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Arabia: The Cradleof Islam
Arabia: The Cradleof Islam
Studies in the Geography, People and Politics of the Peninsula with an account of Islam and Mission-work. REV. S. M. ZWEMER, F.R.G.S. INTRODUCTION BY REV. JAMES S. DENNIS, D.D. EDINBURGH AND LONDON Oliphant Anderson and Ferrier 1900 Printed by THE CAXTON PRESS 171-173 Macdougal St. New York, U.S.A....
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DEDICATED
DEDICATED
DEDICATED TO _The “Student Volunteers” of America_ IN MEMORY OF THE TWO AMERICAN VOLUNTEERS WHO LAID DOWN THEIR LIVES FOR ARABIA PETER J. ZWEMER AND GEORGE E. STONE And Jesus said unto him: This day is salvation come to this house, forasmuch as he also is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.— Luke xix. 9, 10....
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Preface
Preface
There are indications that Arabia will not always remain in its long patriarchal sleep and that there is a future in store for the Arab. Politics, civilization and missions have all begun to touch the hem of the peninsula and it seems that soon there will be one more land—or at least portions of it—to add to “the white man’s burden.” History is making in the Persian Gulf, and Yemen will not forever remain, a tempting prize,—untouched. The spiritual burden of Arabia is the Mohammedan religion and
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I THE NEGLECTED PENINSULA
I THE NEGLECTED PENINSULA
“Intersected by sandy deserts and vast ranges of mountains it presents on one side nothing but desolation in its most frightful form, while the other is adorned with all the beauties of the most fertile regions. Such is its position that it enjoys at once all the advantages of hot and of temperate climates. The peculiar productions of regions the most distant from one another are produced here in equal perfection. What Greek and Latin authors mention concerning Arabia proves by its obscurity the
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II THE GEOGRAPHICAL DIVISIONS OF ARABIA
II THE GEOGRAPHICAL DIVISIONS OF ARABIA
The division of Arabia into provinces has always been rather according to physical geography than political boundaries. The earliest division of the peninsula, and in some respects the most correct, was that of the Greek and Roman writers into Arabia Deserta and Arabia Felix . The latter epithet was perhaps only a mistaken translation of El-Yemen —the land on “the right hand,” that is south of Mecca, for the Orientals face east. This is contrasted with Syria which in Arabic is called “ Es-Sham ”
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III THE HOLY LAND OF ARABIA—MECCA
III THE HOLY LAND OF ARABIA—MECCA
“The Eastern world moves slowly— eppur si muove . Half a generation ago steamers were first started to Jiddah: now we hear of a projected railway from that port to Mecca, the shareholders being all Moslems. And the example of Jerusalem encourages us to hope that long before the end of the century a visit to Mecca will not be more difficult than a trip to Hebron.”— Burton (1855). “Our train of camels drew slowly by them: but when the smooth Mecca merchant heard that the stranger riding with the c
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IV THE HOLY LAND OF ARABIA—MEDINA
IV THE HOLY LAND OF ARABIA—MEDINA
“Within the sanctuary or bounds of the city all sins are forbidden; but the several schools advocate different degrees of strictness. The Imam Malik, for instance, allows no latrinæ nearer to El Medina than Jebel Ayr, a distance of about three miles. He also forbids slaying wild animals, but at the same time he specifies no punishment for the offence. All authors strenuously forbid, within the boundaries, slaying man, (except invaders, infidels and the sacrilegious) drinking spirits and leading
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V ADEN AND AN INLAND JOURNEY
V ADEN AND AN INLAND JOURNEY
“Aden is a valley surrounded by the sea; its climate is so bad that it turns wine into vinegar in the space of ten days. The water is derived from cisterns and is also brought in by an aqueduct two farsongs long.” — Ibn-el-Mojawir. ( A.D . 1200) Arabia is unfortunate because, like a chestnut-burr, its exterior is rough and uninviting. In scenery and climate, Yemen fares worst of all the provinces. The two gateways to Arabia Felix are very infelix . What could be more dreary and dull and depressi
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VI YEMEN: THE SWITZERLAND OF ARABIA
VI YEMEN: THE SWITZERLAND OF ARABIA
“If the Turks would clear out of Yemen, a wonderful field for commerce would be thrown open, for the Turkish government is vile and all cultivators are taxed to an iniquitous extent.”— Ion Keith Falconer. While waiting at Taiz I had an opportunity to study Yemen town life and the system of government, as well as to learn a little about the cultivation of coffee and kaat, the two chief products of this part of Yemen. Taiz has not often been visited by travellers from the occident, and is a most i
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VII THE UNEXPLORED REGIONS OF HADRAMAUT
VII THE UNEXPLORED REGIONS OF HADRAMAUT
We must take at least a glimpse of the almost unknown region called Hadramaut. [26] This is a strip of territory stretching between the great desert and the sea from Aden eastward to Oman. Our knowledge of the interior of this region was almost a perfect blank until some light was thrown on it by the enterprising traveller A. Von Wrede in 1843. The coast is comparatively well known, at least as far as Makalla and Shehr. The land rises from the coast in a series of terraces to Jebel Hamra (5,284
