Tabalah, Saudi Arabia

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]

• Hitti, Philip Khuri (1916). The Origins of the Islamic State, Being a Translation from the Arabic, Accompanied with Annotations, Geographic and Historic Notes of the Kitâb Fitûh Al-buldân of Al-Imâm Abu-l Abbâs Ahmad Ibn-Jâbir Al-Balâdhuri, Volume 1. New York and London: Columbia University & Longman, Green & Co.
• Larsson, Göran (2003). Ibn García's Shuʻūbiyya Letter: Ethnic and Theological Tensions in Medieval Al-Andalus. Leiden: E. J. Brill. ISBN 90-04-12740-2.
• Oseni, Zakariyau I. (1982). "Early Life of al-Hajjaj b. Yusuf". Studies in Islam. New Delhi: Indian Institute of Islamic Studies. 19: 125–136.
• Smith, G. R. (2000). "Tabāla". In Bearman, P. J.; Bianquis, Th.; Bosworth, C. E.; van Donzel, E. & Heinrichs, W. P. (eds.). Encyclopaedia of Islam. Volume X: T–U (2nd ed.). Leiden: E. J. Brill. p. 10. ISBN 978-90-04-11211-7.