This Has Now
Become A Point Of Fanatic Honour; But If History May Be Trusted, It Has
Become So Only Lately.
[FN#12] When The Arabs See The Ass Turn Tail To The Wind And Rain, They
Exclaim, "Lo!
He turneth his back upon the mercy of Allah!"
[FN#13] M.C. de Perceval quotes Judith, ii.
13, 26, and Jeremiah, xlix.
28, to prove that Holofernes, the general of Nebuchadnezzar the First,
laid waste the land of Midian and other parts of Northern Arabia.
[FN#14] Saba in Southern Arabia.
[FN#15] The erection of this dyke is variously attributed to Lukman the
Elder (of the tribe of Ad) and to Saba bin Yashjab. It burst according
to some, beneath the weight of a flood; according to others, it was
miraculously undermined by rats. A learned Indian Shaykh has mistaken
the Arabic word "Jurad," a large kind of mouse or rat, for "Jarad," a
locust, and he makes the wall to have sunk under a "bar i Malakh," or
weight of locusts! No event is more celebrated in the history of pagan
Arabia than this, or more trustworthy, despite the exaggeration of the
details-the dyke is said to have been four miles long by four broad-and
the fantastic marvels which are said to have accompanied its bursting.
The ruins have lately been visited by M. Arnaud, a French traveller,
who communicated his discovery to the French Asiatic Society in 1845.
[FN#16] Ma al-Sama, "the water (or "the splendour") of heaven," is,
generally speaking, a feminine name amongst the pagan Arabs; possibly
it is here intended as a matronymic.
[FN#17] This expedition to Al-Madinah is mentioned by all the
pre-Islamatic historians, but persons and dates are involved in the
greatest confusion. Some authors mention two different expeditions by
different Tobbas; others only one, attributing it differently, however,
to two Tobbas,-Abu Karb in the 3rd century of the Christian era, and
Tobba al-Asghar, the last of that dynasty, who reigned, according to
some, in A.D. 300, according to others in A.D. 448. M.C. de Perceval
places the event about A.D. 206, and asserts that the Aus and Khazraj
did not emigrate to Al-Madinah before A.D. 300. The word Tobba or
Tubba, I have been informed by some of the modern Arabs, is still used
in the Himyaritic dialect of Arabic to signify "the Great" or "the
Chief."
[FN#18] Nothing is more remarkable in the annals of the Arabs than
their efforts to prove the Ishmaelitic descent of Mohammed; at the same
time no historic question is more open to doubt.
[FN#19] If this be true it proves that the Jews of Al-Hijaz had in
those days superstitious reverence for the Ka'abah; otherwise the
Tobba, after conforming to the law of Moses, would not have shown it
this mark of respect. Moreover there is a legend that the same Rabbis
dissuaded the Tobba from plundering the sacred place when he was
treacherously advised so to do by the Benu Hudayl Arabs.
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