417 



ARABIA. 



ARABIA. 



418 



Arabia, this can only be understood as applying to the northern tribes 

 of Arabia. 



Alexander the Great is said to hare contemplated the circumna- 

 vigation of Arabia and the subjugation of its predatory hordes. The 

 fleet of Nearchus was preparing to make the circuit of the peninsula, 

 when the death of Alexander prevented the execution of the design. 



The Nabathsei (Nebaioth, Gen. xxv. 13; xxviii. 9 ; Isa, Ix. 7) inha- 

 bited, according to Diodorus (ii 48), the north-western part of Arabia, 

 which was subsequently, in allusion to the name of their capital Petra, 

 called Arabia Petrsea. Diodorus describes them as a valiant nation, 

 safe in their deserts as in an asylum, where none but themselves knew 

 the springs of water. Like other Beduin tribes they subsisted in a 

 great measure by predatory excursions : but they seem at an earlier 

 age than their neighbours to have applied themselves to an independent 

 traffic, and in consequence also to other occupations of peace. " Some 

 of them," says Diodorus, " make it their business to transport to the 

 Mediterranean frankincense, myrrh, and other spices, which they obtain 

 from those that bring them from Arabia Felix." Their territory was 

 repeatedly invaded by the states arising out of the Macedonian empire. 

 Demetrius, the son of Antigonus, and afterwards Antiochus the Great 

 (224-187 B.C), attacked them without success. The Nabathaeans main- 

 tained their independence, and their trade flourished even more than 

 previously. After Syria had become a Roman province (64 B.C.), its 

 governors, Scaurus and Gabirius, repeatedly threatened Petra with an 

 invasion. In the reign of Augustus, .Klius Gallus is recorded to have 

 conducted an expedition into Arabia Felix, in which Obodas, then king 

 of Petra, assisted him with a thousand Xabathican Arabs. The Roman 

 army landed at Leukekome (Yanbo), and after a fatiguing march of 

 several months reached Marsyabae (Strab. xvi. c. 4, p. 407, Tauchnitz), 

 the capital of the Sabtcans. But want of provisions, and the bad 

 effects of the climate, compelled the invaders to a speedy retreat to 

 the coast, and over the Red Sea to Egypt. It is to this expedition 

 that Propertius (ii. 8) alludes in the lines : 



" India quin, Auguste, tuo dat colla iriumpho, 

 Kv ilomus intacUe te trcmit Arabia?." 



In the reign of Trajanus Arabia Petnea became, through the victory 

 of A. Cornelius Palma, a Roman province (A.D. 107), and the northern 

 countries, towards the east of the river Jordan, formerly in the possession 

 of the Nabathaeans, continued to be subject to the Romans even after 

 the death of Trajanus. A Roman legion was stationed at Bostra, and 

 the emperor Pbilippus (A.D. 244 249), who was born here, hence 

 received the surname of ' Arabs.' Petra sunk into insignificance ; its 

 inhabitants deserted it, and sought the freedom of their deserts ; even 

 the place where it had flourished was forgotten, till Burckhardt 

 discovered the ruins of Wadi Musa. 



History of the Arabs. Of the internal history of Arabia before 

 Mohammed our knowledge is very imperfect. Prior to the beginning 

 of the 3d century of the Christian era, all that has been transmitted to 

 us by Arabic writers amounts only to some genealogies or lists of kings, 

 without any fixed chronology, and interspersed with tmt a few facts 

 unsatisfactorily recorded. A careful consideration of ethnographical 

 and other incidental notices in the Old Testament leads to the inference 

 that the whole peninsula was in the earliest times peopled by the 

 C'ushite race, the greater part of which subsequently passed over the 

 Red Sea into .'Ethiopia, whilst the remainder continued to occupy the 

 western coast of Arabia. This migration westward was probably 

 caused by the advance of a branch of the great Semitic race, which, 

 descended from Joktan, grandson of Shorn, fixed their abode in the 

 IH nhisula. A third element in the population was introduced by the 

 immigration of a younger Semitic branch of the family of Abraham. 

