Early Christianity in Arabia/Section 1

by Thomas Wright

EARLY CHRISTIANITY IN ARABIA.

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SECTION I.

The peninsula of Arabia was divided by the old geographers into three parts: the desert plains of the north-east; which bordered on the Euphrates and the Syrian frontier; the province of Petræa, at the northern extremity of the Red Sea; and the richer and more extensive tracts of Arabia Felix. This latter division is chiefly included by native writers under the general and comprehensive term of Al Yaman, which in signification coincides with its Roman epithet.^[1] On the north the territories of Yaman extended into the mountain ranges of the interior, and were bounded perhaps by the extensive deserts that spread out towards the Persian Gulf; on the west and south it was separated from Africa by the Red Sea; and its eastern coasts were washed by the waves of the southern ocean.^[2]

In more ancient times, the land of Yaman was celebrated as the native country of myrrh and of frankincense. Its inhabitants, the Sabæi, formed the most powerful and extensive of all the nations of the Arabian peninsula. They were blessed with a redundance of the pleasures and conveniences of life. The earth was fertile and fruitful, and with little labour produced all that was required for the necessities or luxuries of mankind. The plains were covered with innumerable flocks. Extensive and numerous forests of myrrh, cinnamon, and frankincense, mixed with the sweeping palm and the tall and slender reed, breathed their perfumes to the breeze which carried them far out on the neighbouring seas.^[3] The people excelled all other nations in wealth, enriching Syria with gold, and supplying the Phœnician navigators with lucrative cargoes.^[4] The seas too were celebrated for the quantity and quality of their pearls.^[5] The value of the productions of Sabæa were equalled only by the magnificence of the temples and palaces which adorned its cities. Supported by columns of gold and silver, and covered with gems and precious stones, they almost exceeded in splendour the magic buildings of oriental fable. The wealth of the Arabians was exhibited in a profusion of pompous couches and tripods, in gorgeous bowls, and richly ornamented cups.^[6] The expenses of the royal household for a single day were estimated at fifteen Babylonian talents.^[7]

We are naturally led to suppose that these accounts which the ancients give of the riches and magnificence of the people of Arabia Felix are considerably exaggerated. When we turn, however, to native authors, we find the rich and fertile fields of Sabæa, watered by innumerable streams and canals,^[8] covered with gardens, and woods, and flowers, and universal verdure, and adorned with cities and magnificent buildings, affording a theme for praises exceeding even the glowing descriptions of the Greeks.^[9] The inhabitants of these fertile districts differed widely in their character from the wandering Arab of the desert. They were subject to kings, and governed by laws, and enjoyed all the advantages of social life. Some were employed in agriculture, others were shepherds, and others as merchants sought distant lands by sea, and exchanged native products for those of India and Ethiopia, or explored their pathless way through the northern desert, guided only by the stars of heaven.^[10] Commerce is the source of wealth. The Arabians were the carriers of the eastern ocean, and the trade of India, that trade which afterwards contributed so much to the riches of Persia, had been monopolised by the merchants of Sabæa from the patriarchal days of Jacob.^[11] The capitals of Egypt and Phœnicia owed their splendour in a great measure to the Sabæan merchandise which passed through them,^[12] and the treasures of Solomon himself were drawn from the mines and warehouses of Arabia.^[13] The wealthy and the noble lived in the same magnificence and luxury that has ever been characteristic of the princes of the east, and we may parallel the writing's of Arabs and Greeks in describing the pride and splendour of their domestic life,^[14] and their political prosperity. ^[15] But, although they bore the character of a soft and luxurious people, they still preserved that of being free, liberal, and brave. After having been successively subjected by Ethiopean and Persian conquerors, they still enjoyed the same character, "exulting," says a Persian writer, "in their liberty, delighting in eloquence, acts of liberality, and martial achievements, and thus making the whole earth red as wine with the blood of their foes, and the air like a forest of canes with their tall spears."^[16]

The period at which the kingdom of Saba or Hamyar flourished, as in the free states of Greece and Rome, was the golden age of Arabian poetry;^[17] literature was universally encouraged and patronised by the munificence of the great^[18] and the study of eloquence and philosophy was ardently prosecuted.^[19]

