The Exploit of Rahrahan. ,' When Khalid was killed, Harith, the son of Zhalim, took flight, and, after ranging the world, came to seek refuge with Mabad, the son of Zourârah, of the tribe of the Banou-Tamim. At this time Zourârah no longer existed. Mabad having promised his aid to the fugitive, the Banou-Tamim said to him, 'What art thou thinking of, to receive this unlucky one? Wouldst thou draw on us the wrath of Aswad? The Tamimides therefore separated their cause from that of Mabad, excepting, however, the Banou-Mawiyyah and the Banou-Abdallah ibn-Darim, who both protected the stranger. "Laqit, another son of Zourârah, com posed on this occasion a satiric poem, passing in review the numerous families of the tribe of Tamim, and castigating each in turn. The families of Adiyy and Taym were the worst treated by him. 666 Nothing more pitiful than the children of Adiyy and Taym, in the hour of danger. It is in vain to seek for champions amongst them. "When their lances gleam above the horizon, with Zayd at their head, the enemy are at ease: they have long known that the lances of Zayd do no harm.' "Ahwass, in the mean time, the son of Djafar, the son of Kilab, and the brother of the assassinated Khalid, being informed of the place where Harith, the son of Zhalim, had sought refuge, came to attack Mabad, his protector. The encounter took place at Rahrahan, not far from Oukazh, in the Hegiaz. The Tamimides were put to flight, and Mabad, the son of Zourarah, taken prisoner. He was captured by two brothers, Amir and Toufayl, sons of Malik, the son of Djafar, the son of Kilab. them.' And Laqit went away without ransoming Mabad. "The conquerors, it is said by some, interdicted him from water, and treated him so ill that he died of inanition: but, according to others, Mabad refused to eat or drink, and perished voluntarily of thirst and hunger. Amir, the son of Toufayl, alludes to this fact in the following verse. "We have quenched our long resentment against the tribes of the Absides, and amongst us has Mabad died for want of food.'" The poet Djarir has celebrated the day of Rahrahan in the following verses. We must take another instance which, in M. Fresnel's opinion, "displays the Bedouin character in all its purity." We doubt if this word should not be atrocity. Banou Fazarah, part of the tribe of Dhoubyan, for protection. The king, on the other hand, revenged himself by taking the milch-camels belonging to Rabi, and exchanged them for arms at Mekka. Rabi and his brothers were distinguished for their worth, and every where named Kamahlah, or, the Perfect. Rabi, the son of Ziyad, of the tribe of Abs, had a difference with Qays, the son of Zouhayr, and therefore his own sovereign, "Laqit, the son of Zourârah, came to respecting a coat of mail claimed by both. them to treat for the ransom of his bro-Rabi had carried it off, but had fled to the ther, and said: 'I have two hundred camels, take these.' The sons of Malik answered him: Thou art the chief of Ilyas. and Mabad, thy brother, is chief of Moudar. We will take for him only the ransom of a king.' But Laqit would not hear of any increase on the offer. 'Our father ordered us,' he said, and it was one of his dying injunctions, not to add one single camel to the two hundred, which have Hostilities having commenced meantime long formed the amount of our ransoms.' between the tribes of Abs and Dhoubyan, Then Mabad said to Laqit, Desert me by the death of Malik, the son of Houdhaynot, oh Laqit! for I swear by God, if thou fah, of the family of Fazarah, the Absides leavest me to day in their hands, thou wilt hastened to pay the price of blood to the never see me again.' 'Have patience, my brother,' said Laqit, for, if I give way, parents of the slain, and gave them one what will become of our father's injunc- hundred camels, which were accepted by tion, which said-Leave not yourselves to Houdhayfah. But subsequently the latter, be eaten up by the Arabs, and raise not still nourishing resentment, surprised and the sum of your ransoms above the price killed Malik, the son of Zouhayr, and brousually given for a warrior of your people, ther of Qays. Then the Absides said to lest you be attacked by the ravening wolves the Fazarides: Malik, the son of Zouthat infest the country, and who will be attracted by the feast that you will thus offer hayr, goes for Malik, the son of Houdhay VOL. XX. 11 fah, so return us our camels:"-but this Houdhayfah refused. At the return of the party forming the ambuscade by which Malik the son of Zouhayr had been slain, in the presence of Rabi the Fazarides who had stayed at home, addressed those who had gone on the expedition."What have you done," said they, with your wild ass?" We have not neglected it," they answered. Rabi, who was under the protection of the enemies of