 The Arabians are, by their own writers (Abulfaraj, 'Hist. Dynast.,' 

 p. 100), distinguished into two classes, the old and the modern tribes. 

 An belonging to the old Arabians, which are now entirely extinct, we 

 find enumerated the tribes of Ad, Thamud, Tasm, Jadis, Jorham (not 

 to be confounded with the Jorhamides, mentioned further on), and 

 Amalek. The names of theae tribes now only survive in vague 

 traditions : thus Sheddad, of the tribe of Ad, is said to have founded 

 the magnificent city and the delicious garden of Irem, which are often 

 alluded to in eastern poetry and arc fancied by some to be still extant, 

 though now miraculously hidden from viewjn impassable deserts. The 

 present or modern Arabians are by their own historians divided into 

 pure or genuine, and insititious or naturalised Arabs : the former date 

 their origin from Kahtan (the Joktan of the Old Testament, Gen. x. 25), 

 and the latter from Adnan, a descendant of Ismael, the son of Abraham 

 and Hagar. These Ismaelide Arabs seem to have settled chiefly in 

 Hejaz ; while the southern part of the peninsula received its inhabitants 

 through the Kahtanides or Joktanides. Kahtan's son was Ya'rab, 

 who was the father of Yash'ab ; the son of Yash'ab was Abd-al-shams 

 (or according to some, Amer), surnamed Saba. This Saba had a great 

 number of sons, two of whom, Himyar (pronounced by some Homeir) 

 and Kahlan, had a numerous progeny. The family of Himyar, it 

 appears had, during 2020 years, the general government over all the 

 descendants of Saba who were settled in the south (Yemen), whence the 

 name of the Himyarides (or Homeritos) was sometimes taken by foreign 

 11 as synonymous with that of Sabaeans. Himyar was, according 

 to Arabian authors, the first king of the family of Kahtan that wore a 

 crown. He is said to have governed 60 years. The only fact which 



OEOO. BIT. VOL. I. 



we find recorded of him is, that he expelled the tribe Thamud from 

 Yemen into Hejaz. Various reports exist as to Himyar's successor : 

 according to some it was his son Wathel ; according to others his 

 brother Kahlan : but Kahlan is more commonly made the traditionary 

 head of the Arabs of the north (Hejaz). Similar variations in the lists of 

 kings given by different authors (Abulfeda, Hamza of Isfahan, Nuweiri, 

 Masudi, &c.) are observable throughout the ancient history of Yemen. 

 Among the succeeding rulers, Al-Hareth-al-Ilayesh is distinguished as 

 the first conqueror among the kings of Yemen ; he also first received the 

 title of Tobba, i. e., ' successor,' which became hereditary in his line. 

 Dsu'l-manar Abraha and his son Dsu'l-adsar are reported to have made 

 conquests in Nigritia and other parts of Africa. The next sovereign 

 but one in succession after Dsu'l-adsar is queen Balkis, according to 

 Arabian authors, the queen of the Sabseans who visited Solomon 

 (1 Kings x. 1, seq. ; 2 Chron. ix. 1, seq). Many generations after 

 Balkis, in the reign of Akran, an event occurred which forms an 

 important epoch in the history of Arabia. Impetuous mountain- 

 torrents used frequently to destroy the labours of agriculture in the 

 plains of Yemen, till some ancient king (according to some, Lokman, 

 according to others, Himyar himself) opened channels which brought 

 the waters to the sea, constructed an immense dike or mound between 

 two hills just above the capital Mareb (or Saba), which prevented 

 sudden inundations, and from the reservoir thus formed, supplied the 

 gardens and fields below, through aqueducts, with the necessary irriga- 

 tion. The country around Mareb had thus become fertile and happy ; 

 but its prosperity depended on the preservation of the mound, which 

 in the lapse of time fell into decay. Its final ruin is one of the few 

 facts in the ancient history of the Arabs, the period of which can with 

 some degree of probability be ascertained. According to De Sacy, it 

 occurred about the beginning of the third century. This event, which 

 is in oriental writers designated by the name of Seil-al-Arim, i. e., ' the 

 Torrent of the Mound,' caused a great change in the whole peninsula. 

