(Translated by George Sale, edited and formatted by George ALEFantes)
OF THE ARABS BEFORE MOHAMMED; OR, AS THEY EXPRESS IT, IN THE TIME OF IGNORANCE; THEIR HISTORY, RELIGION, LEARNING, AND CUSTOMS
The Arabs, and the country they inhabit, which themselves call Jezirat al Arab, or the Peninsula of the Arabians, but we Arabia, were so named from Araba, a small territory in the province of Tehama; to which Yarab the son of Kahtan, the father of the ancient Arabs, gave his name, and where, some ages after, dwelt Ismael the son of Abraham by Hagar. The Christian writers for several centuries speak of them under the appellation of Saracens; the most certain derivation of which word is from shark, the east, where the descendants of Joctan, the Kahtan of the Arabs, are placed by Moses, and in which quarter they dwelt in respect to the Jews.
The name of Arabia (used in a more extensive sense) sometimes comprehends all that large tract of land bounded by the river Euphrates, the Persian Gulf, the Sindian, Indian, and Red Seas, and part of the Mediterranean: above two- thirds of which country, that is, Arabia properly so called, the Arabs have possessed almost from the Flood; and have made themselves masters of the rest, either by settlements or continual incursions; for which reason the Turks and Persians at this day call the whole Arabistan, or the country of the Arabs. But the limits of Arabia, in its more usual and proper sense, are much narrower, as reaching no farther northward than the Isthmus, which runs from Aila to the head of the Persian Gulf, and the borders of the territory of Cufa; which tract of land the Greeks nearly comprehended under the name of Arabia the Happy. The eastern geographers make Arabia Petraea to belong partly to Egypt, and partly to Sham or Syria, and the desert Arabia they call the deserts of Syria.
Proper Arabia is by the oriental writers generally divided into five provinces, viz., Yaman, Hejaz, Tehama, Najd, and Yamama; to whichsome add Bahrein, as a sixth, but this province the more exact make part of Irak; others reduce them all to two, Yaman and Hejaz, the last including the three other provinces of Tehama, Najd, and Yamama.
The province of Yaman, so called either from its situation to the right hand, or south of the temple of Mecca, or else from the happiness and verdure of its soil, extends itself along the Indian Ocean from Aden to Cape Rasalgat; part of the Red Sea bounds it on the west and south sides, and the province of Hejaz on the north. It is subdivided into several lesser provinces, as Hadramaut, Shihr, Oman, Najran, &c., of which Shihr alone produces the frankincense. The metropolis of Yaman is Sanaa, a very ancient city, in former times called Ozal, and much celebrated for its delightful situation; but the prince at present resides about five leagues northward from thence, at a place no less pleasant, called Hisn almawaheb, or the Castle of delights.
This country has been famous from all antiquity for the happiness of its climate, its fertility and riches, which induced Alexander the Great, after his return from his Indian expedition, to form a design of conquering it, and fixing there his royal seat; but his death, which happened soon after, prevented the execution of this project. Yet, in reality, great part of the riches which the ancients imagined were the produce of Arabia, came really from the Indies and the coasts of Africa; for the Egyptians, who had engrossed that trade, which was then carried on by way of the Red Sea, to themselves, industriously concealed the truth of the matter, and kept their ports shut to prevent foreigners penetrating into those countries, or receiving any information thence; and this precaution of theirs on the one side, and the deserts, unpassable to strangers, on the other, were the reason why Arabia was so little known to the Greeks and Romans. The delightfulness and plenty of Yaman are owing to its mountains; for all that part which lies along the Red Sea is a dry, barren desert, in some places ten or twelve leagues over, but in return bounded by those mountains, which being well watered, enjoy an almost continual spring, and, besides coffee, the peculiar produce of this country, yield great plenty and variety of fruits, and in particular excellent corn, grapes, and spices. There are no rivers of note in this country, for the streams which at certain times of the year descend from the mountains, seldom reach the sea, being for the most part drunk up and lost in the burning sands of that coast.
The soil of the other provinces is much more barren than that of Yaman; the greater part of their territories being covered with dry sands, or rising into rocks, interspersed here and there with some fruitful spots, which receive their greatest advantages from their water and palm trees. The province of Hejaz, so named because it divides Najd from Tehama, is bounded on the south by Yaman and Tehama, on the west by the Red Sea, on the north by the deserts of Syria, and on the east by the province of Najd. This province is famous for its two chief cities, Mecca and Medina, one of which is celebrated for its temple, and having given birth to Mohammed; and the other for being the place of his residence for the last ten years of his life, and of his interment.
Mecca, sometimes also called Becca, which words are synonymous, and signify a place of great concourse, is certainly one of the most ancient cities of the world: it is by some thought to be the Mesa of the scripture, a name not unknown to the Arabians, and supposed to be taken form one of Ismael's sons. It is seated in a stony and barren valley, surrounded on all sides with mountains. The length of Mecca from south to north is about two miles, and its breadth from the foot of the mountain Ajyad, to the top of another called Koaikaan, about a mile. In the midst of this space stands the city, built of stone cut from the neighboring mountains. There being no springs at Mecca, at least none but what are bitter and unfit to drink, except only the well Zemzem, the water of which, though far the best, yet cannot be drank of any continuance, being brackish, and causing eruptions in those who drink plentifully of it, the inhabitants are obliged to use rain-water which they catch in cisterns. But this not being sufficient, several attempts were made to bring water thither from other places by aqueducts; and particularly about Mohammed's time, Zobair, one of the principal men of the tribe of Koreish, endeavored at a great expense to supply the city with water from Mount Arafat, but without success; yet this was effected not many years ago, being begun at the charge of a wife of Soliman the Turkish emperor. But long before this, another aqueduct had been made from a spring at a considerable distance, which was, after several years' labor, finished by the Khalif al Moktader.
The soil about Mecca is so very barren as to produce no fruits but what are common in the deserts, though the prince or Sharif has a garden well planted at his castle of Marbaa, about three miles westward from the city, where he usually resides. Having therefore no corn or grain of their own growth, they are obliged to fetch it from other places; and Hashem, Mohammed's great- grandfather, then prince of his tribe, the more effectually to supply them with provisions, appointed two caravans to set out yearly for that purpose, the one in summer, and the other in winter: these caravans of purveyors are mentioned in the Koran. The provisions brought by them were distributed also twice a year, viz., in the month of Rajeb, and at the arrival of the pilgrims. They are supplied with dates in great plenty from the adjacent country, and with grapes from Tayef, about sixty miles distant, very few growing at Mecca. The inhabitants of this city are generally very rich, being considerable gainers by the prodigious concourse of people of almost all nations at the yearly pilgrimage, at which time there is a great fair or mart for all kinds of merchandise. They have also great numbers of cattle, and particularly of camels: however, the poorer sort cannot but live very indifferently in a place where almost every necessary of life must be purchased with money.
Notwithstanding this great sterility near Mecca, yet you are no sooner out of its territory than you meet on all sides with plenty of good springs and streams of running water, with a great many gardens and cultivated lands. The temple of Mecca, and the reputed holiness of this territory, will be treated of in a more proper place.
Medina, which till Mohammed's retreat thither was called Yathreb, is a walled city about half as big as Mecca, built in a plain, salt in many places, yet tolerably fruitful, particularly in dates, but more especially near the mountains, two of which, Ohod on the north, and Air on the south, are about two leagues distant. Here lies Mohammed interred in a magnificent building, covered with a cupola, and adjoining to the east side of the great temple, which is built in the midst of the city.