his tribe, but ignorant of the recent murder, inquired the sense of these mysterious words: "It means that we have killed Malik, the son of Zouhayr." Ye have committed infamy then," cried Rabi; "ye have accepted a composition; ye were satisfied therewith and called it sufficient; yet afterwards-But ye are faithless." "Wert thou not our guest," replied the Fazarides, “we should have slain thee at the first word: thou hast still three* nights to pass in our tents." Rabi fled, and the Fazarides pursued him, but in vain, and the fugitive rejoining his tribe, made his peace with his king. The value of these records, however small, may be more justly appreciated by calling to mind, that of such materials in the infancy of nations throughout the East were composed the histories on which alone we must rely. They serve to illustrate the former earliest literary state, not of their proper country only, but also of Persia, Tatary, and China. The poems or songs from which Ferdousi compiled a large portion of his Book of Kings in the first (see F. Q. R. No. XXXV. p. 119 to 150); the traditionary records that were suffered to perish in the second, after the great Persian poet had achieved his immortal work (No. XXXVIII. pp. 403, 404); and those fragments of former times which were collected by the care of the sage Confucius in the last, and to which we have elsewhere slightly referred already, and may possibly turn for closer examination hereafter, render it, therefore, almost certain that the earliest history of eastern nations in general is not to be found in their extant historical works. Amongst other points of resemblance that we formerly noticed (No. XXXV. pp. 125, 127, and No. XXXVII. pp. 201, &c.), we may now remark also the singular fact, that the Arab, like the Brahmin, while he appears to have cultivated his language, and the general sciences, with no ordinary degree of care, has entirely overlooked the necessity of separating truth from falsehood, and preserving a continuous narrative of the acts of his ancestors-a fact so strange that it is certainly calculated to awaken our suspicions. Major Price, in his elaborate Essay on the early History of Arabia, has dwelt at some length on the paucity of his materials, and declares, that after all his labors "the opinion which the author had early formed that, anterior to the age of Mahommed, the Arabs possessed, in fact, no authentic records of their history, remains, however, unaltered; and, considering that so distinguished an orientalist as Dr. Pococke could advance no further, the author must abide in the belief that, without launching into the ocean of conjecture, into the mazes of an ever-varying speculation, all attempt to produce a regular History of Arabia, an tecedent to that period, will, if the truth be acknowledged, ever terminate in a specimen, or an essay." At the conclusion, too, of the volume he explicitly states, "In the preceding essay it has been our endeavor through the mazes of traditional, and we fear in too many instances, of fabulous narrative, to discover, if possible, some of the traces of rational history; and it is to be regretted, although not by any means an extraordinary circumstance, that, at a period so little remote from our own times, we should have been compelled in our search after truth, to occupy the attention of the reader so extensively with the fictions of romance. Yet, should the success of our researches neither correspond with our early hopes nor with the just claims of an enlightened age, it will be a still more discouraging reflection to find, that the failure is ascribed to want of diligence on the part of the writer, rather than to the total absence of competent materials. To seek for more sober or better authenticated information among oriental historians would, nevertheless, as far as it has been our lot to discover, be a hopeless and unavailing pursuit, the general professed belief in the East being in close coincidence with the abstract above compiled. Neither is it understood that, previous to the time of Mahommed, during what his followers have contemptuously designated the period of ignorance, folly, or absurdity, the Arabians were in poshistory, unless such were contained in the session of any authentic records of their poetical effusions, the Moallekaut, suspensilia, or prize poems, suspended in the temple of Mekkah. And if, again, we recur to the collateral notices, scattered at distant intervals through the pages of * This was the shortest period that could be Greek and Roman story, little more is to granted to a protégé. be gathered than occasional testimonies to the lofty and intractable spirit, the inex tinguishable love of independence, which [ We may, however, afford a few lines to in all ages characterized the Arab race, their reputed origin and history. and which have doubtless contributed in a great degree to preserve to the genuine and generally considered to be the same as The patriarch Eber, grandson of Shem, Arabian, to this day, more of the stamp of antiquity than is to be found in any other the prophet Houd, was the father of Yoknation upon earth."