resigned to him by his uncles the Jorhamites, though others say the descendants of Ismael expelled that tribe, who retiring to Johainah, were, after various fortune, at last all destroyed by an inundation." Of the kings of Hamyar, Hira, Ghassân, and Jorham, Dr. Pocock has given us catalogues tolerably exact, to which I refer the curious. After the expulsion of the Jorhamites, the government of Hejâz seems not to have continued for many centuries in the hands of one prince, but to have been divided among the heads of tribes; almost in the same man. ner as the Arabs of the desert are governed at this day. At Mecca an aristocracy prevailed, where the chief management of affairs till the time of Mohammed was in the tribe of Koreish; especially after they had gotten the custody of the Caaba from the tribe of Khozâah.9 Besides the kingdoms which have been taken notice of, there were some other tribes, which, in latter times, had princes of their own, and formed states of lesser note; particularly the tribe of Kenda: but as I am not writing a just history of the Arabs, and an account of them would be of no great use to my present purpose, I shall waive any further mention of them. After the time of Mohammed, Arabia was for about three centuries under the Khalifs his successors. But in the year 325 of the Hejra, grea* part of that country was in the hands of the Karmatians, a new sect whe had committed great outrages and disorders even in Mecca, and to whom the Khalifs were obliged to pay tribute, that the pilgrimage thither might be performed of this sect I may have occasion to speak in another place. Afterwards Yaman was governed by the house of Thabateba, descended from Ali the son-in-law of Mohammed, whose sovereignty in Arabia some place so high as the time of Charlemagne. However, it was the posterity of Ali, or pretenders to be such, who reigned in Yaman and Egypt so early as the tenth century. The present reigning family in Yaman is probably that of Ayub, a branch of which reigned there in the thirteenth century, and took the title of Khalif and Imâm, which they still retain.' They are not possessed of the whole province of Yaman, there being several other independent kingdoms there, particularly that of Fartach. The crown of Yaman descends not regularly from father to son, but the prince of the blood royal who is most in favour with the great ones, or has the strongest interest, generally succeeds." The governors of Mecca and Medina, who have always been of the race of Mohammed, also threw off their subjection to the Khalifs, since which time four principal families, all descended from Hasan the son of Ali, have reigned there under the title of Sharif which signifies noble, as they reckon themselves to be on account of their descent. These are Banu Kâder, Banu Mûsa Thani, Banu Hashem, and Banu Kitâda; which last family now is, or lately was, in the throne of Mecca, where they have reigned above 500 years. The reigning family at Medina are the Banu Hashem, who also reigned at Mecca before those of Kitâda." The kings of Yaman, as well as the princes of Mecca and Medina, are absolutely independent, and not at all subject to the Turk, as some late authors have imagined. These princes often making cruel wars among themselves, gave an opportunity to Selim I. and his son Soliman, to make themselves masters of the coasts of Arabia on the Red Sea, and of part of Ib. p. 55. seq. Vide Ib. p. 41, and Pm. Poc. Spec. p. 45. 'Ib. p. 79. deanx's Life of Moham. p. 2. Vide Poc. Spec. p. 79, &c. al Râdi. ง Voyage de l'Arab. heur. p. 255. Ib. 153, 273. 143. • Ib. 143, 148. • Vide D'Herbel. Bibl. Orient. p. 477. 1 Ib. 145. Yaman, by means of a fleet built at Sues: but their successors have not been able to maintain their conquests; for, except the port of Jadda, where they have a Basha whose authority is very small, they possess nothing con siderable in Arabia,10 Thus have the Arabs preserved their liberty, of which few nations can produce so ancient monuments, with very little interruption from the very deluge; for though very great armies have been sent against them, all attempts to subdue them were unsuccessful. The Assyrian or Median empires never got footing among them.' The Persian monarchs, though they were their friends, and so far respected by them as to have an annual present of frankincense, yet could never make them tributary; and were so far from being their masters, that Cambyses, on his expedition against Egypt, was obliged to ask their leave to pass through their territories and when Alexander had subdued that mighty empire, yet the Arabians had so little apprehension of him, that they alone, of all the neighbouring nations, sent no ambassadors to him, either first or last; which, with a desire of possessing so rich a country, made him form a design against it, and had he not died before he could put it in execution, this people might possibly have convinced him that he was not invincible; and I do not find that any of his successors either in Asia or Egypt, ever made any