The province of Tehama was so named from the vehement heat of its sandy soil, and is also called Gaur from its low situation; it is bounded on the west by the Red Sea, and on the other sides by Hejaz and Yaman, extending almost from Mecca to Aden.
The province of Najd, which word signifies a rising country, lies between those of Yamama, Yaman, and Hejaz, and is bounded on the east by Irak. The province of Yamama, also called Arud from its oblique situation, in respect of Yaman, is surrounded by the provinces of Najd, Tehama, Bahrein, Oman, Shihr, Hadramaut, and Saba. The chief city is Yamama, which gives name to the province: it was anciently called Jaw, and is particularly famous for being the residence of Mohammed's competitor, the false prophet Moseilama. The Arabians, the inhabitants of this spacious country, which they have possessed from the most remote antiquity, are distinguished by their own writers into two classes, viz., the old lost Arabians, and the present. The former were very numerous, and divided into several tribes, which are now all destroyed, or else lost and swallowed up among the other tribes, nor are any certain memoirs or records extant concerning them; though the memory of some very remarkable events and the catastrophe of some tribes have been preserved by tradition, and since confirmed by the authority of the Koran. The most famous tribes amongst these ancient Arabians were Ad, Thamud, Tasm, Jadis, the former Jorham, and Amalek.
The tribe of Ad were descended from Ad, the son of Aws, the son of Aram, the son of Sem, the son of Noah, who, after the confusion of tongues, settled in al Ahkaf, or the winding sands in the province of Hadramaut, where his posterity greatly multiplied. Their first king was Shedad the son of Ad, of whom the eastern writers deliver many fabulous things, particularly that he finished the magnificent city his father had begun, wherein he built a fine palace, adorned with delicious gardens, to embellish which he spared neither cost nor labor, proposing thereby to create in his subjects a superstitious veneration of himself as a god. This garden or paradise was called the garden of Irem, and is mentioned in the Koran, and often alluded to by the oriental writers. The city, they tell us, is still standing in the deserts of Aden, being preserved by providence as a monument of divine justice, though it be invisible, unless very rarely, when God permits it to be seen, a favor one Colabah pretended to have received in the reign of the Khalif Moawiyah, who sending for him to know the truth of the matter, Colabah related his whole adventure; that as he was seeking a camel he had lost, he found himself on a sudden at the gates of this city, and entering it saw not one inhabitant, at which, being terrified, he stayed no longer than to take with him some fine stones which he showed the Khalif.
The descendants of Ad in process of time falling from the worship of the true God into idolatry, God sent the prophet Hud (who is generally agreed to be Heber) to preach to and reclaim them. But they refusing to acknowledge his mission, or to obey him, God sent a hot and suffocating wind, which blew seven nights and eight days together, and entering at their nostrils passed through their bodies. and destroyed them all, a very few only excepted, who had believed in Hud and retired with him to another place. That prophet afterwards returned into Hadramaut, and was buried near Hasec, where there is a small town now standing called Kabr Hud, or the sepulchre of Hud. Before the Adites were thus severely punished, God, to humble them, and incline them to hearken to the preaching of his prophet, afflicted them with a drought for four years, so that all their cattle perished, and themselves were very near it; upon which they sent Lokman (different from one of the same name who lived in David's time) with sixty others to Mecca to beg rain, which they not obtaining, Lokman with some of his company stayed at Mecca, and thereby escaped destruction, giving rise to a tribe called the latter Ad, who were afterward changed into monkeys.
Some commentators on the Koran tell us these old Adites were of prodigious stature, the largest being 100 cubits high, and the least 60; which extraordinary size they pretend to prove by the testimony of the Koran. The tribe of Thamud were the posterity of Thamud the son of Gather the son of Aram, who falling into idolatry, the prophet Saleh was sent to bring them back to the worship of the true God. This prophet lived between the time of Hud and of Abraham, and therefore cannot be the same with the patriarch Saleh, as Mr. d'Herbelot imagines. The learned Bochart with more probability takes him to be Phaleg. A small number of the people of Thamud hearkened to the remonstrances of Saleh, but the rest requiring, as a proof of his mission, that he should cause a she-camel big with young to come out of a rock in their presence, he accordingly obtained it of God, and the camel was immediately delivered of a young one ready weaned; but they, instead of believing, cut the hamstrings of the camel and killed her; at which act of impiety God, being highly displeased, three days after struck them dead in their houses by an earthquake and a terrible noise from heaven, which, some say, was the voice of Gabriel the archangel crying aloud, "Die, all of you." Saleh, with those who were reformed by him, were saved from this destruction; the prophet going into Palestine, and from thence to Mecca, where he ended his days. This tribe first dwelt in Yaman, but being expelled thence by Hamyar the son of Saba, they settled in the territory of Hejr in the province of Hejaz, where their habitations cut out of the rocks, mentioned in the Koran, are still to be seen, and also the crack of the rock whence the camel issued, which, as an eyewitness hath declared, is 60 cubits wide. These houses of the Thamudites being of the ordinary proportion, are used as an argument to convince those of a mistake who who this people to have been of a gigantic stature.
The tragical destructions of these two potent tribes are often insisted on in the Koran, as instances of God'S judgment on obstinate unbelievers. The tribe of Tasm were the posterity of Lud the son of Sem, and Jadis of the descendants of Jether. These two tribes dwelt promiscuously together under the government of Tasm, till a certain tyrant made a law that no maid of the tribe of Jadis should marry unless first deflowered by him; which the Jadisians not enduring, formed a conspiracy, and inviting the king and chiefs of Tasm to an entertainment, privately hid their swords in the sand, and in the midst of their mirth fell on them and slew them all, and extirpated the greatest part of that tribe; however, the few who escaped obtaining aid of the king of Yaman, then (as is said) Dhu Habshan Ebn Akran, assaulted the Jadis and utterly destroyed them, there being scarce any mention made from that time of either of these tribes.
The former tribe of Jorham (whose ancestor some pretend was one of the eighty persons saved in the ark of Noah, according to a Mohammedan tradition) was contemporary with Ad, and utterly perished. The tribe of Amalek were descended from Amalek the son of Eliphaz the son of Esau, though some of the oriental authors say Amalek was the son of Ham the son of Noah, and others the son of Azd the son of Sem. The posterity of this person rendered themselves very powerful, and before the time of Joseph conquered the lower Egypt under their king Walid, the first who took the name of Pharaoh, as the eastern writers tell us; seeming by these Amalekites to mean the same people which the Egyptian histories call Phoenician shepherds. But after they had possessed the throne of Egypt for some descents, they were expelled by the natives, and at length totally destroyed by the Israelites.
The present Arabians, according to their own historians, are sprung from two stocks, Kahtan, the same with Joctan the son of Eber, and Adnan descended in a direct line from Ismael the son of Abraham and Hagar; the posterity of the former they call al Arab al Ariba, ie, the genuine or pure Arabs, and those of the latter al Arab al mostareba, ie, naturalized or institious Arabs, though some reckon the ancient lost tribes to have been the only pure Arabians, and therefore call the posterity of Kahtan also Mutareba, which word likewise signifies insititious Arabs, though in a nearer degree than Mostareba; the descendants of Ismael being the more distant graff.
The posterity of Ismael have no claim to be admitted as pure Arabs, their ancestor being by origin and language an Hebrew; but having made an alliance with the Jorhamites, by marrying a daughter of Modad, and accustomed himself to their manner of living and language, his descendants became blended with them into one nation. The uncertainty of the descents between Ismael and Adnan is the reason why they seldom trace their genealogies higher than the latter, whom they acknowledge as father of their tribes, the descents from him downwards being pretty certain and uncontroverted.
