Art. IV. Essay towards the History of Arabia, antecedent to the Birth of Mahommed. Arranged from the Tarikh Tebry_and other authentic Sources. By Major David Price, Author of the "Retrospect of Mahommedan History." 4to. pp. 248. London, 1824.

THE

HE learned Author of this historical Essay, confesses, in the Preface, that the result of his laborious researches has fallen very far short of his expectations. He had hoped to be able to make out something like a connected history of the Arabian peninsula, antecedent to the period at which Arabia first became possessed of authentic records, or had been made the theatre of events worth recording; and his investigation has led him back to the conclusion, that, anterior to the age of Mohammed, no such records ever existed. He has been pursuing, with admirable perseverance, a mysterious labyrinth, which, after spreading out here and there into dim chambers full of emptiness, has brought him out where he entered it. The history of the ancient Arabians, in what the Mohamme dan writers justly call the times of ignorance,' would be but the history of various petty kingdoms, sometimes at war with each other, and at other times consolidated for a while under the sceptre of some native or foreign conqueror, and then, at his death, falling again into division; most of these kingdoms being no other than the doubtful territories of a pastoral sheikh at the head of some roving clan, or of some highland chieftain, the Fingal or Roderick Vich Alpine of his day. Ossian's Poems, were the scenery and costume adapted to the burning sands, and palmy plains, and myrrh-bearing mountains of Arabia, would give a fair idea of the history of the tobbas and 'meleks of its ancient history. If any doubt could exist on this point, the present specimen of Arabian legends would remove it; and we are indebted to Major Price for a volume both curious and entertaining, and throwing just so much light on the subject as is requisite to discover that we need search no further.

The word Arabia, like Persia and India, originally designated but a portion of the country to which its application is now extended. The Arabians of the Old Testament, history were Bedoweens, dwellers in tents*, genuine Ishmaelites; and their country was the Orebeh or Areb, the pastoral desert or wilderness, which extended east of Judea from the Euphrates to the

"Neither shall the Arabian pitch tent there." Isaiah, xiii. 20. "Arabia and all the princes of Kedar, they occupied (traded) with thee in lambs and rams and goats.” Ezek. xxvii. 21.

Red Sea. The Saracens of the Greeks and Romans (the inhabitants of the Zahra or wilderness) were the same people. The Arabia of the New Testament was the Arabia Provincia of the Romans, the kingdom of Aretas (Hareth), now comprehended within the pashalik of Damascus, and consisting of the tracts distinguished as the Ledja and the Haouran. Arabia of ecclesiastical history was probably the same country. The Bozrah, the see of one Arabian bishop, is in the Haouran; Akula, another see, is supposed to have been Kufah in Arabian Irak; and Nedjeraun, which is also said to have been an episcopal see, was probably the Syrian, not the Arabian city of that name. The greater part of the Peninsula, comprising the kingdoms of Saba and Heirah, the countries of Yemen, Hadramaut, Omann, and Bahhrein, appears to have been little known to the ancients. The Sheba of Scripture, however, was in all probability the kingdom of Saba in Arabia Felix, the capital of which was Meriàba or Merab; and the name of Yemen, which signifies the South, answers to the title given in the New Testament to the queen of that country. There appear to have been, in fact, two Shebas, as there were two Ethiopias,-one in Arabia, and the other in Africa. But it is highly probable, that both Arabia Felix and Abyssinia were at one time united under one sovereignty. The traditions of both countries lay claim to that illustrious personage as their queen in days of yore; and Claudian, the Roman poet, a native of Alexandria, refers to the Sabeans as governed by female sovereigns. Javan* also is supposed by Michaelis to have been a part of Arabia Felix. The Septuagint and Josephus write it Iuay, Yowan; and the learned Editor of Calmet, we know not on what ground, suggests as the probable meaning of the word, a dove. The Arabic for dove is Yemama, (whence Semir-yemamah or Semiramis, the Mountain Dove, and perhaps Yemima,) and this is the name of an inland province of the Arabian peninsula; which would seem to support the above conjecture, had we any clear ground for rendering Javan or Yowan (for Jonal) a dove. But waiving these etymological conjectures, it would seem that the name of Arabia was first extended to the whole of this country by the Roman writers, but still, Sabaa appears to have been the proper name of the south-western part. Horace speaks of the unconquered kings of Sabæa in connexion with the untouched treasures of the Arabs, and these are coupled with the riches of India†.

