CHAPTER III. EARLY HISTORY OF THE ARABS
[ca. 2500 B.C.-622 A.D.]
The Arabian peninsula is Africa reduced in size and of more moderate proportions, but without a river-valley like that of the Nile. The heart of the country is a tableland, sparely watered under a burning sun, and forming a depression in the midst of sandy deserts, rocky plains, peaks, and naked cliffs. Thus, despite its great extent of over a million square miles, Arabia presents, especially in the interior, but few stretches of land suitable for cultivation. It is in the south, where the plateau slopes down to the Indian Ocean in a series of declivities, that fertile valleys lie; and on the mountain terraces, where cool winds from the ocean temper the tropic heat, the richest fruits abound. This district of Arabia is the land of frankincense, of sugar-cane, and coffee tree, of pomegranates, figs, dates, of maize, and wheat.
Herodotus,[b] who like all other historians of antiquity applies the name Arabia to regions lying even beyond Sinai and the Syrian deserts, gives us but meagre information concerning the inhabitants of this vast land. “The Arabs,” he says, “wear long garments, carry at their right side great bows with double strings, and ride on swift camels. They worship two gods, Dionysus whom they call Urotal, and Urania whom they call Alilat, the latter also being called by the Babylonians Mylitta. Compacts are made in the following manner; a third person cuts each of the parties to the agreement in the hand near the thumb, and with the blood thus obtained smears seven stones that lie on the ground between, at the same time calling on Urotal and Alilat. Compacts thus sealed are held sacred by the Arabs, and are kept with a fidelity rarely found in other nations.” Artemidorus[c] of Ephesus calls Arabia rich in animals of all sorts; lions, panthers, wolves, wild asses, and camels; and the inhabitants, according to him, were wandering herdsmen who travelled about and did their fighting on the backs of camels, and lived on the camels’ milk and flesh. He withholds from us the names of these tribes on account of their obscurity and unmusical sound. Diodorus[d] also tells us that parts of Arabia on the Syrian side were inhabited by tribes who lived by trading and agriculture; but the tracts adjoining were for the most part barren and without water, and the Nachabæans who occupied them led the life of bandits, plundering their neighbours far and wide; no other tribe had succeeded in conquering them. In the interior and in the west of Arabia were sand plains of immense extent, across which it was only possible to travel by taking, as on the sea, the Great Bear as a guide.
Pliny[e] remarks: “Wonderful to say, the Arabians live about equally by robbery and by trade; what they obtain from their forests (meaning the products of the date-palms and the fruit-trees of the south) and from the sea they sell, yet they never buy anything in return.”
“The Arabs,” says Ammianus Marcellinus[f] “cover the territory that reaches from the Euphrates to Egypt. They wear no clothing save a sort of apron around the body, and a voluminous cloak. Every man among them is a warrior, and on their camels and swift, fine-limbed horses they are everywhere to be seen. They cannot endure to remain long in any one locality; without permanent dwelling-place they wander restlessly about, and their whole life is nothing but a flight. Of bread and wine the majority of Arabs have never even heard.”
Different information is given us regarding the southern coast of Arabia. Herodotus[b] remarks that the greatest blessings are showered upon the extreme limits of the earth, and that this seems to be true of Arabia, the most southern point of the inhabited world. Here only in all the earth grow frankincense, myrrh, cassia, and ladanum; here only are raised sheep with tails so bushy that wagons have to be bound beneath them to support them. But the trees bearing frankincense are guarded by winged serpents and those bearing cassia by bats.
Thoroughly informed in matters relating to this district by reason of Alexandria’s wide trade connections, Eratosthenes[g] could name the different tribes that inhabited the south. “In the interior,” he adds, “were thick forests formed by tall frankincense and myrrh trees; and besides these there were cinnamon trees, palm and calmus, and other trees of a similar nature, sending forth the sweetest odours. Out of so many it is not possible to name every species; it is enough to say that the perfumes they diffused were delicious beyond all words. Even people going by this land in ships at some distance from the shore, have the odours wafted to them on the breeze. For here the aroma does not proceed from spices old, stale, and laid away, but is sent forth in full strength and freshness, so that sailors along the coast believe they are enjoying ambrosia, no other name expressing the extraordinary strength and richness of the perfume they inhale. Among the Sabæans the monarchy is hereditary, and it is here that the king lives, dispensing justice to the people, but never venturing to leave his palace. Should he once show himself outside he would be stoned by his subjects, who would thus be fulfilling an ancient oracle. The Sabæans are the richest people in the world. In exchange for their few wares silver and gold flow in to them from all sides, and owing to the remoteness of their situation no other tribe has ever conquered them.”
