Page:Muhammad Diyab al-Itlidi - Historical Tales and Anecdotes of the Time of the Early Khalîfahs - Alice Frere - 1873.djvu/108

Rh are Arabs by lineage, whilst you are Arabs by education only." The Arabians are distinguished by their own writers into two classes, viz.,, the old lost Arabians, and the present inhabitants of Arabia. The former were very numerous, and divided into several tribes which are now all destroyed, or else lost and swallowed up among the other tribes; nor are any certain memoirs or records extant concerning them, though the memory of some very remarkable events, and the catastrophe of some tribes, have been preserved by tradition, and since confirmed by the authority of the Kurân. The present Arabians, according to their own historians, are sprung from two stocks, Kahtân the same with Joctan the son of Eber (see Genesis x. 25), and ʾAdnân, descended in a direct line from Ismael the son of Abraham and Hagar. The posterity of the former they call el- ʾAráb el-ʾAribah, i. e., the genuine or pure Arabs; and that of the latter el-ʾAráb-el-Mustʾârabah, i. e., naturalized Arabs. (Some writers, though this is contrary to the general opinion of Oriental historians, make Kahtân also a descendant of Ismael, and call his posterity Mutʾaráb, which signifies insititious or grafted Arabs, though in a nearer degree than Mustʾaráb.) The posterity of Ismael have no claim to be admitted as pure Arabs, their ancestor being by origin and language a Hebrew, but making an alliance with the Jorhamites by marriage. The descents between Ismael and ʾAdnân being uncertain, the Arabs seldom trace their genealogies higher than ʾAdnân, whom they acknowledge as father of their tribes, the descents from him downwards being pretty certain and uncontroverted. Between Adnân and Fehr, who went among the Arabs by the surname of Kuraish, and from whom the whole tribe of Kuraish deduced their name, were ten generations. The Arabs suppose Fehr to have been denominated Kuraish from his undaunted bravery and resolution: he may be considered as the root of the politest