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VIII MUSCAT AND THE COASTLANDS OF OMAN
VIII MUSCAT AND THE COASTLANDS OF OMAN
“Oman is separated from the rest of Arabia by a sandy desert. It is, in fact, as far as communication with the rest of the world is concerned, an island with the sea on one side and the desert on the other. Hence its people are even more primitive, simple and unchanged in their habits than the Arabs generally. Along the coast, however, especially at Muscat they are more in contact with the outer world.”— General Haig. In Arab nomenclature Oman applies only to a small district in the vicinity of
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IX THE LAND OF THE CAMEL
IX THE LAND OF THE CAMEL
“To see real live dromedaries my readers must, I fear, come to Arabia, for these animals are not often to be met with elsewhere, not even in Syria; and whoever wishes to contemplate the species in all its beauty, must prolong his journey to Oman, which is for dromedaries, what Nejd is for horses, Cashmere for sheep, and Tibet for bulldogs.”— Palgrave. All Oman, but especially the region just described, is called among the Arabs Um-el-ibl , “mother of the camel.” Palgrave, Doughty and other Arabi
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X THE PEARL ISLANDS OF THE GULF
X THE PEARL ISLANDS OF THE GULF
“‘We are all from the highest to the lowest slaves of one master—Pearl,’ said Mohammed bin Thanee to me one evening; nor was the expression out of place. All thought, all conversation, all employment, turns on that one subject, everything else is mere by-game, and below even secondary consideration.”— Palgrave. Half way down the Persian Gulf, off the east Arabian coast, between the peninsula of El Katar and the Turkish province of El Hassa, are the islands of Bahrein. [33] This name was formerly
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XI THE EASTERN THRESHOLD OF ARABIA
XI THE EASTERN THRESHOLD OF ARABIA
Beyond Bahrein the mainland stretches westward for eight hundred miles across the province of Hassa and lower Nejd and Hejaz to the Red Sea. As Jiddah is the western port, Bahrein is the eastern port for all Arabia. It is the gateway to the interior, the threshold of which is Hassa. Draw a line from Menamah to Katif, then on to Hofhoof (or El Hassa) and thence back to Menamah, and the triangle formed will include every important town or village of Eastern Arabia. North of that triangle on the co
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XII THE RIVER-COUNTRY AND THE DATE-PALM
XII THE RIVER-COUNTRY AND THE DATE-PALM
“The rich plains of Mesopotamia and Assyria which were once cultivated by a populous nation and watered by surprising efforts of human industry, are now inhabited, or rather ravaged by wandering Arabs. So long as these fertile provinces shall remain under the government, or rather anarchy of the Turks they must continue deserts in which nature dies for want of the fostering care of man”— Niebuhr (1792). What changes of history have left their records in ruins and names and legends on the great a
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XIII THE CITIES AND VILLAGES OF TURKISH-ARABIA
XIII THE CITIES AND VILLAGES OF TURKISH-ARABIA
Kuweit, [39] on the gulf a little south of the river delta, will in all probability—before long, rise in importance and be as well known as Suez or Port Said. It has the finest harbor in all Eastern Arabia, and is an important town of from 10,000 to 12,000 inhabitants. Here will probably be the terminus of the proposed railroads to bind India and the gulf to Europe by the shortest route. The whole country round about being practically desert, the place is entirely dependent on its trade for supp
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XIV A JOURNEY DOWN THE EUPHRATES
XIV A JOURNEY DOWN THE EUPHRATES
Through the kind assistance of Colonel Mockler, at that time the Bagdad Consul General and Resident, in the autumn of 1892, I was able to make the journey from Bagdad across to Hillah and down the Euphrates—a route not often taken by the traveller. After making necessary preparations and finding a suitable servant we hired two mules and left the city of the old Caliphs with a caravan for Kerbela. It was in July and we made our first halt four hours from Bagdad, sleeping on a blanket under the st
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XV THE INTERIOR—KNOWN AND UNKNOWN
XV THE INTERIOR—KNOWN AND UNKNOWN
“The central provinces of Nejd, the genuine Wahabi country, is to the rest of Arabia a sort of a lion’s den on which few venture and yet fewer return.”— Palgrave. “A desert world of new and dreadful aspect! black camels, and uncouth hostile mountains; and a vast sand wilderness shelving toward the dire impostor’s city.”— Doughty. The region which, for want of a more definite name, we may call the Interior includes four large districts. Three of these have been comparatively well explored and map
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XVI “THE TIME OF IGNORANCE”
XVI “THE TIME OF IGNORANCE”
“The religious decay in Arabia shortly before Islam may well be taken in a negative sense, in the sense of the tribes losing the feeling of kinship with the tribal gods. We may express this more concretely by saying that the gods had become gradually more and more nebulous through the destructive influence exercised, for about two hundred years, by Jewish and Christian ideas, upon Arabian heathenism “— H. Hirschfeld , in the “Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society.” In order to understand the gene
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ANALYSIS OF ISLAM AS A SYSTEM, DEVELOPED FROM ITS CREED. “There is no god but Allah and Mohammed is his apostle.”
