Dhu Nuwas

Yūsuf Thū Nuwās, (Arabic: يوسف ذو نواس‎) (also Yūsuf As'ar Yath'ar (Saba'ic Y(w)s₁f 's₁'r Yṯ'r) or Dunaan,Syriac Masruq; Greek Dounaas (Δουναας)), was a Judaic warlord in Yemen between 517 to 525-27 AD.

Origins

Nuwās probably reflects a local clan name which in popular tradition was twisted into a cognomen bearing the meaning of "the one with the curls". His real name has been conjectured to be Zura b.Ḥassān. In the form Yūsuf As'ar Yath'ar, Yūsuf is a borrowing from Hebrew, while the penultimate and last names are cognomens, respectively meaning perhaps he who takes vengeance and he who remains.

One Syriac source appears to suggest that the mother of Dhū Nuwās may have been herself a Jew hailing from the Mesopotamian city of Nisibis. If so, this would place her origins within the Sassanid imperial sphere, and would illuminate possible political reasons for his later actions against the Christians of Arabia, who were natural allies of the Byzantine Empire. Many modern historians, though Christopher Haas is an exception, have argued that her son's conversion was a matter of tactical opportunism, since Judaism would have provided him with an ideological counterweight to the religion of his adversary, the Kingdom of Aksum, and also allowed him to curry favour with the Sassanid shahanshah.

DHU

DHU may refer to:

Abu Nuwas

Abū Nuwās al-Ḥasan ibn Hānī al-Ḥakamī (756–814),^a known as Abū Nuwās (Arabic: ابو نواس‎; Persian: ابو نواس‎‎, Abū Novās), was one of the greatest classical Arabic poets, who also composed in Persian on occasion. Born in the city of Ahvaz in modern-day Iran, to an Arab father and a Persian mother, he became a master of all the contemporary genres of Arabic poetry. Abu Nuwas has also entered the folkloric tradition, and he appears several times in The Book of One Thousand and One Nights.

Early life; his work

Abu Nuwas's father, Hānī, whom the poet never knew, was an Arab, a descendant of the Jizani tribe Banu Hakam, and a soldier in the army of Marwan II. His Persian mother, named Golban, worked as a weaver. Biographies differ on the date of Abu Nuwas' birth, ranging from 747 to 762. Some say he was born at Basra others in Damascus, Busra, or at Ahwaz. His given name was al-Hasan ibn Hani al-Hakami, 'Abu Nuwas' being a nickname: 'Father of the Lock of Hair' referred to the two long sidelocks which hung down to his shoulders.