421 



ARABIA. 



ARACAN. 



422 



daughter, surrendered Algeziras (Jezirat-al-Khadra, 'the Green Island,') 

 into the hands of the Arab Tarik-ben-Ziad, who at the command of 

 the African governor Musa-ben-Nosair landed at the promontory 

 which still bears his name (Gibraltar, corrupted from Jebel Tarik, 

 the Mountain of Tarik), vanquished Roderic in the battle of Xerez de 

 la Frontera (July 19, 711), and in a short time subjected the greater 

 part of Andalucia, Granada, and Murcia to the Mohammedan power. 

 In the east Koteiba-ben-Moslem, the governor of Khorasan, took 

 possession of Mawaralnahr, Bokhara, Turkestan, and Khowarezm ; 

 and Mohammed-ben-Kasem-al-Thakefi made conquests in the northern 

 parts of India. Under Soleiman (715-717) the greater part of Asia 

 Minor was conquered, and Constantinople besieged ; and in the reign 

 of Omar-ben-Abd-al-Aziz (717-720) the countries of Jorjan and 

 Tabaristan were added to the empire. But the want of energy of the 

 latter caliph, as well as of his successor, Yezid II. (720-724), and the 

 avarice of Hesham (724-743), roused a spirit of dissatisfaction in the 

 interior, and encouraged the revolutionary attempts of other aspirants 

 to the caliphat. It was in the reign of Hesham that the arms of the 

 Mussulmans experienced their first signal defeat ; the victory of 

 Charles Martel over Abderrahman-ben-Abdallah, near Poitiers (Oct. 

 732), checked for ever the farther progress of the Arabs on the con- 

 tinent of Europe : the river Aude, in Languedoc, became the frontier 

 of their dominion. 



When in the year 749 the family of Abbas came to the command 

 over the Faithful all the surviving Ommaiades were cruelly persecuted ; 

 Abderrahman-ben-Moawiya only escaped into Spain, and became the 

 founder of the Ommaiade caliphat of Cordova (756). 



Under the Abbasides, who fixed their residence at Bagdad, but few 

 additions were made to the Mohammedan empire ; the islands of 

 Crete, Corsica, Sardinia, and Sicily became subject to the Arabs of 

 Spun .'itl At'rira. The sovereigns of the house of Abbas generally 

 distinguished themselves as much by their love and zeal for the arts 

 and literature as their predecessors had done by their warlike achieve- 

 ments. The names of Mansur, Harnu-al-Raahid, and Mamun are for 

 ever entitled to an honourable place in the history of letters, and 

 their reigns form the brilliant epoch of the Mohammedan power. 

 But their love of mental refinement, and their fondness for a quiet 

 and luxurious life, withdrew the attention of the Abbaside caliphs 

 from the affairs of government ; internal disturbances soon became 

 frequent ; the authority of the court of Bagdad became imperceptibly 

 diminished, at first in the distant provinces of the empire. Abderrah- 

 man by establishing an independent Ommaiade dominion in Spain had 

 set an example which the prefects of other countries soon followed. 

 The caliphs were obliged to assemble a life-guard of Turkish merce- 

 naries around their throne, and surrendered the care of the government 

 into the hands of ministers of unlimited authority, the Emirs-al- 

 Omara. Through these arrangements, and through the encroachments 

 of the Beljuk Turks, the caliphat had long since become a merely 

 nominal dignity, when Hulaku took Bagdad (1258), and put an end 

 to the dominion of the Abbasideo. 



From the time when the Ommaiade caliph Moawiya chose Damascus 

 for his n .i<li'M.: , and still more when the Abbasides removed the 

 eat of the government to Bagdad, the country of Arabia relapsed into 

 its former insignificance ; it became a mere province of the Mohamme- 

 dan empire, and was soon again divided into small domains. Curious 

 details about the history of one of the most important of these 

 divisions, that of Yemen, from the time of Mohammed till near the 

 close of the 15th century, are to be found in Johannsen's ' Historia 

 Jeniana;.' Except the monotonous enumeration of the annual pro- 

 oeeaion of pilgrims to the sacred city, the mutual conflicts among the 

 Beduin chiefs, and of late the rise and fall of the Wahhabite power 

 in the Nejd, the recent history of Arabia offers little of sufficient 

 interest to fix the attention of the general historian. 



After the conquest of Syria, Persia, Mauritania, and Spain, the trade 

 of the Arabs became of great importance. The Islam favoured the 

 establishment of emporia, and the wide dominion of one religion and 

 one language rendered travels and mercantile transactions easy. The 

 luxury of the court of Bagdad, and the magnificence of the Abbaside 

 caliphat, caused frequent travels of merchants into India. Since the 

 9th century of our era Arabs began to settle in various parts of India ; 

 several Indian princes embraced the Mohammedan faith. Soon the 

 Arabs penetrated to the Indian islands, Ceylon, Sumatra, Java, 

 Celebes, and even to China. Arabian caravans proceeded over-land 

 as far a* Tartary and Siberia in the north ; in Africa they came to the 

 Niger, where, since the 10th century, the Mohammedan states of 

 Ghana, Wangara, Tokrur, Kuku, and afterwards those of Sennaar, 

 Darfur, Bnrnu, Timbuctoo, and Melli, were founded. On the coasts 

 of Africa they came through the Strait of Bab-el-Mandeb to Zanguebar, 

 established the harbours of Makdashua, Melinde, Sofala, Kelu, and 

 Mozambique, and went over to Madagascar. It is even probable that 

 Lusitanian Arabs were in the llth century the first discoverers of 

 America. 



