Harad

The Sunlands

South of Gondor, beyond the river Poros, the debated land of Harondor and the river Harnen, lay Harad, the South. Near Harad was the northern part, a country of dry hills and river-valleys reaching down the coast past Umbar; beyond it, across deserts and further than any Gondorian had travelled, stretched Far Harad, of which the North knew only rumour: jungles, great beasts, and Men whose skin was black. The people of both were the Haradrim, the Southrons, a dark-skinned, fierce and proud people who fought with scimitars and bows, painted their faces, and dressed in scarlet and gold. From their inner lands they brought to war the mûmakil, the vast tusked beasts that carried war-towers on their backs and that horses would not face.

Harad and its neighbours

The lords of Near Harad were long under the influence of the Númenóreans who settled Umbar, and after the Downfall many of them looked to the Black Númenóreans there and, through them, to Sauron. The Haradrim were the hereditary enemies of Gondor, fighting for Harondor and the coast, and Sauron made them his allies in every war. Yet in Ithilien Sam, looking on a dead Southron, wondered whether the man had truly been evil or had simply been marched from his home by lies and threats, and after the war King Elessar gave them peace.

Subject to Gondor

In the days of the Ship-kings Gondor made war on Harad. Ciryandil died fighting the Haradrim at the siege of Umbar in T.A. 1015, and in 1050 Hyarmendacil I crushed them so completely that their kings did homage in Gondor and sent their sons as hostages; Gondor's border stood on the Harnen, and Harad was tributary for two centuries. The Haradrim rose again in 1540 and killed King Aldamir; in 1551 Hyarmendacil II defeated them. When the Corsairs of Umbar established themselves in 1448 Harad became their ally, and the two together harried the coasts of Gondor.

Wars of the later Third Age

In 1944 the Haradrim allied with the Wainriders and Khand for a double attack on Gondor; their army was beaten by Eärnil in South Ithilien. In 2885 they crossed the Poros with the aid of the Corsairs and were defeated at the Crossings by Túrin II and the Rohirrim, though the sons of King Folcwine fell. As Sauron's power grew the Haradrim became wholly his; their embassies went to Barad-dûr and their armies marched to the Black Gate.

The War of the Ring

Columns of Southrons marched through Ithilien to Mordor in March 3019, and Faramir's Rangers ambushed one of them, mûmak and all, on March 7 while Frodo and Sam watched. On the Pelennor Fields the Haradrim under their chieftain, whose standard was a black serpent, fought against the Rohirrim; Théoden killed the chieftain before he fell himself, and the mûmakil held back Éomer's Riders until Aragorn's arrival. The Haradrim fought to the last in that battle and at the Morannon. After Sauron's fall King Elessar pardoned those who surrendered, sent them home, and made peace with the peoples of Harad, though in later years he and Éomer rode to war together in the far south.

Harad lay south of Gondor beyond the Harnen, along the eastern shore of the Bay of Belfalas and the coast southward, and inland eastward towards Khand and the lands south of Mordor. Umbar was on its northern coast. Its southern extent was unknown to the peoples of the North.