Canaan (son of Ham)

Canaan is a Biblical figure who, according to the Old Testament , was the son of Ham and the grandson of the patriarch Noah . The Book of Genesis states that the Canaanites , a people who mostly occupied modern-day Israel , were descendants of this Canaan. Canaan fathered the Phoenicians through his son Sidon , and the Hittites through his son Heth . The Bible also says that he fathered the Jebusites , Hivites , Arkites , Girgashites , Zemarites , Amorites , Sinites , Arvadites , and Hamathites . In Genesis, Canaan was cursed by Noah because of his father's transgressions. This is referred to as the Curse of Ham . However, according to the Book of Jubilees , both the Israelite conquest of Canaan and the curse are attributed instead to Canaan's steadfast refusal to join his elder brothers in Ham's allotment beyond the Nile , instead "squatting" on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean , within the inheritance delineated for Shem . The Persian historian Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari (c. 915) recounts a tradition that the wife of Canaan was named Arsal, a daughter of Batawil son of Tiras , and that she bore him the "Blacks, Nubians, Fezzan , Zanj , Zaghawah , and all the peoples of the Sudan."¹