The genealogy of these tribes being of great use to illustrate the Arabian history, I have taken the pains to form a genealogical table from their most approved authors, to which I refer the curious.
Besides these tribes of Arabs mentioned by their own authors, who were all descended from the race of Sem, others of them were the posterity of Ham by his son Cush, which name is in scripture constantly given to the Arabs and their country, though our version renders it Ethiopia; but strictly speaking, the Cushites did not inhabit Arabia properly so called, but the banks of the Euphrates and the Persian Gulf, whither they came form Chuzestan or Susiana, the original settlement of their father. They might probably mix themselves in process of time with the Arabs of the other race, but the eastern writers take little or no notice of them.
The Arabians were for some centuries under the government of the descendants of Kahtan; Yarab, one of his sons, founding the kingdom of Yaman, and Jorham, another of them, that of Hejaz.
The province of Yaman, or the better part of it, particularly the provinces of Saba and Hadramaut, was governed by princes of the tribe of Hamyar, though at length the kingdom was translated to the descendants of Cahlan, his brother, who yet retained the title of king of Hamyar, and had all of them the general title of Tobba, which signifies successor, and was affected to this race of princes, as that of Caesar was to the Roman emperors, and Khalif to the successors of Mohammed. There were several lesser princes who reigned in other parts of Yaman, and were mostly, if not altogether, subject to the king of Hamyar, whom they called the great king, but of these history has recorded nothing remarkable or that may be depended upon.
The first great calamity that befell the tribes settled in Yaman was the inundation of Aram, which happened soon after the time of Alexander the Great, and is famous in the Arabian history. No less than eight tribes were forced to abandon their dwellings upon this occasion, some of which gave rise to the two kingdoms of Ghassan and Hira. And this was probably the time of the migration of those tribes or colonies which were led into Mesopotamia by three chiefs, Becr, Modar, and Rabia, from whom the three provinces of that country are still named Diyar Becr, Diyar Modar, and Diyar Rabia. Abdshems, surnamed Saba, having built the city from him called Saba, and afterwards Mareb, made a vast mound, or dam, to serve as a basin or reservoir to receive the water which came down from the mountains, not only for the use of the inhabitants, and watering their lands, but also to keep the country they had subjected in greater awe by being masters of the water. This building stood like a mountain above their city, and was by them esteemed so strong that they were in no apprehension of its ever failing. The water rose to the height of almost twenty fathoms, and was kept in on every side by a work so solid, that many of the inhabitants had their houses built upon it. Every family had a certain portion of this water, distributed by aqueducts. But at length, God, being highly displeased at their great pride and insolence, and resolving to humble and disperse them, sent a mighty flood, which broke down the mound by night while the inhabitants were asleep, and carried away the whole city, with the neighboring towns and people.
The tribes which remained in Yaman after this terrible devastation still continued under the obedience of the former princes, till about seventy years before Mohammed, when the king of Ethiopia sent over forces to assist the Christians of Yaman against the cruel persecution of their king, Dhu Nowas, a bigoted Jew, whom they drove to that extremity that he forced his horse into the sea, and so lost his life and crown, after which the country was governed by four Ethiopian princes successively, till Selif, the son of Dhu Yazan, of the tribe of Hamyar, obtaining succours from Khosru Anushirwan, king of Persia, which had been denied him by the emperor Heraclius, recovered the throne and drove out the Ethiopians, but was himself slain by some of them who were left behind. The Persians appointed the succeeding princes till Yaman fell into the hands of Mohammed, to whom Bazan, or rather Badhan, the last of them, submitted, and embraced this new religion.
This kingdom of the Hammyarites is said to have lasted 2,020 years, or as others say above 3,000; the length of the reign of each prince being very uncertain.
It has been already observed that two kingdoms were founded by those who left their country on occasion of the inundation of Aram: they were both out of the proper limits of Arabia. One of them was the kingdom of Ghassan. The founders of this kingdom were of the tribe of Azd, who, settling in Syria Damascena near a water called Ghassan, thence took their name, and drove out (the Dajaamian Arabs of the tribe of Salih, who before possessed the country; where they maintained their kingdom 400 years, as others say 600, or as Abulfeda more exactly computes, 616. Five of these princes were named Hareth, which the Greeks write Aretas: and one of them it was whose governor ordered the gates of Damascus to be watched to take St. Paul. This tribe were Christians, their last king being Jabalah the son of al Ayham, who on the Arabs' successes in Syria professed Mohammedism under the Khalif Omar; but receiving a disgust from him, returned to his former faith, and retired to Constantinople.
The other kingdom was that of Hira, which was founded by Malec, of the descendants of Cahlan in Chaldea or Irak; but after three descents the throne came by marriage to the Lakhmians, called also the Mondars (the general name of those princes), who preserved their dominion, notwithstanding some small interruption by the Persians, till the Khalifat of Abubecr, when al Mondar al Maghrur, the last of them, lost his life and crown by the arms of Khaled Ebn al Walid. This kingdom lasted 622 years eight months. Its princes were under the protection of the kings of Persia, whose lieutenants they were over the Arabs of Irak, as the kings of Ghassan were for the Roman emperors over those of Syria.
Jorham the son of Kahtan reigned in Hejaz, where his posterity kept the throne till the time of Ismael; but on his marrying the daughter of Modad, by whom he had twelve sons, Kidar, one of them, had the crown resigned to him by his uncles the Jorhamites, though others say the descendants of Ismael expelled that tribe, who retiring to Johainah, were, after various fortune, at last all destroyed by an inundation.
Of the kings of Hamyar, Hira, Ghassan, and Jorham, Dr. Pocock has given us catalogues tolerably exact, to which I refer the curious. After the expulsion of the Jorhamites, the government of Hejaz seems not to have continued for many centuries in the hands of one prince, but to have been divided among the heads of tribes, almost in the same manner as the Arabs of the desert are governed at this day. At Mecca an aristocracy prevailed, where the chief management of affairs till the time of Mohammed was in the tribe of Koreish, especially after they had gotten the custody of the Caaba from the tribe of Khozaah.
Besides the kingdoms which have been taken notice of, there were some other tribes which in latter times had princes of their own, and formed states of lesser note, particularly the tribe of Kenda: but as I am not writing a just history of the Arabs, and an account of them would be of no great use ot my present purpose, I shall waive any further mention of them.
After the time of Mohammed, Arabia was for about three centuries under the Khalifs his successors. But in the year 325 of the Hejra, great part of that country was in the hands of the Karmatians, a new sect who had committed great outrages and disorders even in Mecca, and to whom the Khalifs were obliged to pay tribute, that the pilgrimage thither might be performed: of this sect I may have occasion to speak in another place. Afterwards Yaman was governed by the house of Thabateba, descended from Ali the son-in-law of Mohammed, whose sovereignty in Arabia some place so high as the time of Charlemagne. However, it was the posterity of Ali, or pretenders to be such, who reigned in Yaman and Egypt so early as the tenth century. The present reigning family in Yaman is probably that of Ayub, a branch of which reigned there in the thirteenth century, and took the title of Khalif and Imam, which they still retain. They are not possessed of the whole province of Yaman, there being several other independent kingdoms there, particularly that of Fartach. The crown of Yaman descends not regularly from father to son, but the prince of the blood royal who is most in favor with the great ones, or has the strongest interest, generally succeeds.