[ca. 2500-645 B.C.]
The Hebrew Scriptures have preserved for us information concerning the populations of Arabia, that is older by a thousand years than that of Pliny, and by five hundred than that of Herodotus. According to Genesis[h] the tribes fall into four main groups; the Joktanites, among whom the tribes of the south and east are the most prominent; the Keturites, which include certain tribes of the east and northwest; the Ishmaelites, among whom can be counted tribes of the north and of the tableland of the interior; and finally the group of tribes who wandered and settled near the eastern frontiers of Canaan—the Amalekites, Edomites, Moabites, and Ammonites. The Hebrews ascribe to the Arabs the same origin as their own.
From the genealogies it is plain that the Hebrews regarded the Arabian tribes as close kinsmen of their own, and kinsmen of a far more ancient branch. The Arabs of the south traced their origin back to the fifth generation after Shem, the common forefather, while the Hebrews descended from the second son of Isaac. Most closely related to them are the Ishmaelites, who are divided into twelve tribes—the descendants of the sons of Ishmael, the “twelve princes”; then follow the Edomites, the Ammonites, and the Moabites.
The tradition of the Arabs scarcely goes back to the beginning of the Christian era. What their writers, who began after Mohammed to tell the early history of their race, knew of those ancient periods is either derived from the accounts of the Hebrews, or is the work of pure imagination. They represent the Amalekites, whom they found in Hebrew Scriptures, as the founders of their race, and place their dwelling variously in Canaan and Damascus, and the district of Mecca and Oman, and cause them at one time to rule over Egypt. These Amalekites, the Tasmites and Jadi, Aadites and Jorhomites, they look upon as the true Arabian stock, to whom God taught Arabic after the confusion of tongues. But the Tasmites and Jadi are as little to be accepted historically as Amalek, their names signifying “the extinct,” and “the vanished”; the Aadites are a purely fabulous people, and the Jorhomites (near Mecca) are a tribe of by no means ancient origin. The progenitor of the tribes of Yemen in the south is, according to the Arabians, Kahtan, the son of Eber, and great-grandson of Noah; this is the Joktan of Genesis. This founder of the Sabæan monarchy left two sons, Himyar and Kahtan. Himyar was the progenitor of the Himyarites, and their abode is placed on the southern coast of Arabia, between Mareb (Saba) and Hadramaut.
To the kingdom of Mareb, founded by Abd Shams-Sabah, is ascribed by Arab tradition a long succession of rulers. But even if we were to allow to each name a reign of more than thirty years, Kahtan’s period would not be carried back beyond 700 B.C. Abd Shams-Sabah is supposed to have built not only Mareb but a great dam for the irrigation of the land. The well-built dams, canals, and sluices at Sana (the Uzal of the Hebrews, to the west of Mareb) are said to have been erected by Asad. The castles of Sahlin and Bainun (near Sana) were built by dæmons, at Solomon’s bidding, for Belkis, queen of Sheba. Towards the end of the year 700 B.C. Harith, at the head of the Himyarites, gained possession of the kingdom of the Sabæans, who were thus driven from their own land, and the Himyarites who supplanted them (the Homerites of western nations) became the ruling people in Yemen. Arab tradition had somewhat prepared the way for this change by making Himyar the oldest son and successor of Abd Shams-Sabah.
If we trace the genealogies given by Arab tradition to the rulers of the tribes descended from Ishmael backwards for twenty generations till we reach Adnan, his grandson, we do not arrive at an earlier period than the second century B.C., even if we allow thirty years for each generation.
