Chapter L: Description Of Arabia And Its Inhabitants.—Part I

Description Of Arabia And Its Inhabitants.—Birth, Character, And
Doctrine Of Mahomet.—He Preaches At Mecca.— Flies To
Medina.—Propagates His Religion By The Sword.— Voluntary Or
Reluctant Submission Of The Arabs.—His Death And Successors.—The
Claims And Fortunes Of Ali And His Descendants.

After pursuing above six hundred years the fleeting Caesars of
Constantinople and Germany, I now descend, in the reign of
Heraclius, on the eastern borders of the Greek monarchy. While
the state was exhausted by the Persian war, and the church was
distracted by the Nestorian and Monophysite sects, Mahomet, with
the sword in one hand and the Koran in the other, erected his
throne on the ruins of Christianity and of Rome. The genius of
the Arabian prophet, the manners of his nation, and the spirit of
his religion, involve the causes of the decline and fall of the
Eastern empire; and our eyes are curiously intent on one of the
most memorable revolutions, which have impressed a new and
lasting character on the nations of the globe. 1

1 (return) [ As in this and the following chapter I shall display
much Arabic learning, I must profess my total ignorance of the
Oriental tongues, and my gratitude to the learned interpreters,
who have transfused their science into the Latin, French, and
English languages. Their collections, versions, and histories, I
shall occasionally notice.]

In the vacant space between Persia, Syria, Egypt, and Aethiopia,
the Arabian peninsula 2 may be conceived as a triangle of
spacious but irregular dimensions. From the northern point of
Beles 3 on the Euphrates, a line of fifteen hundred miles is
terminated by the Straits of Bebelmandel and the land of
frankincense. About half this length may be allowed for the
middle breadth, from east to west, from Bassora to Suez, from the
Persian Gulf to the Red Sea. 4 The sides of the triangle are
gradually enlarged, and the southern basis presents a front of a
thousand miles to the Indian Ocean. The entire surface of the
peninsula exceeds in a fourfold proportion that of Germany or
France; but the far greater part has been justly stigmatized with
the epithets of the stony and the sandy. Even the wilds of
Tartary are decked, by the hand of nature, with lofty trees and
luxuriant herbage; and the lonesome traveller derives a sort of
comfort and society from the presence of vegetable life. But in
the dreary waste of Arabia, a boundless level of sand is
intersected by sharp and naked mountains; and the face of the
desert, without shade or shelter, is scorched by the direct and
intense rays of a tropical sun. Instead of refreshing breezes,
the winds, particularly from the south-west, diffuse a noxious
and even deadly vapor; the hillocks of sand which they
alternately raise and scatter, are compared to the billows of the
ocean, and whole caravans, whole armies, have been lost and
buried in the whirlwind. The common benefits of water are an
object of desire and contest; and such is the scarcity of wood,
that some art is requisite to preserve and propagate the element
of fire. Arabia is destitute of navigable rivers, which fertilize
the soil, and convey its produce to the adjacent regions: the
torrents that fall from the hills are imbibed by the thirsty
earth: the rare and hardy plants, the tamarind or the acacia,
that strike their roots into the clefts of the rocks, are
nourished by the dews of the night: a scanty supply of rain is
collected in cisterns and aqueducts: the wells and springs are
the secret treasure of the desert; and the pilgrim of Mecca, 5
after many a dry and sultry march, is disgusted by the taste of
the waters which have rolled over a bed of sulphur or salt. Such
is the general and genuine picture of the climate of Arabia. The
experience of evil enhances the value of any local or partial
enjoyments. A shady grove, a green pasture, a stream of fresh
water, are sufficient to attract a colony of sedentary Arabs to
the fortunate spots which can afford food and refreshment to
themselves and their cattle, and which encourage their industry
in the cultivation of the palmtree and the vine. The high lands
that border on the Indian Ocean are distinguished by their
superior plenty of wood and water; the air is more temperate, the
fruits are more delicious, the animals and the human race more
numerous: the fertility of the soil invites and rewards the toil
of the husbandman; and the peculiar gifts of frankincense 6 and
coffee have attracted in different ages the merchants of the
world. If it be compared with the rest of the peninsula, this
sequestered region may truly deserve the appellation of the
happy; and the splendid coloring of fancy and fiction has been
suggested by contrast, and countenanced by distance. It was for
this earthly paradise that Nature had reserved her choicest
favors and her most curious workmanship: the incompatible
blessings of luxury and innocence were ascribed to the natives:
the soil was impregnated with gold 7 and gems, and both the land
and sea were taught to exhale the odors of aromatic sweets. This
division of the sandy, the stony, and the happy, so familiar to
the Greeks and Latins, is unknown to the Arabians themselves; and
it is singular enough, that a country, whose language and
inhabitants have ever been the same, should scarcely retain a
vestige of its ancient geography. The maritime districts of
Bahrein and Oman are opposite to the realm of Persia. The kingdom
of Yemen displays the limits, or at least the situation, of
Arabia Felix: the name of Neged is extended over the inland
space; and the birth of Mahomet has illustrated the province of
Hejaz along the coast of the Red Sea. 8

