LITMIR.BIZ

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miserable plight of the Jews in their ancient home and in the countries of Europe, and fatigued by the constant sight of fanatical oppression, the eyes of the observer rest with gladness upon their situation in the Arabian peninsula. Here the sons of Judah were free to raise their heads, and did not need to look about them with fear and humiliation, lest the ecclesiastical wrath be discharged upon them, or the secular power overwhelm them. Here they were not shut out from the paths of honor, nor excluded from the privileges of the state, but, untrammeled, were allowed to develop their powers in the midst of a free, simple, and talented people, to show their manly courage, to compete for the gifts of fame, and with practised hand to measure swords with their antagonists. Instead of bearing the yoke, the Jews were not infrequently the leaders of the Arabian tribes. Their intellectual superiority constituted them a power, and they concluded offensive and defensive alliances, and carried on feuds. Besides the sword and the lance, however, they handled the ploughshare and the lyre, and in the end became the teachers of the Arabian nation. The history of the Jews of Arabia in the century which precedes Mahomet's appearance, and during the period of his activity, forms a glorious page in the annals of the Jews.

      The first immigration of Jewish families into the free peninsula is buried in misty tradition. According to one account, the Israelites sent by Joshua to fight the Amalekites settled in the city of Yathrib (afterwards Medina), and in the province of Chaibar; according to another, the Israelite warriors, under Saul, who had spared the beautiful young son of the Amalekite king, and had been repudiated by the nation for their disobedience, returned to the Hejas (northern Arabia), and settled there. An Israelite colony is also supposed to have been formed in northern Arabia during the reign of David. It is possible that under the powerful kings of Judah, seafaring Israelites, who navigated the Red Sea on their way to Ophir – the land of gold – established trading stations, for the trade with India, in Mariba and Sanaa (Usal), the most important commercial towns of southern Arabia (Yemen, Himyara, Sabea), and planted Jewish colonies there. The later Arabian Jews said, however, that they had heard from their forefathers that many Jewish fugitives had escaped to northern Arabia on the destruction of the First Temple by Nebuchadnezzar. But there can be no doubt that the persecution of the Jews by the Romans was the means of establishing a Jewish population in the Arabian peninsula. The death-defying zealots who, after the destruction of the Second Temple, fled in part to Egypt and to Cyrene, in order to continue there the desperate struggle against the thraldom of Rome, also passed in straggling bands into Arabia, where they were not compelled to hide their love of freedom or to abandon their warlike bearing.

      From these fugitives sprang three Jewish-Arabic tribes – the Benu-Nadhir, the Benu-Kuraiza, and the Benu-Bachdal, the first two of which were descended from Aaron, and therefore called themselves Cohanim (Al-kahinani). Another Jewish family – the Benu-Kainukaa – were established in northern Arabia, and their mode of living was different from that of the Nadhir and Kuraiza. These tribes had their center in the city of Yathrib, which was situated in a fruitful district, planted with palms and rice, and watered by small streams. As the Jews were often molested by Bedouins, they built castles on the elevated places in the city and the surrounding country, whereby they guarded their independence. Although originally the sole rulers of this district, they were afterwards obliged to share their power and the possession of the soil with the Arabs, for, about the year 300, two related families, the Benu-Aus and the Chazraj (together forming the tribe of Kaila), settled in the same neighborhood, and sometimes stood in friendly, sometimes in hostile relations to the Jews.

      To the north of Yathrib was situated the district of Chaibar, which was entirely inhabited by Jews, who constituted a separate commonwealth. The Jews of Chaibar are supposed to have been descendants of the Rechabites, who, in accordance with the command of their progenitor, Jonadab, the son of Rechab, led a nomadic and Nazarite life; after the destruction of the First Temple, they are said to have wandered as far as the district of Chaibar, attracted by its abundance of palms and grain. The Jews of Chaibar constructed a line of castles or fortresses, like the castles of the Christian knights; the strongest of them was Kamus, built upon a hill difficult of access. These castles protected them from the predatory incursions of the warlike Bedouins, and enabled them to offer an asylum to many a persecuted fugitive. Wadil-Kora (the valley of the villages), a fertile plain a day's journey from Chaibar, was also inhabited exclusively by Jews. In Mecca, where stood the sanctuary of the Arabs, there probably lived but few Jews.