The governors of Mecca and Medina, who have always been of the race of Mohammed, also threw off their subjection to the Khalifs, since which time four principal families, all descended from Hassan the son of Ali, have reigned there under the title of Sharif, which signifies noble, as they reckon themselves to be on account of their descent. These are Banu Kader, Banu Musa Thani, Banu Hashem, and Banu Kitada; which last family now is, or lately was, in the throne of Mecca, where they have reigned above 500 years. The reigning family at Medina are the Banu Hashem, who also reigned at Mecca before those of Kitada.
The kings of Yaman, as well as the princes of Mecca and Medina, are alsolutely independent and not at all subject to the Turk, as some late authors have imagined. These princes often making cruel wars among themselves, gave an opportunity to Selim I. and his son Soliman, to make themselves masters of the coasts of Arabia on the Red Sea, and of part of Yaman, by means of a fleet built at Sues: but their successors have not been able to maintain their conquests; for, except the port of Jodda, where they have a Basha whose authority is very small, they possess nothing considerable in Arabia.
Thus have the Arabs preserved their liberty, of which few nations can produce so ancient monuments, with very little interruption, from the very Deluge; for though very great armies have been sent against them, all attempts to subdue them were unsuccessful. The Assyrian or Median empires never got footing among them. The Persian monarchs, though they were their friends, and so far respected by them as to have an annual present of frankincense, yet could never make them tributary; and were so far from being their masters, that Cambyses, on his expedition against Egypt, was obliged to ask their leave to pass through their territories; and when Alexander had subdued that mighty empire, yet the Arabians had so little apprehension of him, that they alone, of all the neighboring nations, sent no ambassadors to him, either first or last; which, with a desire of possessing so rich a country, made him form a design against it, and had he not died before he could put it in execution, this people might possibly have convinced him that he was not invincible: and I do not find that any of his successors, either in Asia or Egypt, ever made any attempt against them. The Romans never conquered any part of Arabia properly so called; the most they did was to make some tribes in Syria tributary to them, as Pompey did one commanded by Sampsiceramus or Shams'alkeram, who reigned at Hems or Emesa; but none of the Romans, or any other nations that we know of, ever penetrated so far into Arabia as Alius Gallus under Augustus Caesar; yet he was so far from subduing it, as some authors pretend, that he was soon obliged to return without effecting anything considerable, having lost the best part of his army by sickness and other accidents. This ill success probably discouraged the Romans from attacking them any more; for Trajan, notwithstanding the flatteries of the historians and orators of his time, and the medals struck by him, did not subdue the Arabs; the province of Arabia, which it is said he added to the Roman empire, scarce reaching farther than Arabia Petraea, or the very skirts of the country. And we are told by one author, that this prince, marching against the Agarens who had revolted, met with such a reception that he was obliged to return without doing anything. The religion of the Arabs before Mohammed, which they call the state of ignorance, in opposition to the knowledge of God'S true worship revealed to them by their prophet, was chiefly gross idolatry; the Sabian religion having almost overrun the whole nation, though there were also great numbers of Christians, Jews, and Magians among them.
I shall not here transcribe what Dr. Prideaux has written of the original of the Sabian religion; but instead thereof insert a brief account of the tenets and worship of that sect. They do not only believe one God, but produce many strong arguments for His unity, though they also pay an adoration to the stars, or the angels and intelligences which they suppose reside in them, and govern the world under the Supreme Deity. They endeavor to perfect themselves in the four intellectual virtues, and believe the souls of the wicked men will be punished for nine thousand ages, but will afterwards be received to mercy. They are obliged to pray three times a day; the first, half an hour or less before sunrise, ordering it so that they may, just as the sun rises, finish eight adorations, each containing three prostrations; the second prayer they end at noon, when the sun begins to decline, in saying which they perform five such adorations as the former: and in the same they do the third time, ending just as the sun sets. They fast three times a year, the first time thirty days, the next nine days, and the last seven. They offer many sacrifices, but eat no part of them, burning them all. They abstain from beans, garlic, and some other pulse and vegetables. Asto the Sabian Kebla, or part to which they turn their faces in praying, authors greatly differ; one will have it to be the north, another the south, a third Mecca, and a fourth the star to which they pay their devotions: and perhaps there may be some variety in their practice in this respect. They go on pilgrimage to a place near the city of Harran in Mesopotamia, where great numbers of them dwell, and they have also a great respect for the temple of Mecca, and the pyramids of Egypt; fancying these last to be the sepulchres of Seth, and of Enoch and Sabi his two sons, whom they look on as the first propagators of their religion; at these structures they sacrifice a cock and a black calf, and offer up incense. Besides the book of Psalms, the only true scripture they read, they have other books which they esteem equally sacred, particularly one in the Chaldee tongue which they call the book of Seth, and is full of moral discourses. This sect say they took the name of Sabians from the above-mentioned Sabi, though it seems rather to be derived from Saba, or the host of heaven, which they worship. Travellers commonly call them Christians of St. John the Baptist, whose disciples also they pretend to be, using a kind of baptism, which is the greatest mark they bear of Christianity. This is one of the religions, the practice of which Mohammed tolerated (on paying tribute), and the professors of it are often included in that expression of the Koran, "those to whom the scriptures have been given," or literally, the people of the book.
The idolatry of the Arabs then, as Sabians, chiefly consisted in worshipping the fixed stars and planets, and the angels and their images, which they honored as inferior deities, and whose intercession they begged, as their mediators with God. For the Arabs acknowledged one supreme God, the Creator and Lord of the universe, whom they called Allah Taala, the most high God; and their other deities, who were subordinate to him, they called simply al Ilahat, ie, the goddesses; which words the Grecians not understanding, and it being their constant custom to resolve the religion of every other nation into their own, and find out gods of their to match the others', they pretend that the Arabs worshipped only two deities, Orotalt and Alilat, as those names are corruptly written, whom they will have to be the same with Bacchus and Urania; pitching on the former as one of the greatest of their own gods, and educated in Arabia, and on the other, because of the veneration shown by the Arabs to the stars.
That they acknowledged one supreme God, appears, to omit other proof, from their usual form of addressing themselves to him, which was this, "I dedicate myself to thy service, O God! Thou hast no companion, except thy companion of whom thou art absolute master, and of whatever is his." So that they supposed the idols not to be sui juris, though they offered sacrifices and other offerings to them, as well as to God, who was also often put off with the least portion, as Mohammed upbraids them. Thus when they planted fruit trees, or sowed a field, they divided it by a line into two parts, setting one apartfor their idols, and the other for God; if any of the fruits happened to fall from the idol's part into God'S, they made restitution; but if from God'S part into the idol's, they made no restitution. So when they watered the idol's grounds, if the water broke over the channels made for that purpose, and ran on God'S part, they damned it up again; but if the contrary, they let it run on, saying, they wanted what was God'S, but he wanted nothing. In the same manner, if the offering designed for God happened to be better than that designed for the idol, they made an exchange, but not otherwise.
It was from this gross idolatry, or the worship of inferior deities, or companions of God, as the Arabs continue to call them, that Mohammed reclaimed his countrymen, establishing the sole worship of the true God among them; so that how much soever the Mohammedans are to blame in other points, they are far from being idolaters, as some ignorant writers have pretended.
The worship of the stars the Arabs might easily be led into, from their observing the changes of weather to happen at the rising and setting of certain of them, which after a long course of experience induced them to ascribe a divine power to those stars, and to think themselves indebted to them for their rains, a very great benefit and refreshment to their parched country: this superstition the Koran particularly takes notice of.