2 (return) [ The geographers of Arabia may be divided into three
classes: 1. The Greeks and Latins, whose progressive knowledge
may be traced in Agatharcides, (de Mari Rubro, in Hudson,
Geograph. Minor. tom. i.,) Diodorus Siculus, (tom. i. l. ii. p.
159-167, l. iii. p. 211-216, edit. Wesseling,) Strabo, (l. xvi.
p. 1112-1114, from Eratosthenes, p. 1122-1132, from Artemidorus,)
Dionysius, (Periegesis, 927-969,) Pliny, (Hist. Natur. v. 12, vi.
32,) and Ptolemy, (Descript. et Tabulae Urbium, in Hudson, tom.
iii.) 2. The Arabic writers, who have treated the subject with
the zeal of patriotism or devotion: the extracts of Pocock
(Specimen Hist. Arabum, p. 125-128) from the Geography of the
Sherif al Edrissi, render us still more dissatisfied with the
version or abridgment (p. 24-27, 44-56, 108, &c., 119, &c.) which
the Maronites have published under the absurd title of Geographia
Nubiensis, (Paris, 1619;) but the Latin and French translators,
Greaves (in Hudson, tom. iii.) and Galland, (Voyage de la
Palestine par La Roque, p. 265-346,) have opened to us the Arabia
of Abulfeda, the most copious and correct account of the
peninsula, which may be enriched, however, from the Bibliotheque
Orientale of D’Herbelot, p. 120, et alibi passim. 3. The European
travellers; among whom Shaw (p. 438-455) and Niebuhr
(Description, 1773; Voyages, tom. i. 1776) deserve an honorable
distinction: Busching (Geographie par Berenger, tom. viii. p.
416-510) has compiled with judgment, and D’Anville’s Maps (Orbis
Veteribus Notus, and 1re Partie de l’Asie) should lie before the
reader, with his Geographie Ancienne, tom. ii. p. 208-231. *
Note: Of modern travellers may be mentioned the adventurer who
called himself Ali Bey; but above all, the intelligent, the
enterprising the accurate Burckhardt.—M.]

3 (return) [ Abulfed. Descript. Arabiae, p. 1. D’Anville,
l’Euphrate et le Tigre, p. 19, 20. It was in this place, the
paradise or garden of a satrap, that Xenophon and the Greeks
first passed the Euphrates, (Anabasis, l. i. c. 10, p. 29, edit.
Wells.)]

4 (return) [ Reland has proved, with much superfluous learning,

1. That our Red Sea (the Arabian Gulf) is no more than a part of
the Mare Rubrum, which was extended to the indefinite space of
the Indian Ocean.

2. That the synonymous words, allude to the color of the blacks
or negroes, (Dissert Miscell. tom. i. p. 59-117.)]

5 (return) [ In the thirty days, or stations, between Cairo and
Mecca, there are fifteen destitute of good water. See the route
of the Hadjees, in Shaw’s Travels, p. 477.]

6 (return) [ The aromatics, especially the thus, or frankincense,
of Arabia, occupy the xiith book of Pliny. Our great poet
(Paradise Lost, l. iv.) introduces, in a simile, the spicy odors
that are blown by the north-east wind from the Sabaean
coast:——Many a league, Pleased with the grateful scent, old Ocean
smiles. (Plin. Hist. Natur. xii. 42.)]