The Arabs of the times of ignorance, as the Moslem term the ages which preceded Muhammed, were not less celebrated for their skill in astronomy, astrology, and other sciences, than their descendants in the days of Islam.^[20] The religion of the Hamyarites resembled that of the idolatrous nations who surrounded them, and their devotions were addressed to a multitude of deities, of which the principal were represented by the sun, the moon, and the planets;^[21] but amongst their philosophers there were many who acknowledged but one chief deity, the creator and director of the universe.^[22] The head seat of the Arabian worship was situated amongst the northern mountains, in the same place where the faithful still direct their pilgrimage.^[23] Their ideas of a cosmogony, or creation, and many of their philosophical tenets resembled those of Chaldæa, Egypt, and Syria, and of the older Greeks.^[24] They believed in the immortality of the soul, its separation from the body after death, its future state of reward and punishment,^[25] and many held the Pythagorean and Indian doctrine of its transmigration.^[25] Mental liberty and social independence have ever been favourable to the arts, but of their progress in Arabia historians have left us in ignorance. In architectural works they certainly were not destitute of skill; the city of Sanaa was celebrated for its lofty towers, and is compared by Abulfeda to the modern city of Damascus. Mariaba is said to have been remarkable for the beauty of its public edifices and walls, the latter of which were six miles in circumference; and Sabota or Sabotha was distinguished by its sixty temples.^[26]

Arabia Felix contained several other petty states, governed by their own kings,^[27] but they were all subject to the king of Hamyar, who was called the great king,^[28] and whose influence extended from the Red Sea to the Persian Gulf.^[29] Next to the Nabatæi, or people of Petra, according to the ancient geographers, was the district of the Minæi, which appears to correspond with the Arabian province of Hedjaz. Their chief town was Carna, to the south of Mecca, or Macoraba.^[30] Between this region and the district of Hamyar were the Cassanitæ, who possessed a country rich in gold, which appears to coincide with the Tehama, on the western coast.^[31] Part of this territory, where it adjoined to Sabæa or Hamyar, was occupied by the Chaulanitæ, Carbi, or Cembani, and the Arii, both brave and warlike tribes.^[32] This district is now called Khaulan. The extremity of the continent, where it approaches the coast of Africa, was held by the Catabeni, or Gebanitæ; their capital was Tamna, and they had a port called Ocelis, close on the straits. This district was very productive in frankincense.^[33] From the Cassanitæ and the Catabeni, the district which more particularly bore the name of Hamyar or Saba stretched along the south-eastern coast, as far as the district of the Chatramotitæ or Adramitæ, which coincides both in name and situation with the modern Hadramaut, and whose chief town was Cabatanon.^[34] Between the Chatramotitæ and the Omanitæ was the deep bay of Sachalites, on the southern promontory of which, called Syagrus, was a celebrated port for exporting frankincense and other spices.^[35] The district of the Omanitæ is the modern Oman.^[36] More to the north, along the Persian Gulf, lay several other unimportant districts, included chiefly under the modern name of Lachsa.

The Arabian peninsula is considered by Niebuhr as an immense pile of mountains, encircled with a belt of flat, arid, sandy ground, which extends from Suez around the whole peninsula to the mouth of the Euphrates, and is continued on the north by the province of Petra and the deserts of Syria. The principal mountain chain runs nearly parallel with the Red Sea, at a distance of from thirty to eighty miles, increasing in elevation towards the south. Another chain runs from the southern part, parallel with the ocean, to the mountainous shores of Oman. The interior is believed to be an elevated table land, occupied towards the north by a series of deserts. The Montes Marithi of Ptolemy, the Nedjed el Arud, appear to be a ridge of limestone rocks, stretching towards the south, and gently declining towards the east. Between them and the districts of Yaman and Oman is the desert of Alkaf, which is said once to have been a terrestrial paradise, till, for the impiety of its inhabitants, it was covered by a deluge of sand.^[37] In the maritime regions the Arabian towns were few and inconsiderable, and were chiefly ports or trading towns. The inhabitants of these unfruitful districts who were not resident in the towns, or engaged in commerce, lived principally by fishing, and gained from foreign nations the appellation of Icthyophagi. But the fertile valleys and mountain plains abounded in rich and beautiful towns, and well peopled villages.^[38] Mariaba, or Saba, the metropolis of Hamyar, and the fairest city of Arabia, was situated on a gentle elevation amongst the mountains which are included in the modern province of Hadramaut, three or four stations from the city of Sanaa.^[39]