ANALYSIS OF ISLAM AS A SYSTEM, DEVELOPED FROM ITS CREED. “There is no god but Allah and Mohammed is his apostle.”
Transcribers Note: To fit within page and layout constraints the Chart above has been converted into the linked tabular format. The section beginning with A; Faith and B:Practice Appears to derrive equally from “The Doctrine of God” and “The Doctrine of Revelation” so has been abstracted and linked from the position the author seems to have intended. General notes have been abstracted and displayed as footnotes. Second Section [58] Verbally handed down from mouth to mouth and finally sifted and
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XVIII THE PROPHET AND HIS BOOK
XVIII THE PROPHET AND HIS BOOK
In 570 A. D. Abdullah the son of Abd el Muttalib a Mecca merchant went on a trading trip from Mecca to Medina and died there; the same year his wife, Amina, gave birth to a boy, named Mohammed , at Mecca. One hundred years later the name of this Arab lad, joined to that of the Almighty, was called out from ten thousand mosques five times daily, from Muscat to Morocco, and his new religion was sweeping everything before it in three continents. What is the explanation of this marvel of history? Ma
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XIX THE WAHABI RULERS AND REFORMERS
XIX THE WAHABI RULERS AND REFORMERS
“Nothing is so easy to appreciate as true Christian commerce. It is a speaking argument, even to the lowest savage, for a gospel of truth and love, and yet more to the races sophisticated by a false civilization.”— Principal Cairns. The history of the Arabian Peninsula has never yet been written. Many books describe certain periods of its history from the time of the earlier Arabian rulers, but there is no volume that tells the story from the beginning in a way worthy of the subject. It would be
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XX THE RULERS OF OMAN
XX THE RULERS OF OMAN
Before we turn to the history of the Turks in Arabia a word is necessary regarding the rulers of Oman—that province unique in Arabia for its isolation from all the other provinces in the matter of politics. Prior to the appearance of the Portuguese in the Persian Gulf (1506) Oman had been governed for nine hundred successive years by independent rulers called Imams; elected by popular choice and not according to family descent. From that time until 1650 the Portuguese remained in power at Muscat
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XXI THE STORY OF THE TURKS IN ARABIA
XXI THE STORY OF THE TURKS IN ARABIA
Actual Turkish rule was declared over the whole of Hejaz in 1840. At that time Abd-el-Mutalib was made Great Sherif of Mecca, but there was continual trouble between the Sherif and the Pasha. The religious head of the holy city would not bow to the political head; the anti-slave trade regulations although only very slightly enforced caused riots. The Sherif was deposed and Mohammed bin ’Aun declared ruler in his place. On June 15th, 1858, the murder of certain Christians at Jiddah brought Englan
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XXII BRITISH INFLUENCE IN ARABIA
XXII BRITISH INFLUENCE IN ARABIA
In sketching the relations of England to the peninsula, we will consider: Her Arabian possessions and protectorates; her supremacy in Arabian waters, her commerce with Arabia; her treaties with Arab tribes; and her consulates and agencies in Arabia. Of all British possessions in Arabia, Aden is by far the most important, on account of its strategic position as the key not only of all Yemen, but of the Red Sea and all Western Arabia. Aden was visited as early as 1609 by Captain Sharkey of the Eas
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XXIII PRESENT POLITICS IN ARABIA
XXIII PRESENT POLITICS IN ARABIA
In April, 1899, it was announced that Russia had entered the Persian Gulf as a political power and acquired the harbor of Bunder Abbas in Persia as a terminus for her proposed railway. Since that time this has been officially denied both at Teheran and St. Petersburg and also stoutly reasserted with new proofs by the English press and the press of India. It is undoubtedly news of a sensational character if it be true. The presence of Russia in the Persian Gulf would probably change the future hi
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XXIV THE ARABIC LANGUAGE
XXIV THE ARABIC LANGUAGE
The Arabic Koran is a text-book in the day-schools of Turkey, Afghanistan, Java, Sumatra, New Guinea, and Southern Russia. Arabic is the spoken language not only of Arabia proper but forces the linguistic boundary of that peninsula 300 miles north of Bagdad to Diarbekr and Mardin, and is used all over Syria and Palestine and the whole of northern Africa. Even at Cape Colony there are daily readers of the language of Mohammed. As early as 1315 Arabic began to be taught at the universities of Euro
