Literary History Of The Arabs

Reynold A. Nicholson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9780700702619
• eBook ISBN: 9781135798710
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Regional Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

First published in 2004. This is an edited version of 'A Literary History of the Arabs', published in 1907 by the author to include more useful information and accuracies and is meant for students of Arabic

Chapter I
Saba and Ḥimyar

WITH the Sabæans Arabian history in the proper sense may be said to begin, but as a preliminary step we must take account of certain races which figure more or less prominently in legend, and are considered by Moslem chroniclers to have been the original inhabitants of the country. Among these are the peoples of 'Ád and Thamúd, which are constantly held up in the Koran as terrible examples of the pride that goeth before destruction. The home of the 'Ádites was in Ḥaḍramawt, the province adjoining Yemen, on the borders of the desert named Aḥqáfu 'l-Raml. It is doubtful whether they were Semites, possibly of Aramaic descent, who were subdued and exterminated by invaders from the north, or, as Hommel maintains,¹ the representatives of an imposing non - Semitic culture which survives in the tradition of ' Many-columned Iram,' ² the Earthly Paradise built by Shaddád, one of their Icings. The story of their destruction is related as follows:³ They were a people of gigantic strength and stature, worshipping idols and committing all

Primitive races.

Legend of 'Ad.

manner of wrong; and when God sent to them a prophet, Húd by name, who should warn them to repent, they answered: " O Húd, thou hast brought us no evidence, and we will not abandon our gods for thy saying, nor will we believe in thee. We say one of our gods hath afflicted thee with madness." ¹ Then a fearful drought fell upon the land of 'Ád, so that they sent a number of their chief men to Mecca to pray for rain. On arriving at Mecca the envoys were hospitably received by the Amalekite prince, Mu'áwiya b. Bakr, who entertained them with wine and music—for he had two famous singing-girls known as al-Jarádatán; which induced them to neglect their mission for the space of a whole month. At last, however, they got to business, and their spokesman had scarce finished his prayer when three clouds appeared, of different colours—white, red, and black—and a voice cried from heaven, " Choose for thyself and for thy people! " He chose the black cloud, deeming that it had the greatest store of rain, whereupon the voice chanted—

" Thou hast chosen embers dun | that will spare of 'Ád not one | that will leave nor father nor son | ere him to death they shall have done."

Then God drove the cloud until it stood over the land of 'Ád, and there issued from it a roaring wind that consumed the whole people except a few who had taken the prophet's warning to heart and had renounced idolatry.

From these, in course of time, a new people arose, who are called ' the second 'Ád.' They had their settlements in Yemen, in the region of Saba. The building of the great Dyke of Ma'rib is commonly attributed to their king, Luqmán b. 'Ád, about whom many fables are told. He was surnamed 'The Man of the Vultures' (Dhu 'l-Nusúr), because it had been granted to him that he should live as long as seven vultures, one after the other.

In North Arabia, between the Ḥijáz and Syria, dwelt the kindred race of Thamúd, described in the Koran (vii, 72) as inhabiting houses which they cut for themselves in the rocks. Evidently Muḥammad did not know the true nature of the hewn chambers which are still to be seen at Ḥijr (Madá'in Ṣáliḥ), a week's journey northward from Medína, and which are proved by the Nabaṭæan inscriptions engraved on them to have been sepulchral monuments.¹ Thamúd sinned in the same way as 'Ád, and suffered a like fate. They scouted the prophet Ṣáliḥ, refusing to believe in him unless he should work a miracle. Ṣáliḥ then caused a she-camel big with young to come forth from a rock, and bade them do her no hurt, but one of the miscreants, Qudár the Red (al-Aḥmar), hamstrung and killed her. "Whereupon a great earthquake overtook them with a noise of thunder, and in the morning they lay dead in their houses, flat upon their breasts."² The author of this catastrophe became a byword: Arabs say, " More unlucky than the hamstringer of the she-camel," or " than Aḥmar of Thamúd." It should be pointed out that, unlike the 'Ádites, of whom we find no trace in historical times, the Thamúdites are mentioned as still existing by Diodorus Siculus and Ptolemy; and they survived down to the fifth century A.D. in the corps of equites Thamudeni attached to the army of the Byzantine emperors.

Legend of Thamúd.