The ancient Arabians and Indians, between which two nations was a great conformity of religions, had seven celebrated temples, dedicated to the seven planets; one of which in particular, called Beit Ghomdan, was built in Sanaa, the metropolis of Yaman, by Dahac, to the honor of al Zoharah or the planet Venus, and was demolished by the Khalif Othman; by whose murder was fulfilled the prophetical inscription set, as is reported, over this temple, viz., "Ghomdan, he who destroyeth thee shall be slain. The temple of Mecca is also said to have been consecrated to Zohal, or Saturn.
Though these deities were generally reverenced by the whole nation, yet each tribe chose some one as the more peculiar object of their worship. Thus as to the stars and planets, the tribe of Hamyar chiefly worshipped the sun; Misam, al Debaran, or the Bull's-eye; Lakhm and Jodam, al Moshtari, or Jupiter; Tay, Sohail, or Canopus; Kais, Sirius, or the Dog-star; and Asad, Otared, or Mercury. Among the worshippers of Sirius, one Abu Cabsha was very famous; some will have him to be the same with Waheb, Mohammed's grandfather by the mother, but others say he was of the tribe of Khozaah. This man used his utmost endeavors to persuade the Koreish to leave their images and worship this star; for which reason Mohammed, who endeavored also to make them leave their images, was by them nicknamed the son of Abu Cabsha. The worship of this star is particularly hinted at in the Koran. Of the angels or intelligences which they worshipped, the Koran, makes mention only of three, which were worshipped under female names; Allat, al Uzza, and Manah. These were by them called goddesses, and the daughters of God; an appellation they gave not only to the angels, but also to their images, which they either believed to be inspired with life by God, or else to become the tabernacles of the angels, and to be animated by them; and they gave them divine worship, because they imagined they interceded for them with God. Allat was the idol of the tribe of Thakif who dwelt at Tayef, and had a temple consecrated to her in a place called Nakhlah. This idol al Mogheirah destroyed by Mohammed's order, who sent him and Abu Sofian on that commission in the ninth year of the Hejra. The inhabitants of Tayef, especially the women, bitterly lamented the loss of this their deity, which they were so fond of, that they begged of Mohammed as a condition of peace, that it might not be destroyed for three years, and not obtaining that, asked only a month's respite; but he absolutely denied it. There are several derivations of this word which the curious may learn from Dr. Pocock: it seems most probably to be derived from the same root with Allah, to which it may be a feminine, and will then signify the goddess.
Al Uzza, as some affirm, was the idol of the tribes of Koreish and Kenanah, and part of the tribe of Salim: others tell us it was a tree called the Egyptian thorn, or acacia, worshipped by the tribe of Ghatfan, first consecrated by one Dhalem, who built a chapel over it, called Boss, so contrived as to give a sound when any person entered. Khaled Ebn Walid being sent by Mohammed in the eighth year of the Hejra to destroy this idol, demolished the chapel, and cutting down this tree or image, burnt it: he also slew the priestess, who ran out with her hair dishevelled, and her hands on her head as a suppliant. Yet the author who relates this, in another place says, the chapel was pulled down, and Dhalem himself killed by one Zohair, because he consecrated this chapel with design to draw the pilgrims thither from Mecca, and lessen the reputation of the Caaba. The name of this deity is derived from the root azza, and signifies the most mighty.
Manah was the object of worship of the tribes of Hodhail and Khazaah, who dwelt between Mecca and Medina, and, as some say, of the tribes of Aws, Khazraj, and Thakif also. This idol was a large stone, demolished by one Saad, in the eighth year of the Hejra, a year so fatal to the idols of Arabia. The name seems derived from mana, to flow, from the flowing of the blood of the victims sacrificed to the deity; whence the valley of Mina, near Mecca, had also its name, where the pilgrims at this day slay their sacrifices.
Before we proceed to the other idols, let us take notice of five more, which with the former three are all the Koran mentions by name, and they are Wadd, Sawa, Yaghuth, Yauk, and Nasr. These are said to have been antediluvian idols, which Noah preached against, and were afterwards taken by the Arabs for gods, having been men of great merit and piety in their time, whose statues they reverenced at first with a civil honor only, which in process of time became heightened to a divine worship.
Wadd was supposed to be the heaven, and was worshipped under the form of a man by the tribe of Calb in Daumat al Jandal.
Sawa was adored under the shape of a woman by the tribe of Hamadan, or, as others write, of Hodhail in Rohat. This idol lying under water for some time after the Deluge, was at length, it is said, discovered by the devil, and was worshipped by those of Hodhail, who instituted pilgrimages to it.
Yaghuth was an idol in the shape of a lion, and was the deity of the tribe of Madhaj and others who dwelt in Yaman. Its name seems to be derived from ghatha, which signifies to help.
Yauk was worshipped by the tribe of Morad, or, according to others, by that of Hamadan, under the figure of a horse. It is said he was a man of great piety, and his death much regretted; whereupon the devil appeared to his friends in a human form, and undertaking to represent him to the life, persuaded them, by way of comfort, to place his effigies in their temples, that they might have it in view when at their devotions. This was done, and seven others of extraordinary merit had the same honors shown them, till at length their posterity made idols of them in earnest. The name Yauk probably comes from the verb aka, to prevent or avert.
Nasr was a deity adored by the tribe of Hamyar, or at Dhu'l Khalaah in their territories, under the image of an eagle, which the name signifies. There are, or were, two statues at Bamiyan, a city of Cabul in the Indies, 50 cubits high, which some writers suppose to be the same with Yaghuth and Yauk, or else with Manah and Allat; and they also speak of a third standing near the others, but something less, in the shape of an old woman, called Nesrem or Nesr. These statues were hollow within, for the secret giving of oracles; but they seem to have been different from the Arabian idols. There was also an idol at Sumenat in the Indies, called Lat or al Lat, whose statue was 50 fathoms high, of a single stone, and placed in the midst of a temple supported by 56 pillars of massy gold: this idol Mahmud Ebn Sebecteghin, who conquered that part of India, broke to pieces with his own hands.
Besides the idols we have mentioned, the Arabs also worshipped great numbers of others, which would take up too much time to have distinct accounts given of them; and not being named in the Koran, are not so much to our present purpose: for besides that every housekeeper had his household god or gods, which he last took leave of and first saluted at his going abroad and returning home, there were no less than 360 idols, equalling in number the days of their year, in and about the Caaba of Mecca; the chief of whom was Hobal, brought from Belka in Syria into Arabia by Amru Ebn Lohai, pretending it would procure them rain when they wanted it. It was the statue of a man, made of agate, which having by some accident lost a hand, the Koreish repaired it with one of gold: he held in his hand seven arrows without heads or feathers, such as the Arabs used in divination. This idol is supposed to have been the same with the image of Abraham, found and destroyed by Mohammed in the Caaba, on his entering it, in the eighth year of the Hejra, when he took Mecca, and surrounded with a great number of angels and prophets, as inferior deities; among whom, as some say, was Ismael, with divining arrows in his hand also. Asaf and Nayelah, the former the image of a man, the latter of a woman, were also two idols brought with Hobal from Syria, and placed the one on Mount Safa, and the other on Mount Merwa. They tell us Asaf was the son of Amru, and Nayelah the daughter of Sahal, both of the tribe of Jorham, who committing whoredom together in the Caaba, were by God converted into stone, and afterwards worshipped by the Koreish, and so much reverenced by them, that though this superstition was condemned by Mohammed, yet he was forced to allow them to visit those mountains as monuments of divine justice.