-pp. 247, 248. tan, Joctan, and Kahtan, as by a slight transposition his name is commonly pro His assertions are amply illustrated by nounced. Yarrab, or Arab, (for it is but the single fact, that except the monstrous the gutteral a), was the son of Kahtan, and and extravagant fictions of the Rouzut-ul- the inventor, as already stated, of the lanSuffa, and the Khoulausset-ul-Akhbar, guage. He is the progenitor of the Arabs themselves obviously taken in great mea- of Yemen, or the Happy Arabia, whose sure from misunderstood foreign accounts colonies or tribes occupied Bahrain, on the and traditions, the bulk of his work is sus- Persian Gulf, Nedjid, Yamama, and Yathtained by the Tarikh Tabiri, a Persian reb or Medina (by pre-eminence the City), chronicler, and is in itself less a history of and to the borders of Hegiaz. AbdulArabia than of Persia, in which incidental Shems, the Slave, or worshipper, of the notices of the former country are occasion- Sun, was the Son of Yarrab, and possessed ally given as connected with the existence the sovereign authority over Yemen. He of the latter. left three children; Kahlaun, who succeeded him, and became the parent of the BeniLakhim and the Ghassau races; Mezza, whom Price considers, with great probability we think, to have been Madhaj, the grandson, not the son; and Hamyar, from whom are descended the Hamyarites or Homerites, so celebrated in Assyrian history, and who ruled over Yemen to the time of Islamism. The 21st in descent from Hamyar was Harith, surnamed Al Raysh, who united the different tribes under his rule, and first assumed the well-known appellation of Tobbah. With a slight notice of a few of his desendants, the Arabian author carries us down to the time of Balkis, the Queen of Sheba in the days of Solomon,---found by the lapwing searching for water. Of their boasted antiquity the Arabs know absolutely nothing beyond what they have borrowed and disfigured from extraneous sources. They have little, Tabiri nothing whatever, to fill the space between Ishmael and Moses, whom they consider to have undertaken his divine mission in the 60th year of the reign of Menuchehr, king of Persia; and another void intervenes from the time of the great Hebrew legislator to the magnificent period of Solomon, king of Israel and Ginnistan! When Arabian history really commences, it is in great measure confined to Irak-Arabi, colonized by their countrymen not long after the reign of Alexander; and long and idle tales of impossible achievements occupy, even then, the place of legitimate history, down nearly to the birth of Mahommed. Before the time of Mahomet the Arabs It is no way to be wondered at, therefore, were divided into two nations; one claimthat they boast an unconquered freedom, ing their descent from the Kahtan aforesince they have no means of preserving the said; the second holding generally the cenrecords of their conquerors; nor that they tral and western parts of the country, the should have entirely lost all traces of the Hegiaz and Tihamah. These are the victorious expedition of Ælius Gallus, the proper wanderers of the Desert, whose traRoman prefect of Egypt, so late as the time ditions M. Fresnel is now examining: but of Caligula, into Yemen. The conquest they themselves yield the precedence unof that country by the Abyssinian kings, questionably to the Arabs of Yemen and about A. D. 500, as given in the Kholaus- of the race of Kahtan. These last are conset-ul-Akhbar, is sufficient, however, to re- fessed by their brethren to be the Arabs of fute their boast of freedom, even without Arabs, while they themselves are but deknowing, as we do from other sources, scendants of Ishmael, and only Moustahow entirely they were at the mercy of an ribes; deriving this humbler appellation enemy that chose, in any age, to overrun from their being engrafted on the original a country divided into tribes continually race by the marriage of one of its daughwarring with each other, but never uniting ters to their own progenitor Ishmael, son long against a hostile force; and whose of Abraham. Before the 20th ancestor of fiercest battles scarcely deserve the name Mahommed, the most enlightened of the of skirmishes, as they fled at the loss of two or three men of their number: not, like the Parthians, to return for deeper ven 3eance. nation confess the questionable nature of their historical genealogies of Mecca,— that mount up to Maan, and, by a single step, from him to his father