Arabian

“ Muham. c. vii.) ;—and, which is still more remarkable, in the collection of Arabian proverbs edited by Schultens, the Arabs are designated by that very same term of crows—العربان غربان ٭ والسودان سيدان‎—the Arabs are crows, the blacks, i.e. the negroes, wolves (Elnawabig, No. 27) ; and the Arabian scholiast (Samachsjar) actually represents their colour as the reason of the term. The oriental geographer, translated by Ouseley, observes, "The inhabitants of Bajeh [a place between Abyssinia, Nubia, and Egypt] are blacker than the Abyssinians, like the Arabs," (p. 13.) ”

“ According to the context the kings of Arabia are the kings of the Arabian oases of Dajdân, Tejma, and Bûz, while the kings of the Arabs denote all the nomads with shaven heads. Even to the present day nearly all the nomads have their heads shaved and leave only a tuft, varying in size, at the crown. ”

“ We have thus far used the term Arabian for all the inhabitants of the peninsula without regard for geographic location. But we must differentiate between the Arabians of the South and the North, the latter including the Najdis of Central Arabia. The geographical division of the land by the trackless desert into northern and southern sections has its counterpart in the peoples who inhabit it. ”

“ The absolute immobility of the Arabian in his native haunts, contrasted with his ready adaptation to diametrically opposite conditions elsewhere, is one of the most striking anomalies of human character. ”

“ The Arabic peoples first difficulty of the Arab movement was to say who the Arabs were. Being a manufactured people, their name had been changing in sense slowly year by year. Once it meant an Arabian. There was a country called Arabia; but this was nothing to the point. There was a language called Arabic; and in it lay the test. It was the current tongue of Syria and Palestine, of Mesopotamia, and of the great peninsula called Arabia on the map. Before the Moslem conquest, these areas were inhabited by diverse peoples, speaking languages of the Arabic family. ”

“ The learned Arabians did not confine themselves to the studies which they could only prosecute in their closets; they undertook, for the advancement of science, the most perilous journeys, and we owe to Aboul Feda (1273- 1331) and other Arabian travelers the best works on geography written in the Middle Ages.
The natural sciences were cultivated by them with great ardor, and many naturalists among them merit the gratitude of posterity. ”

“ 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 years to the last member of the tribe, and often mounting to extreme cruelty. ”

“ The Arabian fictions are of a more splendid nature; they are less terrible indeed, but possess more variety and magnificence; they lead us through delightful forests, and raise up palaces glittering with gold and diamonds.
‘It may also be observed, that, allowing the early Scaldic odes to be genuine, we find in them no dragons, giants, magic rings, or enchanted castles. These are only to be met with in the compositions of the bards who flourished after the native vein of Runic fabling had been enriched by the tales of the Arabians. ”

“ Before entering upon an intelligent study of the Qurʼân it is necessary to make oneself acquainted with the circumstances of the people in whose midst it was revealed, with the political and religious aspects of the period, and with the personal history of the prophet himself.
Arabia or Gazîrat el ʿArab, 'the Arabian Peninsula,' as it is called by native writers, is bounded on the west by the Red Sea; on the east by the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman; on the south by the Indian Ocean; and on the north it extends to the confines of Babylonia and Syria. ”

“ Its inhabitants, the Sabæi, formed the most powerful and extensive of all the nations of the Arabian peninsula. They were blessed with a redundance of the pleasures and conveniences of life. The earth was fertile and fruitful, and with little labour produced all that was required for the necessities or luxuries of mankind. ”

“ The physical and economic geography of the Arabian Peninsula controlled in a, decisive manner the primitive social stages of its inhabitants and produced the Semitic type.
Arabia exhibits a great and contrasting variety of physical conditions, partly favouring a rapid increase of population, partly compelling migration and emigration. The south-western, southern, and central highlands possess a healthy climate, and in many parts a rarefied and bracing air, a fertile soil, yielding to a moderate amount of labour rich harvests of subtropical products. ”