I shall mention but one idol more of this nation, and that was a lump of dough worshipped by the tribe of Hanifa, who used it with more respect than the Papists do theirs, presuming not to eat it till they were compelled to it by famine.
Several of their idols, as Manah in particular, were no more than large rude stones, the worship of which the posterity of Ismael first introduced; for as they multiplied, and the territory of Mecca grew too strait for them, great numbers were obliged to seek new abodes; and on such migrations it was usual for them to take with them some of the stones of that reputed holy land, and set them up in the places where they fixed; and these stones they at first only compassed out of devotion, as they had accustomed to do the Caaba. But this at last ended in rank idolatry, the Ismaelites forgetting the religion left them by their father so far as to pay divine worship to any fine stone they met with.
Some of the pagan Arabs believed neither a creation past, nor a resurrection to come, attributing the origin of things to nature, and their dissolution to age. Others believed both, among whom were those who, when they died, had their camel tied by their sepulchre, and so left, without meat or drink, to perish, and accompany them to the other world, lest they should be obliged, at the resurrection, to go on foot, which was reckoned very scandalous. Some believed a metem-psychosis, and that of the blood near the dead person's brain was formed a bird named Hamah, which once in a hundred years visited the sepulchre; though others say this bird is animated by the soul of him that is unjustly slain, and continually cries, Oscuni, Oscuni, ie, "give me to drink" - meaning of the murderer's blood - till his death be revenged, and then it flies away. This was forbidden by the Koran to be believed.
I might here mention several superstitious rites and customs of the ancient Arabs, some of which were abolished and others retained by Mohammed; but I apprehend it will be more convenient to take notice of them, hereafter occasionally, as the negative or positive precepts of the Koran, forbidding or allowing such practices, shall be considered.
Let us now turn our view from the idolatrous Arabs, to those among them who had embraced more rational religions.
The Persians had, by their vicinity and frequent intercourse with the Arabians, introduced the Magian religion among some of their tribes, particularly that of Tamim, a long time before Mohammed, who was so far from being unacquainted with that religion, that he borrowed many of his own institutions from it, as will be observed in the progress of this work. I refer those who are desirous to have some notion of Magism, to Dr. Hyde's curious account of it, a succinct abridgment of which may be read with much pleasure in another learned performance.
The Jews, who fled in great numbers into Arabia from the fearful destruction of their country by the Romans, made proselytes of several tribes, those of Kenanah, al Hareth Ebn Caaba, and Kendah in particular, and in time became very powerful, and possessed of several towns and fortresses there. But the Jewish religion was not unknown to the Arabs, at least above a century before; Abu Carb Asad, taken notice of in the Koran, who was king of Yaman, about 700 years before Mohammed, is said to have introduced Judaism among the idolatrous Hamyarites. Some of his successors also embraced the same religion, one of whom, Yusef, surnamed Dhu Nowas, was remarkable for his zeal and terrible persecution of all who would not turn Jews, putting them to death by various tortures, the most common of which was throwing them into a glowing pit of fire, whence he had the opprobrious appellation of the Lord of the Pit. This persecution is also mentioned in the Koran.
Christianity had likewise made a very great progress among this nation before Mohammed. Whether St. Paul preached in any part of Arabia, properly so called, is uncertain; but the persecutions and disorders which happened in the eastern church soon after the beginning of the third century, obliged great numbers of Christians to seek for shelter in that country of liberty, who, being for the most part of the Jacobite communion, that sect generally prevailed among the Arabs. The principal tribes that embraced Christianity were Hamyar, Ghassan, Rabia, Taghlab, Bahra, Tonuch, part of the tribes of Tay and Kodaa, the inhabitants of Najran, and the Arabs of Hira. As to the two last, it may be observed that those of Najran became Christians in the time of Dhu Nowas, and very probably, if the story be true, were some of those who were converted on the following occasion, which happened about that time, or not long before. The Jews of Hamyar challenged some neighboring Christians to a public disputation, which was held sub dio for three days before the king and his nobility and all the people, the disputants being Gregentius, bishop of Tephra (which I take to be Dhafar) for the Christians, and Herbanus for the Jews. On the third day, Herbanus, to end the dispute, demanded that Jesus of Nazareth, if he were really living and in heaven, and could hear the prayers of his worshippers, should appear from heaven in their sight, and they would then believe in him; the Jews crying out with one voice, "Show us your Christ, alas! and we will become Christians." Whereupon, after a terrible storm of thunder and lightning, Jesus Christ appeared in the air, surrounded with rays of glory, walking on a purple cloud, having a sword in his hand, and an inestimable diadem on his head, and spake these words over the heads of the assembly: "Behold I appear to you in your sight, I, who was crucified by your fathers." After which the cloud received him from their sight. The Christians cried out, "Kyrie eleeson," ie, "Lord, have mercy upon us;" but the Jews were stricken blind, and recovered not till they were all baptized.
The Christians at Hira received a great accession by several tribes, who fled thither for refuge from the persecution of Dhu Nowas. Al Nooman, surnamed Abu Kabus, king of Hira, who was slain a few months before Mohammed's birth, professed himself a Christian on the following occasion. This prince, in a drunken fit, ordered two of his intimate companions, who overcame with liquor had fallen asleep, to be buried alive. When he came to himself, he was extremely concerned at what he had done, and to expiate his crime, not only raised a monument to the memory of his friends, but set apart two days, one of which he called the unfortunate, and the other the fortunate day; making it a perpetual rule to himself, that whoever met him on the former day should be slain, and his blood sprinkled on the monument, but he that met him on the other day should be dismissed in safety, with magnificent gifts. On one of those unfortunate days there came before him accidentally an Arab, of the tribe of Tay, who had once entertained this king, when fatigued with hunting, and separated from his attendants. The king, who could neither discharge him, contrary to the order of the day, nor put him to death, against the laws of hospitality, which the Arabians religiously observe, proposed, as an expedient, to give the unhappy man a year's respite, and to send him home with rich gifts for the support of his family, on condition that he found a surety for his returning at the year's end to suffer death. One of the prince's court, out of compassion, offered himself as his surety, and the Arab was discharged. When the last day of the term came, and no news of the Arab, the king, not at all displeased to save his host's life, ordered the surety to prepare himself to die. Those who were by represented to the king that the day was not yet expired, and therefore he ought to have patience till the evening: but in the middle of their discourse the Arab appeared. The king, admiring the man's generosity, in offering himself to certain death, which he might have avoided by letting his surety suffer, asked him what was his motive for his so doing? to which he answered, that he had been taught to act in that manner by the religion he professed; and al Nooman demanding what religion that was, he replied, the Christian. Whereupon the king desiring to have the doctrines of Christianity explained to him, was baptized, he and his subjects; and not only pardoned the man and his surety, but abolished his barbarous custom. This prince, however, was not the first king of Hira who embraced Christianity; al Mondar, his grandfather, having also professed the same faith, and built large churches in his capital.
Since Christianity had made so great a progress in Arabia, we may consequently suppose they had bishops in several parts, for the more orderly governing of the churches. A bishop of Dhafar has been already named, and we are told that Najran was also a bishop's see. The Jacobites (of which sect we have observed the Arabs generally were) had two bishops of the Arabs subject to their Mafrian, or metropolitan of the east; one was called the bishop of the Arabs absolutely, whose seat was for the most part at Akula, which some others make the same with Cufa, others a different town near Baghdad. The other had the title of bishop of the Scenite Arabs, of the tribe of Thaalab in Hira, or Hirta, as the Syrians call it, whose seat was in that city. The Nestorians ahd but one bishop, who presided over both these dioceses of Hira and Akula, and was immediately subject to their patriarch.