      They were numerously represented, however, in southern Arabia (Yemen), "the land," its inhabitants boasted, "the very dust of which was gold, which produced the healthiest men, and whose women brought forth without pain." But unlike their brethren in Hejas, the Jews of Arabia Felix lived without racial or political cohesion, scattered among the Arabs. They nevertheless in time obtained so great an influence over the Arab tribes and the kings of Yemen (Himyara), that they were able to prevent the propagation of Christianity in this region. The Byzantine Christian emperors had their desires fixed upon these markets for Indian produce. Without actually meditating the subjection of the brave Himyarites (Homerites), they desired to gain their friendship by converting them to Christianity; the cross was to be the means of effecting a commercial connection. It was not until the end of the fifth or the beginning of the sixth century that the Christian envoys succeeded in converting to Christianity an Arab prince and his tribe, whose capital was the commercial town of Najara. – Arabia owned only half the island of Yotabe (now Jijbân), in the Red Sea (60 miles to the south of the capital, Aila); a small Jewish free state had existed there since time immemorial.

      In consequence of their Semitic descent, the Jews of Arabia possessed many points of similarity with the primitive inhabitants of the country. Their language was closely related to Arabic, and their customs, except those that had been produced by their religion, were not different from those of the sons of Arabia. The Jews became, therefore, so thoroughly Arabic that they were distinguished from the natives of the country only by their religious belief. Intermarriage between the two nations tended to heighten the similarity of their characters. Like the Himyarites, the Jews of southern Arabia applied themselves more particularly to the trade between India, the Byzantine empire, and Persia. The Jews of northern Arabia, on the contrary, led the life of Bedouins; they occupied themselves with agriculture, cattle breeding, transport by caravan, traffic in weapons, and probably also the calling of robbers. The Arabian Jews likewise possessed a patriarchal, tribal constitution. Several families were united under one name, and led by a chieftain (shaïch), who in times of peace settled controversies and pronounced judgment, and in war commanded all the men able to bear arms, and concluded alliances with neighboring tribes. Like the Arabs, the Jews of the peninsula extended their hospitality to every one who entered their tents, and held inviolable faith with their allies; but they shared also the faults of the original inhabitants of the peninsula, avenging the death of one of their number with rigorous inflexibility, and hiding in ambush in order to surprise and annihilate their enemy. It would sometimes happen that a Jewish tribe, having entered into an alliance with an Arabian clan, would find itself opposed to a kindred tribe which had espoused another cause. But even though Jews were at feud with each other, their innate qualities moderated in them Bedouin ferocity, which never extended mercy to a foe. They ransomed the prisoners of a kindred tribe with which they happened to be at war, from the hands of their own allies, being unwilling to abandon them as slaves to heathens, "because," said they, "the redemption of such of our co-religionists as are prisoners is a religious duty." Besides being equal to the Arabs in bravery, the Jews also contended with them for the palm in poetry. For in addition to manliness and courage, poetry was cultivated among the Arab nobles; it was fostered by the chieftains, and richly rewarded by the Arab kings. Next to the warrior, the poet was the man most honored in Arabia; for him all hearts and tents opened wide. The Jews of Arabia were likewise able to speak with elegance the Arabic language, and to adorn their poetry with rhymes.

      The knowledge of their religion, which the Arabian Jews had brought with them in their flight from Judæa, and that which afterwards came to them from the academies, conferred upon them superiority over the heathen tribes, and soon made them their masters. While but few Arabs, before the latter part of the seventh century, were familiar with the art of writing, it was universally understood by the Jews, who made use, however, of the square, the so-called Assyrian characters. As the few Arabs that succeeded in learning to write generally employed the Hebrew characters, it would appear that they first acquired the art of writing from the Jews. Every Jew

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