“ If we could fancy that the savages who now occupy that country would ever allow it to be explored, it would be extremely interesting to know more of the Arabian examples, even if they should only prove to be an extension of Syrian or North African forms into Central Arabia. ”

“ Arabia has nothing that can properly be called history; but it has been concerned in the wars of Turkey and Egypt. What there is relates to the birth and life of Mohammed, and his wars to promote the increase of his followers; and I shall tell you the story of the Prophet at another time."
The professor retired after the usual applause. Some walked the deck, watching whatever was to be seen, especially the Arabian dhows, and occasionally a large steamer passed; and some went to sleep in their staterooms. ”

“ The Arabian Tales possess other charms to recommend them, besides the abundance of the marvellous and supernatural which they contain, namely, the vivid picture they present of the customs, manners, prejudices, and every thing in the slightest degree referring to the nations among whom the wondrous incidents they relate are supposed to have occurred. ”

“ But, on the other hand, the Arabians are our masters in the art of producing and sustaining this kind of fiction. They are the creators of that brilliant mythology of fairies and genii which extends the bounds of the world, and carries us into the realms of marvels and prodigies. It is from them that European nations have derived that intoxication of love, that tenderness and delicacy of sentiment, and that reverential awe of women, by turns slaves and divinities, which have operated so powerfully on their chivalrous feelings. ”

“ Arabia (12,000) , the most westerly peninsula of Asia and the largest in the world, being one-third the size of the whole of Europe, consisting of (a) a central plateau with pastures for cattle, and fertile valleys; (b) a ring of deserts, the Nefud in the N., stony, the Great Arabian, a perfect Sahara, in the S., sandy, said sometimes to be 600 ft. deep, and the Dahna between; and (c) stretches of coast land, generally fertile on the W. and S.; is divided into eight territories; has no lakes or rivers, only wadies, oftenest dry ”

“ For the surface of Arabia is almost completely desert with only a narrow strip of habitable land round the periphery. The Arabians called their habitat an island, and an island it is, surrounded by water on three sides and by sand on the fourth. ”

“ These personages are esteemed amongst the Arabians as the most beautiful, chaste, and impassioned of lovers; and their amours have been celebrated with all the charms of verse in every Oriental language. ”

“ The Arabians were not only a populous nation, but unacquainted with the luxury and delicacies of the Greeks and Persians, and inured to hardships of all sortsliving in a most parsimonious manner, seldom eating any flesh, drinking no wine, aud sitting on the ground. ”

“ During the period that marks the rise, the maturity, and decline of the empire of the Arabs, or from the ninth to the thirteenth century, geography was assiduously cultivated by them as a science, especially in Bagdad, the capital of the Caliphs, and for a part of that period in Spain. It is to the Arabians that we owe the preservation of the work of Ptolemy, which they translated into Arabic and annotated. ”

“ THE ARABIANS.
The religious fanaticism excited by Islamism, transformed the obscure and nomad inhabitants of Arabia into a conquering nation, who very soon extended their power over a considerable part of Asia, Africa, and Europe. Spain, invaded by the Arabs in 711, fell almost entirely into their hands. After having by force of arms rendered themselves powerful and dreaded, the Arabians acquired also great fame by the culture of art and science within the limits allowed them by their religious code ”

“ Arabia, inferior to no country throughout the whole world, is of immense extent, running downwards, as we have previously stated,601 from Mount Amanus, over against Cilicia and Commagene; many of the Arabian nations having been removed to those countries by Tigranes the Great,602 while others again have migrated of their own accord to the shores of our sea603 and the coast of Egypt, as we have already mentioned.604 The Nubei605 have even penetrated as far as Mount Libanus in the middle of Syria ”

