THE SWORD
SWORD OF ISLAM

CHAPTER I

HISTORY OF ARABIA PRIOR TO THE TIME OF
MUHAMMAD. B.C. 2000-A.D. 570

BETWEEN the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf lies a triangular continent, arid and well-nigh waterless, save where the fertility of an occasional flood lends to the scene the freshness and charm of an oasis in the desert. Wild, desolate, bleak, dreary, and monotonous, the sandy region of Arabia presents but few features to command interest; yet this land, so unattractive in its nature, so uninteresting in its aspect, has played an all-important part in the history of the world, for it can claim high honour and distinction as the birthplace of the Prophet of Islam

a genius who, whatever may be the verdict of posterity in regard to his "mission," has had a more potent influence on the destinies of mankind than has been vouchsafed to any son of Adam, who has left footprints on the sands of time.

The peninsula was divided by the Greeks and

Α

Romans into three portions-Arabia Felix, Arabia Petræa, and Arabia Deserta; but, according to Mr Badger, "this nomenclature is unknown to the Arabs themselves 'Barru'l-Arab,' or 'the Land of the Arabs,' is the name given by them to the peninsula generally. The other divisions are the Al-Hijaz,' which comprises Arabia Petræa and several of its adjacent territories; 'Al-Yaman,' including Arabia Felix, and the country forming the south-west extremity of the kingdom; and 'Najd' (literally high land), which may be termed Central Arabia.

"The first peopling of Arabia," says Sir William Muir, "is a subject on which we may in vain look for any light from the tradition of Arabia itself." There are, however, grounds for supposing that some descendants of Kush, the son of Ham, migrated to that country, where they ultimately became merged into the general mass of the community. These were followed by the offspring of Joktan, a descendant of Shem, a people who settled in the north of the land, while the kindred of Peleg, the brother of the lastnamed, established their tents in Mesopotamia. This latter individual was the ancestor of Abraham and Nahor his brother, from which two patriarchs descended five great branches of settlers: (1) The Ishmaelites, who inhabited the land from the northern extremity of the Red Sea, towards the mouth of the Euphrates. Amongst their branches were the wellknown Nabathians-destined in after years to occupy a commanding position in Northern Arabia and the Kedarenes, whose history was so famous in the annals of Arabia that the term eventually came to be

applied by the Jews to the Bedouins in general. (2) The Keturahites, who are known to posterity as settlers in the great desert in the north of Arabia. They derive their name from Ketura, who bore to Abraham six sons, all of whom migrated during the lifetime of their father. The tribe included, too, the familiar name of the Midianites, the offspring of the fourth of these last-mentioned sons. (3) The Edomites, as their name implies, the descendants of Esau. (4) The Nahorites, so called because their founders, Uz and Buz, were sons of Nahor, the brother of Abraham. (5) The Moabites and Ammonites, descended from the sons of Lot, Abraham's brother's son. These last-mentioned tribes extended still further north in the region of the Dead Sea.

For twenty centuries these peoples and nations “lived, moved, and had their being"; yet but little is recorded as to their history.

"Our knowledge of the race" (the quotation is again from Sir W. Muir's masterly Essay), "is confined to the casual accounts of the few border tribes which came in contact with the Jewish and Roman Governments, and to an occasional glimpse, as in the case of the Queen of Sheba and the Roman expedition, into the interior. We may not, however, doubt that, during the five-andtwenty centuries which elapsed between Abraham and Muhammad, the mutual relations of the Arab tribes were undergoing an uninterrupted succession of the revolutions and changes to which human society, especially when broken up into numerous independent fragments, is always exposed. Some of the tribes, like the Horims of old, were extirpated; others, as the Amalekites of Petra, driven from their original seats; some migrated to distant settlements, or merged into more extensive and commanding bodies; while intermarriage, conquest, and phylarchical revolution united races of different origin, and severed those sprung from a common stock. But of such changes, excepting in one or two of the border tribes, we have hardly any record."