Tabalah (Arabic: تبالة, romanized: Tabāla) is a village and wadi in the Asir Province of Saudi Arabia.[2] It is situated about 240 kilometers (150 mi) south of Ta'if,[3] 200 kilometers (120 mi) east of the Red Sea coastline and 100 kilometers (62 mi) west of Bisha.[2] In the 2010 census, Tabalah had a population of 5,670, of which 4,990 were citizens of Saudi Arabia and 680 non-citizens.[1]
History
Tabalah on a map depicting the major towns of 8th-century Arabia
During the pre-Islamic period (pre-7th century), Tabalah was home to the shrine of the idol of Dhu'l-Khalasa.[2] In the early Islamic period (7th–13th centuries), it was a large and prosperous town on the pilgrimage route to Mecca from Yemen, in between the way-stations of Bisha and Ajrab.[2] According to al-Baladhuri and al-Tabari, the inhabitants of Tabalah accepted Islam without resistance and the Islamic prophet Muhammad imposed a poll tax on the Christians and Jews of the town and nearby Jurash.[4] Muhammad had led or dispatched expeditions against members of the Khath'am tribe in Tabalah in 629 and 630 CE.[2] The medieval Arabic geographers note that the town contained several springs and wells which watered the town's date palm groves and agricultural fields.[2] According to the 10th-century geographer al-Hamdani, most of its inhabitants hailed from the Quraysh tribe of Mecca.[2] It is most known in the medieval sources as being the short-lived governorship of al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf,[5] who considered it an insignificant post because it was hidden by a hill.[2]