* Ezek. xxvii. 19. Ural is said to be the ancient name of Sanaa, the present capital of Yemen.

+ Lib. i. Od. 29.—Lib. ii. Od. 12.—Lib. iii. Od. 24.

VOL. XXIV. N.S.

2Q

6

Pliny, speaking of the expedition undertaken by Ælius Gallus, a prefect of Egypt in the reign of Caligula, into Arabia Felix, -the only successful attempt ever made by the conquerors of the world on this country,-describes the Sabeans as most wealthy from the fertility of their odoriferous woods, their "gold, their well-irrigated fields, and the abundance of their wax and honey.' These, we believe, are nearly all the scattered notices which occur in either sacred or classical history relative to the ancient inhabitants of Arabia. Major Price says, that the Arabians appear to have been confounded with the Getæ by no less accurate a geographer than Strabo; but this seems to rest on conjecture.

The Chronicle from which the present Essay is chiefly compiled, was originally written in the Arabic language, by Abi Jauffer Mahommed, the son of Jerreir the Tebrian,' at the express desire of a sovereign of Bokhara, between the 961st and the 976th year of the Christian era. Major Price has made use of a Persian translation. The Arabian historian begins at the beginning, for he goes back to the fall of Adam from Paradise-into the island of Ceylon, from which scene of his solitary penance, as all good Moslems well know, he, by some means or other, at the end of the first century, found his way to Mount Arafat near Mekka,, where he was joined by his disconsolate associate, Eve. Here he built the chapel that is now standing, unless the Wahhabees have destroyed it, giving the name of Arafat to the mountain in commemoration of the event, the word signifying, according to the Tebrian, recognition, according to other authorities, gratitude: we have both senses in the French, reconnoissance. From Mekka, the father of mankind returned, with his partner, through Hindustan to Ceylon, where some learned authorities maintain that he was buried, while others assert that his remains were deposited under a mount near Mekka. It is, however, agreed on all hands, that his grave was opened by Noah, that the bones were preserved in the ark, and that they were finally deposited at Jerusalem, on the spot now called Mount Calvary. The Tebrian does not furnish us with much information respecting the antediluvian world, so that Mr. Montgomery has lost nothing by not having perused this work when he composed his World before the Flood; but the history of Noah, the building of the Ark, and the circumstances of the Deluge are given with considerable additions to the Mosaic narrative. As most of these details, however, are at once mean and ludicrous, we shall simply state, that the Ark rested on the summit of Mount Joud, and that, on leaving it, Noah, with the chosen individuals who had shared in this memorable deliverance, descended

to the territory at the foot of that mountain, where they immediately erected a village of eighty huts, corresponding to the number of those who had escaped the awful catastrophe: this same village was still in existence in the days of the Writer, (towards the close of the tenth century,) and retained the name of Souk-ul-thamaunin, the Abode of the Eighty.' It is evident, that both Noah and Adam spoke Arabic. All the seventy persons who escaped with Noah, died without issue, except his three sons, Saum, Haum, and Yapheth. Saum was the progenitor of the Arabians and the Persians, as well as of all prophets and just men; Haum, of the monarchs of Habesh (Abyssinia), Zengbar, and Egypt; and Yapheth, of Gog and Magog, the Tatars, Slavonians, and Turks.

