Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 29.djvu/652

634 Spain, passed on to France, were defeated by Charles Martel, ruled for centuries in Granada, lived luxuriantly, fostered literature and art, were at last driven back whence they came, and are now as nothing in the world's life. We need to discover the natural place and functions of the Arabian people in history. We must know this people as a growth on the common tree. Any detailed examination of the kind indicated is foreign to the purpose of this paper. While, however, nothing but the merest outline can be drawn, it should consist of living lines—i. e., of those features which represent the causes at work in this given historic unfolding. It is well understood that Arabia is physically one of the most peculiar of all countries. It seems preestablished to make tribes, to prevent nationality. Its shape is that of a triangular peninsula, limited on the west by the Red Sea, on the south by the Indian Ocean, on the east by the Persian Gulf, on the north it joins Syria. The most remarkable feature of the country is the almost impassable separation between the exterior and interior, between the coasts and the central land. This separation is made by a broad belt of desert, yet beyond the sand-wastes is the Arabia of the Arabians, the most productive and healthy portion of the entire country.

Not only is the land itself peculiar, it is peculiarly placed. Alexandria lies upon the left, Jerusalem and Damascus in front, Persia and the Orient upon the right. The remark is familiar that almost all the philosophical and religious systems of the known world would meet here in passing. We need a few sentences as to the people themselves and their condition before the appearance of Mohammed. The origin of the Arabians is lost in tradition. There is no question, however, that the division of this people into classes obtained from earliest times. There were the pure Arabs and the Mostarabs; the former lived in cities, the latter were the true sons of the desert and led always the nomadic life. Here we find the origin of the present well-known separation of the people into Ahl-Bedoo, or dwellers in the open land, and Ahl-Hadr, or dwellers in fixed localities. We find the complete expression of the nomadic Arab existence in the clan, the family. While the residents in cities show such modifications as would be expected from closer and more permanent intercourse, still here also the family, the tribe, was matter of chief consideration. Arabian land had severed the Arabian people at the same time it had developed immense physical endurance.

We need some characterization of the Arabian nature, that individual and primary constitution which, produced by no climate or circumstances, developed as external conditions might necessitate, yet always as itself. The Arabian nature has been said to have the following characteristics in remarkable degree and intensity: "Seriousness and pride, veracity, generosity, hospitality, passionateness and ardor in love and hatred, vindictiveness running on and on through