The Himyarite inscriptions, recently deciphered, have established the fact that, at an unknown epoch, two migratory populations, one proceeding from the North, the other from the South, came together in their course, and were so blended by association and intermarriage as to form, in a short time, a single people. This rapid fusion points to a common racial derivation, and it is not improbable that the northern division were the Canaanites expelled by the sword of Joshua.
The very conditions of their existence, in early times, necessarily precluded the idea of systematic organization or concerted union among the vagabond tribes of Arabia. Their polity, if it may be dignified by that name, was essentially patriarchal. Chief’s and rulers were selected from families renowned for individual merit, noble descent, and antiquity of origin, and, in accordance with the paternal custom of the Orient, all retainers of the prince—who, in fact, were usually related to him—were in time enrolled as members of his household; and, in this way, fragments of certain tribes, drawn to a common centre by the ties of real or fancied kindred or through the fear of annihilation, acquired a great preponderance over their neighbors. Before the establishment of Mohammedan rule, there was no government, no code of laws, no superior authority either delegated to or assumed by the magistrate. Each family was independent; each member of it recognized no obligation to society except the protection of his clansmen. The instinct of self-preservation, the force of public opinion, and the apprehension of the encroachments of rival tribes were the only motives sufficiently powerful to effect a temporary union of those whose vital interests were threatened. The power of the sheik was nominal; his functions advisory rather than executive. His station was one of more honor than usefulness; of his own volition he could neither direct military operations, enforce obedience, reward merit, nor inflict punishment. The affairs of the tribe were administered by such of its members as were conspicuous for age, dignity, and wisdom. Even the decision of such a council was not imperative in cases where the general welfare was concerned; for, under such circumstances, the judgment of every personage of wealth, rank, or social distinction was consulted. Absolutism, so prominent a feature of Asiatic government, and carried to such an extreme by Mohammed’s successors, was thus unknown in ancient Arabia. Dominated by the tumultuous freedom of individual caprice, its isolated communities were not even subject to the ordinary legal restrictions imposed by the voice of democracy; and their control approached as near to anarchical license as was compatible with the bare preservation of society. Natural obstacles, such as the scarcity of water and the barrenness of the soil, added to long-inherited prejudice, traditional enmity, and difficulty of intercommunication, have always prevented the political and intellectual development of the Arabs in their native land. The persistence of his original institutions after the mighty revolutions elsewhere wrought by Islam prove conclusively that national regeneration of the Arab under the sky of the Desert is a practical impossibility.
The life of the Bedouin was passed in unremitting hostility. War was the normal condition of his existence; it supplied the sole incentives he deemed worthy of attention—the gratification of revenge, the acquisition of glory, the appropriation of the property of his neighbor. The indulgence of these passions, and especially of the ignoble propensity to rapine, and his cruelty, were his most conspicuous and discreditable characteristics. The occupation of robbery was in the eyes of the Arab rather honorable than otherwise, as it was intimately associated with the profession of arms. In a society without the resources of agriculture, manufactures, or commerce, violent means must be relied on for the sustenance of life. In the Desert the only available expedients to this end were the plunder of enemies and the blackmail of travellers. The total absence of organized government rendered the possession of property doubly precarious. Nowhere else was the fickleness of fortune so apparent. The attack of a hostile tribe might render the most opulent individual a pauper in a single night. No vigilance could prevent such a catastrophe in a region affording unlimited opportunities for surprise and ambuscade, where there was no title to the soil, where the wealth of a community consisted largely of flocks of sheep and herds of camels. Under circumstances where a man’s importance and position among his fellows were dependent upon his inclination to encounter danger and his capacity to elude detection in the pursuit of pillage, poverty became disgraceful. Constant apprehension bred distrust of strangers, until it became a predominant national trait. Where two parties of Bedouins, unknown to each other, met in the Desert, the stronger immediately attacked the weaker. A daring predatory enterprise conferred the highest popular distinction upon its hero. A great robber, who united the qualities of courage and duplicity, and who had amassed wealth by his exploits, was the idol of his tribe. The memory of the famous brigand Harami is even now cherished in the Hedjaz with an admiring veneration scarcely inferior to that conferred upon his countryman Mohammed.