Arabian Lanyuaye. The Arabic forms, with the Ethiopic, the 

 southern ramification of the great stock of languages commonly, 

 though improperly, called the Semitic; the other two principal 

 branches are, 1, the Aramaic branch, indigenous in Syria, Mesopo- 

 tamia, and Babylonia, comprising the Syriac and Chaldeo languages ; 

 and, 2, the Hebrew, once the language of Palestine and Phronicia 



These dialects have flourished at different epochs. Of the Hebrew we 

 possess the earliest written documents. About the time when it 

 ceased to be a living language the Chaldee makes its appearance. 

 Whatever we possess in Syriac is of a still more recent date. The 

 iterature of the Arabic language does not reach far back beyond the 

 age of Mohammed. At present most of these Semitic languages are 

 extinct, or survive only in small districts. The Arabic alone has out- 

 ived all its sister-tongues, and has spread not only as the vernacular 

 xmgue all over Syria, Egypt, and Northern Africa, but also as the 

 language of religion throughout Persia, the Turkish empire, and all 

 countries into which the Mohammedan faith has been introduced. 



Various dialects prevailed among the Arabian tribes previous to 

 ;he age of Mohammed, among which that of the tribe of Koreish has 

 through the Koran become the classical tongue. The Arabic language 

 is rich not only in words (especially in such as refer to natural objects 

 and to the life of a nomadic people), but also in grammatical inflec- 

 tions, particularly in the verb, where certain general modifications of 

 the meaning are briefly and energetically expressed by slight changes 

 in the form of the roots. The purity and copiousness of their language 

 had among the Arabs long been an object of national pride. When, 

 after the first conquests of the Mohammedans, its genuine correctness 

 seemed to become endangered through the frequent and unavoidable 

 intercourse with strangers, grammarians arose at different times to fix; 

 its rules and secure it from corruption. 



The period at which the art of writing was introduced into Arabia 

 is not known. Arabian authors speak of an alphabet used by the 

 ancient Himyarides, which they call Al-Mosnad. In the second volume 

 of the ' Mines de 1' Orient' may be found a copy of a few undeciphered 

 inscriptions discovered by Seetzen, near Jerim, in Yemen, which he 

 supposed to be in the Mosnad character. In Forster's ' Historical 

 Geography of Arabia ' an alphabet and glossary of the Himyaritic 

 inscriptions is given ; and further information on the same subject is 

 contained in the 'Journal of the Royal Geographical Society," 

 vol. vii. ; and in Wellsted's ' Journal.' The northern Arabs do not 

 appear to have had any alphabet till a short tune before Mahommed : 

 Morar-ben-Morrah is said to have introduced an alphabet which was 

 founded on the Syriac Estrangelo character. In it the Koran was 

 written, originally without diacritical points and vowels, which were 

 however added before the end of the first century after the Hejra. 

 This character, which was called the Kufic, in allusion to the copyists 

 that lived at Kufa, remained long in use on coins and inscriptions. 



The modern vernacular Arabic does not materially differ from the 

 classical language of the Koran, which has become the model and 

 standard of correctness for all Arabic writers ; but in the grammatical 

 forma time seems to have produced a change similar to that which we 

 perceive in other languages, the history of which we can trace with 

 accuracy. The pronunciation of Yemen is deemed the purest. 



ARABIAN GULF. [RED SEA.] 



ARABS' GULF, a bay on the north coast of Africa, lying between 

 Alexandria and some point west of Alexandria, which is not well 

 defined. Ras-el-Kanys, 115 miles W. of Alexandria, is the first very 

 salient point as we advance westward. 



The bay called Plinlhinte (Herod, ii. 6) corresponded to or formed 

 a part of the Arabs' Gulf. 



ARACAN, or RAKHAIN, a country of Asia, lying on the eastern 

 shore of the Bay of Bengal, and forming the westernmost part of the 

 peninsula beyond the Ganges, extends from 20 46' to about 18 N. 

 lat., and lies between 92 and 95 E. long. Its extreme length from 

 N.N.W. to S.S.E. may amount to upwards of 230 miles, and ita average 

 breadth to about 50 miles. Its surface is estimated to contain 11,500 

 English square miles. It is bounded on the east by a range of moun- 

 tains, which separates it from the Burmese empire, from which i* is 

 also divided on the south by a small mountain-river. On the west it 

 extends to the Bay of Bengal, and on the north to Chittagong. 



This country, which in 1826 was acquired by the East India 

 Company from the Burmese, contains three districts, Aracan Proper, 

 or Akyab, Sandoway, and Ratnreo. 



Aracan Proper consists of a valley stretching nearly parallel to the 

 shore, between a range of mountains and a ridge of hills. The 

 mountain-range which divides it on the east from Ava is called 

 Yeomadong, and attains an elevation of from 3000 to 5000 feet ; there 

 are only two convenient passes across this range. The heights which 

 extend along the Bay of Bengal at no great distance from the shore 

 and separate the valley from the sea, do not probably rise to more 

 than 700 feet. On the shore they are intersected by many rivers, 

 creeks, and inlets of the sea, so as to form a series of peninsulas, 

 isthmuses, and islands, by which the land communication is com- 

 pletely interrupted. The coast is fronted by numerous islands, 

 moderately high and thinly inhabited. 



The valley which lies between the two ranges varies in breadth 

 from 10 to 40 miles; it is at so low a level that the tide frequently 

 inundates the flat borders of the riven to a considerable extent, and 

 its ebb converts them into a noisome swamp. With the exception of 

 this swampy ground, the soil consists of rocks, crumbling on the 

 surface, and covered by a thin layer of loose black earth. The valley 

 is intersected by a multitude of veiy small streams ; the chief river of 

 the province is the Keladyne, which has a course of 250 miles. 



Many causes concur to render this ill-ventilateil valley extremely 