7 (return) [ Agatharcides affirms, that lumps of pure gold were
found, from the size of an olive to that of a nut; that iron was
twice, and silver ten times, the value of gold, (de Mari Rubro,
p. 60.) These real or imaginary treasures are vanished; and no
gold mines are at present known in Arabia, (Niebuhr, Description,
p. 124.) * Note: A brilliant passage in the geographical poem of
Dionysius Periegetes embodies the notions of the ancients on the
wealth and fertility of Yemen. Greek mythology, and the
traditions of the “gorgeous east,” of India as well as Arabia,
are mingled together in indiscriminate splendor. Compare on the
southern coast of Arabia, the recent travels of Lieut.
Wellsted—M.]

8 (return) [ Consult, peruse, and study the Specimen Hostoriae
Arabum of Pocock, (Oxon. 1650, in 4to.) The thirty pages of text
and version are extracted from the Dynasties of Gregory
Abulpharagius, which Pocock afterwards translated, (Oxon. 1663,
in 4to.;) the three hundred and fifty-eight notes form a classic
and original work on the Arabian antiquities.]

The measure of population is regulated by the means of
subsistence; and the inhabitants of this vast peninsula might be
outnumbered by the subjects of a fertile and industrious
province. Along the shores of the Persian Gulf, of the ocean, and
even of the Red Sea, the Icthyophagi, 9 or fish eaters, continued
to wander in quest of their precarious food. In this primitive
and abject state, which ill deserves the name of society, the
human brute, without arts or laws, almost without sense or
language, is poorly distinguished from the rest of the animal
creation. Generations and ages might roll away in silent
oblivion, and the helpless savage was restrained from multiplying
his race by the wants and pursuits which confined his existence
to the narrow margin of the seacoast. But in an early period of
antiquity the great body of the Arabs had emerged from this scene
of misery; and as the naked wilderness could not maintain a
people of hunters, they rose at once to the more secure and
plentiful condition of the pastoral life. The same life is
uniformly pursued by the roving tribes of the desert; and in the
portrait of the modern Bedoweens, we may trace the features of
their ancestors, 10 who, in the age of Moses or Mahomet, dwelt
under similar tents, and conducted their horses, and camels, and
sheep, to the same springs and the same pastures. Our toil is
lessened, and our wealth is increased, by our dominion over the
useful animals; and the Arabian shepherd had acquired the
absolute possession of a faithful friend and a laborious slave.
11 Arabia, in the opinion of the naturalist, is the genuine and
original country of the horse; the climate most propitious, not
indeed to the size, but to the spirit and swiftness, of that
generous animal. The merit of the Barb, the Spanish, and the
English breed, is derived from a mixture of Arabian blood: 12 the
Bedoweens preserve, with superstitious care, the honors and the
memory of the purest race: the males are sold at a high price,
but the females are seldom alienated; and the birth of a noble
foal was esteemed among the tribes, as a subject of joy and
mutual congratulation. These horses are educated in the tents,
among the children of the Arabs, with a tender familiarity, which
trains them in the habits of gentleness and attachment. They are
accustomed only to walk and to gallop: their sensations are not
blunted by the incessant abuse of the spur and the whip: their
powers are reserved for the moments of flight and pursuit: but no
sooner do they feel the touch of the hand or the stirrup, than
they dart away with the swiftness of the wind; and if their
friend be dismounted in the rapid career, they instantly stop
till he has recovered his seat. In the sands of Africa and
Arabia, the camel is a sacred and precious gift. That strong and
patient beast of burden can perform, without eating or drinking,
a journey of several days; and a reservoir of fresh water is
preserved in a large bag, a fifth stomach of the animal, whose
body is imprinted with the marks of servitude: the larger breed
is capable of transporting a weight of a thousand pounds; and the
dromedary, of a lighter and more active frame, outstrips the
fleetest courser in the race. Alive or dead, almost every part of
the camel is serviceable to man: her milk is plentiful and
nutritious: the young and tender flesh has the taste of veal: 13
a valuable salt is extracted from the urine: the dung supplies
the deficiency of fuel; and the long hair, which falls each year
and is renewed, is coarsely manufactured into the garments, the
furniture, and the tents of the Bedoweens. In the rainy seasons,
they consume the rare and insufficient herbage of the desert:
during the heats of summer and the scarcity of winter, they
remove their encampments to the sea-coast, the hills of Yemen, or
the neighborhood of the Euphrates, and have often extorted the
dangerous license of visiting the banks of the Nile, and the
villages of Syria and Palestine. The life of a wandering Arab is
a life of danger and distress; and though sometimes, by rapine or
exchange, he may appropriate the fruits of industry, a private
citizen in Europe is in the possession of more solid and pleasing
luxury than the proudest emir, who marches in the field at the
head of ten thousand horse.

