Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 2.djvu/276

256 ARABIA [uiSTOKY. "flood of Arcm," a counterpart, .after its fashion, of the biblical northern Arabs. rrosperit, Yemenite Arabs and especi- of Yem"u ally those who tenanted the south of the peninsula, had during the period now cursorily sketched, attained a very fair degree of civilisa tion that arts and commerce flourished, that wealth was accumu lated literature cultivated, and talent held in esteem. On all these points we have not only the uncertain and distorted testimony of foreign authors, such as Strabo, Pliny, Diodorus, Ptolemy, and the like, but the more positive though fragmentary evidence afforded bv the national writings, chiefly verse, that have survived to our day. In its general character and institutions the kingdom of Yemen seems to have borne a considerable resemblance to the neighbouring one of the Nile valley, on the other side of the Red Sea, and, like it, to have reached at a very early epoch a relatively high degree of prosperity and social culture, from which, however, it had long declined before its final extinction in the 7th century. But the daughter-kingdom of Hira had, as was natural, something of a Persian tinge ; while that of Ghassau took a more Byzantine colouring. Lastly, the nomadic element predominated iu the ill- cemented monarchy of Kindeh. The " Mus- J3 u t while the sceptre of Yemen was yet, in one form or other, tareb " or outstretched over the length and breadth of the land, and its chil dren, the genuine or African Arabs, formed a complete and dense circle of population all around, the centre of Arabia remained the stronghold of a different though kindred race, composed of tribes almost wholly scenite, in their mode of living wild and ferocious ; less susceptible of culture, but gifted with greater energy and concentration of purpose than their southern cousins. The latest recorded emigration of this branch of the Arab stock had been not from the south but the north ; and instead of the mythical Kahtan, they claimed a no less mythical Aduan, or his supposed grandson Nezar, for their ancestor ; their language, though radically identical with that spoken by the genuine Arabs, was yet dialectically different in several respects, and nearer to the Syriac or Hebrew. Lastly, unlike the Arabs of the south, they had little disposition for agriculture, and even less for architecture and the fine arts ; their instincts leading them to a pastoral and consequently a nomade life. The almost infinite ramifications of these "Mustareb" or "adscititious Arab" tribes lead ultimately up to five principal stocks. These were Rabeeah, which, however, laid some claim to a Yemenite kinsmanship in the east centre of the peninsula ; Koreysh, on the west ; Keys, or Keys-Eylan, and Hawazin, on the north ; and Tameeni in the middle. History has left unrecorded the exact date of their arrival in Arabia ; nor has she defined the period during which they remained tributaries, though often refractory, of the kings of Yemen. But in the 5th century of the Christian era there appeared among the Mustareb tribes a leader of extraordinary talent and energy named Koleyb, sprung from the tribe of Rabeeah, who having, in the fashion of William Tell, slain with his own hand the insolent and licentious tax-gatherer sent them from Sanaa, raised the banner of general revolt in Nejd ; and, in the battle of Hazaz, 500 A.D., broke for ever the bonds of Yemen from off the neck of the northern or scenite Arabs. This done, Koleyb aspired to unite his countrymen into one vast confederacy, over which he himself exercised for a time an almost kingly power; but the scheme was prematurely broken off by his own assassination. Left now without a master, but also without a ruler, the Mustareb tribes found themselves involved in a series of wars that lasted during the whole of the 6th century, their heroic period. Yet in spite of severe losses sustained in battle by this or that particular clan, their power as a whole wont on increasing, till at the dawn of the 7th century they had wholly absorbed the feeble kingdom of Kindeh, and encroached yearly more and more on the narrowing bounds of Yemen, Irak, and G hassan. Nor, probably, would they have stayed till they had become absolute lords over the whole, or nearly the whole, of the peninsula, had there not developed itself from among them selves a still more energetic element which, before many years had passed, reduced both northern and southern Arabs alike to common obedience, then raised them to an unexpected height of common "lory, and at last plunged them, along with itself, into one comprehensive decline and rain. This new and potent element was the well-known clan of Fihr or Koreysh. Its families, of Mustareb descent, had at an early period, which subsequent and Mahometan chroniclers have tried to identify with the fortunes of the mythical Ismael, established themselves in the southerly Hejaz, near the town of Mecca, a locality even then the principal religious and commercial centre of Arabia. Already, at the beginning of the 5th century, the chiefs of Koreysh had, by a mixture of violence and craft very characteristic of their race, rendered themselves the masters and the acknowledged guardians of the sacred "Kaabeh." This square stone temple, or rather shrine, itself of unknown antiquity, was situated within the precincts of the town of Mecca ; and to it the Arabs were in the habit of bringing yearly offerings, and of making devout pilgrimages, for centuries before Mahomet had adopted it into the new ritual of Islam as the house of the true God. The Revolt of the north ern Arabs. Rise of Koreysh. keys of