["","","","","","","","","","","","","ILLUSTRATION BY LYNN HATZIUS Writing a few decades later, the church historian the works of tribal chievains and the missions \u2022 Sozomen of Gaza recounts her negotiations with the of their holy men who introduced monotheism to Romans. <As the war was still pursued with vigour, the the Arabs two centuries before the appearance of 63 Romans found it necessary to send an embassy to Mavia to the Prophet Muhammad. solicit peace. It is said that she refused to comply with the request of the embassy unless consent were given for the Death in battle ordination of a certain man named Moses, who practised asceticism in a neighbouring desert, as bishop over her Amid the turmoil of warfare, Mavia gave her daughter subjects\u2026 He reconciled them to the Romans and convert- Chasidat in marriage to a Roman oocer, Victor, making ed many to Christianity, and passed his life among them her a Roman citizen. Chasidat was also a warrior, falling in as a priest.= battle against the Goths in service to her mother9s revolt. But the peace between the Romans and their Arab allies, By securing a religious leader from among her people, sealed by the orst marriage in history between an Arab rather than accepting a foreign holy man appointed by the woman and a Roman man, lasted three centuries. Romans, Mavia secured independence for the Arabs. |e partnership she forged with the monk Moses planted the Although Mavia was the primary catalyst for Arabia9s roots of an orthodox Arab national church and began the turn towards Christianity, she likely never converted. She process of unifying Arabia through religion. Varieties of is, therefore, associated with pre-Islamic pagan customs Christianity spread in the ovh and sixth centuries through throughout classical Arabic literature, remembered as a oercely independent noblewoman who dispensed","Amazing Lives #\u0002 IWTG\u0002DGNKGXGF\u0002VQ\u0002DG\u00023WGGP\u0002\/CXKC\u0002KU\u0002UJQYP\u0002 DQVVQO\u0002TKIJV\u0002 COQPI\u0002QVJGT\u0002OQPCTEJU\u0002CPF\u0002 UCKPVU\u000b\u0002JQNFKPI\u0002C\u0002UOCNN\u0002UCEM\u0010\u00026JG\u0002\u0013\u0013VJs\u0013\u0014VJ\u000f EGPVWT[\u0002HTGUEQ\u0002KP\u0002YJKEJ\u0002UJG\u0002KU\u0002FGRKEVGF\u0002KU\u0002 UKVGF\u0002KP\u0002VJG\u0002\/QPCUVGT[\u0002QH\u00025CKPV\u0002\/QUGU\u0002VJG\u0002 #D[UUKPKCP\u000e\u0002KP\u0002VJG\u0002EKV[\u0002QH\u0002#N\u000f0CDGM\u000e\u00025[TKC with money and men freely. She is explicitly called Little is known deonitively about Mavia9s later life, <queen of the Arabs=, sharing this honour with only one though it seems she survived for many years aver those other woman \u2013 empress Zenobia of Palmyra, ruling a early military triumphs. |e date of her death is a matter of century earlier. dispute; one Mavia is cited in a funerary inscription dated AD 425 in Khanasir (then known as Anasartha), a town Enlightening tales south-east of Aleppo. If this dating is correct, it means that Mavia ruled for half a century following the death of her What we know of Mavia following her defeat of the husband. Romans comes largely from literary sources, which Whatever the truth of her life or death, this great Arab warrior queen certainly changed history. She was a perhaps tell us more about wider ideas of values and rugged oghter and an undefeated military general worthy of Sozomen9s hyperbole: <[Mavia] regarded not the sex identity in the Arab world than about her historical life. which nature had given her and displayed the spirit and courage of a man.= Her pagan freedom demonstrates But these tales are enlightening, nonetheless. the practice of polyandry and divorce culture among upper-class Arab women before the imposition of patriar- In these writings, Mavia occupies the most opulent chal marriage. Her triumph against the Romans, and her success in establishing a unioed Arab church, launched throne in Arabia \u2013 that of al-Hira in Mesopotamia, Arabia as a whole towards monotheism long before the dawn of Islam. in what9s now south-central Iraq. Young men of her Most importantly, it is thanks to this proud, strong palace chambers serve her every need, and she is courted and brilliant woman that the Arabs entered history as an independent, unioed, diplomatically connected, by the onest bachelors of all God-fearing people. Arabia. Having taken a worthy Emran El-Badawi is associate professor of Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Houston. His latest book is Queens warrior-poet as a husband, she and Prophets: How Arabian Noblewomen and Holy Men Shaped Paganism, Christianity and Islam (Oneworld, 2022) divorces him according to ancient In these tales, Bedouin custom \u2013 that is, without WIKIPEDIA consulting him, and indeonitely young men serve keeping possession of their home and children. Beyond her every need, and these stories, Mavia is recalled as foremost among women Mavia is courted by who <married whomever she the \ufb01nest bachelors wished=, but also among those who <used to divorce their of all Arabia husbands in the jahiliyyah [pre-Islamic Arabia]=. 64","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","",""]
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