The mental constitution of the ancient Arab presented many remarkable inconsistencies, most of which are still apparent in the character of his descendants. Brave even to temerity, he felt no compunction at the secret assassination of a foe. Professing reverence for age and relying for guidance upon the advice of the elders of his tribe, he did not hesitate to drive the old and infirm from the public feast. While the greatest renown attended the plunder of an encampment, the commission of a trifling theft made the perpetrator an object of universal detestation. He assisted the unfortunate and plundered the defenceless with equal alacrity. The exercise of a generous and unselfish hospitality was no bar to the pursuit of a guest after he had left the inviolable precincts of the camp. In many respects, however, the character of the Bedouin was eminently worthy of admiration. His courage was undisputed. He possessed a high sense of personal honor. The fugitive who solicited his protection, even though he were an enemy, was safe so long as he remained within the enclosure of his tent, and he espoused the cause of the unknown suppliant as if it were his own. After sunset, his blazing watch-fire, like a friendly beacon, guided the course of the belated wanderer over the desert sea. He disputed with his neighbors for the honor of entertaining the stranger, and the deepest reproach he could undergo was the imputation that he was deficient in the virtue of hospitality. His sense of chivalry, nurtured amidst the constant perils of an uncertain existence, was conspicuous in the respect and consideration he afterwards exhibited in the treatment of woman. His simplicity of manner and gravity of demeanor imparted an air of dignity to his appearance, which elicited the respect of those far superior to him in rank, education, and knowledge. Patient in adversity, he considered the display of grief as an unpardonable evidence of weakness. His love of liberty dominated his nature to an extent impossible of appreciation by those subject to the salutary restraints of civilized communities. The existence of many noble qualities in the character of the Arab, however, only rendered its defects the more glaring. His apparent imperturbability screened from the public gaze many vices and imperfections. Like all barbarians, his disposition was largely infantile and capricious, petulant, diverted by trifles, controlled by instinct rather than by reason, quick to take offence, and relentlessly vindictive. Of all beings he was pre-eminently the creature of impulse. His pride was inordinate, his rapacity insatiable. With him the prosecution of vengeance was a sacred duty, which took precedence of every moral and social obligation; and such was his enmity, that he regarded the forgiveness of a serious injury as the badge of a coward. An incorrigible braggart, he never hesitated to employ treachery when it would accomplish the purposes of valor. He practised cannibalism, and like the ferocious Scandinavians drank from the skulls of slaughtered victims. Participation in these horrid banquets was not confined to warriors; women also were present at them, and wore, with savage pride, necklaces and amulets composed of the ears, noses, and bones of the dead.
Under the pretext of preventing future dishonor, but really with a view to economy, under conditions of existence involving a perpetual struggle, he often buried his female children alive. It is said that Othman was never known to weep except when, at the burial of his little daughter, she reached up and caressingly wiped the dust of her grave from his beard. From such unspeakable atrocities as this did Mohammed deliver his countrymen.
The Arabs practised both polyandry and polygamy to an extent rarely countenanced by other barbarians. One woman, whose career would seem to be unique in the history of matrimonial achievement, was celebrated for having been the wife of forty husbands. In a society where communal marriage prevailed, the passion of jealousy was necessarily unknown. The Pagan Arab indulged to the utmost the vice of drunkenness, and prided himself upon his capacity to absorb great quantities of liquor—there were some Himyarite princes who obtained an unenviable immortality by drinking themselves to death. Gambling was so popular in the Desert that the Bedouin, like the ancient German, often staked his liberty, his most priceless possession, on the toss of a pebble. Like the Hebrew patriarchs, he contracted incestuous marriages. He gloried in the name of brigand, and regarded the capture of a caravan as the principal object of life. It was not unusual for him, after plundering the dead, to mutilate them with a brutal malignity that would disgrace an American Indian. He tested guilt or innocence by ordeals of fire and water, which he and his kinsman the Jew had inherited from a remote antiquity. The practice of licentious gallantry, universally prevalent in the Peninsula, and celebrated in many an amatory stanza of the Bedouin poet, was temporarily checked by the austere rule of Islam; but, reviving ere long, under the congenial skies of Spain and Sicily, spread northward, and, inseparably associated with deeds of chivalry and romantic adventure, infected, in time, the rude and comparatively virtuous barbarians of Europe.