9 (return) [ Arrian remarks the Icthyophagi of the coast of
Hejez, (Periplus Maris Erythraei, p. 12,) and beyond Aden, (p.
15.) It seems probable that the shores of the Red Sea (in the
largest sense) were occupied by these savages in the time,
perhaps, of Cyrus; but I can hardly believe that any cannibals
were left among the savages in the reign of Justinian. (Procop.
de Bell. Persic. l. i. c. 19.)]

10 (return) [ See the Specimen Historiae Arabum of Pocock, p. 2,
5, 86, &c. The journey of M. d’Arvieux, in 1664, to the camp of
the emir of Mount Carmel, (Voyage de la Palestine, Amsterdam,
1718,) exhibits a pleasing and original picture of the life of
the Bedoweens, which may be illustrated from Niebuhr (Description
de l’Arabie, p. 327-344) and Volney, (tom. i. p. 343-385,) the
last and most judicious of our Syrian travellers.]

11 (return) [ Read (it is no unpleasing task) the incomparable
articles of the Horse and the Camel, in the Natural History of M.
de Buffon.]

12 (return) [ For the Arabian horses, see D’Arvieux (p. 159-173)
and Niebuhr, (p. 142-144.) At the end of the xiiith century, the
horses of Neged were esteemed sure-footed, those of Yemen strong
and serviceable, those of Hejaz most noble. The horses of Europe,
the tenth and last class, were generally despised as having too
much body and too little spirit, (D’Herbelot, Bibliot. Orient. p.
339: ) their strength was requisite to bear the weight of the
knight and his armor]

13 (return) [ Qui carnibus camelorum vesci solent odii tenaces
sunt, was the opinion of an Arabian physician, (Pocock, Specimen,
p. 88.) Mahomet himself, who was fond of milk, prefers the cow,
and does not even mention the camel; but the diet of Mecca and
Medina was already more luxurious, (Gagnier Vie de Mahomet, tom.
iii. p. 404.)]

Yet an essential difference may be found between the hordes of
Scythia and the Arabian tribes; since many of the latter were
collected into towns, and employed in the labors of trade and
agriculture. A part of their time and industry was still devoted
to the management of their cattle: they mingled, in peace and
war, with their brethren of the desert; and the Bedoweens derived
from their useful intercourse some supply of their wants, and
some rudiments of art and knowledge. Among the forty-two cities
of Arabia, 14 enumerated by Abulfeda, the most ancient and
populous were situate in the happy Yemen: the towers of Saana, 15
and the marvellous reservoir of Merab, 16 were constructed by the
kings of the Homerites; but their profane lustre was eclipsed by
the prophetic glories of Medina 17 and Mecca, 18 near the Red
Sea, and at the distance from each other of two hundred and
seventy miles. The last of these holy places was known to the
Greeks under the name of Macoraba; and the termination of the
word is expressive of its greatness, which has not, indeed, in
the most flourishing period, exceeded the size and populousness
of Marseilles. Some latent motive, perhaps of superstition, must
have impelled the founders, in the choice of a most unpromising
situation. They erected their habitations of mud or stone, in a
plain about two miles long and one mile broad, at the foot of
three barren mountains: the soil is a rock; the water even of the
holy well of Zemzem is bitter or brackish; the pastures are
remote from the city; and grapes are transported above seventy
miles from the gardens of Tayef. The fame and spirit of the
Koreishites, who reigned in Mecca, were conspicuous among the
Arabian tribes; but their ungrateful soil refused the labors of
agriculture, and their position was favorable to the enterprises
of trade. By the seaport of Gedda, at the distance only of forty
miles, they maintained an easy correspondence with Abyssinia; and
that Christian kingdom afforded the first refuge to the disciples
of Mahomet. The treasures of Africa were conveyed over the
Peninsula to Gerrha or Katif, in the province of Bahrein, a city
built, as it is said, of rock-salt, by the Chaldaean exiles; 19
and from thence with the native pearls of the Persian Gulf, they
were floated on rafts to the mouth of the Euphrates. Mecca is
placed almost at an equal distance, a month’s journey, between
Yemen on the right, and Syria on the left hand. The former was
the winter, the latter the summer, station of her caravans; and
their seasonable arrival relieved the ships of India from the
tedious and troublesome navigation of the Red Sea. In the markets
of Saana and Merab, in the harbors of Oman and Aden, the camels
of the Koreishites were laden with a precious cargo of aromatics;
a supply of corn and manufactures was purchased in the fairs of
Bostra and Damascus; the lucrative exchange diffused plenty and
riches in the streets of Mecca; and the noblest of her sons
united the love of arms with the profession of merchandise. 20

14 (return) [ Yet Marcian of Heraclea (in Periplo, p. 16, in tom.
i. Hudson, Minor. Geograph.) reckons one hundred and sixty-four
towns in Arabia Felix. The size of the towns might be small—the
faith of the writer might be large.]

