a mighty flood, which broke down the mound by night while the inhabitants were asleep, and carried away the whole city, with the neighbouring towns and people.4 The tribes which remained in Yaman after this terrible devastation still continued under the obedience of the former princes, till about seventy years before Mohammed, when the king of Ethiopia sent over forces to assist the Christians of Yaman against the cruel persecution of their king, Dhu Nowâs, a bigoted Jew, whom they drove to that extremity that he forced his horse into the sea, and so lost his life and crown,5 after which the country was governed by four Ethiopian princes successively, till Selif, the son of Dhu Yazan, of the tribe of Hamyar, obtaining succours from Khosrû Anushirwân, king of Persia, which had been denied him by the emperor Heraclius, recovered the throne and drove out the Ethiopians, but was himself slain by some of them who were left behind. The Persians appointed the succeeding princes till Yaman fell into the hands of Mohammed, to whom Bazan, or rather Badhân, the last of them, submitted, and embraced this new religion.1 This kingdom of the Hammyarites is said to have lasted 2,020 years,2 or as others say above 3,000;3 the length of the reign of each prince being very uncertain. It has been already observed that two kingdoms were founded by those who left their country on occasion of the inundation of Aram:
1 Poc. Spec. p. 65, 66. 2 Vide Gol. ad Alfrag. p. 232. 3 Poc. Spec. p. 57. 4 Geogr. Nubiens. p. 52. 5 See Prideaux's Life of Mahomet, p. 61. 1 Poc. Spec. p. 63, 64. 2 Abulfeda. 3 Al Jannâbi and Ahmed Ebn Yusef.
they were both out of the proper limits of Arabia. One of them was the kingdom of Ghassân. The founders of this kingdom were of the tribe of Azd, who, settling in Syria Damascena near a water called Ghassân, thence took their name, and drove out (the Dajaamian Arabs of the tribe of Salîh, who before possessed the country;4 where they maintained their kingdom 400 years, as others say 600, or as Abulfeda more exactly computes, 616. Five of these princes were named Hâreth, which the Greeks write Aretas: and one of them it was whose governor ordered the gates of Damascus to be watched to take St. Paul.5 This tribe were Christians, their last king being Jabalah the son of al Ayham, who on the Arabs' successes in Syria professed Mohammedism under the Khalîf Omar; but receiving a disgust from him, returned to his former faith, and retired to Constantinople.6 The other kingdom was that of Hira, which was founded by Malec, of the descendants of Cahlân7 in Chaldea or Irâk; but after three descents the throne came by marriage to the Lakhmians, called also the Mondars (the general name of those princes), who preserved their dominion, notwithstanding some small interruption by the Persians, till the Khalîfat of Abubecr, when al Mondar al Maghrûr, the last of them, lost his life and crown by the arms of Khaled Ebn al Walîd. This kingdom lasted 622 years eight months.8 Its princes were under the protection of the kings of Persia, whose lieutenants they were over the Arabs of Irâk, as the kings of Ghassân were for the Roman emperors over those of Syria.9 Jorham the son of Kahtân reigned in Hejâz, where his posterity kept the throne till the time of Ismael; but on his marrying the daughter of Modad, by whom he had twelve sons, Kidar, one of them, had the crown resigned to him by his uncles the Jorhamites,1 though others say the descendants of Ismael expelled that tribe, who retiring to Johainah, were, after various fortune, at last all destroyed by an inundation.2 Of the kings of Hamyar, Hira, Ghassân, and Jorham, Dr. Pocock has given us catalogues tolerably exact, to which I refer the curious.3 After the expulsion of the Jorhamites, the government of Hejâz seems not to have continued for many centuries in the hands of one prince, but to have been divided among the heads of tribes, almost in the same manner as the Arabs of the desert are governed at this day. At Mecca an aristocracy prevailed, where the chief management of affairs till the time of Mohammed was in the tribe of Koreish, especially after they had gotten the custody of the Caaba from the tribe of Khozâah.4 Besides the kingdoms which have been taken notice of, there were some other tribes which in latter times had princes of their own, and formed states of lesser note, particularly the tribe of Kenda:5 but as I am not writing a just history of the Arabs, and an account of them would be of no great use ot my present purpose, I shall waive any further mention of them. After the time of Mohammed, Arabia was for about three centuries under the Khalîfs his successors. But in the year 325 of the Hejra,
4 Poc. Spec. p. 76. 5 2 Cor. xi. 32; Acts ix. 24. 6 Vide Ockley's History of the Saracens, vol. i. p. 174. 7 Poc. Spec. p. 66. 8 Ibid. p. 74. 9 Ibid. and Procop. in Pers. apud Photium. p. 71, &c. 1 Poc. Spec. p. 45. 2 Ibid. p. 79. 3 Ibid. p. 55, seq. 4 Vide ibid. p. 41, and Prideaux's Life of Mahomet, p. 2. 5 Vide Poc. Spec. p. 79, &c.
