Najd

Najd or Nejd (Arabic: نجد ‎, Najd) is the geographical central region of Saudi Arabia in which twenty-eight percent of Saudis live. Najd consists of the regions of Riyadh and al-Qassim and Ha'il.

Najdis were sometimes referred to in the past as the "dominant minority" in Saudi Arabia and, unlike Hejaz, Najd is very remote and had largely avoided falling under foreign control.

History

Pre-Islamic era

In pre-Islamic times the region of Nejd was settled by many tribes like the Kindites, Tayy and many others.

Led by Usma bin Luai the Tayy invaded the mountains of Aja and Samra from Banu Tamim in northern Arabia in their exodus from Yemen in 115 CE. These mountains are now known as Jabal Shammar. The Tayy became nomadic camel herders and horse breeders in northern Najd for centuries.

In the 5th century CE, the tribes of North Arabia became a major threat to the trade line between Yemen and Syria. The Ḥimyarites decided to establish a vassal state that controlled Central and North Arabia. The Kindites gained strength and numbers to play that role, and in 425 CE the Ḥimyarite king Ḥasan ibn 'Amr ibn Tubba’ made Ḥujr 'Akīl al-Murār ibn 'Amr the first King (Ḥujr) of Kindah. The Kindites established a kingdom in Najd in central Arabia unlike the organized states of Yemen; its kings exercised an influence over a number of associated tribes more by personal prestige than by coercive settled authority. Their first capital was Qaryat Dhāt Kāhil, today known as Qaryat al-Fāw.

Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia (ⁱ/ˌsɔːdiː əˈreɪbiə/, ⁱ/ˌsaʊ-/), officially known as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is an Arab state in Western Asia constituting the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula. With a land area of approximately 2,150,000 km² (830,000 sq mi), Saudi Arabia is geographically the second-largest state in the Arab world after Algeria. Saudi Arabia is bordered by Jordan and Iraq to the north, Kuwait to the northeast, Qatar, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates to the east, Oman to the southeast, and Yemen to the south. It is the only nation with both a Red Sea coast and a Persian Gulf coast, and most of its terrain consists of arid inhospitable desert or barren landforms.

The area of modern-day Saudi Arabia formerly consisted of four distinct regions: Hejaz, Najd, and parts of Eastern Arabia (Al-Ahsa) and Southern Arabia ('Asir). The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was founded in 1932 by Ibn Saud. He united the four regions into a single state through a series of conquests beginning in 1902 with the capture of Riyadh, the ancestral home of his family, the House of Saud. The country has since been an absolute monarchy, effectively a hereditary dictatorship governed along Islamic lines. The ultra-conservative Wahhabism religious movement within Sunni Islam has been called "the predominant feature of Saudi culture", with its global spreading largely financed by the oil and gas trade. Saudi Arabia is sometimes called "the Land of the Two Holy Mosques" in reference to Al-Masjid al-Haram (in Mecca), and Al-Masjid an-Nabawi (in Medina), the two holiest places in Islam. The Kingdom has a total population of 28.7 million, of which 20 million are Saudi nationals and 8 million are foreigners.

Sahih Muslim

Sahih Muslim (Arabic: صحيح مسلم‎ , ṣaḥīḥ Muslim; full title: Al-Musnadu Al-Sahihu bi Naklil Adli) is one of the Kutub al-Sittah (six major ahadith collections) in Sunni Islam. It is highly acclaimed by Sunni Muslims and considered the second most authentic hadith collection after Sahih al-Bukhari, as well as Zaidi Shia Muslims. It was collected by Muslim ibn al-Hajjaj, also known as Imam Muslim. Sahih translates as authentic or correct.

Collection

The collector of the Sahih Muslim, Muslim ibn al-Hajjaj, was born into a Persian family in 204 AH (817/18 CE) in Nishapur (in modern-day Iran) and died in 261 AH (874/75 CE) in the city of his birth. He traveled widely to gather his collection of ahadith (plural of hadith), including to areas now in Iraq, the Arabian Peninsula, Syria and Egypt.

Out of 300,000 hadith which he evaluated, approximately 4,000 were extracted for inclusion into his collection based on stringent acceptance criteria. Each report in his collection was checked and the veracity of the chain of reporters was painstakingly established. Sunni Muslims consider it the second most authentic hadith collection, after Sahih al-Bukhari. Sahih Muslim is divided into 43 books, containing a total of 7190 narrations. However, it is important to realize that Muslim ibn al-Hajjaj never claimed to collect all authentic traditions as his goal was to collect only traditions that all Muslims should agree on about accuracy.

Hadith of Najd

The Hadith of Najd is a famous hadith with several chains of narration about three geographical locations. While all Sunni Muslims accept the group of hadith as authentic, the exact location of the area referred to as "Najd" is disputed.

Text of the hadith

According to two narrations in Sahih Bukhari, Muhammad asks Allah to bless the areas of Bilad al-Sham (Syria) and Yemen. When his companions said "Our Najd as well," he replied: "There will appear earthquakes and afflictions, and from there will come out the side of the head (e.g. horns) of Satan." In a similar narration, Muhammad again asked Allah to bless the areas Medina, Mecca, Sham, and Yemen and, when asked specifically to bless Najd, repeated similar comments about there being earthquakes, trials, tribulations, and the horns of Satan.

It has been asserted that this hadith is relating the coming events that shook the Muslim nation, these known as fitnah or 'trials'. Amongst the trials that arose in Iraq and the east was the martyrdom of Hussein ibn Ali, the grandson of Muhammad, as well as the first battle between the Muslims that also occurred in Iraq. This as well as the tribulations that came along with the multitude of sects that formed in the east, specifically Iraq and Baghdad, being the Qadariyyah, the Jahmiyyah (from Jahm bin Safwan), the spread of the Mu'tazila, and the advent of the emergence of the Shia in opposition to the Sunni Muslims. It has also been identified as where the Dajjal or Antichrist is said to emerge from (according to a narration through Imam Nawawi). There have also been various conspiracy theories instigated against the people of the modern day region of Saudi Arabia known as 'Najd' however historically and geographically there is no substantial proof to support these arguments as well as the suggested argument contrasting with a number of sound hadith when objectively studied.