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Amalekites & the Qataban Arabs

By H. Abdul Al-Dahir

Here is an explanation of Amalekites who were also known as the Imlaq to the Arabs:

According to Wiki:

“Al-Arab al-Ba’ida “The Extinct Arabs”, were an ancient group of tribes of prehistory that included the ‘Aad, the Thamud, the Tasm, the Jadis, the Imlaq (who included branches of Banu al-Samayda), and others.”

Amalekite/Amaleqiy/3mlqy in Hebrew/3mlaq: the name is Arabic, not Hebrew as it makes no sense in Hebrew. In Arabic, the name means in Arabic (the god) Amm is worthy/honorable. Amm is the name of the Qataban god. The second half of this name is Laqa and means ‘to be worthy’/’to be honorable’. So, Amaleq is an Arabic name of a tribal ancestor or founder. The name is typical of Sayhadic/Yemenite names where their gods were addressed as relatives as uncle, father, brother and cousin. This designation was followed by an attribute of praise as generous, shining, glorious etc. The current definition for 3mlaq is ‘giant’ or ‘giants’ which means the name of this extinct tribe followed the same pattern as the names of the extinct Hebrew tribes as the Nephilim, Raphaim, Zuzims and Emims whose names also became synonymous with giants.

According to Wiki:

Qataban or Katabania … was an ancient Yemeni kingdom. Its heartland was located in the Baihan valley. Like some other Southern Arabian kingdoms it gained great wealth from the trade of frankincense and myrrh, incenses which were burned at altars. The capital of Qataban was named Timna and was located on the trade route which passed through the other kingdoms of Hadramaut, Sheba and Ma’in. The chief deity of the Qatabanians was ‘Amm, or “Uncle” and the people called themselves the “children of Amm”.

It was a prominent Yemeni kingdom in the 2nd half of the 1st millennium BCE, when its ruler held the title of the South Arabian hegemon, Mukarrib…

Amm … was a moon god worshipped in ancient Qataban, which was a kingdom in ancient Yemen. ‘Amm is also the Arabic word for paternal uncle. The inhabitants of the kingdom referred to themselves as the Banu Amm, or the “Children of Amm”.”

According to Numbers 13:29:

The Amalekites dwell in the land of the south: and the Hittites, and the Jebusites, and the Amorites, dwell in the mountains: and the Canaanites dwell by the sea, and by the coast of Jordan.

The Amalekites, that the Bible describes were a clan of the Qataban Arabs who settled in Edom, which is why Amaleq is designated as Esau’s grandson from his concubine, Timna. It appears that the Amalekites were in the area as Shasu who were exploiting the copper mines and it seems that they named Timna after the Qataban capital in Yemen which was also named Timna.

The Qataban were known by their founding ancestor, Ameleq, in Edom and Judea. They were aligned with the Midianites. According to Judges 7:12:

“And the Midianites and the Amalekites were all Bani Qedem (ancient peoples) that lay along in the valley like grasshoppers for multitude; and their camels were without number, as the sand by the sea side for multitude.”

So, the origin of the Amalekites, another of the many tribes in Canaan and Edom, was Yemen.

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