the consecrated building had originally been in possession of delegates appointed by the monarch of Yemen, but the Koreysh Arabs, having once obtained them, held them fast for ever after, and successfully repelled every effort, both of their own pagan competi tors and of the invading Christian Abyssiniaus, 570 A.D., to recap ture or to seize them. Their possession of the temple-keys not only gave the tribe of Koreysh a semi-religious pre-eminence over all the other clans of Arabia, but also placed at their disposal the treasures of gold, silver, jewels, and other offerings accumulated by the pagan piety of ages in the temple of Mecca. A more important, as also a more creditable, source of wealth to Trade with the Koreysh clan was their Red Sea coast traffic, particularly with Yemen, the ports of Yemen and Abyssinia. Jiddah has been always the chief westerly seaport, and Mecca, which is only a few leagues distant, the principal inland emporium of Arab trade ; and under the dominating influence of the clever and active merchants of Koreysh, both places acquired special prosperity and importance. Lastly, only a day s journey distant from Mecca, was held, in the Fair of pre-Islamitic times, the great yearly fair and gathering of Okad, so Okad. called from the name of the plain where it used to assemble, a national meeting, frequented by men of all conditions, from all quarters of the Arab peninsula, and lasting through the entire month of Dhoo-1-kaadeh, which in pagan, as subsequently in Mahometan reckoning, immediately preceded the ceremonies of the annual pilgrimage. Here horse-races, athletic games, poetical recitals, and every kind of public amusement, diversified the more- serious commercial transactions of an open fair, that, in its compre hensiveness, almost assumed the proportions of a national exhibi tion ; here, too, matters of the highest import, questions of peace and war, of treaty and alliance, of justice and revenge, were habitually treated by the chiefs of the northern Arabs ; the "children of Mezar," to give them their favourite "Mustareb" patronymic, assembled in a sort of amphictyonic council, not less ancient, but, while it lasted, much more influential throughout Arabia than that of Thebes ever had been in classic Hellas. In this assembly the immediate local proximity of the Koreysh chiefs, joined to their personal wealth, courage, and address, assigned them a predominant position. Of their pedigree, which, as is well known, includes that of Origin of Mahomet himself, we have a carefully too carefully, indeed, for Koreysh. authenticity constructed chronicle, bringing the family tree up in due form to Ishmael, the son of Abraham, of whom the Koreysh figure as the direct descendants. In the same artificial annals the Yemenite or genuine Arabs appear under the cousinly character of the children of Joktan, the son of Heber. On these points all Mahometan annalists are equally positive and distinct ; all other Arab testimony equally adverse or silent. That a fable so utterly defiant of reasonable chronology, and even of the common sense of history itself, should have been adopted as matter of fact by Arab vanity and ignorance, is less surprising than that it should have found favour in the eyes of not a few, indeed of most, of our own European writers. Enough here to say that Mahometan chroniclers, by adopting as irrefragrable historical authority the Jewish records, and then retouching them here and there in accord ance with their own special predictions and tenets, have succeeded in concealing the truth of their own national identity and story from themselves and even from others, under an almost hopeless incrustation of childish fiction. A correcter version of Arab history and pedigree will, so far as possible, be given towards the end of the present article. To sum up, at the opening of the 7th century of our era, and coincidently with the first appearance of the pro phetic autocrat and destined remodeller of Arabia, the overteeming life and energy of the great peninsula was, broadly taken, thus divided : Foremost stood the tribe of Koreysh, with their allies, a powerful confederacy composed of tribes belonging to the Mustareb or northern stock, and occupying the upper half of the westerly coast and region. Next in importance came the countless inde pendent and, thus far, uncentralised clans of the centre of the peninsula ; they, too, mostly are of Mustareb origin, though a few claimed the more ancient and aristocratic kinsmanship of Yemen ; but without, however, paying any allegiance to its rulers. Lastly, to the south, east, and north, still existed the noble but enfeebled relics of the old Yemenite kingdoms of Sanaa, Hira, and Ghassan, half-sunk into Persian or Byzantine vassalage, and exerting little authority, even within their own ancestral limits. But, however important to the country itself and in their ulti- Contact mate results to the world at large, might be the events that took with place within Arabia during the pre-Islamitic epoch, they had small foreign bearing on the nations outside the peninsula. The Yemenite queen nations, of Sheba s ambassage to Solomon, even if an historical event, led at least to no historical results ; and with other coeval rulers and nationalities, Greek, Persian, and Macedonian, the Arabs rarely came into^any other contact than that of distant and desultory traffic. Nor do the frontier skirmishes by which an Antigonus or a Ptolemy attempted, without success, to gain a footing in Arabia, deserve more than a passing notice ; and Pompey himself, victorious elsewhere, was foiled on its frontiers.

At last, during the reign of Augustus, ^Elius Gallus, the Roman