There have been handed down to us no consistent accounts of these people. We learn that Egypt, at some period later than 3000 years B.C., gained a foothold in the west of the Sinai peninsula, but we are unable to obtain any certainty of the origin of the invading tribes. The inscriptions of Egypt of the time of Tehutimes and the first Ramses,[i] tell of victories achieved over the Shasu and over the Punt, that is, the Arabs; but we cannot learn the extent of these victorious operations, nor the names of the tribes against which they were directed, hence we conclude that they were of but a transitory nature. The Hebrews relate that the queen of the Sabæans, ruler over that fruitful, spice-bearing land, journeyed to Jerusalem to lay before King Solomon rich presents of spices and gold.
It would surprise us to learn that an Arabian monarchy was in the hands of a woman, did not the inscriptions of the Assyrian kings[j] reveal that even the tribes of the deserts frequently had women as rulers. These same inscriptions also furnish us with information concerning certain early Arabian tribes, and make known to us their great wealth in cattle. The third Tiglathpileser relates that in the year 735 B.C. he received tribute from Zabibieh, queen of Arabia (Aribi). In the year 734 he marched on Samshi, queen of Arabia, and took from her as spoils thirty thousand camels and twenty thousand oxen, afterwards subjugating the people of Saba, the Sabæan city. King Sargon makes boast that he conquered the people of Thamud, the Thamudenes of western writers; also those of Tasid, Ibadid, Marsiman, Chayapa, the distant Arbæans, the inhabitants of the lands of Bari, “which the learned and the scribes knew not,” and that Samshi, queen of the Arabs and Yathamic, the Sabæan, paid him tribute of spices, camels, and gold (715 B.C.). Sennacherib took from the Pecod, the Hagarites, the Nabatæans, and certain other tribes, 5330 camels, and 800,600 head of small cattle (703 B.C.). During the reign of Asshurbanapal, Adija, queen of the Arabs, and Ammuladin, king of the Kedarites, were conquered and brought in chains to Nineveh; and the “innumerable warriors” of another prince, Yauta-ben-Bir-Dadda, were put to rout and his tents were burned. A third chief, Abiyate, with his allies, Yauta-ben-Hazael, Natnu (Nathan) king of the Nabatæans, and the worshippers of Istar, was defeated in 645 B.C.
The position of Arabia between the river valleys of the Nile, the Euphrates, and the Tigris, which had been the seats of the oldest industries and where agriculture and civilisation had early begun to flourish, brought the Arabs, who were continually wandering about the frontiers of their land, into close connection with Egypt and Babylon. What robbery failed to supply could be obtained by barter. The wandering herdsmen had need of corn, tools, and weapons; the Egyptians and Babylonians, of horses, camels, skins, and wool. By giving in exchange for what they required cattle and skins, the Arabs kept the Egyptians and Babylonians supplied with raw materials for their industries. According to Hebrew tradition Abraham went into Egypt, and the sons of Jacob bought grain in Egypt when “there was a famine in the land.” The fact that the Egyptians gained possession, in 3000 B.C., of the valley of Maghara in the Sinai peninsula, and that a thousand years later certain nomad tribes of the northwest of Arabia obtained supremacy over Egypt, served but to strengthen the later relations between the two countries. That there had long been intercourse is certain; and contact with the superior culture of Egypt had so multiplied the wants of the Arabs as greatly to increase their trading relations. They could offer not alone their cattle to the Egyptians in barter but the costly products of their southern coasts, the frankincense and perfumes that had already attained a high celebrity in Egypt as early as 2500 B.C.
It is no wonder then, in view of this ancient and active trade, that Queen Ramaka (Maat-ka-Ra or Hatshepsu) of Egypt made the attempt to import the products of southern Arabia direct by way of the Red Sea; and it must have been this same intention that caused Ramses II to project a canal that should connect the Nile with the Red Sea. Later, Ramses III caused ships to be built especially for the trade with “the land of Punt” (Arabia) and “the land of the gods” (the far East). Great as was the demand of Egypt for incense and perfumes, that of Babylon seems to have been no less. Herodotus[b] tells us that at the annual feast of Belos a thousand talents of incense was burned on the altar of the great Babylonian temple.