These were the principal religions which obtained among the ancient Arabs; but as freedom of thought was the natural consequence of their political liberty and independence, some of them fell into other different opinions. The Koreish, in particular, were infected with Zendicism, an error supposed to have very near affinity with that of the Sadducees among the Jews, and, perhaps, not greatly different from Deism; for there were several of that tribe, even before the time of Mohammed, who worshipped one God, and were free from idolatry, and yet embraced none of the other religions of the country.
The Arabians before Mohammed were, as they yet are, divided into two sorts, those who dwell in cities and towns, and those who dwell in tents. The former lived by tillage, the cultivation of palm trees, breeding and feeding of cattle, and the exercise of all sorts of trades, particularly merchandising, wherein they were very eminent, even in the time of Jacob. The tribe of Koreish were much addicted to commerce, and Mohammed, in his younger years, was brought up to the same business; it being customary for the Arabians to exercise the same trade that their parents did. The Arabs who dwelt in tents, employed themselves in pasturage, and sometimes in pillaging of passengers; they lived chiefly on the milk and flesh of camels; they often changed their habitations, as the convenience of water and of pasture for their cattle invited them, staying in a place no longer than that lasted, and then removing in search of other. They generally wintered in Irak and the confines of Syria. This way of life is what the greater part of Ismael's posterity have used, as more agreeable to the temper and way of life of their father; and is so well described by a late author, that I cannot do better than refer the reader to his account of them.
The Arabic language is undoubtedly one of the most ancient in the world, and arose soon after, if not at, the confusion of Babel. There were several dialects of it, very different from each other: the most remarkable were that spoken by the tribes of Hammyar and the other genuine Arabs, and that of the Koreish. The Hamyaritic seems to have approached nearer ot the purity of the Syriac, than the dialect of any other tribe; for the Arabs acknowledge their father Yarab to have been the first whose tongue deviated from the Syriac (which was his mother tongue, and is almost generally acknowledged by the Asiatics to be the most ancient) to the Arabic. The dialect of the Koreish is usually termed the pure Arabic, or, as the Koran, which is written in this dialect, calls it, the perspicuous and clear Arabic; perhaps, says Dr. Pocock, because Ismael, their father, brought the Arabic he had learned of the Jorhamites nearer to the original Hebrew. But the politeness and elegance of the dialect of the Koreish, is rather to be attributed to their having the custody of the Caaba, and dwelling in Mecca, the centre of Arabia, as well more remote from intercourse with foreigners, who might corrupt their language, as frequented by the Arabs from the country all around, not only on a religious account, but also for the composing of their differences, from whose discourse and verses they took whatever words or phrases they judged more pure and elegant; by which means the beauties of the whole tongue became transfused into this dialect. The Arabians are full of the commendations of their language, and not altogether without reason; for it claims the preference of most others in many respects, as being very harmonious and expressive, and withal so copious, that they say no man without inspiration can be a perfect master of it in its utmost extent; and yet they tell us, at the same time, that the greatest part of it has been lost; which will not be thought strange, if we consider how late the art of writing was practised among them. For though it was known to Job, their countryman, and also the Hamyarites (who used a perplexed character called al Mosnad, wherein the letters were not distinctly separate, and which was neither publicly taught, nor suffered to be used without permission first obtained) many centuries before Mohammed, as appears from some ancient monuments, said to be remaining in their character; yet the other Arabs, and those of Mecca in particular, were, for many ages, perfectly ignorant of it, unless such of them as were Jews or Christians: Moramer Ebn Morra of Anbar, a city of Irak, who lived not many years before Mohammed, was the inventor of the Arabic character, which Bashar the Kendian is said to have learned from those of Anbar, and to have introduced at Mecca but a little while before the institution of Mohammedism. These letters of Maramer were different from the Hamyaritic; and though they were very rude, being either the same with, or very much like the Cufic, which character is still found in inscriptions and some ancient books, yet they were those which the Arabs used for many years, the Koran itself being at first written therein; for the beautiful character they now use was first formed from the Cufic by Ebn Moklah, Wazir (or Visir) to the Khalifs al Moktader, al Kaher, and al Radi, who lived about three hundred years after Mohammed, and was brought to great perfection by Ali Ebn Bowab, who flourished in the following century, and whose name is yet famous among them on that account; yet, it is said, the person who completed it, and reduced it to its present form, was Yakut al Mostasemi, secretary to al Mostasem, the last of the Khalifs of the family of Abbas, for which reason he was surnamed al Khattat, or the Scribe.
The accomplishments the Arabs valued themselves chiefly on, were, 1 - Eloquence, and a perfect skill in their own tongue; 2 - Expertness in the use of arms, and horsemanship; and 3 - Hospitality. The first they exercised themselves in, by composing of orations and poems. Their orations were of two sorts, metrical, or prosaic, the one being compared to pearls strung, and the other to loose ones. They endeavored to excel in both, and whoever was able, in an assembly, to persuade the people to a great enterprise, or dissuade them from a dangerous one, or gave them other wholesome advice, was honored with the title of Khateb, or orator, which is now given to the Mohammedan preachers. They pursued a method very different from that of the Greek and Roman orators; their sentences being like loose gems, without connection, so that this sort of composition struck the audience chiefly by the fulness of the periods, the elegance of the expression, and the acuteness of the proverbial sayings; and so persuaded were they of their excelling in this way, that they would not allow any nation to understand the art of speaking in public, except themselves and the Persians; which last were reckoned much inferior in that respect to the Arabians. Poetry was in so great esteem among them, that it was a great accomplishment, and a proof of ingenuous extraction, to be able to express one's self in verse with ease and elegance, on any extraordinary occurrence; and even in their common discourse they made frequent applications to celebrated passages of their famous poets. In their poems were preserved the distinction of descents, the rights of tribes, the memory of great actions, and the propriety of their language; for which reasons an excellent poet reflected an honor on his tribe, so that as soon as any one began to be admired for his performances of this kind in a tribe, the other tribes sent publicly to congratulate them on the occasion, and themselves made entertainments, at which the women assisted, dressed in their nuptial ornaments, singing to the sound of timbrels the happiness of their tribe, who had now one to protect their honor, to preserve their genealogies and the purity of their language, and to transmit their actions to posterity; for this was all performed by their poems, to which they were solely obliged for their knowledge and instructions, moral and economical, and to which they had recourse, as to an oracle, in all doubts and differences. No wonder, then, that a public congratulation was made on this account, which honor they yet were so far from making cheap, that they never did it but on one of these three occasions, which were reckoned great points of felicity, viz., on the birth of a boy, the rise of a poet, and the fall of a foal of generous breed. To keep up an emulation among their poets, the tribes had, once a year, a general assembly at Ocadh, a place famous on this account, and where they kept a weekly mart or fair, which was held on our Sunday. This annual meeting lasted a whole month, during which time they employed themselves, not only in trading, but in repeating their poetical compositions, contending and vieing with each other for the prize; whence the place, it is said, took its name. The poems that were judged to excel, were laid up in their kings' treasuries, as were the seven celebrated poems, thence called al Moallakat, rather than from their being hung upon the Caaba, which honor they also had by public order, being written on Egyptian silk, and inn letters of gold; for which reason they had also the name of al Modhahabat, or the golden verses.
