Around 2440 years ago, a king called As’ad Tubban Humayri used to rule over Yemen. In the Yemeni language, the king was called Tubba’, that’s why this king became famous in the history with the name of Tubba’-ul-Awwal [i.e. the first king] and Tubba’ ‘Himyari.
Once, Tubba’ left for sightseeing along with his minister. Around one hundred and thirteen thousand people accompanied him on foot and one hundred and thirty thousand horse riders also accompanied him.
Whichever city this great caravan would reach, people would treat them with extreme dignity and honour due to their awe and being extremely astonished at them. During this journey, Tubba’ was selecting ten scholars from every city and joining them into his caravan. Hence, after visiting various cities in this way, around four thousand scholars gathered in the caravan of Tubba’.
When this caravan reached the city of Makkah, the people of Makkah did not extend any kind of hospitality to this caravan. Seeing this, Tubba’ became extremely furious. He called his minister and inquired the reason for this. Upon this, he replied:
Your Highness! People over here are very strange. There is a building in this city which is called the Ka’bah. These people worship Satan and idols in that building.’ Listening to this, he made a decision in his heart that he will kill the people of Makkah and imprison their women and children. Moreover, he also intended to demolish the Ka’bah and then Ka’bah will be named as Khirbah [i.e. a deserted place
