set out thither after the departure of the Assyrian army. They marched “as far as the place from which Gedor is reached, seeking pastures for their flocks as far as east of Gai’” (1 Chron., 4: 39f.). According to this the road to Gedor passes through Gai’. Gedor must therefore be sought in the same direction as Gai’. But Gai’ is situated by the branch road leading from Gaza (not far from the former settlements of the men of Simeon) through the pass of an-Namala to the oasis of Maʻân and to the main transport route from Arabia to Syria. The men of Simeon, therefore, must have passed along this branch road, journeying on it as far as a point east of Gai’, or the modern al-Ǧi; here they must have left it and proceeded more to the south on a road leading to Gedor (or the modern al-Kḏûr) and the ruins of al-Mṛejjera.
The Biblical record relates that the Hamites had lived there before them. The Hamites are of the same kindred as the Kushites, akin to the Sabaeans, and the Bible mentions the Kushites as masters of the main transport route as well as of the separate oases situated upon it. At the end of the eighth century the Sabaeans were the masters. Their resident dwelt at Dajdân and directed the political affairs not only of the Sabaean settlements in the separate oases but also of the tribes encamped by the transport route. The southern Arabian colonists dwelt both in fixed abodes and in movable tents, because they had to look after the camels which they needed for the transport of goods. On the road to Gedor the men of Simeon destroyed some of these southern Arabian encampments, which must have belonged to the Kushites (or Hamites), and they met with the settlers from the oasis of Maʻân, or people of Meʻûn, who defended their kinsmen. But both the people of Meʻûn and the tribes encamped along the transport route had been weakened by the recent inroad of the Assyrian army and consequently had to retreat before the men of Simeon, who then settled down in the deserted dwelling places to the southwest of the modern oasis of Maʻân. Some of the men of Simeon then proceeded to the southwestern spur of the Seʻîr mountain range, where they destroyed the last remnants of the Amalekites. Thus, this Biblical record would seem also to justify our identification of the tribe of Maʻôn and the people of Meʻûn with the inhabitants of the oasis of Maʻân.
ARABIC AUTHORS ON MAʻÂN
The classical authors do not allude to Maʻân, for in their time all trade was concentrated in the town of Petra. Among the Arabic authors, it is referred to by al-Iṣṭaḫri, Masâlik (De Goeje), p. 65, who states that Maʻân is a township and stronghold in the district of aš-Šara’ and that it is inhabited by the Omayyads and their clients.
Ibn Ḥawḳal, Masâlik (De Goeje), p. 124, states that Maʻân is a township on the edge of the desert, inhabited by the Omayyads, from whom wayfarers can obtain supplies.
Al-Bekri, Muʻǧam (Wüstenfeld), pp. 501, 549, records that Maʻân is a large stronghold in Palestine, five days from Damascus on the road to Mecca. He relates that Farwa ibn ʻAmr, of the tribe of al-Ǧuḏâm, was governor in the stronghold of Maʻân and its environs in the Byzantine period. Having become a Moslem, he sent the Prophet a white she-mule. When the Byzantines heard about this, they captured and imprisoned