[ca. 1225 B.C.-100 A.D.]
The demand for Arabian products must have greatly increased when the Phœnician cities planted along the coast of Syria, grew to be important trade centres.
That the Babylonian talent was current among the Sabæans is evidence of the extent and activity of Babylonian trade. First passing their goods from one to another of their own tribes until the market at Damascus was reached, or the Euphrates and the Nile for shipping, the Arabs permitted or refused passage to the caravans of the Babylonians and the Phœnicians. They lay in wait for the merchant-trains, and either plundered them or forced them to pay for safe passage and convoy.
An Arab Archer
The beauty and fertility of the portion of Arabia occupied by the Sabæans and the Chatramites must have early served to fix them there as permanent settlers, and their constantly growing commerce with Egypt, Syria, and Babylonia unquestionably resulted in a great influx of wealth to these tribes. Thus even the tales current among western nations of the splendour of their cities—the sixty temples of Sabbatha, and the gold and silver vessels, pillars, and couches of Mareb—must have had strong foundation in fact. Ruins of mighty aqueducts, dams, and basins remain, which are the wonder and admiration of our tourists for the excellence of their plan and the solidity of their construction. They reveal to us not only the skill of the ancient Sabæans and Chatramites in erecting important works, but their complete understanding of the subject of irrigation; since the whole system of canals and basins was evidently designed to utilise upon their own lands the streams rushing down from the mountains. Remains of magnificent structures, not alone near Mareb but near Nejran, Ghorab, Nakb-el-Hajara, go far towards confirming what western and Arab tradition tell us of the glories of ancient times; and inscriptions on these and other ruins in the southwest of Yemen give us, though they do not go back further than the year 120 B.C., an insight into the life and culture of the tribes of South Arabia. We also learn the earlier forms of their spoken and written language, and discover that their alphabet was derived from that of the Phœnicians, developing later independently side by side with it. Of a more recent date (the first century A.D.) are inscriptions on the rocks of the Sinai peninsula in the extreme northwest of Arabia, which are written in the north Arabian language and characters.
A glance at the meagre array of facts made known to us reveals the basis of the religious conceptions of the Semitic tribes in Arabia to be almost the same as that of the Semitic tribes in Syria, or those by the Euphrates and Tigris. It can readily be believed that the rites of those tribes nearest Syria partake somewhat of the character of the Syrian rites and that the worship of the southern tribes is closely allied to that of the Babylonians.
That the tribes of the desert should pay particular reverence to the stars cannot occasion much wonder. With the refreshing dews of night came not only Venus and the moon but the entire splendour of the firmament, to dazzle the eye and touch the spirit of the Arab. High above the silent desert, the tents, and sleeping flocks, looking down on the midnight ride and the waiting ambuscade, the stars swung on their glittering way. They were the source of a varied knowledge to the Arab; they marked out his path through the trackless desert, foretold the coming of the rain for which he had prayed, indicated the change of the seasons and the time for breeding in his flocks. Since these stars could at one time provide good pasturage and all that was needful for flocks, and at another dry up the wells and grass, why could they not also bring joy and pain, happiness and sorrow to mankind? Thus to the tribes of the desert the stars that shone brightest became living spirits, that ruled supreme over nature and the destinies of men.
The life of the nomad tribes of the interior (included by the Arabs under one name, Badawi [Bedouins] “children of the desert”) has suffered but few changes; up to the present day there have been no very radical departures from the customs and conditions of the olden time, which are fully described elsewhere.