15 (return) [ It is compared by Abulfeda (in Hudson, tom. ii. p.
54) to Damascus, and is still the residence of the Imam of Yemen,
(Voyages de Niebuhr, tom. i. p. 331-342.) Saana is twenty-four
parasangs from Dafar, (Abulfeda, p. 51,) and sixty-eight from
Aden, (p. 53.)]

16 (return) [ Pocock, Specimen, p. 57. Geograph. Nubiensis, p.
52. Meriaba, or Merab, six miles in circumference, was destroyed
by the legions of Augustus, (Plin. Hist. Nat. vi. 32,) and had
not revived in the xivth century, (Abulfed. Descript. Arab. p.
58.) * Note: See note 2 to chap. i. The destruction of Meriaba by
the Romans is doubtful. The town never recovered the inundation
which took place from the bursting of a large reservoir of
water—an event of great importance in the Arabian annals, and
discussed at considerable length by modern Orientalists.—M.]

17 (return) [ The name of city, Medina, was appropriated, to
Yatreb. (the Iatrippa of the Greeks,) the seat of the prophet.
The distances from Medina are reckoned by Abulfeda in stations,
or days’ journey of a caravan, (p. 15: ) to Bahrein, xv.; to
Bassora, xviii.; to Cufah, xx.; to Damascus or Palestine, xx.; to
Cairo, xxv.; to Mecca. x.; from Mecca to Saana, (p. 52,) or Aden,
xxx.; to Cairo, xxxi. days, or 412 hours, (Shaw’s Travels, p.
477;) which, according to the estimate of D’Anville, (Mesures
Itineraires, p. 99,) allows about twenty-five English miles for a
day’s journey. From the land of frankincense (Hadramaut, in
Yemen, between Aden and Cape Fartasch) to Gaza in Syria, Pliny
(Hist. Nat. xii. 32) computes lxv. mansions of camels. These
measures may assist fancy and elucidate facts.]

18 (return) [ Our notions of Mecca must be drawn from the
Arabians, (D’Herbelot, Bibliotheque Orientale, p. 368-371.
Pocock, Specimen, p. 125-128. Abulfeda, p. 11-40.) As no
unbeliever is permitted to enter the city, our travellers are
silent; and the short hints of Thevenot (Voyages du Levant, part
i. p. 490) are taken from the suspicious mouth of an African
renegado. Some Persians counted 6000 houses, (Chardin. tom. iv.
p. 167.) * Note: Even in the time of Gibbon, Mecca had not been
so inaccessible to Europeans. It had been visited by Ludovico
Barthema, and by one Joseph Pitts, of Exeter, who was taken
prisoner by the Moors, and forcibly converted to Mahometanism.
His volume is a curious, though plain, account of his sufferings
and travels. Since that time Mecca has been entered, and the
ceremonies witnessed, by Dr. Seetzen, whose papers were
unfortunately lost; by the Spaniard, who called himself Ali Bey;
and, lastly, by Burckhardt, whose description leaves nothing
wanting to satisfy the curiosity.—M.]

19 (return) [ Strabo, l. xvi. p. 1110. See one of these salt
houses near Bassora, in D’Herbelot, Bibliot. Orient. p. 6.]

20 (return) [ Mirum dictu ex innumeris populis pars aequa in
commerciis aut in latrociniis degit, (Plin. Hist. Nat. vi. 32.)
See Sale’s Koran, Sura. cvi. p. 503. Pocock, Specimen, p. 2.
D’Herbelot, Bibliot. Orient. p. 361. Prideaux’s Life of Mahomet,
p. 5. Gagnier, Vie de Mahomet, tom. i. p. 72, 120, 126, &c.]

