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munity were destroyed. The heads of tribes, moreover, waged continual war with each other. In the desert they were sufficiently willing to take offence at each other's conduct: opportunities of offence, however, on account of the immense extent of these desert regions, were far less frequent than within the narrow bounds of a city. Contact created rivalry-rivalry in power, in display, in enjoyment: rivalry begat hatred; and hatred bloodshed. To gratify the morbid vanity of a chief, the whole tribe was in arms. This multiplicity of petty sovereigns occasions several inconveniences to the people in general. Wars cannot but be frequent among states whose territories are so intermingled together, and whose sovereigns have such a variety of jarring interests to manage. No doubt such a multitude of nobles and petty princes, whose numbers are continually increased by polygamy, must have an unfavourable influence upon the general happiness of the people. It strikes one with surprise to see the Arabs, in a country so`rich and fertile, uncomfortably lodged, indifferently fed, ill clothed, and destitute of almost all the conveniences of life. But the causes fully account for the effects. Those living in cities, or employed in the cultivation of the land, are kept in poverty by the exorbitancy of the taxes exacted from them. The whole substance of the people is consumed in the support of their numerous princes and priests *.”

LAW.

Added to this rude government was an equally imperfect law. The law, in fact, seems to have been in the rudest possible state; there being neither a written code, nor any collection of judicial decisions which successive judges were enjoined to follow. Judicial decisions were consequently in complete accordance with the desires of the rich. In a country where there is an established code to which every judge must adhere, justice for the most part is impartially administered. Some plausible reason must be assigned for every deviation; the approval of the government, the men of the law, and even of the people, must, in some measure, be obtained; and by this means a check is created, sufficient, in general, to protect the com

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munity from the grossest excesses of injustice. Under a despotic government, indeed, the law is obliged to yield to the will of the prince. When he wishes oppression, oppression is exercised. These cases must of necessity form but a small part of the whole number which come before the judge for decision; and when the will of the prince is not opposed to justice, the judge finds himself obliged to adhere to the letter of the law, that being, in fact, the will of the prince. Imperial Rome, France, and Germany, in which justice has been administered under a despotic monarch, according to a written code, are evidence of the truth of these observations. Where law had not been digested into a code, but is composed of recorded decisions, the consequence is nearly the same. When on any particular portion of the field of law," says the philosophic historian of British India, "a number of judges have all, with public approbation, decided in one way, and when those decisions are recorded and made known, the judge who comes after them has strong motives of fear and hope, not to depart from their example *." But of law, either of one kind or the other, the Arabians were utterly destitute. The judge, that is the head of the tribe, decided according to what he deemed to be justice; and his unrecorded decision had no influence upon that of his successor. Uncertainty to the greatest possible extent was the necessary consequence. Those who sought a decision at the hands of the judge, found him unchecked by any existing law, and ready to listen with complacency to the suggestions of interest. He, therefore, who was the most powerful, or the most wealthy, had a certainty of success. Any change from such a state must have been a change for the better.

RELIGION.

Although the Romans made no extensive or permanent conquests in Arabia, the effects of their near neighbourhood were visible among the Arabian population. The constant disputes between the Christian sects of Syria, and the depressed situation of the Jewish people among the Christians, induced many of both persuasions to seek refuge among the idolatrous Arabs, who knew not, or knowing, regarded not, the dif

Mill's Hist. of Brit. India, b. 2. c. 4, p. 170.

offerings to IDOLS, as well as to God, who was also often put off with the least portion, as Mahomet upbraids them." Their scheme of divine government was simple, and like most others formed in the same state of civilisation. One god was supposed to be the supreme ruler; and subject to his sway was a vast multitude of inferior deitiest. "The Arabs acknowledged one supreme God, the creator and lord of the universe, whom they called Allah Taala, the most high god; and their other deities, who were subordinate to him, they called simply Al Ilahat, i. e. goddesses." Idols were set up, and worshipped; every field, every rivulet, had its divinities. The fixed stars and planets were also exalted into gods, and as such received adoration. Heaven, moreover, was peopled with angels, who, with the wooden stone, and clay idols on earth, were regularly worshipped. How the Arabians can be supposed believers in a single godhead, under such circumstances, appears, extraordinary §.

The manner in which these various divinities were rendered propitious, at once marks that no very exalted conception of a divinity existed in the minds of these barbarians. Fasts, pilgrimages, sacrifices, long and unmeaning prayers, were the means employed to obtain the divine favour.

"They are obliged to pray three times a day (some say seven times a day :) the first, half an hour or less before sunrise, ordering it so, that they may, just as the sun rises, finish eight adorations, each containing three prostrations: the second prayer they end at noon, when the sun begins to decline, in saying which they

Sale, Pre. Disc., p. 21. "Divam pater atque hominum rex,"

O pater, O hominum Divumque æterna potestas," are expressions conveying an exact conception of the Arabian theology.

Sale, Pre. Disc., p. 20.

