PRIMITIVE INHABITANTS OF ARABIA. 81 



poetry, a mass of traditions, disfigured by fiction and 

 fable, is all that has escaped the oblivious Avreck of 

 these dark ages. We are apt to imagine that the 

 zealous IMosfems must, in the relentless spirit of 

 their new creed, have swept away every record of 

 the past, as infected with the errors of idolatry; and 

 that the unsparing fanaticism, wliich proved so ca- 

 lamitous to arts and letters in other countries, had 

 already committed a barbarous parricide on the an- 

 cient monuments of its own nation. This supposi- 

 tion, however, is not supported by any fact that has 

 yet come to light. Some writers indeed, have 

 asserted that, prior to IVIohammed, historical annals 

 and writings on different subjects existed. But as 

 no such documents are to be found, or appear to 

 have l)een consulted by the earliest Arabian histo- 

 rians, these assertions deserve little attention. On 

 the contrary, the most ancient and learned among 

 them agree in the confession that their old chroni- 

 cles are traditional and imperfect; and that they 

 could procure but indistinct notions of the times 

 anterior to the Mohammedan era. All the authors 

 extant or known in Europe who have treated of 

 this period, such as Abulfeda, Hamza of Ispahan, 

 Nuvairi, Masoudi, Al Tabiri, and Abulfarage, flour- 

 ished after that epoch ; and, except what we glean 

 from the pages of sacred or Greek and Roman 

 writers, it is from them we must derive our know- 

 ledge of the legendary ages that preceded the Sara- 

 cen conquests.* 



On one point there is a universal correspondence 



* Collections from the works of these Arabic authors were 

 translated and published (1786) by Albert Schultens, inthe His- 

 toria Joctanidarum. The same editor has given specimens of 

 their ancient lansfuage and poetry in his Monumenta Vetust. 

 Arab. Ismael Abulfeda, prince of Hamah in Syi-ia, a geogra- 

 pher and historian, died in 1345. Masoudi, author of the 

 " Golden Meadows," an historical work, died in 957. Nuvairi, 

 sumamed Al Kendi, author of a Universal History, died about 

 1340. Al Tabiri (a native of Tabreez), the Livy of the Arabians, 



