PRIMITIVE INHABITANTS OF ARABIA. 



89 



came celebrated Ion? before the time of Moham- 

 med ; and some of them retain their names even at 

 the present day. Many Jews had settled m Arabia 

 after the age of Joshua and Moses, where they 

 formed powerful and independent tribes, and con- 

 tinued till the sword of the Prophet, their implac- 

 able enemy, either destroyed them or compelled 

 them to abandon the country. . 



Ill The third class are the Mostarabi, the mixed 

 or naturalized Arabs, descended from Ishmael and 

 the daughter of Modab, king of Hejaz, whom he 

 took to wife, and who was of the ninth generation 

 from Jorham, the founder of that kingdom. Ot the 

 Jorhamites, till the time of Ishmael, little is re- 

 corded except the names of their princes or chiefs, 

 and th'at thev had possession of the territory of 

 Heiaz. But, "as Mohammed traces his descent to 

 this alliance, the Arabs have been more than usually 

 careful to preserve and adorn his genealogy. 1 ne 

 want of a pure ancestry is. in their estimation, more 

 than compensated by the dignity of so sacred a con- 

 nexion • for thev boast as much as the Jews of being 

 reckoned the children of Abraham. This circiim- 

 stance will account for the preference with Avhich 

 thev uniformly regarded this branch of their pedi- 

 gree, and for the many romantic legends they have 

 grafted upon it. It is not improbable that the old 

 liants and idolaters suffered an imaginary extinction 

 to make wav for a more favoured race ; and that 

 Divine chastisements always overtook those who 

 dared to invade their consecrated territories. 



The Scripture account of the expulsion and des- 

 tinv of this venerated progenitor of the Arabs is 

 brief, but simple and affecting. Ishmael was the son 

 of Abraham, by Hagar, an Egyptian slave \N'hen 

 fourteen vears of age he was supplanted in the hopes 

 and affections of his father by the birth of Isaac, 

 throuo-h whom the promises were to descend. 1 his 

 event^made it necessarv to remove the unhappy 



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