The fair and assembly at Ocadh were suppressed by Mohammed, in whose time, and for some years after, poetry seems to have been in some degree neglected by the Arabs, who were then employed in their conquests; which being completed, and themselves at peace, not only this study was revived, but almost all sorts of learning were encouraged and greatly improved by them. This interruption, however, occasioned the loss of most of their ancient pieces of poetry, which were then chiefly preserved in memory; the use of writing being rare among them, in their time of ignorance. Though the Arabs were so early acquainted with poetry, they did not at first use to write poems of a just length, but only expressed themselves in verse occasionally; nor was their prosody digested into rules, till some time after Mohammed; for this was done, as it is said, by al Khalil Ahmed al Farahidi, who lived in the reign of the Khalif Harun al Rashid.
The exercise of arms and horsemanship they were in a manner obliged to practise and encourage, by reason of the independence of their tribes, whose frequent jarrings made wars almost continual; and they chiefly ended their disputes in field battles, it being a usual saying among them that God had bestowed four peculiar things on the Arabs - that their turbans should be to them instead of diadems, their tents instead of walls and houses, their swords instead of entrenchments, and their poems instead of written laws.
Hospitality was so habitual to them, and so much esteemed, that the examples of this kind among them exceed whatever can be produced from other nations. Hatem, of the tribe of Tay, and Hasn, of that of Fezarah, were particularly famous on this account; and the contrary vice was so much in contempt, that a certain poet upbraids the inhabitants of Waset, as with the greatest reproach, that none of their men ad the heart to give, nor their women to deny.
Nor were the Arabs less propense to liberality after the coming of Mohammed than their ancestors had been. I could produce many remarkable instances of this commendable quality among them, but shall content myself with the following. Three men were disputing in the court of the Caaba, which was the most liberal person among the Arabs. One gave the preference to Abdallah, the son of Jaafar, the uncle of Mohammed; another to Kais Ebn Saad Ebn Obadah; and the third gave it to Arabah, of the tribe of Aws. After much debate, one that was present, to end the dispute, proposed that each of them should go to his friend and ask his assistance, that they might see what every one gave, and form a judgment accordingly. This was agreed to; and Abdallah's friend, going to him, found him with his foot in the stirrup, just mounting his camel for a journey, and thus accosted him: "Son of the uncle of the apostle of God, I am travelling and in necessity." Upon which Abdallah alighted, and bid him take the camel with all that was upon her, but desired him not to part with a sword which happened to be fixed to the saddle, because it had belonged to Ali, the son of Abutaleb. So he took the camel, and found on her some vests of silk and 4,000 pieces of gold; but the thing of greatest value was the sword. The second went to Kais Ebn Saad, whose servant told him that his master was asleep, and desired to know his business. The friend answered that he came to ask Kais's assistance, being in want on the road. Whereupon the servant said that he had rather supply his necessity than wake his master, and gave him a purse of 7,000 pieces of gold, assuring him that it was all the money then in the house. He also directed him to go to those who had the charge of the camels, with a certain token, and take a camel and a slave, and return home with them. When Kais awoke, and his servant informed him of what he had done, he gave him his freedom, and asked him why he did not call him, "For," says he, "I would have given him more." The third man went to Arabah, and met him coming out of his house in order to go to prayers, and leaning on two slaves, because his eyesight failed him. The friend no sooner made known his case, but Arabah let go the slaves, and clapping his hands together, loudly lamented his misfortune in having no money, but desired him to take the two slaves, which the man refused to do, till Arabah protested that if he would not accept of them he gave them their liberty, and leaving the slaves, groped his way along by the wall. On the return of the adventurers, judgment was unanimously, and with great justice, given by all who were present, that Arabah was the most generous of the three. Nor were these the only good qualities of the Arabs; they are commended by the ancients for being most exact to their words, and respectful to their kindred. And they have always been celebrated for their quickness of apprehension and penetration, and the vivacity of their wit, especially those of the desert.
As the Arabs have their excellencies, so have they, like other nations, their defects and vices. Their own writers acknowledge that they have a natural disposition to war, bloodshed, cruelty, and rapine, being so much addicted to bear malice that they scarce ever forget an old grudge; which vindictive temper some physicians say is occasioned by their frequent feeding on camel's flesh (the ordinary diet of the Arabs of the desert, who are therefore observed to be most inclined to these vices), that creature being most malicious and tenacious of anger, which account suggests a good reason for a distinction of meats.
The frequent robberies committed by these people on merchants and travellers have rendered the name of an Arab almost infamous in Europe; this they are sensible of, and endeavor to excuse themselves by alleging the hard usage of their father Ismael, who, being turned out of doors by Abraham, had the open plains and deserts given him by God for his patrimony, with permission to take whatever he could find there; and on this account they think they may, with a safe conscience, indemnify themselves as well as they can, not only on the posterity of Isaac, but also on everybody else, always supposing a sort of kindred between themselves and those they plunder. And in relating their adventures of this kind, they think it sufficient to change the expression, and instead of "I robbed a man of such or such a thing," to say, "I gained it." We must not, however, imagine that they are the less honest for this among themselves, or towards those whom they receive as friends; on the contrary, the strictest probity is observed in their camp, where everything is open and nothing ever known to be stolen.
The sciences the Arabians chiefly cultivated before Mohammedism, were three; that of their genealogies and history, such a knowledge of the stars as to foretell the changes of weather, and the interpretation of dreams. They used to value themselves excessively on account of the nobility of their families, and so many disputes happened on that occasion, that it is no wonder if they took great pains in settling their descents. What knowledge they had of the stars was gathered from long experience, and not from any regular study, or astronomical rules. The Arabians, as the Indians also did, chiefly applied themselves to observe the fixed stars, contrary to other nations, whose observations were almost confined to the planets, and they foretold their effects from their influences, not their nature; and hence, as has been said, arose the difference of the idolatry of the Greeks and Chaldeans, who chiefly worshipped the planets, and that of the Indians, who worshipped the fixed star. The stars or asterisms they most usually foretold the weather by, were those they called Anwa, or the houses of the moon. These are 28 in number, and divide the zodiac into as many parts, through one of which the moon passes every night; as some of them set in the morning, others rise opposite to them, which happens every thirteenth night; and from their rising and setting, the Arabs, by long experience, observed what changes happened in the air, and at length, as has been said, came to ascribe divine power to them; saying, that their rain was from such or such a star: which expression Mohammed condemned, and absolutely forbade them to use it in the old sense; unless they meant no more by it, than that God had so ordered the seasons, that when the moon was in such or such a mansion or house, or at the rising or setting of such and such a star, it should rain or be windy, hot or cold.
The old Arabians therefore seem to have made no further progress in astronomy, which science they afterwards cultivated with so much success and applause, than to observe the influence of the stars on the weather, and to give them names; and this it was obvious for them to do, by reason of their pastoral way of life, lying night and day in the open plains. The names they imposed on the stars generally alluded to cattle and flocks, and they were so nice in distinguishing them, that no language has so many names of stars and asterisms as the Arabic; for though they have since borrowed the names of several constellations from the Greeks, yet the far greater part are of their own growth, and much more ancient, particularly those of the more conspicuous stars, dispersed in several constellations, and those of the lesser constellations which are contained within the greater, and were not observed or named by the Greeks.
Thus have I given the most succinct account I have been able, of the state of the ancient Arabians before Mohammed, or, to use their expression, in the time of ignorance. I shall now proceed briefly to consider the state of religion in the east, and of the two great empires which divided that part of the world between them, at the time of Mohammed's setting up for a prophet, and what were the conducive circumstances and accidents that favored his success.
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