[38] He preached to the following tribes among others:—Bani Aamr bin Sasaa, Bani Mohárib, Bani Hafasa (or Khafasa), Bani Fezára, Bani Ghassán, Bani Kalb, Bani Háris, Bani Kab, Bani Ozra, Bani Murra, Bani Hanifa, Bani Suleim, Bani Abs, Bani Nazr, Bani Bakka, Bani Kinda, and Bani Khozaimah.
[39] "There is something lofty and heroic in this journey of Mahomet to Tâyif; a solitary man, despised and rejected by his own people, going boldly forth in the name of God,—like Jonah to Nineveh—and summoning an idolatrous city to repentance and to the support of his mission. It sheds a strong light on the intensity of his own belief in the divine origin of his calling."—The Life of Mahomet, by Sir W. Muir, Vol. II, page 207.
[40] The Arabs also had a similar clan named Bani Shaitán, a clan of the Hinzala tribe, the descendants of Tamim, through Zeid Monat of the Moaddite stock. The Bani Shaitán (the children of Satan) dwelt near Kúfa.—Vide Qalqashandi's Dictionary of Arab Tribes.
[41] Sura XLVI, verses 28, 29. These people were from Nisibin and Nineveh in Mesopotamia. They were Chaldeans, soothsayers, and cabalists. In the book of Daniel the Chaldeans are classed with magicians and astronomers, and evidently form a sort of the priest class who have a peculiar "tongue" and "learning" (Dan. I. 4). In Arabic, persons of similar professions were called Kahins. Some of this class of people pretended to receive intelligence of what was to come to pass from certain satans or demons, whom they alleged to hear what passed in the heavens. Others pretended to control the stars by enchanting them. They produced eclipses of the sun and moon by their alleged efficiency in their own enchantments. They practised astrology as well as astronomy and fortune-telling.
It appears that the Chaldeans (Kaldai or Kaldi) were in the earliest times merely one out of the many Cushite tribes inhabiting the great alluvial plain known afterwards as Chaldea or Babylonia. In process of time as the Kaldi grew in power, their name prevailed over that of the other tribes inhabiting the country; and by the era of the Jewish captivity it had begun to be used generally for all the inhabitants of Babylonia. It had thus come by this time to have two senses, both ethnic: in the one, it was the special appellative of a particular race to whom it had belonged from the remotest times; in the other, it designated the nation at large in which the race was predominant. Afterwards it was transferred from an ethnic to a mere restricted sense, from the name of a people to that of a priest caste or sect of philosophers. The Kaldi proper belonged to the Cushite race. While both in Assyria and in Babylonia, the sernitic type of speech prevailed for special purposes, the ancient Cushite dialect was purely reserved for scientific and religious literature. This is no doubt the "learning" and the "tongue" to which reference is made in the Bible (Dan. I. 4). It became gradually inaccessible to the great mass of people who had emigrated by means, chiefly, of Assyrian influence. But it was the Chaldean learning in the old Chaldean or Cushite language. Hence all who studied it, whatever their origin or race, were, on account of their knowledge, termed Chaldeans. In this sense Daniel himself, "the master of Chaldeans" (Dan. V. 11.), would, no doubt, have been reckoned among them, and so we find Seleucas, a Greek, called a Chaldean by Strabo (XVI. 1, § 6). The Chaldeans were really a learned class, who by their acquaintance with the language of science became its depositaries. They were priests, magicians or astronomers, as their preference for one or other of those occupations inclined them; and in the last of these three capacities they probably effected discoveries of great importance. The Chaldeans, it would appear, congregated into bodies forming what we may perhaps call universities, and they all engaged together in it for their progress. They probably mixed up to some extent astrology with their astronomy, even in the earlier times, but they certainly made great advance in astronomical science to which their serene sky and transparent atmosphere specially invited them. In later times they seem certainly to have degenerated into mere fortune-tellers (vide Smith's Dict. of the Bible, Art. Chaldeans).
In their practice of astromancy or enchanting the stars, and in pretending to overhear what passed in the heavens, they, the Jinns, used to sit on the tops of lofty mansions at night-time for hours offering sacrifices to the stars and enchanting them. In their peculiar tongue and learning they called this practice "stealing a hearing" and "sitting for listening" (Suras XV, verse 17, and LXXII, verses 8, 9).
Now at the time of Mohammad's assuming the Prophet's office there had been an unusually grand display of numerous falling stars, which at certain periods are known to be specially abundant. At the same time there were good many comets visible in different parts of heavens, which certainly might have smitten with terror these Jinns, i.e., the astromancers and soothsayers. There was one comet visible in 602 A.D., and other two appeared in 605 A.D. In 607 A.D. two more comets were visible; another one appeared in 608 A.D. Each of the years 614 and 615 had one comet. There were also comets visible in 617 A.D. (vide Chambers's Descriptive Astronomy). These comets are most probably noticed in the contemporary record (i.e. the Koran). A comet is called Tariq, or "night comer," in Sura LXXXVI, verse 1; and described as the star of piercing radiance. (Annajmus Saqib. Ibid 3.)
The Kahins were very much alarmed at the stupendous phenomena of the falling stars and the comets; and had stopped their soothsaying and divinations. Whenever they used to sit on their places of listening, enchanting, and divination during night-time, looking at the heavens, their eyes met with showers of shooting stars and brilliant comets which bewildered them very much. It is said that the first whose attention was attracted to the unusual shooting stars was a clan of the Sakeefites of Us-Tayif (Ibn Hisham, page 131). These Jinns, when they were converted to Islam at Nakhla near Tayif, expressed their bewilderment from the unusual shower of falling stars and the appearance of numerous comets in their peculiar language:—
"The heaven did we essay but found it filled with mighty garrison and of darting flames."
"We sat on some of the seats to listen, but whoever now listeneth findeth a darting flame in ambush for him."