ARAU1A 



m 



which Abraha was nxmntad, which .uddenly relWd to prood farther 

 ! MWwlM2h*MMNXM7: iti* the year 671 of 

 oar *OL Another evu modrc,l it still more universally memorable ; 

 for in It Ha.!i-n> . pnm.iwn, AbdalUh, bearune the father of the Arabian 



Yemen had BDOU the Seil-eJ-Arim become temporarily subject to 

 fcnin power. The Jews, who since the destruction of Jerusalem had 

 in gnat number* retired into Arabic, had made proselyte* of Mreral 

 Arabian tribe*, particularly those of Kenana, Kenda, and Hareth-ben- 

 Kaaba, and had already gained considerable power in some pane of 

 the peninsula, Diu-Nowaa, who occupied the throne of the Himyaride* 

 toward* the oloM of the 8th century, adopted their religion, and began 

 cruelly to pemoote all thorn who would not follow hia example 

 Christianity bad about the name time found ite way into the south.- 

 part* of the peninsula, and had become the religion of the tribes of 

 Himrar. Ohaesan, ReWa, Tagleb, Bahra, Tanuh, Tal, and Kodaa, 

 besides the inhabitant* of Hira and of Nrjran. The inhabitant* of 

 Nrjraii in particular were suffering from the atrocioiu onielty of 

 Dm-Nowa*, when the Negu* of Habesh (Abyninia) came to the 

 assistance of his persecuted fellow Christians. The Jewi&h Arabs 

 were vanquished; Dra-Nowa* in despair sought a voluntary death 

 by throwing himself into the sea, and Yemen became an Ethiopian 

 urotlnoe. This Ethiopian occupation of Yemen became of a melan- 

 choly importance to the civilised world through the small-pox which 

 the victors brought with them into Arabia, and which, by the conquests 

 of the Mohammedans, soon spread all over the earth. In consequence 

 of a revolt among the ^Ethiopian occupants, Abraha came in A.D. 549 

 to the command of Yemen. He endeavoured with great real to spread 

 Christianity among the Arabs, and with this view built a church ot 

 Bana which he intended should, as a place of pilgrimage, vie with the 

 ancient Caaba. The heathen Arabs, indignant at this measure, profaned 

 the new-built church, and Abraha, to avenge the insult, resolved on 

 an expedition against Mecca, the failure of which (A.D. 671) has already 

 been alluded to. After a reign of 23 years, Abraha was followed by 

 his eons Yeksum (572-689) and Maaruk (589-601). During the reign 

 of the latter, Seif-ben-Dsi-Yezen, an offspring of the ancient royal 

 Himyaride family, obtained the assistance of a Persian army under 

 Wehrax, with the aid of which he put an end to the ^Ethiopian power, 

 after it had lasted about 72 or 78 yean. Yemen was now governed 

 by Persian prefects, till it became subject to the Mohammedans, when 

 the last of the prefects, Badsan, embraced the Mussulman faith. 



The Arabs before Mohammed, like those of the present day, partly 

 dwelt in cities, and partly as wandering tribes in moveable encamp- 

 ment*. The inhabitant* of cities subsisted by agriculture and by 

 different trades, especially by commerce, in which the tribe of Koreiah 

 appears early to have distinguished itself. The wandering Arabs 

 employed themselves in the breeding and tending of cattle, and 

 occasionally in the pillage of travellers. The picture exhibited by 

 ancient poets (especially in the romance of ' Antar,' by Aamai) of their 

 customs and mode of life entirely corresponds to the representation 

 which modern travellers make of the manners of the present BeduinB. 

 The elements forming the sphere of their life are BO simple, and their 

 habits so closely adapted to the nature of their country, that the lapse 

 of time can work no perceivable change in their social state. Hospi- 

 tality, expertneas in the use of anna, horsemanship, and eloquence in 

 his own copious and energetic language, were of old, as they still are, 

 the acoompUahmente on which the Arab valued himself most. 



