ARABIA;

ANCIENT AND MODERN.

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTORY VIEW OF ARABIAN HISTORY.

Arabia-Peculiarities in its History and Manners-Interesting Aspect of the Country-Its Connexion with many Scenes and Events in Holy Writ-Distinguished as the Birthplace of Mohammed-Rapid and extensive Conquests of the SaracensInstability and Downfall of their_Empire-Their singular Passion for Learning--Munificent Endowment of SchoolsCauses why their History has been little studied in EuropeIgnorance of their Language and Literature-Religious Prejudices against their Character-Efforts of Scholars and Literary Associations to illustrate Arabian History-Valuable Discoveries of recent Travellers-Unexplored Tracts in the Central Deserts-Prospects of further Discoveries-Increased Facilities for Modern Research-Reflections on the Preceding Survey.

To those who delight to study man in his pastoral simplicity, to moralize on the destiny of nations or the rise and fall of empires, the history of Arabia cannot fail to be attractive. From time immemorial it has been celebrated for its precious productions, and distinguished as the home of liberty and independence; the only land in all antiquity that never bowed to the yoke of a foreign conqueror. It continues to be inhabited at this day by a race coeval

with the first ages of mankind. Their manners still present that mixture of rude freedom and patriarchal simplicity which we find in the infancy of society, before art had taught men to restrain the sentiments of nature or disguise the original features of their character. This extraordinary people have not only preserved inviolate the dominion of their deserts and their pastures; they have also, with a singular tenacity, retained from age to age, and in spite of changes and revolutions, the vices and virtues, the habits and customs of their ancestors, without borrowing improvement from the progress of knowledge or their intercourse with other nations.

The physical aspect of this country is not less interesting than the peculiar character of its inhabitants. Covered with vast plains of barren sands, intersected by ranges of mountains and fertile valleys, it unites the extremes of sterility and abundance, and enjoys a variety of climate that gives it at once all the advantages of the torrid and the temperate regions. There smiling plenty is often found imbosomed in the midst of desolation; and the indigenous productions of climes the most distant and different from each other flourish there in equal perfection. These grand and distinctive features of Arabia have suffered little alteration from the lapse of time, or the contingencies of human events. Centuries have passed over it without leaving any changes but those produced by the hand of nature. It presents few of those moral vestiges of servile degradation, or those melancholy ruins of departed splendour, that abound in almost every other kingdom in the world. It has, indeed, remains of cities and towns that tell us of a wealth and a population long since vanished; but it has no monuments of art to be compared with the stupendous and imperishable architecture of Egypt, or the classic temples of Greece and Italy.

It possesses, however, scenery of another descrip

tion, and associations that speak more home to our hearts and our affections than the proudest monuments reared by human labour: with its deserts and mountains are entwined some of our most ancient and hallowed recollections, as places memorable in Scripture history, and consecrated in the eyes of all civilized nations by having witnessed the visible descent of the Divine Being, and some of the sublimest manifestations of his power. It was in Arabia that those wonderful transactions took place which immediately followed the exode of the Israelites from Egypt; its waters were miraculously divided for their passage; it was through its rocky defiles and barren sands that they journeyed for eightand-thirty years, doing penance for their murmurings and rebellion, before they could be admitted into the Promised Land. The fleets of Solomon and Hiram frequented its seas, and traded in its markets; importing thence the gold and the ivory of which we read in the chronicles of the times. Its traffic and its merchandise are renowned both in sacred and profane history; and for many ages it continued to be the only connecting link of commercial intercourse between the nations of the East and the West.

The inspired writers have borrowed from its manners and its productions some of their finest allusions and most striking descriptions. They make frequent reference to the tabernacles of Edom, the flocks of Kedar and Nebaioth, the incense of Sheba, and the treasures of Ophir. The bride in the Song of Songs draws her imagery from an Arab tent, when she speaks of her beauty as "dark but comely," and compares her tresses to the fine hair of the mountain-goat. The terrible denunciations of the prophets, and the sublime compositions of the Hebrew poets, are greatly indebted to the same source for many of their most pointed and impressive similitudes. Isaiah, in predicting the downfall of Baby,

lon, "the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees' excellency," heightens the picture of its utter desolation by a single allusion to the habits of this pastoral people: "Neither shall the Arabian pitch tent there; neither shall the shepherds make their fold there."-Chap. xiii. 20. No one, in short, can be ignorant how many valuable illustrations the inspired penmen have derived from Arabia, and how much light may be thrown on different parts of the Sacred Scriptures by an attentive observation of the customs and institutions of this and the neighbouring countries. "In order," says the learned Michaelis, "to understand properly the writings of the Old Testament, it is absolutely necessary to have an acquaintance with the natural history as well as the manners of the East; for in that volume we find nearly three hundred names of vegetables: there are many also drawn from the animal kingdom, and a great number which designate precious stones."* The remark of this great biblical scholar is corroborated by an observation of the intelligent Burckhardt to the same effect; "that the sacred historian of the children of Israel will never be thoroughly understood so long as we are not minutely acquainted with every thing relating to the Arabian Bedouins and the countries in which they move and pasture."+

But the principal feature in the history of Arabia consists in its being the birthplace of that extraordinary personage whose artful fanaticism gave a new religion to his country, and produced a revolution which, in its effects on the destinies of mankind, finds no parallel in any age ancient or modern. Prior to the era of their Prophet, the Arabs seem not to have ventured much beyond their own deserts, nor to have made any figure as a great or enter

* Preface to his Questions addressed to the Danish Trav. ellers.

+ Life and Mem. of J. L. Burckhardt, p. lxxxiv,

prising people. Then, however, their history acquired a new interest, and their natural energies took a new direction. Esteemed hitherto of no repute by foreigners, except for their wealth; and separated from all the world, not more by their peculiar mode of life than by a necessity consequent on their situation; we find them suddenly emerging from their national insignificance, and assuming all at once the lofty character of apostles and legislators to the rest of mankind. The sword or the Koran was the terrible alternative they offered to the choice of their enemies. Doubly stimulated, by a thirst for conquest and a zeal for making proselytes, they performed exploits which made their name the terror of the whole earth for many centuries, and have rendered it famous to all posterity.

Nothing, indeed, in the political annals of mankind presents a more extraordinary spectacle than the sudden and overwhelming revolution which, about the middle of the seventh century, sprang up in this obscure corner of the East. Originating in the bold but impious pretensions of one man, who had the art to concentrate the scattered and impetuous energies of his country into the channel of his own ambition, it spread with amazing celerity, and in less than a hundred years covered an extent of territory greater than was ever owned by Rome in the Augustan age of her power. All that we read of the fabled monarchies of Assyria and Babylon, of the boasted expeditions of Cyrus and Alexander, or the vast regions overrun by the Mogul and Tartar hordes, will bear no comparison to the dominion of Mohammed; for it embraced them all. Reaching from the Pillars of Hercules on the one hand to the confines of China on the other, it comprehended, during a certain period, three-fourths of Asia, the whole of Northern Africa, and a considerable portion of Europe.

It is true that the stability of this colossal power