"The Sabians of Mount Lebanon seem to pay a greater regard to Seth than the Supreme Being; for they always keep their oath when they swear by the former, but frequently break it when they swear by the latter."-Anc. Univ. Hist., b. iv., c. 21, p. 383.) "A merchant of Mecca made an observation upon those saints, which I was surprised to hear from a Mahometan. The vulgar, said he, must always have a visible object to fear and honour. Thus, at Mecca, oaths, instead of being addressed to God, are pronounced in the name of Mahomet. At Mokha, I would not trust a man who should take God to witness the truth of any thing he happened to assert; but I much more safely depend upon him who should swear by Schiech Ichadeli, whose mosque and tomb are before his eyes."-(Niebuhr, p. 76) Pocock, in his notes to his translation of "Abulpharagius" (p. 136,) states the worship of angels and demons to have been common among the Arabs.

perform five such adorations as the former; and the same they do the third time, ending just as the sun sets. They fast three times a year: the first thirty days, the next nine days, and the last seven. They offer many sacrifices, but eat no part thereof, but burn them all. They abstain from beans, garlic, and some other pulse and vegetables*."

"The same rites which are now accomplished by the faithful Mussulman, were invented and practised by the superstition of the idolaters. At an awful distance they cast away their garments; seven times, with hasty steps, they encircled the Caaba, and kissed the black stone; seven times they visited and adored the adjacent mountains; seven times they threw stones into the valley of Mina, and the pilgrimage was achieved as at the present hour, by a sacrifice of sheep and camels, and the burial of their hair and nails in the consecrated ground

From Japan to Peru the use of sacrifice has universally prevailed; and the votary has expressed his gratitude or fear, by destroying or consum ing, in honour of the gods, the dearest and most precious of their gifts. The life of a man is the most precious oblation to deprecate public calamity; the altars of Phoenicia and Egypt, of Rome and Carthage, have been polluted with human gore; the cruel practice was long preserved among the Arabs. In the third century a boy was annually sacrificed by the tribe of the Dumatrians; and a royal captive was piously slaughtered by the prince of the Saracens, the ally and soldier of the emperor Justinian. A parent who drags his son to the altar exhibits the most sublime and painful effort of fanaticism; the deed or the intention was sanctified by the example of saints and heroes; and the father of Mahomet himself was devoted by a rash vow, and hardly ransomed by the equivalent of an hundred camels."+ was the religion that Mahomet endeavoured to improve.

SCIENCE AND LITERATURE.

Such

It may easily be supposed that a people, possessed of a government, law, and religion, such as we have described, were little advanced in science or literature. The only science to which the ancient Arabs made the slightest pretension, was that of astronomy; and

*Sale, Pre. Disc., p. 19.

+ Gibbon, Decl. and Fall, c. 50, pp. 95, 96.

even in astronomy they had discovered little beyond the ordinary knowledge of an ignorant savage. Through the trackless deserts of Arabia it was impossible to travel without the aid of some sign in the heavens as a guide. The need of such a guide led them to watch the revolutions of the heavenly bodies; and the clear and unclouded skies of the country offered few obstacles to their search. They could not in time fail to observe some of the more obvious phenomena, and to be able in a long course of years to predict the recurrence of those phenomena. Some few extraordinary persons seem to have been capable of calculating eclipses with tolerable accuracy. This knowledge, however, was exceedingly rare, and beyond it they never advanced. Any thing like a theory, or general expression of the stated order in which the celestial phenomena occurred, never entered into their imaginations. That certain changes happened, they knew; but of the true system of the universe, or of any system whatever, they were profoundly ignorant*. Astrology, indeed, they studied with some assiduity, and implicit confidence; but the most important of their sciences, that to which they paid the greatest attention, was the interpretation of dreams. The following is a specimen of their state of ignorance and superstition: "When any of them set out upon a journey, he observed the first bird he met with, and if it flew to the right, he pursued his journey; but if to the left, he returned When a person, distrusting the fidelity of his wife, went a journey, he tied together some of the boughs of a tree, called al rataim; and if, on his return, he found them in the same position, he judged she had been faithful to him; if ctherwise, not."

home

Their eloquence and their poetry have been considered evidence of a high state of civilisation. But the savages of North America have been long famed for their eloquence; and the bards of our barbarian ancestors prove that savages have possessed, and been delighted with poetry. The eloquence and poetry of a barbarian, bear, however, little resem

* See Goguet, Orig. des Lois, 1 Epo. 1. 3, p. 147,

where the necessity, under which the Arabians lay, of some sign to guide them in their travels, is well explained. Also Abulpharagius, Pocock's translation, p. 6. The Arabian fairly acknowledges his countrymen to have been completely ignorant of the science of astronomy.

+ Ane. Univ. Hist., b. iv., c. 21, p. 406–412. Ibid. p. 412.

blance to the eloquence and poetry of civilised life, being made up chiefly of bold figures and bombast expressions, without order, without propriety, and generally without meaning. The species of estimation, also, in which poetry was held among the Arabs, shows their rude and uncultivated condition. It was held in esteem as a means of preserving the remembrance of past events. Poetry assists the memory; and consequently the history, laws, and dogmas of religion, are universally among a rude people recorded in verse*. In the absence of written signs, verse may be of use in this way, but, when writing is known, can, for such a purpose, be no longer serviceable. That the Arabs generally were ignorant of writing is universally asserted. In after times, the Arabians, like other people, emerged from this state of ignorance. The age of Arab learning and literature, however, was more than two centuries after the death of Mahomet. When masters of Syria and Egypt, they became acquainted with the writings of the Greek philosophers, and for a long period were far superior to the nations of Europe in knowledge and civilisation.