In the Arabs the qualities peculiar to the Semitic character have attained their soundest and most strongly marked development. Their wandering life in the desert, exposed to burning sun and tempests of wind and sand, has steeled and strengthened them. In a land of trackless wastes, surrounded by beasts of prey and hostile tribes, each man was dependent for safety on his own watchfulness and keenness of vision, on his own courage and resolution, on his horse and lance. Soberly and frugally nourished, the body became lean and spare, but supple, sinewy, and capable of great endurance, and within these hardened frames dwelt a spirit of indomitable resolution. Thus the Arabs are characterised by a freer bearing, a more steadfast good faith, a more umbrageous pride, a greater love of independence, and a bolder daring than any other tribes of their race. The nature of their country and of their life has saved them from the excesses of greed of luxury and sensuality into which the Semitic populations on the Euphrates and the Tigris, as well as those on the Mediterranean, frequently fell, though they share in the cruelty and blood-thirstiness common to their race. It was the Arabs on whose unused strength it was possible to found an empire, a new Semitic civilisation in the Middle Ages, after Babel and Asshur, Tyre and Carthage, Jerusalem and Palmyra, had long passed away.[k]
ARAB HISTORY BEFORE MOHAMMED
[380 B.C.-634 A.D.]
The history of Arabia and its inhabitants naturally divides itself into two distinct and even dissimilar periods, that, namely, which preceded the era of Mohammed, and that which followed it. Each of these two periods, though comprising in its extent several minor phases and fluctuations, now of advance, now of retrogression, bears, however, a well-marked general character of its own. The first of the two periods is distinguished as one of local monarchies and federal governments; the latter commences with theocratic centralisation dissolving into general anarchy.
The first dawning gleams of anything that deserves to be called history disclose Arabia wholly, or nearly so, under the rule of a race of southern origin; the genuine, or, as they are sometimes termed from a mythical ancestor Kahtan, the Kahtanee Arabs. These, again, we find subdivided into several aristocratic monarchical governments, arranged so as to form a broad framework or rim around the central wilds of the peninsula.
Oldest and chiefest among the Arab monarchies was that of Yemen; its regal residence is said to have been in the now abandoned town of Mareb, in the extreme south. After a devastating inundation, referred with some probability to the first century of the Christian era, the seat of government was removed from the ruins of Mareb to Sana, a city which has continued the metropolis of Yemen to the present day. The Yemenite kings, descendants of Kahtan and Himyar (the dusky), a name denoting African origin, and each adorned with the reiterated surname of “Tobba,” a word of African etymology, and signifying “powerful,” are said to have reigned, with a few dynastic interruptions and palace revolutions, for about twenty-five hundred years, during which long period they commanded the direct obedience of the entire southern half of the peninsula; while, by their tribute-collectors, and by chiefs of kindred or delegated authority, they indirectly governed the northern. One of these monarchs is asserted, though historical criticism will hardly admit the assertion for fact, to have subdued the whole of central Asia, and even to have reached the boundaries of China; while another anticipated, so runs the story, the later and more authentic conquests of his race on the north African continent. In both these cases Arab chroniclers seem to have appropriated for their own rulers, not without some additional exaggerations, the glories and exploits of the Egyptian kings. But that theirs was a vigorous and in some respects a civilised government is attested alike by the literary and the architectural relics of their time. Their sovereignty was at last overthrown, 529 (A.D.) by an Abyssinian invasion, and was re-established in 603 A.D. as a dependency of the Persian Empire, till in the year 634 it was finally absorbed by Mohammedan conquest.
[100-500 A.D.]
Next in importance to the kingdom of Yemen came the subsidiary monarchy of Hira, or more correctly Heerah, situated in the northeasterly province of Arabian Irak. Its kings, a collateral branch of the royal race of Sana, governed the western shore of the lower Euphrates, from the neighbourhood of Babylon down to the confines of Nejd, and along the coast of the Persian Gulf. The duration of their empire, founded in the second century after Christ, was 424 years. This kingdom paid an uncertain allegiance to their more powerful neighbours, the Persian despots; and from time to time exercised considerable influence over the turbulent tribes of central Arabia, till, like Yemen, it sank before the rising fortunes of Mohammed and his followers.
A third monarchy, that of Ghassan, lorded it on the northwest over lower Syria and the Hedjaz; its independence was somewhat tempered with unequal alliances with the Roman, and subsequently the Byzantine Empire. It was founded in the first century of the Christian era, shortly after the flood of Mareb; and its duration, till subdued by the all-conquering prophet, exceeded six hundred years.
A fourth government, that of Kindeh, detached itself from Irak early in the fifth century, and united under its sceptre the tribes of northerly Nejd and even those of Oman, for about 160 years. Its kings were, like those before mentioned, of Yemenite origin; but their rule was weak and disturbed by frequent wars.