An unusual degree of intelligence, a lively imagination, a vivid curiosity, a retentive memory, a childish love of the marvellous, distinguished the Arab of the Age of Ignorance from the other pastoral nations of Africa and Asia. Feuds between tribe and tribe, nourished by injuries mutually borne and inflicted for a hundred generations, intensified the ferocity of a nature which became, under such provocations, incapable of pity. Everything connected with the daily life of the warrior had a direct tendency to foster an already too violent inclination to deeds of blood. The war-horse had his biography; the sword of every famous chieftain had a name and a history. The sayings of the successful marauder, often uttered with epigrammatic terseness, passed into proverbs, and were quoted, with extravagant admiration, by his most remote descendants; his exploits, immortalized by the stirring verses of the poet, were recounted nightly by the camp-fires of his tribe. In case of the murder of a kinsman, no mourning was tolerated until ample vengeance had been taken for the crime. The execution of the savage law of blood-feud, while it contributed to stifle every sentiment of humanity where an hereditary foe was the offender, does not appear to have had any marked effect in increasing the fierceness of the character of the Arab in his contests with those against whom he had no special cause of enmity. Where tribal hostility was, however, a point of honor as well as a religious duty, the vendetta was prosecuted with implacable severity. No circumstance of gratitude or chivalric attachment, neither the memory of past favors nor the hope of future distinction, was permitted to interfere with its rigid enforcement. The right of revenge, originally descending to the fifth generation, passed by inheritance, and was, in fact, never lost, and seldom relinquished. A regular schedule of fines was recognized, dependent upon the age, rank, and social position of the person murdered; but no family that entertained a becoming idea of its own importance and of the dignity of its tribe would condescend to accept the stated number of camels which ancient prescription and common consent had established as the equivalent of a homicide. This barbarous custom applied to every soldier slain in honorable warfare, as fully as to the victim of the assassin’s dagger; and the wholesome dread of the consequences of a hard-fought conflict, where a score of lives might be exacted in return for every fallen enemy, usually rendered the encounters of the Arab comparatively bloodless. An extraordinary value therefore attached to human life in the Desert, where the killing of an individual might entail the extermination of a clan. Considering the bitter hostility evinced by many tribes towards one another, the consequences of animosity inherited for ages, and the continual opportunities for mutual destruction, with their insignificant results, we may, without hesitation, conclude that the law of blood-revenge, despite the idea of ferocity it conveys, has, in reality, been powerfully instrumental in the preservation of the Arab race.
The habits of the Arab were necessarily abstemious. The requirement of constant exertion to obtain the necessaries of life, the uncertain tenure of property, the menacing presence of danger, the poverty of the soil, the national prejudice against industrial occupations, were not conducive to indulgence in those vices which flourish most vigorously under the artificial conditions of an established civilization. The scanty harvests of the South were insufficient to maintain even the population of those thinly settled provinces. Among the products of the vegetable kingdom, the date was the principal reliance of the nomadic people of Arabia. Of this most valuable fruit a hundred varieties grew in the neighborhood of Medina alone. Its highly nutritious properties, its easy preservation, the convenience with which it could be transported for great distances, rendered it an article of food especially adapted to the denizen of those arid and unproductive regions in which it flourished, and which, without it, would have been depopulated. Even its seeds were an object of traffic, and were fed to horses and camels. With the Arabs, as with other nomadic races, a vegetable diet was resorted to only in case of necessity. The quantity of meat served at a repast was an index to the host’s importance as well as the measure of his hospitality. A brass caldron was considered as of only ordinary size when it would easily hold a sheep, and some were so large that a horseman could, without difficulty, eat from them without dismounting. The morsels served from these seething receptacles were proportioned to the vessels in which they were cooked and to the voracious appetites of those who consumed them. The belief, prevalent among barbarians, that the characteristics of an animal are transmitted with undiminished vigor to all who feed upon its flesh, was shared by the Arabs. As their favorite meat was that of the camel, they attributed to its use their irascible temper, a trait which is prominently developed in that beast, also noted among quadrupeds for its dogged obstinacy. In a land where barrenness so discouraged the labors of the husbandman and the shepherd, no object affording nutrition could be neglected, and even the insect world was called upon to contribute its share to the urgent necessities of humanity. Locusts, dried and salted, have always formed a staple article of diet among the poorer classes of Arabia, and, an important part of the larder of every camp, are sold in vast quantities in the markets of the Peninsula.