With respect to the religion of the ancient Anil*, our information 

 is very imperfect. As they were ranging their trackless deserts beneath 

 the concave of unclouded skies, they seem to have been early led to 

 the worship of the heavenly luminaries. The tribe of Himyar is said 

 to have chiefly worshipped the sun ; Kenana, the moon ; Tal, the fixed 

 tar Sohail (Canopus) ; Misam, the star Aldebaran, Ac. ; Saba, the 

 ancient capital of Yemen, had a temple built in honour of the planet 

 Venus; the temple of Mecca was, according to some, originally conse- 

 crated to Saturn ; and Abd-al-Nhama, i. t., ' Servant of the Sun,' is a 

 name occurring several times in the fragment* of Ante-Islamitic history. 

 The Koran alludes to three female deities : Allat (see Herod, iii. M. 

 adored by the tribe of Thakef, whose temple at N ok hia was destroyed 

 by Mogaira in thr ninth year of the Hejrn ; Al-Ur.za, adored by the 

 tribes of Koreiah and Kenana, under the fonn of a tree ; and Menat, 

 the goddess of thr tril>es of Hudseil and Khozaa. Two other deities, 

 Aaaf and Naita, were adored by the tribe of Koreish the on* 

 the form of a man and the other under that of a woman. I- 

 are noticed which were worshipped under v:iri..n human and animal 

 ahapea, beside* a number of inferior idol* belonging to particular 

 faniillea. Among the tribe of Tcmiin, in the Persian Oulf, the Persian 

 ire-worship u aid to have been introduced. The idea of goblins and 

 Mftaa, Mnne of a terrific, some of a mild and placid character, was 

 early associated with the loneliness of the desert*. 1. rtn,,, telling, 

 Mumiimy, astrology, and sorcery were earlj at home in Arabia. 

 Hoch wan the condition of the Arabs about the beginning of the 7th 



f*w small provinces in the north had, like tl,- 

 jj| M> K ^thUfaM of Syria, Palestine, and Egypt, become subject to 



. until* I tpta knot 



iMfy Fill tun suj^uucy, an ian dynasty ruled temporarily 



The gnat masa of the country remained free, and 



probably even ignorant of the* alight encroachment* of foreign 



dominion. The Arabs, long celebrated for their valiant and intrepid 

 character, had never yet been united by a common tie into one mass. 

 Their wandering tribes, without fixed mutual relations, scattered over 

 a vast extent of land, and often engaged in transitory feuds among 

 each other, continued to enjoy unlimited independence. The > 

 of these tribes into a nation, and the greatness of that nation as a link 

 in the chain of historical events, date* from the promulgation 

 Islam (' faith ' ) by Abu'l-Kasem Mohammed. The bold enthusiasm, the 

 firm belief in the truth and divine origin ( the new religion, and the 

 intrepid courage which animated the prophet and his successors, the 

 natural inclinntion of the Arabs toward* war and perilous undertaking", 

 the weakness of the neighbouring government*, an. I tin |.r.vept 

 Koran, which enjoined the propagation of the Islam and war against 

 the unbelievers a* a religious duty, spread within a century the 

 dominion, the faith, and even the language of the Arabs, from the 

 Atlantic Ocean to the Indus, and from the Indian Sea and the 

 African Desert* to France, the Mediterranean, Asia Minor, and the 

 i I ....:, ft .. 



Mohammed was born of the tribe of Koreigh, at Mecca, according 

 to some on the 10th of November, 570, according to others on the 

 21*t of April, 571, A.D. In his 20th year he took part in an expo' 

 against predatory hordes which then molested pilgrims on their way 

 to Mecca, Five years later he viaited the fair of Damascus as agent 

 of Khadija, a rich widow, whom he subsequently married. In the 

 40th year of his age (A.D. 010) came tin- I.eilat'iil-Kodr, Le., 

 Night of the Divine Determination,' in which Mohammedans believe 

 that the angel Gabriel called him to become the prophet of Qod. 

