'ayba 3. In the
Admiralty Pilot of 1955, however, there is no mention of this place: the
only similar name seems to be that of the reef called Shi'b Shu'ayba
which is situated to the north of Yanbiu'39
It seems, therefore, that there is no information about al-Shu'ayba
apart from the meagre details in Muslim tradition, and there is a strong
impression that the Muslim scholars themselves had no real knowledge
about it. As we have seen, there is a tendency to replace it with the name
of Jedda, or else the need is felt to gloss al-Shu'ayba with the information
that it was the port of Mecca before Jedda. It seems that the Muslim
scholars were faced with a few reports in which the name of al-Shu'ayba
occurred, notably the report of the shipwreck linked with the rebuilding
of the sanctuary, and they explained it as the port of Mecca in the
Jahiliyya but could not say more.
Both the circumstances in which Jedda developed into a major port
and the significance of the place called al-Shu'ayba seem, then, obscure.

36 Al-Idrsli, Opus Geographicum sive Liber ad eorum delectationem qui terras peragrare
studeant, edd. A. Bombaci, U. Rizzitano, R. Rubinacci, L. Veccia Vaglieri, et al., Naples-
Rome 1970, fasc. ii, p. 13816f.
3 Hamad al-Jasir, i shamdl gharb al-JazTra, 173-4.
38 A. Sprenger, Die alte Geographie Arabiens, p. 39, no. 40.
39 Red Sea and Gulf of Aden Pilot, Admiralty Hydrographic Department, London,
1955, 290.

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 326 G. R. HAWTING [9]

I would suggest that both are to be associated with the emergence of

Mecca as the site of the Muslim sanctuary. Although, in the later Middle
Ages, Jedda came to acquire a role as an entrepot in the trade between
the Mediterranean and the Far East, and thus came to have some
importance in its own right40, generally it has been important only as
the port of Mecca. One would expect, therefore, that its fortunes would
be closely connected with those of Mecca. As has been noted, there is no
reliable indication that Jedda had any importance before Islam, and it
may be that its origins are to be put in the early Islamic period. It seems
natural to associate it with the growing importance of Mecca at the same
time. As for al-Shutayba, if it was indeed the port of Mecca in the
Jahiliyya, then its disappearance without trace seems to indicate that it
must have been small and unimportant, and this too could throw light on
the status of Mecca before Islam. It is true, though, that the commonly
accepted view of Mecca as a major commercial centre in the Jahiliyya
stresses the importance of land routes and so there may have been no
need for a major sea port. Alternatively, the explanation that al-
Shu'ayba was the port of Mecca may be without any historical basis,
an attempt to explain something which was no longer understood. It
could be that material referring to al-Shueayba, but having no original
connexion with Mecca, has been adapted by Muslim tradition and made
to relate to the Meccan sanctuary. In that case al-Shueayba would be a
remnant of an early stage of Muslim tradition which has not been
assimilated.

40 Encyclopaedia of Islam2, article <<Djudda>>; W. Heyd, Histoire du commerce du

Levant, Leipzig 1885, i, 36.

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