“ The Arabians possess many heroic poems composed for the purpose of celebrating the praises of distinguished men, and of animating the courage of their soldiers. They do not, however, boast of any epics; their poetry is entirely lyric and didactic. They have been inexhaustible in their love poems, their elegies, their moral verses,—among which their fables may be reckoned,—their eulogistic, satirical, descriptive, and above all, their didactic poems, which have graced even the most abstruse science, as grammar, rhetoric, and arithmetic. ”

“ Shepherds from the Arabian deserts, whose contemporaries hardly knew of their existence, were the men who subjected a part of the Greco-Roman world to the dogmas of Mohammed, and founded one of the vastest empires known in history. ”

“ The whole history of their conquest shows a continual strife to propagate their religious doctrine. The Arabians were a sober people, of vivid imagination and excessive idealism, with religious natures of a lofty and peculiar character. Their religious life in itself was awe-inspiring. Originally dwelling on the plains of Arabia, where nature manifested itself in strong characteristics, living in one sense a narrow life, the imagination had its full play, and the mystery of life had centred in a sort of wisdom and lore, which had accumulated through long generations of reflection. ”

“ Although the cool breeze comes only from the north, yet the Arabians do not seem to take so much advantage of it in their houses as the Egyptians, whose principal rooms are generally so contrived as to open towards the north. ”

“ The Philosophy of the Arabians.I did on purpose omit the learned Age of the Arabians, in its proper Place; because I was resolved, as I came down, to keep my self as near as I could, within the Bounds of Christendom. But I shall now add, concerning them, that their Studies also were principally bent upon expounding Aristotle, and the Greek Physicians. They were, without Question, men of a deep and subtile Wit; which is a Character, that (it may be) in all Ages has belonged more justly to the Tempers of the Southern, than of the Northern Countries. ”

“ Professor Smyth, also, in his recent Lectures on Modern History, recommends “Ockley’s curious work as necessary to enable the student to comprehend the character of the Arabians, which is there displayed by their own writers in all its singularities.” ”

“ Streets are never parallel or at right angles, but go crisscross in all sorts of ways except the shortest way.
And so it came to pass that when the tribes of men after the deluge scattered from the Tower of Babel far to the south of the big Arabian peninsula they too travelled in zigzag lines. Some went to the far east on the Persian [14] Gulf and began to be pearl-divers at Bahrein. Others took their best camels all the way across the waterless desert of the interior and settled in Oman to become the breeders of the finest dromedaries. ”

“ I discovered it, ventured into it, and before long, sir, you too will have passed through my Arabian tunnel!" ”

“ I would here remind the reader that “’Arabiyyun” pl. ’Urb is a man of pure Arab race, whether of the Ahl al-Madar (= people of mortar, i.e. citizens) or Ahl al-Wabar (= tents of goat or camel’s hair) ; whereas “A’rábiyyun” pl. A’ráb is one who dwells in the Desert whether Arab or not. Hence the verse:—
They name us Al-A’ráb but Al-’Urb is our name. ”

“ and the right wing of cavalry was led by Caled, the fiercest and most successful of the Arabian warriors. ”

“ It is a busy scene and, what with braying of donkeys and shouting of the wood-merchants, there is enough noise too.
FIRE WOOD MARKET, BUSRAH.
There is one more blessing that comes from the palm tree and which we have forgotten. That is shade. Arabia is a hot and dry country. The summer sun is much more piercing than in America and the summer is much longer. When you travel a long camel journey across the desert, oh how good it is to come to a grove of palm trees and rest! Such a place is called an oasis and underneath the palms there are always springs of water. ”

“ The language of these little angels and the grown-up ones in Arabia is very poetical. The Arabs, because they live in the desert and look up into the big, blue sky and far out to the horizon where the mirage paints desert pictures every day, are full of imagination and live in an atmosphere of poetry. They love jingling words and proverbs and pretty sayings and figures of speech.
[72]
A mosquito has only a sting in New Jersey. In Arabia they call him aboo fas, which means “father-of-an-ax”! In America a tramp is a tramp, but the Arabs call him a son-of-the-road. ”