 Khadija his wife, hia cousin AH, and hia father-in-law Abu-Bekr were 

 the first who acknowledged his divine mission. Twelve years had 

 elapsed when a revolt at Mecca threatened the life of Mohammed. 

 The day of his flight (Hejra) to Yatrob (since called Medina or 

 Medinat-al-nabi, i',. 'The Town of the Prophet'), the Kith of July, 

 622, has become the era from which the Mohammedans count their 

 years. With it commenced a war against the opposera of the new 

 religion. When Mecca was conquered and when the tribes of Arabia 

 had joined in the profession that " There is no God but Allah, and 

 Mohammed ia his prophet," Mohammed commanded them to spread 

 the Islam over all countries, and to unite into one community by 

 conquest or by faith all the nations of the earth. Mohammed died at 

 Medina the 8th of June, 632, in the 63rd year of his age. 



The Byzantine empire had just then been engaged in a long conflict 

 with Persia. The despotism of its rulers, frequent though inefficient 

 revolutions, and constant efforts for the repression of foreign enemies, 

 the low state of the finances notwithstanding on oppressive tnx 

 and the discord of contending religious sects, had exhauM 

 strength. The Persian empire had sunk atill lower : the super- 

 annuated doctrine of Zoroaster could no longer animate it* followers 

 in the contest against a religion defended and propagated by a new 

 nation with all the vigour and enthusiasm of youth. Thig weakened 

 atate of the two principal neighbouring empires favoured the quick 

 progress of the Arabian conquests. Whoever adopted the Mohammedan 

 faith became embodied in the new state, and was no longer regarded 

 as a stranger. Jews and Christians were tolerated, but 

 pay a tribute : death awaited the followers of other religions. The 

 supreme pontificate and worldly command were united in the person 

 of Mohammed's successors, the caliphs. Many of these were indi- 

 vidually weak, but their authority and the mL i 

 (upportod by a religious belief which wo* rooted deeply in the 

 of the nation. 



The history of the first century of the caliphat exhibits an almost 

 continuous series of conquest*. In the reign of Abu-Bekr the valiant 



I conquered the whole of Syria and Mesopotamia ; in t i 

 Omar the victories of Amru-ben-As added Egypt to tl 

 empire ; after a siege of 14 months Alexandreia was taken ; Me* 

 .I Amru laid in the neighbourhood of it* niin (lie foun, 

 of Postal, the present Old Cairo. The oonqn. |.t was soon 



followed by that of Cyrenal'ca and the other states along the coaat of 

 the Mediterranean: congenial habit* united the Berber hordes of 

 Africa with the sons of the Arabian desert The victories won by 

 Saad-ben-Abi-Wakkas over the Persian forces near Cadesia (635), 

 Jalula (637), Holwan and Nehawend (42>, decided the fall of the 

 Persian throne. Under Osman the island of Cyprus was plundered 

 (648); Abdallah-ben-Amer conquered Khonuan, and penetrated as 

 far as Balkh. The reign of Ali-ben-Abi-Taleb was spent n 

 quelling of internal con hi. h ended in the murder of tho 



ealiph by the hand of the fanatic Abderrahman-ben-Moljam, and the 

 ' the Ommaiades to the caliphat. 



Moawh a, tli. tirst of the Oinmaiade caliphs, removed (.he rei-;. 

 of the empire from Kufa, near the Euphrates, to Damascus. I 

 reign Okba-bon-Nafi laid the foundation of Kairwan (676), and 

 trated as far a* Tanger and the Atlantic. Okba was murdered v. I,. ,1 

 he was preparing to pass over into Spain. j n consequence of which 

 many of the provinces conquered in these distant regions were lost 

 again; but after a few years (688) the entire northern coast of .\ 

 a* far as the Strait of Gibraltar, was in the possession of the Arabs. 

 In the reign of Walid I. (7(1.1-71 f>) the dominion ,,f t| lc Arabs attained 

 it* widest extent. Julianus, the governor of C'euta, incensed it is said 

 againct his sovereign, king Roderic of Spain, who had disgraced his 