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XXV THE LITERATURE OF THE ARABS
XXV THE LITERATURE OF THE ARABS
It is not to be expected that all the transcendant excellencies and miraculous beauties which Moslem commentators find in the Koran should unveil themselves to cold, unsympathizing western gaze, but that the book has a certain literary beauty no one can deny who has read it in the original. As Penrice says in his preface to his Dictionary of the Koran, “Beauties there are many and great; ideas highly poetical are clothed in rich and appropriate language, which not unfrequently rises to a sublimi
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XXVI THE ARAB
XXVI THE ARAB
Concerning the origin of the tribes and people that now inhabit the Arabian peninsula there is disagreement among the learned. It is generally held that the original tribes of Northern Arabia are descendants of Ishmael. This is also the tradition of all Arab historians. As to the South Arabians, who occupied their highlands with the Hadramaut coast for centuries before the Ishmaelites appeared on the scene there are two opinions. Some believe them to be descendants of Joktan (Arabic Kahtan ) the
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XXVII ARABIAN ARTS AND SCIENCES
XXVII ARABIAN ARTS AND SCIENCES
And did Sinbad the sailor sing the same tune on his voyages down the Persian Gulf to India which now the Lingah boatmen lustily chant as they land the cargo from a British India steamer? Or was it like this sailors’ song on the Red Sea? To both of these questions the only answer is the unchangeableness of the Orient; and this puts the probability, at least, so far that the sailors of to-day could easily join in Sinbad’s chorus. The people of Jauf, in Northern Arabia, are most famous for music at
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XXVIII THE STAR-WORSHIPPERS OF MESOPOTAMIA [103]
XXVIII THE STAR-WORSHIPPERS OF MESOPOTAMIA [103]
“In a remote period of antiquity Sabeanism was diffused over Asia by the science of the Chaldeans and the arms of the Assyrians. They adored the seven gods or angels who directed the course of the seven planets and shed their irresistible influence on the earth.... They prayed thrice each day, and the temple of the moon at Haran was the term of their pilgrimage.”— Gibbon. In the towns along the lower Euphrates and Tigris, especially at Amara, Suk es Shiukh, Busrah and Mohammerah, there dwell an
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XXIX EARLY CHRISTIANITY IN ARABIA
XXIX EARLY CHRISTIANITY IN ARABIA
“And some fell among thorns.”— Matthew xiii. 7. “But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went his way. But when the blade was sprung up and brought forth fruit then appeared the tares also. So the servants of the house-holder came and said unto him, Sir, didst not thou sow good seed in thy field? from whence then hath it tares? He said unto them, An enemy hath done this.”— Matthew xiii. 25-28. It is recorded in the Acts of the apostles that Arabians, or Arabian pr
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XXX THE DAWN OF MODERN ARABIAN MISSIONS
XXX THE DAWN OF MODERN ARABIAN MISSIONS
“It surely is not without a purpose that this widespread and powerful race [the Arabs] has been kept these four thousand years, unsubdued and undegenerate, preserving still the vigor and simplicity of its character. It is certainly capable of a great future; and as certainly a great future lies before it. In may be among the last peoples of Southwestern Asia to yield to the transforming influences of Christianity and a Christian civilization. But to those influences it will assuredly yield in th
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XXXI ION KEITH FALCONER AND THE ADEN MISSION
XXXI ION KEITH FALCONER AND THE ADEN MISSION
“My sword I give to him that shall succeed me in my pilgrimage, and my courage and skill to him that can get it. My marks and scars I carry with me to be a witness for me, that I have fought His battles, who now will be my rewarder.... So he passed over and all the trumpets sounded for him on the other side.”— Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress. (Death of Valiant for Truth.) Ion Keith Falconer and Thomas Valpy French, both laid down their lives for Christ after a brief period of labor in the land they
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XXXII BISHOP FRENCH THE VETERAN MISSIONARY TO MUSCAT