Adam. The $4 "Having brought these men to his prename of Ishmael, indeed, seems to have been little known to them, and but by indi- sence, Rebbeiah called upon Setteiah first rect intercourse with the Jewish tribes, till of all, separately, to explain to him the circumstances of the dream which had the appearance of the Prophet in the tribe occasioned so much uneasiness; and the of the Koreishites, who reckoned only sorcerer described to him, with little hesitwenty generations between him Adam! tation, that what he had seen was a thick Mahommed, in his extracts from the He- darkness from the bosom of which there brew Scriptures, raised to its present im- issued a mighty flame of fire, which cleavportance the name of Ishmael, the wild Be-ing to the earth, and reducing it into burndouins of the Desert having till then been ing cinders, consumed all the inhabitants contented to distinguish themselves by the of Yemen. Acknowledging the precision with which the circumstances of his dream appellation of the Sons of Maad, the son of had been described to him, the prince now Adam; while their superior brethren demanded that he might be furnished with claimed, as we have seen, their descent the interpretation; and Setteiah proceedfrom Kahtan. Such is the vaunted preci ed to explain, that his country would be sion of Arabian antiquity. invaded by the monarch of Habbeshah, or Abyssinia, who would subjugate the inhabitants, subvert the Jewish religion, and transfer the sovereign power to the Abyssinians. In short, that these latter, a sable race, should subdue the country with fire and sword, and render themselves masters of Yemen. Rebbeiah then demanded if he were able to furnish any information as to the events which might follow; and the sorcerer added, that, at the expiration of a certain period, a person would then arise of the name of Seyf-ben Zy-ul-Yezzen, or Yazzen, who should wrest the power from the Abyssinians; but that he should also perish by a violent death, and a prophet would appear among the Arabs, by whom a code of laws would be established in Yemen, that should prevail to the end of time. On the day following, the other master-sorcerer, whose name was Shekk, or Shekka, appeared in the presence of Rebbeiah, and being also examined apart by that prince, furnished precisely the same replies, without the slightest variation in point of fact and interpretation, as had been given by Setteiah."-pp. 194, 195. The details that foiled Price, Pococke, and others, in their researches after history, are in truth but idle narrations of treachery, cruelty, coarseness, and vice; while the tone of exaggeration they indulge in may be judged from the circumstance, that the roseleaf of the Sybarite is swelled into the monstrosity of having absolutely torn and drawn streams of blood from the side of a princess, who had lived only on the marrow of calves and lambs, baked to consistence with butter and honey; and on ambergris, or other aromatics, for bread. nary The singular facts narrated by Mr. Lane, in his admirable work on modern Egypt, regarding the magicians, corroborated, as they seem to be, by the extraordidetails given lately in a justly popular journal, and which equal, if they do not exceed, the incredible exploits of Indian jugglers, attested by so many witnesses of unquestionable veracity, induce us to add, from Major Price's volume, the following account of the Kauhens: * "The Kauhens mentioned here are de scribed as a class of men, of whom, at this period, many were to be found both in Arabia and Syria, professing to give information on things unseen, not yet in existence, or to come to pass at some future period; to discover thefts, to describe the circumstances of an untold dream, and to furnish the interpretation; in short, without any kind of previous explanation, to give to individuals in all the occurrences of life, a satisfactory reply to every inquiry. In Arabia, these soothsayers bore the name of Kauhenan, but the Oustauds, or masters, in the occult profession, at the period under consideration, were two persons of the name of Shekk and Setteiah, to whom all in Arabia looked up for instruction in the mysteries of the art. This narrative from the Tarikh Tabiri is confirmed on all material points by the "His father's name was Mussâoud, and it is alleged that, with the exception of his skull and the ends of his fingers, he was entirely without bone in any part of his body. According to others his head was in his bosom; that, when under the influence of rage, his body became distended, and it was then only that he was able to sit erect. He could not, however, at any time be made to stand upon his feet, but when it was necessary to move him from place to place, they folded him like a mantle; and when there was occasion to consult him in