Читать книгу A Dictionary of Islam. Being a cyclopedia of the doctrines, rites, ceremonies, and customs, together with the technical and theological terms, of the Muhammadan religion онлайн
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The word probably signifies a “barren place,” “desert” (Heb. עֲרָבָה).
Ptolemy divides Arabia into three parts, Arabia Petræa, Arabia Felix, and Arabia Deserta; but Arabian geographers divide it into Tiḥāmah, al-Ḥijāz, an-Najd, al-ʿArūz̤, and al-Yaman.
The races which have peopled Arabia are divided into three sections, al-ʿArabu ʾl-Bāʾidah, al-ʿArabu ʾl-ʿĀribah, and al-ʿArabu ʾl-Mustaʿribah.
I. Al-ʿArabu ʾl-Bāʾidah, are the old “lost Arabs,” of whom tradition has preserved the names of several tribes, as well as some memorable particulars regarding their extinction. This may well be called the fabulous period of Arabian history; but, as it has the sanction of the Qurʾān, it would be sacrilege in a Muslim to doubt its authenticity. According to this account, the most famous of the extinct tribes were those of ʿĀd, S̤amūd, Jadīs, and T̤asm, all descended in the third or fourth generation from Shem. ʿĀd, the father of his tribe, settled, according to tradition, in the Great Desert of al-Aḥqāf soon after the confusion of tongues. Shaddād his son succeeded him in the government, and greatly extended his dominions. He performed many fabulous exploits; among others, he erected a magnificent city in the desert of ʿAdan, which had been begun by his father, and adorned it with a sumptuous palace and delightful gardens, in imitation of the celestial paradise, in order to inspire his subjects with a superstitious veneration for him as a god. This superb structure was built with bricks of gold and silver alternately disposed. The roof was of gold, inlaid with precious stones and pearls. The trees and shrubs were of the same precious materials. The fruits and flowers were rubies, and on the branches were perched birds of similar metals, the hollow parts of which were loaded with every species of the richest perfumes, so that every breeze that blew came charged with fragrance from the bills of these golden images. To this paradise he gave the name of Iram (see Qurʾān, Sūrah lxxxix. 6). On the completion of all this grandeur, Shaddād set out with a splendid retinue to admire its beauties. But heaven would not suffer his pride and impiety to go unpunished; for, when within a day’s journey of the place, they were all destroyed by a terrible noise from the clouds. As a monument of Divine justice, the city, we are assured, still stands in the desert, though invisible. Southey, in his Thalaba, has viewed this and many of the other fables and superstitions of the Arabs with the eye of a poet, a philosopher, and an antiquary. According to at̤-T̤abarī, this legendary palace was discovered in the time of Muʿāwiyah, the first K͟halīfah of Damascus, by a person in search of a stray camel. A fanciful tradition adds, that the Angel of death, on being asked whether, in the discharge of his duties, an instance had ever occurred in which he had felt some compassion towards his wretched victims, admitted that only twice had his sympathies been awakened—once towards a shipwrecked infant, which had been exposed on a solitary plank to struggle for existence with the winds and waves, and which he spared; and the second time in cutting off the unhappy Shaddād at the moment when almost within view of the glorious fabric which he had erected at so much expense. No sooner had the angel spoken, than a voice from heaven was heard to declare that the helpless innocent on the plank was no other than Shaddād himself; and that his punishment was a just retribution for his ingratitude to a merciful and kind Providence, which had not only saved his life, but raised him to unrivalled wealth and splendour. The whole fable seems to be a confused tradition of Belus and the ancient Babylon; or, rather, as the name would import, of Benhadad, mentioned in Scripture as one of the most famous of the Syrian kings, who, we are told, was worshipped by his subjects.