The differences and the prejudices of caste, the most serious impediments to progress, were unknown to the proud rovers of the Desert, where individual merit was the highest title to respect. The authority of the chief was founded on the consideration he had obtained among the members of his tribe rather than on the illustrious circumstances of his birth or the antiquity of his lineage. Age was an essential requisite to the attainment of official dignity, as indicative of the wisdom supposed to be the result of long experience. With the Bedouin, there was none of that greed of power whose indulgence so often disturbs the peace, and inflames the passions of societies in an advanced state of civilization. The sheik governed through the respect entertained for his character, through the influence of his manners, above all, through his relationship with his clansmen. The paternal sentiment was paramount among the Arabian people. They cherished the memory of their forefathers with peculiar respect. The right of sanctuary attached to their sepulchre; the tribal organization and domestic traditions of the Bedouin were derived from this feeling of ancestral veneration. Like other Asiatics, they considered a numerous family the greatest of distinctions; the father of ten sons was ennobled by a title of honor; and no nation attached more importance to the possession of phenomenal virility. In their treatment of women, a striking contrast exists, in numerous instances, between the Pagan and the later Arabians. With both, it is true, woman was generally a slave. Yet sometimes, in the Age of Ignorance, she was raised to official dignities, even to the throne itself; her opinion was solicited in momentous affairs of state; and in the rôle of diviner and sorceress she wielded a power, unlimited for good or evil, over her superstitious followers. Often gifted with rare poetic talent, she competed, not without distinction, for the coveted palm of literary excellence. Tradition has also handed down the names and achievements of certain intrepid amazons, who fought by the side of their husbands and brothers; and whose determined courage contributed, in a marked degree, to change the fortunes of more than one doubtful battle. But, as a rule, both before and after Mohammed, the advancement of the sex from a condition of servitude was resolutely discountenanced by the Arabs. In the Age of Ignorance, it was stigmatized by the ungallant epithet of “Nets of the Demon.” The sacred ties of blood, and the fact that with marriage woman did not renounce her hereditary privileges, could always command the assistance of her kinsmen, seek refuge among them, and be avenged by their valor in case of grievous personal injury, gave her a considerable degree of importance in the social system of Arabia. It is very evident that in early times polyandry prevailed everywhere in that country, an indication of a scarcity of females, and a custom always incident to a certain stage in the formation and development of society. Its prior existence is demonstrated by the vestiges of communal marriage to be traced to-day in remote portions of the Peninsula, and in the well authenticated tradition that female kinship was originally the rule in the Desert, the child belonging to the tribe and following the fortunes of the mother. Among the Bedouins, the only recognized methods of obtaining a wife were those of capture and purchase. The former was thoroughly congenial with the warlike instincts of a race whose possessions acquired an especial value as the result of martial prowess; the latter represented an indemnity for the possible loss of sons who, under other circumstances, would have become warriors of the maternal tribe. There was, however, no real difference between the lot of the bride who, as the prize of victory, was dragged shrieking from the folds of her tent, and that of the smiling victim whose beauty had been bartered for a hundred camels. Both were regarded as chattels, and descended with other personal property to the heir. As the population increased, and the means of livelihood became more difficult to procure, the appearance of a female child was looked upon as a calamity; infanticide grew common; and nothing but the hope of being able, at some future day, to add to his herd the camels of some prospective suitor, ever reconciled the mercenary Bedouin to the birth of a daughter.
The attainment to a high degree of civilization with all its demoralizing influence was not able to destroy the native politeness, the air of conscious dignity, the noble hospitality, and the courtly graces of manner which distinguished the fierce and untaught tribesman of the Desert. His sense of independence was not hampered by invidious distinctions of rank or inconvenient regulations of property. His intuitive knowledge of human nature, his rare susceptibility to every impression which can improve and develop the mind, his capacity to deal with the most difficult questions of policy, his willingness to encounter the most appalling dangers, were qualities which insured his success in the most distant countries and under the most adverse and discouraging conditions. Despite his readiness to profit by the superior knowledge of his adversaries, he entertained the most extravagant ideas of his own importance, and looked down upon all who were of different manners, religious faith, or nationality. His inordinate family pride preserved for the astonishment of subsequent generations the endless nomenclature of his progenitors; and, at the birth of Mohammed, the most obscure and poverty-stricken individual could name, with a fluency born of long practice and traditional inheritance, his ancestors for six hundred years. His language, wonderfully complex but flexible, offering to the purposes of the poet and the orator—by reason of its prodigal richness and inexhaustible variety—every resource of sentiment, pathos, and eloquence, yet so easily acquired that it was spoken by young children with grammatical correctness and fluency, he justly boasted as one of the most perfect idioms ever invented by man. In short, the Arab regarded himself as the highest exemplar of humanity; his arrogance revolted at the idea of matrimonial connections with races which he deemed inferior to his own; and the pre-eminence he claimed for himself and his countrymen was indicated by the prerogatives which he asserted Allah had vouchsafed to them alone of all nations; “that their turbans should be their diadems, their tents their houses, their swords their intrenchments, and their poems their laws.”