attempt against them. The Romans never conquered any part of Arabia properly so called; the most they did was to make some tribes in Syria tributary to them, as Pompey did one commanded by Sampsiceramus or Shams' alkerâm who reigned at Hems or Emesa; but none of the Romans, or any other nations that we know of, ever penetrated so far into Arabia as Ælius Gallus under Augustus Cæsar; yet he was so far from subduing it, as some authors pretend, that he was soon obliged to return without effecting any thing considerable, having lost the best part of his army by sickness and other accidents.' This ill success probably discouraged the Romans from attacking them any more; for Trajan, notwithstanding the flatteries of the historians and orators of his time, and the medals struck by him, did not subdue the Arabs; the province of Arabia, which it is said he added to the Roman empire, scarce reaching farther than Arabia Petræa or the very skirts of the country. And we are told by one author, tha this prince marching against the Agarens, who had revolted, met with such a reception that he was obliged to return without doing any thing. The religion of the Arabs before Mohammed, which they call the state of ignorance, in opposition to the knowledge of God's true worship revealed to them by their prophet, was chiefly gross idolatry; the Sabian religion having almost overrun the whole nation, though there were also great numbers of Christians, Jews, and Magians, among them. I shall not here transcribe what Dr. Prideaux3 has written of the ori ginal of the Sabian religion; but instead thereof insert a brief account of the tenets and worship of that sect. They do not only believe one God, but produce many strong arguments for his unity; though they also pay an adoration to the stars, or the angels and intelligences which they suppose reside in them, and govern the world under the supreme Deity. They ea deavour to perfect themselves in the four intellectual virtues, and believe 10 Voy. de l'Arab. heur. p. 148. Idem ib. c. 91. Diodor. ubi sup. Diodor. Sic. lib. 2. p. 131. 2 Herodot. lib. 3. c. 97. Herodot. lib. 3. c. 8 and 98. Strabo, lib. 16. p. Strabo, lib. 16. p. 1092. • Dion Cassius, lib. 53. p. m. 516. Huet Hist. du commerce et de la navigation des anciens, c. See the whole expedition described at large by Strabo, lib. 16, p. 1126, &c. Xi. philin. epit. Connect. of the Hist. of the Old and New Test. p. 1. b. iii. 1276. 1132. • Vide Deodor. Sic. ubi supra. 5.0. . the souls of wicked men will be punished for 9000 ages, but will afterwards be received to mercy. They are obliged to pray three times a day, the first, half an hour or less before sun-rise, ordering it so that they may, just as the sun rises, finish eight adorations, each containing three pros. trations; the second prayer they end at noon, when the sun begins to decline, in saying which they perform five such adorations as the former, and the same they do the third time, ending just as the sun sets. They fast three times a year, the first time thirty days, the next nine days, and the last seven. They offer many sacrifices, but eat no part of them, burning them all. They abstain from beans, garlick, and some other pulse nd vegetables. As to the Sabian Kebla, or part to which they turn their faces in praying, authors greatly differ; one will have it to be the north," another the south, a third Mecca, and a fourth the star to which they pay their devotions; and perhaps there may be some variety in their practice in this respect. They go on pilgrimage to a place near the city of Harran in Mesopotamia, where great numbers of them dwell, and they also have a great respect for the temple at Mecca, and the pyramids of Egypt; fancying these last to be the sepulchres of Seth, and of Enoch and Sabi his two sous, whom they look on as the first propagators of their religion ; at these structures they sacrifice a cock and a black calf, and offer up in cense. Besides the book of Psalms, the only true scripture they read, they have other books which they esteem equally sacred, particularly one in the Chaldee tongue which they call the book of Seth, and is full of moral discourses. This sect say they took the name of Sabians from the above mentioned Sabi, though it seems rather to be derived from xay Saba2 or the host of heaven, which they worship. Travellers commonly call them Christians of St. John the Baptist, whose disciples also they pretend to be, using a kind of baptism, which is the greatest mark they bear of Christianity. This is one of the religions the practice of which Mohammed tolerated (on paying tribute), and the professors of it are often included in that expression of the Korân, those to whom the scriptures have been given, or literally, the people of the book. The idolatry of the Arabs then, as Sabians, chiefly consisted in worshipping the fixed stars and planets, and the angels and their images, which they honoured as inferior deities, and whose intercession they begged, as their mediators with God. For the Arabs acknowledged one supreme God, the Creator and Lord of the universe whom they call Allah Taâla, the most high God, and their other deities, who were subordinate to him, they called simply al Ilahât, i. e. the goddesses; which words the Grecians not understanding, and it being their constant custom to resolve the religion of every other nation into their own, and find out gods of theirs to match the others, they pretend that the Arabs worshipped only two deities, Orotalt and Alilat, as those names are corruptly written, whom they will have to be the same with Bacchus and Urania; pitching on the former as one of the greatest of their own gods, and educated in Arabia, and on the other, because of the veneration shown by the Arabs to the stars.