Besides 'Ád and Thamúd, the list of primitive races includes the 'Amálíq (Amalekites)—a purely fictitious term under which the Moslem antiquaries lumped together several peoples of an age long past, e.g., the Canaanites and the Philistines. We hear of Amalekite settlements in the Tiháma (Netherland) of Mecca and in other parts of the peninsula. Finally, mention should

'Amálíq.

be made of Ṭasm and Jadís, sister tribes of which nothing is recorded except the fact of their destruction and the events that brought it about. The legendary narrative in which these are embodied has some archæological interest as showing the existence in early Arabian society of a barbarous feudal custom, 'le droit du seigneur,' but it is time to pass on to the main subject of this chapter.

Ṭasm and Jadis.

The Pre-islamic history of the Yoqṭánids, or Southern Arabs, on which we now enter, is virtually the history of two peoples, the Sabæans and the Ḥimyarites, who formed the successive heads of a South Arabian empire extending from the Red Sea to the Persian Gulf.

History of the Yoqṭanids.

Saba¹ (Sheba of the Old Testament) is often incorrectly used to denote the whole of Arabia Felix, whereas it was only one, though doubtless the first in power and importance, of several kingdoms, the names and capitals of which are set down in the works of Greek and Roman geographers. However exaggerated may be the glowing accounts that we find there of Sabæan wealth and magnificence, it is certain that Saba was a flourishing commercial state many centuries before the birth of Christ.² " Sea-traffic between the ports of East Arabia and India was very early established, and Indian products, especially spices and rare animals (apes and peacocks) were conveyed to the coast of 'Umán. Thence, apparently even in the tenth century B.C., they went overland to the Arabian Gulf, where they

The Sabæans.

were shipped to Egypt for the use of the Pharaohs and grandees. . . . The difficulty of navigating the Red Sea caused the land route to be preferred for the traffic between Yemen and Syria, From Shabwat (Sabota) in Ḥaḍramawt the caravan road went to Ma'rib (Mariaba), the Sabsean capital, then northward to Macoraba (the later Mecca), and by way of Petra to Gaza on the Mediterranean." ¹ The prosperity of the Sabæans lasted until the Indian trade, instead of going overland, began to go by sea along the coast of Ḥaḍramawt and through the straits of Báb al-Mandab. In consequence of this change, which seems to have taken place in the first century A.D., their power gradually declined, a great part of the population was forced to seek new homes in the north, their cities became desolate, and their massive aqueducts crumbled to pieces. We shall see presently that Arabian legend has crystallised the results of a long period of decay into a single fact—the bursting of the Dyke of Ma'rib.

The disappearance of the Sabæans left the way open for a younger branch of the same stock, namely, the Ḥimyarites, or, as they are called by classical authors, Homeritæ, whose country lay between Saba and the sea. Under their kings, known as Tubba's, they soon became the dominant power in South Arabia and exercised sway, at least ostensibly, over the northern tribes down to the end of the fifth century a.d., when the latter revolted and, led by Kulayb b. Rabí'a, shook off the suzerainty of Yemen in a great battle at Khazázá.² The Ḥimyarites never flourished like the Sabæans. Their maritime situation exposed them more to attack, while the depopulation of the country had seriously weakened their military strength. The Abyssinians—originally colonists from Yemen—made repeated attempts to gain a

The Ḥimyarites.

foothold, and frequently managed to instal governors who were in turn expelled by native princes. Of these Abyssinian viceroys the most famous is Abraha, whose unfortunate expedition against Mecca will be related in due course. Ultimately the Ḥimyarite Empire was reduced to a Persian dependency. It had ceased ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• PREFACE
• Contents
• INTRODUCTION
• CHAPTER I. SABA AND HIMYAR
• II. THE HISTORY AND LEGENDS OF THE PAGAN ARABS
• III. PRE-ISLAMIC POETRY, MANNERS, AND RELIGION
• IV. THE PROPHET AND THE KORAN
• V. THE ORTHODOX CALIPHATE AND THE UMAYYAD DYNASTY
• VI. THE CALIPHS OF BAGHDÁD
• VII. POETRY, LITERATURE, AND SCIENCE IN THE ʿABBÁSID PERIOD
• VIII. ORTHODOXY, FREE-THOUGHT, AND MYSTICISM
• IX. THE ARABS IN EUROPE
• X. FROM THE MONGOL INVASION TO THE PRESENT DAY
• APPENDIX
• BIBLIOGRAPHY
• INDEX