The perpetual independence of the Arabs has been the theme of
praise among strangers and natives; and the arts of controversy
transform this singular event into a prophecy and a miracle, in
favor of the posterity of Ismael. 21 Some exceptions, that can
neither be dismissed nor eluded, render this mode of reasoning as
indiscreet as it is superfluous; the kingdom of Yemen has been
successively subdued by the Abyssinians, the Persians, the
sultans of Egypt, 22 and the Turks; 23 the holy cities of Mecca
and Medina have repeatedly bowed under a Scythian tyrant; and the
Roman province of Arabia 24 embraced the peculiar wilderness in
which Ismael and his sons must have pitched their tents in the
face of their brethren. Yet these exceptions are temporary or
local; the body of the nation has escaped the yoke of the most
powerful monarchies: the arms of Sesostris and Cyrus, of Pompey
and Trajan, could never achieve the conquest of Arabia; the
present sovereign of the Turks 25 may exercise a shadow of
jurisdiction, but his pride is reduced to solicit the friendship
of a people, whom it is dangerous to provoke, and fruitless to
attack. The obvious causes of their freedom are inscribed on the
character and country of the Arabs. Many ages before Mahomet, 26
their intrepid valor had been severely felt by their neighbors in
offensive and defensive war. The patient and active virtues of a
soldier are insensibly nursed in the habits and discipline of a
pastoral life. The care of the sheep and camels is abandoned to
the women of the tribe; but the martial youth, under the banner
of the emir, is ever on horseback, and in the field, to practise
the exercise of the bow, the javelin, and the cimeter. The long
memory of their independence is the firmest pledge of its
perpetuity and succeeding generations are animated to prove their
descent, and to maintain their inheritance. Their domestic feuds
are suspended on the approach of a common enemy; and in their
last hostilities against the Turks, the caravan of Mecca was
attacked and pillaged by fourscore thousand of the confederates.
When they advance to battle, the hope of victory is in the front;
in the rear, the assurance of a retreat. Their horses and camels,
who, in eight or ten days, can perform a march of four or five
hundred miles, disappear before the conqueror; the secret waters
of the desert elude his search, and his victorious troops are
consumed with thirst, hunger, and fatigue, in the pursuit of an
invisible foe, who scorns his efforts, and safely reposes in the
heart of the burning solitude. The arms and deserts of the
Bedoweens are not only the safeguards of their own freedom, but
the barriers also of the happy Arabia, whose inhabitants, remote
from war, are enervated by the luxury of the soil and climate.
The legions of Augustus melted away in disease and lassitude; 27
and it is only by a naval power that the reduction of Yemen has
been successfully attempted. When Mahomet erected his holy
standard, 28 that kingdom was a province of the Persian empire;
yet seven princes of the Homerites still reigned in the
mountains; and the vicegerent of Chosroes was tempted to forget
his distant country and his unfortunate master. The historians of
the age of Justinian represent the state of the independent
Arabs, who were divided by interest or affection in the long
quarrel of the East: the tribe of Gassan was allowed to encamp on
the Syrian territory: the princes of Hira were permitted to form
a city about forty miles to the southward of the ruins of
Babylon. Their service in the field was speedy and vigorous; but
their friendship was venal, their faith inconstant, their enmity
capricious: it was an easier task to excite than to disarm these
roving barbarians; and, in the familiar intercourse of war, they
learned to see, and to despise, the splendid weakness both of
Rome and of Persia. From Mecca to the Euphrates, the Arabian
tribes 29 were confounded by the Greeks and Latins, under the
general appellation of Saracens, 30 a name which every Christian
mouth has been taught to pronounce with terror and abhorrence.

21 (return) [ A nameless doctor (Universal Hist. vol. xx. octavo
edition) has formally demonstrated the truth of Christianity by
the independence of the Arabs. A critic, besides the exceptions
of fact, might dispute the meaning of the text (Gen. xvi. 12,)
the extent of the application, and the foundation of the
pedigree. * Note: See note 3 to chap. xlvi. The atter point is
probably the least contestable of the three.—M.]

22 (return) [ It was subdued, A.D. 1173, by a brother of the
great Saladin, who founded a dynasty of Curds or Ayoubites,
(Guignes, Hist. des Huns, tom. i. p. 425. D’Herbelot, p. 477.)]

