These hypsibrachycephalic groups with high narrow noses, found also in Persia, among Turks, Greeks, and still more commonly among Armenians, were first (1892) called by von Luschan "Armenoid," but "there can be no doubt that they are all descended from tribes belonging to the great Hittite Empire. So it is the type of the Hittites that has been preserved in all these groups for more than 3000 years[1186]." As to their primordial home von Luschan connects them with the "Alpine Race" of Central Europe, but leaves it an open question whether the Hittites came from Central Europe, or the Alpine Race from Western Asia, though inclining to the latter view. The high narrow nose (the essential somatic difference between the Hittites and the other brachycephalic Arabs) "originated as a merely accidental mutation and was then locally fixed, either by a certain tendency of taste and fashion or by long, perhaps millennial in-breeding. The 'Hittite nose' has finally become a dominant characteristic in the Mendelian sense, and we see it, not only in the actual geographical province of the Alpine Race, but often enough also here in England[1186]."
Arabia and the Arabs.
In Arabia itself inscriptions point to the early existence of civilised kingdoms, among which those of the Sabaeans[1187] and the Minaeans[1188] stand out most clearly, though their dates and even their chronological order are much disputed. Possibly both lasted until the rise of the Himyarites at the beginning of the Christian era. All are agreed however that Arabian civilisation reached a very high level in the centuries preceding the birth of the Prophet, before the increase in shipping led to the abandonment of the caravan trade.
The modern inhabitants are divided into the Southern Arabians, mainly settled agriculturalists of Yemen, Hadramaut and Oman, who trace their descent from Shem, and the Northern Arabians (Bedouin[1189]), pastoral tribes, who trace their descent from Ishmael. The two groups have even been considered ethnologically distinct, but, as von Luschan points out, "peninsular Arabia is the least-known land in the world, and large regions of it are even now absolutely terrae incognitae, so great caution is necessary in forming conclusions, from the measurements of a few dozens of men, concerning the anthropology of a land more than five times as great as France[1190]." His measurements of "the only real Semites, the Bedawy," gave a cephalic index ranging from 68 to 78, while the nose was short and fairly broad, very seldom of a "Jewish type." Recently Seligman[1191] has shown that whereas the Semites of Northern Arabia conform more or less to the type just mentioned those of Southern Arabia are of low or median stature (1.62-1.65 m., 63¾-65 in.), and are predominantly brachycephalic, the cephalic index ranging from 71 to 92, with an average of about 82.
Elsewhere—Iberia, Sicily, Malta[1192], Irania, Central Asia, Malaysia—the Arab invaders have failed to preserve either their speech or their racial individuality. In some places (Spain, Portugal, Sicily) they have disappeared altogether, leaving nothing behind them beyond some slight linguistic traces, and the monuments of their wonderful architecture, crumbling Alhambras or stupendous mosques re-consecrated as Christian temples. But in the eastern lands their influence is still felt by multitudes, who profess Islám and use the Arabic script in writing their Persian, Turki, or Malay languages, because some centuries ago those regions were swept by a tornado of rude Bedouin fanatics, or else visited by peaceful traders and missionaries from the Arabian peninsula.
Semitic Monotheism.
The monotheism proclaimed by these zealous preachers is often spoken of as a special inheritance of the Semitic peoples, or at least already possessed by them at such an early period in their life-history as to seem inseparable from their very being. But it was not so. Before the time of Allah or of Jahveh every hill-top had its tutelar deity; the caves and rocks and the very atmosphere swarmed with "jins"; Assyrian and Phoenician pantheons, with their Baals, and Molochs, and Astartes and Adonais, were as thickly peopled as those of the Hellenes and Hindus, and in this, as in all other natural systems of belief, the monotheistic concept was gradually evolved by a slow process of elimination. Nor was the process perfected by all the Semitic peoples—Canaanites, Assyrians, Amorites, Phoenicians, and others having always remained at the polytheistic stage—but only by the Hebrews and the Arabs, the two more richly endowed members of the Semitic family. Even here a reservation has to be made, for we now know that there was really but one evolution, that of Jahveh, the adoption of the idea embodied in Allah being historically traceable to the Jewish and Christian systems. As Jastrow points out, the higher religious and ethical movement began with Moses, who invested the national Jahveh with ethical traits, thus paving the way for the wider conceptions of the Prophets. "The point of departure in the Hebrew religion from that of the Semitic in general did not come until the rise of a body of men who set up a new ideal of divine government of the universe, and with it as a necessary corollary a new standard of religious conduct. Throwing aside the barriers of tribal limitations to the jurisdiction of a deity, it was the Hebrew Prophets who first prominently and emphatically brought forth the view of a divine power conceived in spiritual terms, who, in presiding over the universe and in controlling the fates of nations and individuals, acts from self-imposed laws of righteousness tempered with mercy[1193]."
FOOTNOTES:
[1150] The divergent views of orientalists concerning Semitic (linguistic) origins are summarised by W. Z. Ripley, The Races of Europe, 1900, p. 375.
[1151] E. Meyer, Geschichte des Altertums, I. 2, 1909, § 336. O. Procksch, however, while regarding the origin of the Semites as an unsolved problem, considers Arabia as their centre of dispersal rather than their original home. As far as early Semitic migrations can be traced he thinks they indicate a north to south direction, and he sees no cause for disputing the Biblical account (Gen. ii. 10 ff.) deriving the descendants of Shem "from the neighbourhood of Ararat, i.e. Armenia, across the Taurus to the North Syrian plain." "Die Völker Altpalästinas," Das Land der Bibel, I. 2, 1914, p. 11. Cf. also J. L. Myres, The Dawn of History, 1911, p. 115.