A Literary History of the Arabs

The Arabs belong to the great family of nations which on account of their supposed descent from Shem, the son of Noah, are commonly known as the 'Semites.' This term includes the Babylonians and Assyrians, the Hebrews, the Phœnicians, the Aramæans, the Abyssinians, the Sabæans, and the Arabs, and although based on a classification that is not ethnologically precise—the Phœnicians and Sabæans, for example, being reckoned in Genesis, chap. x, among the descendants of Ham—it was well chosen by Eichhorn († 1827) to comprehend the closely allied peoples which have been named. Whether the original home of the undivided Semitic race was some part of Asia (Arabia, Armenia, or the district of the Lower Euphrates), or whether, according to a view which has lately found favour, the Semites crossed into Asia from Africa, is still uncertain. Long before the epoch when they first appear in history they had branched off from the parent stock and formed separate nationalities. Notwithstanding that Arabic is thus, in a sense, the youngest of the Semitic languages, it is generally allowed to be nearer akin than any of them to the original archetype, the 'Ursemitisch,' from which they all are derived, just as the Arabs, by reason of their geographical situation and the monotonous uniformity of desert life, have in some respects preserved the Semitic character more purely and exhibited it more distinctly than any people of the same family. From the period of the great Moslem conquests (700 a.d.) to the present day they have extended their language, religion, and culture over an enormous expanse of territory, far surpassing that of all the ancient Semitic empires added together. It is true that the Arabs are no longer what they were in the Middle Ages, the ruling nation of the world, but loss of temporal power has only strengthened their spiritual dominion. Islam still reigns supreme in Western Asia; in Africa it has steadily advanced; even on European soil it has found in Turkey compensation for its banishment from Spain and Sicily. While most of the Semitic peoples have vanished, leaving but a meagre and ambiguous record, so that we cannot hope to become intimately acquainted with them, we possess in the case of the Arabs ample materials for studying almost every phase of their development since the sixth century of the Christian era, and for writing the whole history of their national life and thought. This book, I need hardly say, makes no such pretensions. Even were the space at my disposal unlimited, a long time must elapse before the vast and various field of Arabic literature can be thoroughly explored and the results rendered accessible to the historian.

From time immemorial Arabia was divided into North and South, not only by the trackless desert (al-Rub‘ al-Khálí, the 'Solitary Quarter') which stretches across the peninsula and forms a natural barrier to intercourse, but also by the opposition of two kindred races widely differing in their character and way of life. Whilst the inhabitants of the northern province (the Ḥijáz and the great central highland of Najd) were rude nomads sheltering in 'houses of hair,' and ever shifting to and fro in search of pasture for their camels, the people of Yemen or Arabia Felix are first mentioned in history as the inheritors of an ancient civilisation and as the owners of fabulous wealth—spices, gold and precious stones—which ministered to the luxury of King Solomon. The Bedouins of the North spoke Arabic—that is to say, the language of the Pre-islamic poems and of the Koran—whereas the southerners used a dialect called by Muḥammadans 'Ḥimyarite' and a peculiar script of which the examples known to us have been discovered and deciphered in comparatively recent times. Of these Sabæans—to adopt the designation given to them by Greek and Roman geographers—more will be said presently. The period of their bloom was drawing to a close in the early centuries of our era, and they have faded out of history before 600 a.d., when their northern neighbours first rise into prominence.