23 (return) [ By the lieutenant of Soliman I. (A.D. 1538) and
Selim II., (1568.) See Cantemir’s Hist. of the Othman Empire, p.
201, 221. The pacha, who resided at Saana, commanded twenty-one
beys; but no revenue was ever remitted to the Porte, (Marsigli,
Stato Militare dell’ Imperio Ottomanno, p. 124,) and the Turks
were expelled about the year 1630, (Niebuhr, p. 167, 168.)]

24 (return) [ Of the Roman province, under the name of Arabia and
the third Palestine, the principal cities were Bostra and Petra,
which dated their aera from the year 105, when they were subdued
by Palma, a lieutenant of Trajan, (Dion. Cassius, l. lxviii.)
Petra was the capital of the Nabathaeans; whose name is derived
from the eldest of the sons of Ismael, (Gen. xxv. 12, &c., with
the Commentaries of Jerom, Le Clerc, and Calmet.) Justinian
relinquished a palm country of ten days’ journey to the south of
Aelah, (Procop. de Bell. Persic. l. i. c. 19,) and the Romans
maintained a centurion and a custom-house, (Arrian in Periplo
Maris Erythraei, p. 11, in Hudson, tom. i.,) at a place (Pagus
Albus, Hawara) in the territory of Medina, (D’Anville, Memoire
sur l’Egypte, p. 243.) These real possessions, and some naval
inroads of Trajan, (Peripl. p. 14, 15,) are magnified by history
and medals into the Roman conquest of Arabia. * Note: On the
ruins of Petra, see the travels of Messrs. Irby and Mangles, and
of Leon de Laborde.—M.]

25 (return) [ Niebuhr (Description de l’Arabie, p. 302, 303,
329-331) affords the most recent and authentic intelligence of
the Turkish empire in Arabia. * Note: Niebuhr’s, notwithstanding
the multitude of later travellers, maintains its ground, as the
classical work on Arabia.—M.]

26 (return) [ Diodorus Siculus (tom. ii. l. xix. p. 390-393,
edit. Wesseling) has clearly exposed the freedom of the
Nabathaean Arabs, who resisted the arms of Antigonus and his
son.]

27 (return) [ Strabo, l. xvi. p. 1127-1129. Plin. Hist. Natur.
vi. 32. Aelius Gallus landed near Medina, and marched near a
thousand miles into the part of Yemen between Mareb and the
Ocean. The non ante devictis Sabeae regibus, (Od. i. 29,) and the
intacti Arabum thesanri (Od. iii. 24) of Horace, attest the
virgin purity of Arabia.]

28 (return) [ See the imperfect history of Yemen in Pocock,
Specimen, p. 55-66, of Hira, p. 66-74, of Gassan, p. 75-78, as
far as it could be known or preserved in the time of ignorance. *
Note: Compare the Hist. Yemanae, published by Johannsen at Bonn
1880 particularly the translator’s preface.—M.]

29 (return) [ They are described by Menander, (Excerpt. Legation
p. 149,) Procopius, (de Bell. Persic. l. i. c. 17, 19, l. ii. c.
10,) and, in the most lively colors, by Ammianus Marcellinus, (l.
xiv. c. 4,) who had spoken of them as early as the reign of
Marcus.]

30 (return) [ The name which, used by Ptolemy and Pliny in a more
confined, by Ammianus and Procopius in a larger, sense, has been
derived, ridiculously, from Sarah, the wife of Abraham, obscurely
from the village of Saraka, (Stephan. de Urbibus,) more plausibly
from the Arabic words, which signify a thievish character, or
Oriental situation, (Hottinger, Hist. Oriental. l. i. c. i. p. 7,
8. Pocock, Specimen, p. 33, 35. Asseman. Bibliot. Orient. tom.
iv. p. 567.) Yet the last and most popular of these etymologies
is refuted by Ptolemy, (Arabia, p. 2, 18, in Hudson, tom. iv.,)
who expressly remarks the western and southern position of the
Saracens, then an obscure tribe on the borders of Egypt. The
appellation cannot therefore allude to any national character;
and, since it was imposed by strangers, it must be found, not in
the Arabic, but in a foreign language. * Note: Dr. Clarke,
(Travels, vol. ii. p. 491,) after expressing contemptuous pity
for Gibbon’s ignorance, derives the word from Zara, Zaara, Sara,
the Desert, whence Saraceni, the children of the Desert. De
Marles adopts the derivation from Sarrik, a robber, (Hist. des
Arabes, vol. i. p. 36, S.L. Martin from Scharkioun, or Sharkun,
Eastern, vol. xi. p. 55.)—M.]