Much has been written by Arab authors regarding the great inundation, as they term it, of Arem or Mareb, possibly a tropical cyclone of more than ordinary destructiveness, like that of 1867 in the West Indies; and this event they love to assign as the proximate cause which dispersed the families of Yemen over northern Arabia, and led to the foundation of the kingdoms of Irak and Ghassan. But the reality of the events, physical or political, symbolised by the “flood of Arem” (a counterpart, after its fashion, of the biblical flood) cannot now be well deciphered.
This is however certain—in that the Yemenite Arabs, and especially those who tenanted the south of the peninsula, had, during the period now cursorily sketched, attained a very fair degree of civilisation—that arts and commerce flourished, that wealth was accumulated, literature cultivated, and talent held in esteem. On all these points we have not only the uncertain and distorted testimony of foreign authors, such as Strabo, Pliny, Diodorus, Ptolemy, and the like, but the more positive though fragmentary evidence afforded by the national writings, chiefly verse, that have survived to our day. In its general character and institutions the kingdom of Yemen seems to have borne a considerable resemblance to the neighbouring one of the Nile valley, on the other side of the Red Sea, and, like it, to have reached at a very early epoch a relatively high degree of prosperity and social culture, from which, however, it had long declined before its final extinction in the seventh century. But the daughter-kingdom of Hira had, as was natural, something of a Persian tinge; while that of Ghassan took a more Byzantine colouring. Lastly, the nomadic element predominated in the ill-cemented monarchy of Kindeh.
But while the sceptre of Yemen was yet, in one form or other, outstretched over the length and breadth of the land, and its children, the genuine or African Arabs, formed a complete and dense circle of population all around, the centre of Arabia remained the stronghold of a different though kindred race, in their mode of living wild and ferocious; less susceptible of culture, but gifted with greater energy and concentration of purpose than their southern cousins. The latest recorded emigration of this branch of the Arab stock had been not from the south but the north; and instead of the mythical Kahtan, they claimed a no less mythical Adnan, or his supposed grandson Nezar, for their ancestor; their language, though radically identical with that spoken by the genuine Arabs, was yet dialectically different in several respects, and nearer to the Syriac or Hebrew. Lastly, unlike the Arabs from the south, they had little disposition for agriculture, and even less for architecture and the fine arts; their instincts leading them to a pastoral and consequently a nomadic life. The almost infinite ramifications of these “Mustareb” or “adscititious Arab” tribes lead ultimately up to five principal stocks. These were Rabiah, which, however, laid some claim to a Yemenite kinsmanship in the east centre of the peninsula; Koreish, on the west; Kais, or Kais-Ailan, and Hawazin, on the north; and Tamin in the middle.
[500-570 A.D.]
History has left unrecorded the exact date of their arrival in Arabia; nor has she defined the period during which they remained tributaries, though often refractory, of the kings of Yemen. But in the fifth century of the Christian era there appeared among the Mustareb tribes a leader of extraordinary talent and energy named Kolaib, sprung from the tribe of Rabiah, who having, in the fashion of William Tell, slain with his own hand the insolent and licentious tax-gatherer sent them from Sana, raised the banner of general revolt in Nejd; and, in the battle of Hazat (500 A.D.), broke forever the bonds of Yemen from off the neck of the northern Arabs. This done, Kolaib aspired to unite his countrymen into one vast confederacy, over which he himself exercised for a time an almost kingly power; but the scheme was prematurely broken off by his own assassination. Left now without a master, but also without a ruler, the Mustareb tribes found themselves involved in a series of wars that lasted during the whole of the sixth century, their heroic period. Yet in spite of severe losses sustained in battle by this or that particular clan, their power as a whole went on increasing, till at the dawn of the seventh century they had wholly absorbed the feeble kingdom of Kindeh, and encroached yearly more and more on the narrowing bounds of Yemen, Irak, and Ghassan.