MANNERS.

In spite of their ignorance, the Arabs have by historians been almost universally deemed a gentle and polite people; and an argument has, from this circumstance, been hastily drawn against the utility of all knowledge and cultivation. Nothing, however, can well be more untrue than the premises upon which this conclusion is founded.

Two circumstances have chiefly been insisted on, in favour of the Arab people: their hospitality and their politeness. The meaning of these terms, however, when applied to them, is sometimes misunderstood. The general conduct of the Arab was to plunder and to kill every defenceless traveller whom he chanced to meet +. There were particular cases in which he abstained from this barbarity; when, instead of robbing, he assisted the way-faring traveller. This extraordinary abstinence has been exalted into the virtue hospitality. He was thus generous to those of his own tribe, and to those who possessed a

See Goguet, Orig. des Lois, 1 Epoc., 1. 1 pp. 43, 44. Henry (in Hist. of Britain, b. 1, c. 2 sec. 1, p. 163, states,) that the Ancient Britons were a very poetical people.

f Sale, Pre. Dis, pp. 196-198. Prideaux, Vie de Mah., p. 95.

passport from his chief; to others, he was a thief and a murderer. In a civilised country abstinence from plundering any one, whether kindred or not, is not exalted into a virtue; and for this simple reason; it is imposed by the law as an obligation upon every one; every infringement of it is punished; and so common is this boasted virtue, that the absence of it alone creates our wonder. The traveller in the desert, or in any wild country, would perish if the few inhabitants that are scattered over its surface were to refuse him aid and shelter. But to save the life of a fellow creature, without risk or trouble to ourselves, is surely no great exercise of virtue; and so obvious is the necessity of such mutual assistance in a rude state of society, that no people placed in such circumstances ever failed to hold in high estimation, and also in some measure to practise, this species of hospitality.

When a country becomes thickly inhabited, the necessity for hospitality no longer exists, it consequently ceases to be praised or regarded. The traveller to whom I should refuse admittance, can find immediate refuge at the next inn; and consequently will not subject himself to the mortification of a refusal.. The following exceedingly sensible observations cannot but be acceptable to the reader: 66 I forgot to speak of hospitality. It is on account of this virtue that the first ages have usually been esteemed... . . A common interest apparently gave birth to this habit. There were no inns in the distant ages of antiquity. Hospitality was, therefore, exercised in hopes of a return of the like good office. A stranger was received, under the supposition that he might some day render the same service, should there be a necessity of travelling into his country; for hospitality was reciprocal. By receiving a stranger into his house, a man immediately acquired a right to be received into the stranger's; and this right was by the ancients regarded as sacred and inviolable, extending not only to those who contracted it, but also to their children and descendants. Besides, hospitality in those early days was not very expensive, as people travelled with few attendants. In short, the Arabs of the present day prove that hospitality is compatible with the greatest vices; and that this species of virtue is no evidence of goodness of heart or rectitude of manners. The general character of the Arabs is well

known; no people, however, are more hospitable*."

The politeness of an Arab is also something very different from the politeness of a civilised man. True politeness or courtesy consists in taking no offence where offence is not intended, and in so managing the common intercourse of life, that the forms adopted shall conduce to the ease and happiness of all parties concerned. All formalities that do not tend to this end, all distinctions that oppose it, are so many marks of rudeness and ignorance. How far the Arabs were from this standard, the following circumstance will testify :

"The Arabs show great sensibility to every thing that can be construed into an injury. If one man should happen to spit beside another, the latter will not fail to avenge himself of the imaginary insult. In a caravan I once saw an Arab highly offended with a man who, in spitting, accidentally bespattered his beard with some small part of his spittle. It was with difficulty that he could be appeased by him, who, he imagined, had offended him, even though he humbly asked pardon, and kissed his beard in token of submission. . . . . . But the most irritable of all men are the noble Bedouins, who, in their martial spirit, seem to carry those same prejudices even farther than the barbarous warriors who issued from the north, and overran Europe. Bedouin honour is still more delicate than ours, and requires even a greater number of victims to be sacrificed to it. If one schiech says to another, with a serious air, thy bonnet is dirty, or the wrong side of thy turban is out, nothing but blood can wash away the reproach; and not merely the blood of the offender, but also that of all the males of his family." Who, when cursed with so punctilious and bloody minded a neighbour as this, would not be careful in his conversation and conduct?

"The refined malice of the Arabs refuses even the head of the murderer, substitutes an innocent to the guilty person, and transfers the penalty to the best and most considerable of the race by whom they have been injured. If he falls by their hands, they are exposed in their turn to the danger of reprisals; the interest and the principal of the bloody debt are accumulated; the individuals of either family lead a life of

Goguet. Orig. des Lois, 1 Epo., 1. 6, p. 387.
Niebuhr, c. 107, p. 114.