XXXII BISHOP FRENCH THE VETERAN MISSIONARY TO MUSCAT
If it was Keith Falconer’s life and death that sealed the missionary love of the church to Aden, it was the death of Thomas Valpy French [146] that turned many eyes to Muscat. Bishop French it was who signalized the completion of his fortieth year of missionary service by attacking, single handed, the seemingly impregnable fortress of Islam in Oman. He is called by Eugene Stock, “the most distinguished of all Church Missionary Society missionaries.” We are tempted to describe this man’s early mi
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XXXIII THE AMERICAN ARABIAN MISSION
XXXIII THE AMERICAN ARABIAN MISSION
“Our ultimate object is to occupy the interior of Arabia.”— Plan of the Arabian Mission. “To such an appeal there can be but one reply. The Dutch Reformed Church when it took up the mission originally commenced on an independent basis as the Arabian Mission, did so with full knowledge of the plans and purposes of its founders, which, as the very title of the mission shows, embraced nothing less than such a comprehensive scheme of evangelization as that above described.”— Major-General F. T. Haig
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XXXIV IN MEMORIAM—PETER J. ZWEMER AND GEO. E. STONE
XXXIV IN MEMORIAM—PETER J. ZWEMER AND GEO. E. STONE
A skillful and loving hand has laid a wreath of immortelles on the unknown grave of Kamil; his biography will live. We can only briefly record our love and admiration for those other two of the Arabian Mission, who “loved not their lives unto the death,” but “hazarded their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Peter John Zwemer was born at South Holland, Illinois, near Chicago, on September 2d, 1868. His childhood was spent in a loving Christian home surrounded by gracious influences an
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XXXV PROBLEMS OF THE ARABIAN FIELD
XXXV PROBLEMS OF THE ARABIAN FIELD
“A word as to the task your mission attempts. It is to me the hardest in the whole mission-field. To conquer Mohammedanism is to capture Satan’s throne and I think it involves the greatest conflict Christianity has ever known. In attacking Arabia you aim at the citadel of supreme error occupied by the last enemy that shall bow to the kingship of Christ.”— Rev. W. A. Essery , Hon. Secretary of the Turkish Mission Aid Society. “While the difficulties in the way of missionary work in lands under Mo
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XXXVI OUTLOOK FOR MISSIONS TO MOSLEMS IN ARABIA
XXXVI OUTLOOK FOR MISSIONS TO MOSLEMS IN ARABIA
“Take it at its very worst. They are dead lands and dead souls, blind and cold and stiff in death as no heathen are; but we who love them see the possibilities of sacrifice, of endurance of enthusiasm of life , not yet effaced. Does not the Son of God who died for them see these possibilities too? Do you think He says of the Mohammedan, ‘There is no help for him in his God’? Has He not a challenge too for your faith, the challenge that rolled away the stone from the grave where Lazarus lay? ‘Sai
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Appendix I A CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE
Appendix I A CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE
[ Note. —To find the equivalent date A. H. of any year A. D. :—From the year A. D. deduct 621.54 and to the remainder add 3 per cent. A. H. 1 = July 16th, 622 A. D. , and the Moslem year consists of 12 lunar months. To find the equivalent date A. D. of a year A. H. multiply it by .970225 and to the remainder add 621.54. The sum gives the date A. D. of the end of the year A. H. ]...
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Appendix III KAAT AND COFFEE CULTURE IN ARABIA
Appendix III KAAT AND COFFEE CULTURE IN ARABIA
Kaat ( Celastrus eatha edulis ) is a shrub or small tree which grows at an altitude of about five thousand feet in the lower mountains of Yemen, especially on the slopes of Jebel Sohr near Taiz. It is uncertain whether the plant is indigenous, but if introduced into Yemen from Africa, it came very early, with coffee, when the Abyssinian conquest caused the fall of the Himyarite empire. Kaat is planted from shoots which are left to grow for three years, then all the leaves and buds are pulled off
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D. Islam
D. Islam
[ Note. —For other Arabic Lexicons, Grammars and Manuals consult Oriental catalogues of: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co., London; F. A. Brockhaus, Leipzig; and E. J. Brill, Bibliothéque Orientale, Leyden.]...
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