ABSTRACT
The home of the Arabs is the peninsula of Arabia, which is about 1,450 miles long and 700 wide; the greater part of the country is desert and mountain, and only in the south-west portion of it are perennial streams found. The Arabs are Semites, and the modern descendants of them trace their origin to the Hebrews through 10.hlan, who is identified with J oktan, the son of Eber, and to Adn2.n, the direct descendant of Ishmael, the son of Abraham and Hagar. The kingdoms of Yaman and Hijaz were founded by Yarab and Yorhol11, sons of Kahtan. The provinces of Saba and Hadhramaut were ruled by princes of the tribe of Himyar, whose kingdoms lasted two or three thousand years. In the third century before Christ a terrible calamity befell the Arabs, for the great dam which Saba, the builder of Saba and Mareb, built to hold up the rain water and mountain springs, suddenly burst, and the widespread ruin brought by the flood which was thus let loose on the plains caused eight great Arab tribes to leave their country. The water is said to have been held up to a height of about 180 feet, and the people felt so sure of the security of the dam that they built their houses upon it. In the second century after Christ the Arabs migrated northwards and established petty kingdoms at Palmyra* and al-I;Iira, t and came at times into conflict with the Roman authorities ill Syria and with the Persian powers in Eastern Mesopotamia. The Arabs of Palmyra embraced Christianity in the time of Constantine, but those of al-Hira did not accept it until after A.D. 550 ; the Arabs of the desert, however, continued to be for the
most part idolaters. The rule of the Himyal' princes came to an end in the first half of the VIth century of our era, when the king of Ethiopia overthrew a base usurper called Dhu-Nuwas, who inflicted tortures of the worst description on the Christians, and who is said to have destroyed 20,000 of them; the Ethiopian rule was of short duration, for before the end of the century the Persians were masters of the country. Strictly speaking, the Arabs, as a nation, have never been conquered, and no ruler has ever been able to make his authority effective in all parts of their dominions. In pre-Mul;1anunadan times, which the Arabs call "]ahiliyah," .i1al.>=, i.e, the "epoch of ignorance,"
their religion was the grossest idolatry, and the dominant phase of it was the religion of Sabaism. They believed in One God, but worshipped the stars, planets, and angels. They prayed three times a day, and fasted three times a year, they offered up sacrifices, they went on a pilgrimage to a place near Harran, and they held in great honour the temple at Mecca, and the Pyramids of Egypt, believing these last to be the tombs of Seth and of his sons Enoch and Sabi. Three great powers worshipped by the whole nation were Lat, AI-Uzza, and Manat; the ~ur'an (Koran) mentions five very ancient idols, viz., Wadd, Sawa'a, YaghUth, Ya'(\~, and Nasra. The first of these had the form of a man, the second that of a woman, the third that of a lion, the fourth that of a horse, and the fifth that of an eagle. Sabaism taught that the souls of the wicked will be punished for 9,000 ages, but that after that period they will obtain mercy. Many Arabs, however, believed neither in the creation nor in the resurrection, and attributed all things to the operations of nature. Magianism, of Persian origin, found many followers in Arabia, but Judaism and Christianity exerted a profound influence upon the religion of the Arabs. The Arabs prided themselves upon their skill in oratory and in making poetry, and in the arts ot
war, and they made a boast of their hospitality; but they always had the character of being fierce, cruel, and vindictive, generous to friends, but implacable to foes, and addicted to robbery and rapine.