The historian now enters upon the post-diluvian history of Arabia. The first inhabitants of the peninsula, of whom any records have been preserved, were the tribes of Aad and Thamoud, both descended from Aaram, the son of Saum, the one by his son Uz, the other by Gether, who inhabited the desert lying between Hedjaz and Syria. The tragical destruction of these two tribes, who fell into idolatry, and refused to listen to the prophets Houd and Salah, is often insisted on in the Koran, as a warning to unbelievers. Aad founded a magnificent city, which was finished by his son Shedad, who built a fine palace with delicious gardens, called the paradise of Irem, a true and particular description of which will be found in Dr. Southey's Thalaba. The edifice is still standing, miraculously concealed from the sight of men, like the magic castle seen by the Knight of Triermain in the Valley of St. John,-but has now and then been disclosed to the eye of the wandering camel-driver, who has in vain sought to revisit it. Those Aadites who survived the destruction of their race, having been converted by the prophet, retired into the district of Hazramout (Hadramout), where one of their daughters became the wife of Kahtan or Joktan, the son of Eber, the great progenitor of the Arabs of Yemen. Another version of the legend, however, places this paradise in the neighbourhood of Damascus; and the Thamoudites, moreover, are stated to have been descended from Hareth, the son of Aram, and to have dwelt in the desert immediately bordering on the mountains of Syria, *This is not the only instance in which the close connexion between Syria and Arabia isobservable in the traditions and local names common to both countries. Thus, as there are two Shedads and two paradisiacal Irems, so there are two Edens (or Adens), and two Nedjerauns, and this double set of names. might, we doubt not, be traced to a considerable extent. The statue of Hebal or Hobal, the principal idol in the Kaaba at

Mekka, is said to have been brought from Belka (perhaps Baalbek or Baalgad) in Syria; and the images of Asaf and Nayelah, which anciently stood on Mounts Safah and Merwa, are also said to have been brought from Hobal in Syria. From these vague and confused accounts, we may infer thus much; that Arabia at an early period received settlers, either as refugees or as conquerors, from the land of Aram, or Syria, who brought with them their gods. Hobal has been conjectured to be no other place than Abila in Colo-Syria. At all events, the alleged descent of Aad and Thamoud, as well as Joktan, from Aram, from whom Syria took its ancient name, strongly favours the idea, that the aboriginal Arabians of Hedjaz and Yemen were Syrians, although, in after times, Syria received back from the Peninsula several Arabian colonies.

1

While this race entered the Peninsula from the North, and seemingly descended the western coast, along the shores of the Arabian Gulf, another distinct branch of the great Noatic family appears to have spread from Chuzeztan, the Asiatic Ethiopia, along the banks of the Euphrates and the shores of the Persian Gulf, to have peopled the eastern and southern coasts of Arabia, and thence proceeded to Habesh or Abyssinia. That the Sabeans were Cushites, is evident from many passages in the Old Testament.* Accordingly, to the monarchs of Abyssinia and Egypt, a different descent is attributed by the legend, which, whether historically accurate or not, proves that the tribes were distinct and at variance.

Contemporary with Shedaud, was the celebrated Zohauk, or Ezdehauk, of Persian story, who is said to have been his uncle's son. This potent tyrant is fabled to have been in possession of the whole of Irak, with Tebristaun, Khezlan, and Gurgaun,' and all the territory in that direction to the very borders of Hindustan, which he governed with paramount sway for two hundred and sixty years This Zohauk is generally supposed to be the Assyrian Nimrod. He is elsewhere referred to by the Tebrian under the name of Yurasp, a mighty invader who entered the territories of the Persian monarch, Jemsheed, the supposed founder of Persepolis, and having totally defeated him, took from him his kingdom, and drove him into Tebristaun, where the vanquished monarch sought for refuge on Mount Demawund; here, at the expiration of twelve months, his retreat being discovered,

* Isa. xlii. 3, xlv. 14., "I gave Egypt for thy ransom, Ethiopia (Cush) and Seba for thee." "The labour of Egypt, the merchandize of Ethiopia (Cush) and of the Sabeans."