the exercise of his mysterious profession, it was the practice to roll him * See Major Price's note to the marvels related backwards and forwards upon the floor, in Jehanguire's Memoirs. like a skin of milk, for cheese or butter, the tribe of Fahm, and of the family of Schababah, the Schabâbides gave Schanfara to the Salamanides in exchange for the prisoner they had made. until the answer was obtained. From the account given by himself, Setteiah derived his supernatural knowledge from one of the Jinn, or Genii, who had surreptitiously overheard some of the communications vouchsafed by the Supreme Being to Mo- nou-Salaman, who treated him exactly as "Schanfara was long amongst the Bases, and who instructed the sorcerer in the if he had been one of their children, when disclosures which he was thus prepared the daughter of the Salamanide who had to make to those who applied to him for brought him up grew angry one day with information. It is further stated, that the the youthful captive. Schanfara, deemlife of this extraordinary individual ex-ing himself a child of the house, had said tended to the period of 600 years."-pp. to her, 'My little sister, wash my head.' 196, 197. The young maid, who disdained him for struck him. a brother, was enraged at his freedom and mortified, sought the man who had reSchanfara, indignant and ceived him from the Fahmides in exchange for their prisoner, and adjured him to speak the truth regarding his birth. 'Thou art,' he answered, of the family of Schanfara, 'I will leave you no rest till I Iwas, the son of Houdjr.' 'If so,' returned have killed one hundred men of your tribe for holding me in slavery." The labors of the Baron de Sacy are not unknown to the generality of readers. We need therefore only refer to them in the case of Schanfara; and our space reminds that we must draw towards a conclusion. We must now therefore turn our attention to Schanfara. Schanfara was of the race of Azd (or Asd), and of the tribe of Iwas (Aws), the son of Houdir, the son of Hinw (Houn), the son of Azd. Amongst the verses he composed the following have become popular. "Oummou-Amr was resolved upon going; she is gone without bidding adieu to her neighbours. Oummou-Amr has left thee, wretched lover! even whilst thy heart was a prey to desire. Farewell then to happiness! "I am charmed with this maid, for her veil slips not aside as she walks; and her head turns not to the right or to the left. "Her eyes are bent upon earth, so that you would say that she is searching for something she has dropped in her path. If ever she ventures to address thee, be sure that modesty and shame will soon reduce her to silence." 6 He composed the following verses on receiving the blow. "Why, (since, alas! what is done, is done,) why has the hand of the young maiden struck the cheek of the noble stranger who lived beneath the same roof? Noble, at least, on his father's side. "Had Qacoûs seen my family by the side of his own, my ancestors with his, he would surely have abated of his pride. "For I am sprung from one of the best stems of Houdjr; and my mother,-hadst thou known her, O Qacoûs!-my mother was the child of free parents." Schanfara (the thick-lipped) was the offspring of a slave, either black or of mixed blood; and Fayrouz-abadiyy has inserted him in the catalogue of the poets called Aghribat Alarab, or, the ravens. The fa The following are extracts from the par-mous Antar, more properly Antarah, was, ticulars given of the hero-poet; and the authority is thus stated,— "I receive this history from Amr, the son of Abou-lala, the Haramite, who had it from Abou-Yaya-Mouaddib, and from Ahmad, the son of Abou 'Iminhal, the Mouhallabide; who had it from Mouarridj, who had it from Abou-Hischam Mouhammad Ibn-Hischam, the Namiride. "Schanfara was of the tribe of Iwas, the son of Houdjr, the son of Hinw, the son of Azd, the son of Ghawth. In early youth he fell into the power of the men of the posterity of Schabâbah, the son of Falm, the son of Amr, the son of Qays-Aylan; and remained amongst them till the men of the posterity of Salamân, the son of Moufridj, the son of Awf, the son of Maydaan, the son of Malik, the son of Azd, the son of Ghawth, having made prisoner a man of it may be remembered, of the same origin, the son of an Abyssinian slave, Zabibah. the Banou-Fahm of the tribe of Schabàbâb; Schanfara quitted the tribe of Salaman for and from their dwellings he was wont to issue accompanied by them, or alone, on his murderous expeditions. He was wont to address such verses as these to the Salamanides whom he assailed. "I rest not contented until I have overwhelmed with my dust all that wear the Kiça or the Bourd* in the tribe of Salaman. through the desert the noblest of the Sala"I will spend life, if needful, in chasing *Military mantles. |