 Amru-ben-Amer, surnamed Mosaikiya, one of the nobles of the country, 

 perhaps the chief of the Kahtauides, had been previously warned of 

 the imminent danger ; he sold his estates, and with a number of families 

 quitted Yemen and went into the country of Ace. After the death of 

 Amru, the emigrant families separated, and settled in different coun- 

 tries. The family of Amru's son, Jofna, established itself in Syria, and 

 founded the kingdom of the Ghassanides in the desert south-east of 

 Damascus, which embraced the Christian religion, and formed part of 

 the Roman or Grecian dominions ; till, in the reign of the caliph Omar, 

 it was incorporated in the Mohammedan empire. The tribes of Aus 

 and of Khasraj, descended from Amru by his son Thalaba, went to 

 Yatreb (afterwards called Medina). The descendants of Azd settled 

 partly in Oman, and partly in the country of Sherat in Syria; Malec- 

 ben-Fahm, also of the family of Azd, established himself in Irak, and 

 founded the kingdom of Hira, which was governed during 597 years 

 by a succession of 25 kings, who at last became vassals to Persia ; 

 till, in the caliphat of Abu-Bekr the countiy was subjected to the 

 Mohammedan dominion. The tribe of Ta'i, which had left Yemen soon 

 after Amru-ben-Amer, settled in the Nejd, between the mountains of 

 Aja and Solma, since called the mountains of Ta'i. The family of 

 Rebia, grandson of Arnru, settled at Mecca, and received the name of 



Kho/:, '. 



In the series of the Himyaride kings that ruled over Yemen after 

 Akran and the Seil-al-Arim, there is. almost as much confusion as in 

 the earlier part of it. We shall not enter into an enumeration of the 

 names, but refer the reader to the dissertation of De Sacy, ' Sur divers 

 eVenemens de 1'Histoire des Arabesavaut Mahomet,' in the 50th volume 

 of the ' Memoires de Litterature ' of the French Academy, and to 

 Johannsen's ' Historia Jemanse.' 



The fountain Zemzem and the black stone in the ancient temple of 

 Mecca, called the Caaba, had from time immemorial been regarded by 

 the Arabs as national sanctuaries. The (modern) Jorhamides, descended 

 from Jorham the son of Kahtan or Joktan, had established themselves 

 in Hejaz about the same time that Ya'rab settled in Yemen, and had 

 for many ages been the hereditary protectors and keepers of the Caaba ; 

 when Amru-ben-Loheia, of the tribe Khozaa, with the Yemenese emi- 

 grants from Ace, and assisted by the tribe of Bekr, availed himself of the 

 opportr nity of a dispute between the Jorhamides and the neighbouring 

 Ismaelides, to expel the former from Mecca, and take possession of tlio 

 sanctuary. Soon however the tribe of Bekr felt indignant at being 

 excluded by a stranger from the governorship over the Caaba, which 

 honour, after the services they had rendered, they considered due to 

 themselves. They entered into a treaty with Kossa'i of the Ismaelide 

 tribe of Koreish, and by his assistance compelled the tribe of Khozaa 

 to resign the charge which it had assumed. But the tribe of Bekr was 

 again excluded from the guardianship of the temple, which came 

 through Kossa'i into the hands of the tribe of Koreish. It is calculated 

 that this happened about A.1). 464. 



The grandson of the Koreishide Kossa'i was Hashem, who is reported 

 to have averted a famine by giving up his treasures. His son Abd-al- 

 Motalleb is famous for his victory over Abraha, an ^Ethiopian ruler of 

 Yemen, and a Christian, who approached Mecca with an army and 

 several elephants, intending to destroy the Caaba. A miracle is said 

 to have preserved the sanctuary, and to have destroyed the army of 

 Abraha. The year of this victory is in the chronicles of the East 

 named the ' Year of the Elephant,' in allusion to the elephant on 



2 ]; 