An Arab Chief
Nor, probably, would they have stayed till they had become absolute lords over the whole, or nearly the whole, of the peninsula, had there not developed itself from among themselves a still more energetic element which, before many years had passed, reduced both northern and southern Arabs alike to common obedience, then raised them to an unexpected height of common glory, and at last plunged them, along with itself, into one comprehensive decline and ruin. This new and potent element was the well-known clan of Fihr or Koreish. Its families, of Mustareb descent, had at an early period, which subsequent and Mohammedan chroniclers have tried to identify with the fortunes of the mythical Ismail, established themselves in the southerly Hedjaz, near the town of Mecca, a locality even then the principal religious and commercial centre of Arabia. Already, at the beginning of the fifth century, the chiefs of Koreish had, by a mixture of violence and craft very characteristic of their race, rendered themselves the masters and the acknowledged guardians of the sacred “Kaaba.” This square stone temple, or rather shrine, itself of unknown antiquity, was situated within the precincts of the town of Mecca; and to it the Arabs were in the habit of bringing yearly offerings, and of making devout pilgrimages, for centuries before Mohammed had adopted it into the new ritual of Islam as the house of the true God. The keys of the consecrated building had originally been in possession of delegates appointed by the monarch of Yemen; but the Koreish Arabs, having once obtained them, held them fast forever after, and successfully repelled every effort, both of their own pagan competitors and of the invading Christian Abyssinians (570 A.D.), to recapture or to seize them. Their possession of the temple keys not only gave the tribe of Koreish a semi-religious pre-eminence over all the other clans of Arabia, but also placed at their disposal the treasures of gold, silver, jewels, and other offerings accumulated by the pagan piety of ages in the temple of Mecca.
[500-600 A.D.]
A more important, as also a more creditable, source of wealth to the Koreish clan was their Red Sea coast traffic, particularly with the ports of Yemen and Abyssinia. Jiddah has been always the chief westerly seaport, and Mecca, which is only a few leagues distant, the principal inland emporium, of Arab trade; and under the dominating influence of the clever and active merchants of Koreish, both places acquired special prosperity and importance.
Lastly, only a day’s journey distant from Mecca, was held, in the pre-Islamitic times, the great yearly fair and gathering of Okad, so called from the name of the plain where it used to assemble—a national meeting, frequented by men of all conditions, from all quarters of the Arab peninsula, and lasting through the entire month of Dhul-kaadeh, which in pagan, as subsequently in Mohammedan reckoning, immediately preceded the ceremonies of the annual pilgrimage. Here horse races, athletic games, poetical recitals, and every kind of public amusement, diversified the more serious commercial transactions of an open fair, that, in its comprehensiveness, almost assumed the proportions of a national exhibition. Here, too, matters of the highest import, questions of peace and war, of treaty and alliance, of justice and revenge, were habitually treated by the chiefs of the northern Arabs; the “children of Mezar,” to give them their favourite Mustareb patronymic, assembled in a sort of amphictyonic council, not less ancient, but while it lasted much more influential throughout Arabia, than that of Thebes ever had been in classic Greece. In this assembly the immediate local proximity of the Koreish chiefs, joined to their personal wealth, courage, and address, assigned them a predominant position.
Of their pedigree, which, as is well known, includes that of Mohammed himself, we have a carefully (too carefully, indeed, for authenticity) constructed chronicle, bringing the family tree up in due form to Ishmael, the son of Abraham, of whom the Koreish figure as the direct descendants. In the same artificial annals the Yemenite, or genuine Arabs, appear under the cousinly character of the children of Joktan, the son of Eber. On these points all Mohammedan annalists are equally positive and distinct; all other Arab testimony is equally adverse or silent. That a fable so utterly defiant of reasonable chronology, and even of the common sense of history itself, should have been adopted as matter of fact by Arab vanity and ignorance, is less surprising than that it should have found favour in the eyes of not a few, indeed of most, of our own European writers. Enough here to say that Mohammedan chroniclers, by adopting as irrefragable historical authority the Jewish records, and then retouching them here and there in accordance with their own special predictions and tenets, have succeeded in concealing the truth of their own national identity and story from themselves and even from others, under an almost hopeless incrustation of childish fiction.