1. ايمن‎ from يمن‎ felicity. We find the real Arabic name mentioned by several ancient authors. Εισι δε και ενδοτεροι αυτων, μη οντες της φυλης αυτων, αλλα του Ιεκταν, οἱ λεγομενοι Αμανιται, τουτ' εστιν Ὁμηριται. Theophanes, Chronograph. in Bibl. Pat. Gr. tom. ii. p. 283, οἱ λεγομενοι Ὁμηριται, τουτ' εστιν Αμανιται. Euthymius, in Mahomethias, p. 308. See Constant. Porphyrogenn. p. 68. and the Saracenica, p. 57.—Filia regis austri est regina Sabæ: nempe hoc regnum vocatur lingua Ismaelitica Aljeman. Aben Ezra, in Dan. xi. 6.
2. The knowledge which the ancient geographers possessed of the shape of Africa was very confused. They supposed that after turning Cape Guardafui, the African coast ran almost direct to the pillars of Hercules,and consequently they considered the ocean which lay to the south of Arabia Felix as the Atlantic. Ὑπερ δε τουτων ἡ Ευδαιμων εστιν, επι μυριους και δισχιλιους εκκειμενη προς νοτον, μεχρι του Ατλαντικου πελαγους. Strabo, lib. xvi. c. 4. p. 384.
3. Agatharchides, Peripl. Rubr. Maris, ap. Geogr. Gr. Min. tom. i. p. 63. Diodorus Siculus. Strabo. Solinus, c. 33. Pliny gives the following estimate of the extent of the spice woods.—Sylvarum longitudo est schœnorum xx. latitudo dimidium ejus. Schœnus patet Eratosthenis ratione stadia xl. hoc est pass, quinque d. Aliqui xxxii. stadia singulis schœnis dedere. lib. xii. c. 14.
4. Agatharchides, p. 64.
5. Plin. Hist. Nat. lib. xii. c. 18.
6. Agatharchides, Peripl. p. 65.
7. Τα δ'αναλωματα λεγει της ἡμερας εις τον βασιλεα, και τας περι αυτον γυναικας και φιλους, γινεσθαι ταλαντα πεντεκαιδεκα Βαβυλωνια. Heraclides apud Athenæum, lib. xii. p. 252. Ed. Bas. 1535.—The Babylonian talent was about £223 of our money, fifteen talents would therefore be £3420.
8. Mesoud, p. 160 (in Schunltens, Hist. Joctanid.)—Compare the account of the canal described by Herodotus as the work of the Arabian king, lib. iii. p. 185.
9. Mesoud, ib. "A person might ride," he observes, "at a quick pace, over a country bearing everywhere this delightful appearance, for a month in length or breadth. And any one thus travelling, either on horse or foot, may proceed all the way through a continuance of groves and gardens, so that the sun will never once incommode him with its rays, the country being everywhere covered with trees and shrubs."
10. Απο των Αρκτων, by the bears. Diod. Sic. lib. ii. p. 156.
11. Vincent, Periplus, vol. i. Prel. Disq.
12. Vincent, ibidem. Sec Ezekiel xxvii. 21, 22.
13. 2 Chron. ix. and 1 Kings, x.
14. Ergo incolæ ejus lautissimam et mollissimam vitam degere, unctissimo in statu lautissimoque eodem. Mesoud, p. 160. كان لهم من التيه والعجب والكبر علي ساتر الامم‎—fastu, jactantia, et superbia reliquos Arabiæ populos superabant. Geogr. Arabs, Clim. 2. pars 6.—

    ⁠Arabesque molles.—Catull. Od. xi. 5.

    Thuriferos, fœlicia regna Sabæis.—Valerius Flace. Argon, lib. vi.—Conf. Agatharchidem, supr. citatum.

15. &c. وكانت‎—Istæ autem regiones in proverbium olim missæ, pulchris florentes institutis eorum, qui mores rectissimos et virtutum præstantiam assectarentur, &c. Mesoud, p. 162. See Agatharch., Athenæus, &c. Μοναρχουσι δε παντες, και εισιν ευδαιμονες. Strabo, lib. xvi. p. 385.
16. Ferdoussi, quoted by Sir W. Jones.
17. Die güldene Zeit der Dichtkunst, die jetzt in den Jahrbüchern der Araber aus Frommigkeit die Zeit der Unwissenheit genannt wird, &c. Michaelis, Introduction to his edition of Erpenii Arabische Grammatif, p. xxxviii. The following anecdote is given by Ibn Khallakan, in the life of Hammad Arrawihah. "Hammad was the most conversant of men in the history, the poetry, the genealogy, and the language of the Arabs; for which reason, the princes of this family (of the house of Ummaiya) invited him to their society, honoured him with their esteem, and loaded him with their favours. One day the khalif Alwalid, in his assembly of learned men, said to Hammad, 'How do you substantiate your right to the name of Arrawihah (the narrator) which is usually given you?' He replied, 'Because I can relate, Commander of the Faithful, the works of every poet which you are acquainted with, or have heard of; I can, moreover, relate the works of those poets which you are not acquainted with, and have not heard of.' The khalif then asked, 'What number of poems do you retain in memory?' He said, 'A great many; for I will undertake to repeat to you, for every letter of the alphabet, one hundred poems of the largest description, all made before the introduction of Mahommetanism, independent of such poetry as has been formed since that æra.' The khalif said, 'I will prove you in this matter.' Hammad then related, till the khalif being tired, appointed some others to hear him; and when Alwalid was informed that he had actually repeated two thousand nine hundred odes of the poetry anterior to Mahommetanism, he ordered one hundred thousand dirhems to be given to him." History of the Mahommetan empire in Spain.
18. The poet Zohair celebrates an Arabian noble, Hossain, for his munificence and love for learning. His relations having censured him for distributing his money among "viros eruditos, doctos, atque paupertate oppressos," he answered in the words of the poet:—

    Nos donant suis liberales tam largiter bonis,
    Et nos liberalium his utemur sordide bonis?

