Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume I Part 1.djvu/194

 178 ARABIA. . the Eetnratte tribes being called bj the names al- ready given by the former inhabitants to the districts they occupied. The most important tribe of the Ketoraites was the great people of Midian. Again, the twelve sons of Ishmael are the heads of twelve tribes of Arabs. (Gen. x. 12 — 16.) There wonld seem to have been other descendants of Hagar in Arabia, for elsewhere the Hagarenes are distin- guished from the Ishmaelites (Psalm IzxziiL 6; comp. 1 Chron, v. 10, 19, 22); and we have other indications of a distinct tribe bearing the name of Hagarenes, both in the NW. and N£. of the penin- sula. Another branch of the Abrahamide Arabs was furnished by the descendants of Esan, whose earliest abode was M. Seir in Arabia Petraea, and who soon coalesced with the Ishmaelites, as is in* timated by the marriage of Esau with Ishmael's daughter, the sister of Nebajoth {Gen. xxix. 9), and confirmed by the close connection between the Na- hathaeans and Idumeans throughout all their history. [Edom; Idumasa; Nabathaei.] These statements present considerable difficulties, the full discussion q£ which belongs to biblical science. They seem, on the whole, to indicate three stages in the population of Arabia; first, on the west coast, by the descendants of Gush, that is, tribes akin to those whose chief seats were found in Ae- thiopia ; secondly, by the descendants of Eber, that is, belonging to one of the most ancient branches of the great Smitic race, who migrated from the pri- mitive scats of that race and spread over the Ara- bian peninsula in general; and, lastly, a later im- migration of younger tribes of the same race, all belonging to the Abrahamic fiimily, who came from Palestine, and settled in the NW. part of the penin- sula. The position of these last is determined by that of the known historical tribes which bear the same names, as Nebajoth, IshmaeFs eldest son [Nabathaei], and also by the prediction (or rather appointment, that Ishmael should *' dwell to the East of all liis brethren." {Gen. xvi. 12, where in face of means to the eatt of,) To these main elements of the Arab population must be added several of the minor peoples on the S. and E. of Palestme, who belong to Arabia both by kindred and position: such as the descendants of Uz and Buz, the sons of Abraham's brother Nahor, who appear as Arabs in the history of Job, the dweller in Uz, and his friend Elihu the Buzite {Gen. zxii. 21 ; Job. i. 1, xxzii. 2); the Moabites and Ammonites, descendants of Lot fAMMONiTAE : Moab] ; and some others, whose localities and affini- ties are more difficult to make out The traditions of the Arabians themselves respect- ing their origin, though obscured by poetic fiction, and probably corrupted from motives of pride, &mily, national, and (since Mohammed) religious, have yielded valuable results already ; but they need fur- ther investigation. They furnish a strong general confirmation to the Scripture ethnography. Accord- ing to these traditions the inhabitants of Arabia from the earliest times are firetdivided into two races which belong to distinct periods ; the ancient and Ihemodem Arabs. The ancient Arabs included, among others, the powerful tribes of Ad, Thamud, Tasm, Jadis, Jorham (not to be confounded ^th the later tribe of the same name), and Amalek. They are long since extinct, but are remembered in favourite popular traditions, which tell of their power, luxury, and ar- rogance: of these one of the most striking is the story of Irem Zat-el-Emad^ the terrestrial paradise ASABU. of Sheddad the son of Ad, in which he was strock to deatJi with aU his race, and which is still beiievei to exist in the deserts of Yetnm^ in the ctistrict of Seba (Lane's Arainan NighU^ note to chap, xl vd. ii. p. 342). That this race, now become mythical, corresponds to the first Cuahite inhabitants, seems most probable. The modem Arabs, that is, all the inhaUtanta subsequent to the former race, are divided into two classes, the pure Arabs {Arab d-Ardba^ i. e. Artdn of the Arabs, an idiom like a ffdtrew of the He- bretce) and the mixt or TUSturaUzed Arals (Jfoito- rabi^ 1. e. Arabes fact*). The former are the de- scendants of J^aAtofi(the Joktan of Sciiptnre); whose two sons, Yarab and JorAom, founded the kingdoms of Ye/men in the S. of the peninsula and U^az in the NW. The subsequent intrusion of tlie Ishmaelites is represented by the marriage of Lib- mad, a daughter of Modad, king of Hejaz, which district became the seat of the descendants of this marriage, the Moetarabif so called becanse tbor father was a foreigner, and their mother only a pore Arab: their ancestral head is Adnan, son of I&h- mael. Thns we have that broad distinction esta- blished between the Arabs of the N. and S. divisioDS of the peninsula, which prevails through all then' history, and is better known by the later names of the two races, the Koreish in the N. and the Hm- yari in the S. The latest researches, however, go far to disprove the connection of the Koreish with Ishmael, and to show that it was the invention of the age of Moliammed or his successors, for the purpose of making out the prophet, who was of the Korn&h, to be a descendant of Abraham. These researches give the following ethnical gmealogy. Yterab, al- ready mentioned as the son of Kahtan, and the eponymus of the whole Arab race, became, through three generations, the ancestor of Saba^ the name under which the southern Arabs were most generally known to the ancients. Of Saba's numerous pro- geny, two have become the traditional heads of the whole Arab race, namely, ffimj/ar of those in the South {Yemen)f and Kahkm of those in the North {Hejazy, According to this view the Ishmaelites are put back into their ancient seats, on the isth- mus of the peninsula. The Himyarites, who in- habited El-Yemen and Et-HadramatU (both in- cluded inFemeniuits wider sense), were known to the Greeks and Romans by the name of Hombritae. Witliin the last forty yeare, some very interesting inscriptions have been found in S. Arabia, in what is believed with great probability to be the andeni Himyaritic dialect; and it has been dtscorered that the same language is still spoken hy some obscure mountain tribes in the SE. parts of tlte pexunsnla, who call themselves EhhhUi, i. e. freemen. This- language is said to be distinct from each of the three branches of the Syro-Arabian language recc^^mzed byGesenius, namely, the Aramaean, Canaanitish, and Arabian; but it belongs to the same fiunily, and comes neaiw to Hebrew and Syriac than to Arabic ; and it has close affinities with both the Ethiopic dia- lects, the Ghyz vaA. the Amharic, especiallj with the former. It is needless to point out how strikingly these discoveries confirm the views, that the succes- sive waves of population have passed over the penin- sula from N. to S. ; that the di>placed tribes have been driven chiefly westward over the Red Sea, leav- ing behind them, however, remnants enong^h to guide the researches of the ethnographer ; and that tlie* present population is a mixed race, formed bj sue-