great part of that country was in the hands of the Karmatians,6 a new sect who had committed great outrages and disorders even in Mecca, and to whom the Khalîfs were obliged to pay tribute, that the pilgrimage thither might be performed: of this sect I may have occasion to speak in another place. Afterwards Yaman was governed by the house of Thabateba, descended from Ali the son-in-law of Mohammed, whose sovereignty in Arabia some place so high as the time of Charlemagne. However, it was the posterity of Ali, or pretenders to be such, who reigned in Yaman and Egypt so early as the tenth century. The present reigning family in Yaman is probably that of Ayub, a branch of which reigned there in the thirteenth century, and took the title of Khalîf and Imâm, which they still retain.7 They are not possessed of the whole province of Yaman,8 there being several other independent kingdoms there, particularly that of Fartach. The crown of Yaman descends not regularly from father to son, but the prince of the blood royal who is most in favour with the great ones, or has the strongest interest, generally succeeds.9 The governors of Mecca and Medina, who have always been of the race of Mohammed, also threw off their subjection to the Khalîfs, since which time four principal families, all descended from Hassan the son of Ali, have reigned there under the title of Sharîf, which signifies noble, as they reckon themselves to be on account of their descent. These are Banu Kâder, Banu Mûsa Thani, Banu Hashem, and Banu Kitâda;1 which last family now is, or lately was, in the throne of Mecca, where they have reigned above 500 years. The reigning family at Medina are the Banu Hashem, who also reigned at Mecca before those of Kitâda.2 The kings of Yaman, as well as the princes of Mecca and Medina, are alsolutely independent3 and not at all subject to the Turk, as some late authors have imagined.4 These princes often making cruel wars among themselves, gave an opportunity to Selim I. and his son Solimân, to make themselves masters of the coasts of Arabia on the Red Sea, and of part of Yaman, by means of a fleet built at Sues: but their successors have not been able to maintain their conquests; for, except the port of Jodda, where they have a Basha whose authority is very small, they possess nothing considerable in Arabia.5 Thus have the Arabs preserved their liberty, of which few nations can produce so ancient monuments, with very little interruption, from the very Deluge; for though very great armies have been sent against them, all attempts to subdue them were unsuccessful. The Assyrian or Median empires never got footing among them.6 The Persian monarchs, though they were their friends, and so far respected by them as to have an annual present of frankincense,7 yet could never make them tributary;8 and were so far from being their masters, that Cambyses, on his expedition against Egypt, was obliged to ask their leave to pass through their territories;9 and when Alexander had subdued that mighty empire, yet the Arabians had so little apprehension of him, that they alone, of
6 Vide Elmacin. in vita al Râdi. 7 Voyage de l-Arab. heur. p. 255.
8 Ibid. 153, 273. 9 Ibid. 254. 1 Ibid. 143. 2
Ibid. 145. 3 Ibid. 143, 148. 4 Vide D'Herbel. Bibl. Orient. p.
477. 5 Voy. de l'Arab. heur. p. 148. 6 Diodor. Sic. 1. 2, p. 131.
7 Herodot. 1 3, c. 97. 8 Idem ib. c. 91. Diodor. ubi sup.
9 Herodot. 1. 3, c. 8 and 98.
all the neighbouring nations, sent no ambassadors to him, either first or last; which, with a desire of possessing so rich a country, made him form a design against it, and had he not died before he could put it in execution,10 this people might possibly have convinced him that he was not invincible: and I do not find that any of his successors, either in Asia or Egypt, ever made any attempt against them.1 The Romans never conquered any part of Arabia properly so called; the most they did was to make some tribes in Syria tributary to them, as Pompey did one commanded by Sampsiceramus or Shams'alkerâm, who reigned at Hems or Emesa;2 but none of the Romans, or any other nations that we know of, ever penetrated so far into Arabia as Ælius Gallus under Augustus Cæsar;3 yet he was so far from subduing it, as some authors pretend,4 that he was soon obliged to return without effecting anything considerable,