To sum up, at the opening of the seventh century of our era, and coincidently with the first appearance of the prophetic autocrat and destined remodeller of Arabia, the overteeming life and energy of the great peninsula was, broadly taken, thus divided: Foremost stood the tribe of Koreish, with their allies, a powerful confederacy composed of tribes belonging to the Mustareb or northern stock, and occupying the upper half of the westerly coast and region. Next in importance came the countless independent, and, thus far, uncentralised clans of the centre of the peninsula; they, too, are mostly of Mustareb origin; though a few claimed the more ancient and aristocratic kinsmanship of Yemen, but without, however, paying any allegiance to its rulers. Lastly, to the south, east, and north, still existed the noble but enfeebled relics of the old Yemenite kingdoms of Sana, Hira, and Ghassan, half-sunk into Persian or Byzantine vassalage, and exerting little authority, even within their own ancestral limits.
[25 B.C.-632 A.D.]
But, however important to the country itself and in their ultimate results to the world at large might be the events that took place within Arabia during the pre-Islamitic epoch, they had small bearing on the nations outside the peninsula. The Yemenite queen of Sheba’s ambassage to Solomon, even if an historical event, led at least to no historical results; and with other coeval rulers and nationalities, Greek, Persian, and Macedonian, the Arabs rarely came into any other contact than that of distant and desultory traffic. Nor do the frontier skirmishes by which an Antigonus or a Ptolemy attempted, without success, to gain a footing in Arabia, deserve more than a passing notice; and Pompey himself, victorious elsewhere, was foiled on its frontiers.
At last during the reign of Augustus, Ælius Gallus, the Roman prefect of Egypt, undertook a military expedition against Yemen itself, with the view of annexing that region, which report enriched with immense treasures, to the Roman Empire. With an army composed of ten thousand Roman infantry, five hundred Jews, and one thousand Nabatæans, he crossed the Red Sea in two hundred and ten galleys, and landed at Moilah, or Leuce Come, in 25° N. lat., near the modern Yambo. After some delay, the consequence of disease and disorganisation among his troops, he marched southward until he reached the inland district and city of Nejran, on the nearer frontier of Yemen. The town of Nejran he is said to have taken by assault, as well as a few neighbouring places, probably mere villages, of little note.
Meanwhile a large force of Arabs had assembled to oppose him, but Gallus easily defeated them, and advanced to Mareb itself, then, we may suppose, the capital of Yemen. But the Roman soldiers, unaccustomed to the heat of the tropical climate, and much reduced in numbers, were incapable of laying siege to that town; and their general thus found himself forced to retreat, and recrossed the sea to Egypt without having effected any permanent settlement on the Arab side. Later attempts, made by Roman governors or generals under Trajan and Severus, were restricted to the neighbourhood of the Assyrian frontier; and the ruined cities of Bosrah and Petra yet indicate the landmarks of the extreme southerly limits reached by imperial dominion over Arab territory.
More serious, and more lasting in its consequences, was the great Abyssinian invasion of Yemen in 529, when Aryat, son or lieutenant of the king of Abyssinia, landed in Aden with an army of seventy thousand men, to avenge his co-religionists, the Christians, who had been cruelly persecuted by Dhu-Nowas, king of Yemen, himself a proselyte to and an ardent propagator of the Jewish code. The expedition was successful; Dhu-Nowas perished, Christianity was proclaimed, and for seventy-six years the Ethiopian conquerors retained subject to their rule the southern and richer half of the peninsula. Their king Abraha even advanced, in 570 A.D. (the year of the birth of Mohammed) as far as Mecca; but beneath its walls suffered a repulse, which has been magnified by the Koran and Mohammedan tradition into the proportions of a miracle. Persian assistance, furnished by the great Chosroes, ultimately enabled the Arabs under Seif, son of Yezen, last direct lineal descendant of the old kings of Sana, to liberate their territory from its dusky usurpers (605 A.D.).
The seventh century had now commenced, and before long the wonderful successes of Mohammed (622-632 A.D.), while they closed in one great centralising effort the era of Arab progress and development within the land, opened a marvellous phase of new activity and almost boundless extension without.[l]
