464 LECTURES AND ESSAYS [1880- 



confusion among the genealogists because of an animal 

 link in the ancestry at the very point where the ancestor 

 is a god. The twofold animal interpretation of Avian 

 must belong to two Qaysite tribes, one equine, the other 

 canine. Similar to this are the traditions which make the 

 goddess Naila daughter of the Wolf or the Cock (Dozy, 

 Israelieten te Mekka, p. 197) ; and the name Rabi atu- l- 

 faras, &quot; Rabi a of the horse,&quot; one of the four sons of Nizar. 

 I imagine that many other facts of a similar kind lie 

 behind the genealogies in their present form. Thus 

 Kinda, the ancestor of the great dynasty of the Kindites, 

 is said to have had as his real name (not his ^^) Thawr, 

 the Bull (Abulf. H.A.-I. p. 188 ; Ibn Chaldun, Bulaq 

 ed. ii. 257). Of the mythical character of this ancestor 

 of a line of seventy kings, ending in the time of the 

 prophet, there can be no question (Sprenger, Geog. Ar. 

 P. 225). 



Now it is true that we have very little direct informa 

 tion connecting these facts with animal worship, and it is 

 also true that the greater part of the information which 

 we do possess about Arabic polytheism points rather to 

 the worship of stones, trees, and heavenly bodies. But in 

 estimating the significance of this circumstance we must 

 remember the nature of the records. It will be admitted 

 that no generalisation as to the true nature of Arabian 

 polytheism can be based on the scanty records of the 

 Greeks and Romans. Herodotus (iv. 7) thought that the 

 Arabs had but two gods, because as it appears he knew 

 the formula of an oath in which, as in the well-known 

 oath by al-Lat and al- Uzza, or by Awol and Su eyr, two 

 deities were mentioned. If we may believe Arrian, the 

 Greeks under Alexander had learned nothing more. 

 Theophrastus (Hist. PL ix. 4) and Pliny (xii. 14, 19, 

 Sabin, Assabin = ^^Jl) had heard of the sun, the great 

 god of the incense-bearing country, because his worship 

 was connected with the important traffic in incense. 

 Such is the character of the foreign records, and those 



