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.
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