    Ecchelensis, Hist. Arab. p. 142.

    There is an epigram of the same poet on an Ethiopian prince, after the Abyssinian conquest, marrying a fair Arabian maid, which is thus translated.

    Vidi Æthiopem atræ simillimum nocti
    Candidam amplexibus stringentem puellam,
    Cui dixi: Heu nequam! naturæ ne ordine pervertas,
    Albæ diei conjungens nigerrimam noctem.

    Id. p. 143.
19. Abulfarag. ap. Pocock. p. 6. Ecchelensis, ibid.
20. Certe non minus excelluerunt in studiis Philosophiæ, Astronomiæ, Astrologiæ, Medicinæ, Poesis, Oratoriæ, aliarumque disciplinarum antiqui illi Arabes seculi ignorantiæ, quas vocant, quam sub Mahometismo juniores.—Ecchelensis, Hist. Orient, p. 142.
21. Θυουσιν ἡλιῳ, και σεληνῃ, και δαιμοσι επιχωριοις. Philostorgius.
22. "Warner, ap. Spanheim, Introduct. ad Hist. Nov. Test. Sæc. vii.
23. "Warner, ib. Ecchelensis, Hist. Orient, p. 147. The temple at Mecca is distinctly referred to by Diod. Sic., and it was probably the temple of the sun mentioned by Theophrastus, (Hist. Plant.) in the following passage. Και εφασαν ακουειν, ὁτι συναγεται πανταχοθεν ἡ σμυρνα και ἡ λιβανωτος εις το ἱερον το του ἡλιου. Τουτον δ' ειναι μεν των Σαβαιων ἁγιωτατον δε πολυ των περι τον τοπον.
24. Ecchelensis, p. 150. Resurrectionem mortuorum et judicium ultimum plurimos professos fuisse, quare ad defuncti alicujus sepulchrum camelum alligabat absque cibo et potu, ut scilicet in resurrectione equites resurgerent, camelum equitaturi Arabum more. Warner, ib.
25. Ecchelensis, ib. Hottinger, Archæolog. Orient, p. 10. Pococke, p. 135.
26. Plinius, Nat. H. lib. vi. cap. 28.
27. Pococke, Spec. Hist. Arab. p. 65, 66. Strabo, lib. xvi. p. 385.
28. Pococke, ibid.
29. Uno verbo, cum ad Jectanis genus hi scriptores (i.e. Arabes) referunt Homeritas et Amanitas, eos intelligunt populos qui Arabiæ Felicis πεζαν occupant oceanum versus, ab Arabico sinu usque ad Persicum. Bochart, Phaleg, lib. ii. c. 15. Marcianus Heracliotes, describing the Red Sea, says, εν τουτῳ δε τῳ μερει της θαλασσης και το των Ὁμηριτων εθνος τυγχανει το των Αραβων επαρχων γης, μεχρι της αρχης του Ινδικου διηκον πελαγους, p. 13.
30. Bochart, p. 134, &c. Strabo, ibid.
31. Id. p. 156.
32. Pliny. Agatharchidas. Bochart, p. 162, et Geograph. Arabs, ibi cit.
33. Strabo, ibid. Plin. Dionys. Perieg. Bochart, p. 151.
34. Strabo, ibid. Bochart, p. 113.
35. Arrhian, Peripl.
36. Bochart, p. 250.
37. Niebuhr, Malte Brun, &c. The Arabian legend may be consulted in Ebn al Ouardi, p. 46, and the Kitab Aldjuman, p. 138, &c., in tom. ii. of the Notices et Extraits de la Bibl. du Roi.
38. Πολεις δ' εν μεν τῃ παραλιᾳ μη πολλας ειναι, κατα δε την μεσογαιαν πολλας οικουμενας καλως. Eratosthenes, apud Strab. p. 387. lib. xvi.—Niebuhr describes these mountain plains, particularly the plateau of Nedjed, as still covered with towns and villages, and abounding in all kinds of fruits. "Most of the Arab tribes south of Zohran," says Burckhardt, "belong to the sect of Zeid; they live in villages, and are chiefly what the Arabs call Hadhar; or settlers, not Bedouins; but as they keep large herds of cattle, they descend, in time of rain, into the eastern plain, which affords rich pasturage for cows, camels, and sheep." They trade, he adds, both to the coast and with the Bedouins of the north. Travels in Arabia, Appendix, p. 378.
39. Agatharchides, Peripl. p. 63. Abulfeda's Arab. p. 58. Geogr. Arabs, Clim. 2. part 6.