* Idem ib. Some say seven. See D'Herbelot, p. 726, and Hyde de rel. vet. Pers. p. 128. Others say they use no incurvations or prostrations at all. Vide Hyde, ib. Abulfarag. Hist. Dynast. p. 281, &c. Hyde, ubi supr. p. 124, &c. D'Herbel. ubi supr. See Greave's Pyramidogr. p. 6, 7. 2 Vide Poc. Spec. p. 138. Thabet Ebn Korrah, a famous astronomer, and himself a Sabian, wrote a treatise in Syriac, concerning the doctrines, rites, and ceremonies of this sect; from which, if it could be recovered, we might expect much better information than any taken from the Arabian writers. Vide Abulfarag, ubi sup. Vide Herodot. lib. 3. c. 8. Arrian, p. 161, 162 and Strab. lib. 16. 4 That they acknowledged one supreme God appears, to omit other proof from their usual form of addressing themselves to him, which was this, "I dedicate myself to thy service, O God! I dedicate myself to thy service, O God! Thou hast no companion, except thy companion of whom thou art absolute master, and of whatever is his." So that they suppose the idols not to be sui juris, though they offered sacrifices and other offer-. ings to them, as well as to God, who was also often put off with the least portion, as Mohammed upbraids them. Thus, when they planted fruit trees, or sowed a field, they divided it by a line into two parts, setting one apart for their idols, and the other for God; if any of the fruits happened to fall from the idol's part into God's, they made restitution; but if from God's part into the idol's, they made no restitution. So when they watered the idol's grounds, if the water broke over the channels made for that purpose, and ran on God's part, they dammed it up again; but if the con. trary, they let it run on, saying they wanted what was God's, but he want. ed nothing. In the same manner, if the offering designed for God hap pened to be better than that designed for the idol, they made an exchange, but not otherwise." It was from this gross idolatry, or the worship of inferior deities, or companions of God, as the Arabs continue to call them, that Mohammed reclaimed his countrymen, establishing the sole worship of the true God among them; so that how much soever the Mohammedans are to blame in other points, they are far from being idolators, as some ignorant writers have pretended. The worship of the stars the Arabs might easily be led into, from their observing the changes of weather to happen at the rising or setting of certain of them, which, after a long course of experience, induced them to ascribe a divine power to those stars, and to think themselves indebted to them for their rains, a very great benefit and refreshment to their parched country this superstition the Korân particularly takes notice of. The ancient Arabians and Indians, between which two nations was a great conformity of religions, had seven celebrated temples, dedicated to the seven planets; one of which in particular, called Beit Ghomdân, was built in Sanaa the metropolis of Yaman, by Dahac, to the honour of al Zoharah or the planet Venus, and was demolished by the Khalîf Othman ;' by whose murder was fulfilled the prophetical inscription set, as is reported, over his temple, viz. Ghomdân, he who destroyeth thee, shall be slain." The temple of Mecca is also said to have been consecrated to Zohal or Saturn.3 Though these deities were generally reverenced by the whole nation, yet each tribe chose some one as the more popular object of their worship. Thus, as to the stars and planets, the tribe of Hamyar chiefly worshipped the sun; Misam, al Dabarân or the bull's eye; Lakhm and Jodâm, al Moshtari or Jupiter; Tay, Sohail or Canopus; Kais, Sirius or the dog-star; and Asad, Otâred or Mercury. Among the worshippers of Sirius, one Abu Cabsha was very famous; some will have him to be the same with Waheb, Mohammed's grandfather by the mother, but others say he was of the tribe of Khozâah. This man used his utmost endeavours to persuade the Koreish to leave their images and worship this star; for which reason Mohammed, who endeavoured also to make them leave their images, was Al Shahrestani. Poc. Spec. p. 163. Nodhm al dorr. Al Beidâwi. • Vide Post. Vide Shahrestani. "Al Jannabi. * Shahrestan!. • This name seems to be corrupted, there being no such among the Arab tribes. Poc. Spez. p. 130 'Abulfarag, p. 160. |