money. In his days men erected many idols, into which demons entered and
wrought great signs by them. Samiri was king of the Chaldees, and he
discovered weights and measures and how to weave silk, and also how to
dye fabrics. He is related to have had three eyes and two horns.
At the same time Apiphanus was king of Egypt. He built a ship, and in it
made piratical descents upon the neighbouring people living on the
shores of the Mediterranean Sea. He was succeeded by Pharaoh, son of
Saner, and the kings after him assumed his name as their title.[267]
Nahor was the son of Serug. In the twenty-fifth year of his life, Job
the Just underwent his trial, according to the opinion of Arudha the
Canaanite. At that time Armun, king of Canaan, built the two cities
Sodom and Gomorrah, and called them after the names of his two sons; but
Zoar he named after his mother. At the same time, Murk or Murph, king of
Palestine, built Damascus.[268]
Footnote 266:
Gen. xi. 16, 18, 20, 22.
Footnote 267:
Abulfaraj, Hist. Dynastiarum, p. 12.
Footnote 268:
Abulfaraj, Hist. Dynastiarum, p. 13.
XXI.
THE PROPHET EBER.
“_Unto Shem, the father of all the children of Eber, the brother of
Japheth the elder, even to him were children born._
“_The children of Shem;—Elam, and Asshur, and Arphaxad, and Lud, and
Aram._
“_And the children of Aram;—Uz, and Hul, and Gether, and Mash._
“_And Arphaxad begat Salah; and Salah begat Eber._”[269]
According to some Mussulman writers, Oudh (Lud), the son of Shem, had a
son named Ad; but, according to others, Ad was the son of Aram, son of
Shem.
The tribes of Ad and Thamud lived near one another in the desert of
Hedjaz, in the south of Arabia. The land of the people of Ad was nearer
Mecca than the valley of Hidjr, and the valley of Hidjr is situated at
the extremity of the desert on the road to Syria.
Never in all the world were there such great and mighty men as the
Adites. Each of them was twelve cubits high, and they were so strong
that if any of them stamped on the ground he sank up to his knees.
The Adites raised great monuments in the land which they inhabited.
Wherever these Cyclopean edifices exist, they are called by the Arabs
the constructions of the Adites.
God ordered the prophet Hud (Eber) to go to the Adites and preach to
them the One true God, and turn them from idolatry. But the Adites would
not hearken to his words, and when he offered them the promises of God,
they said, “What better dwellings can He give us than those which we
have made?” And when he spoke to them of God’s threatenings, they mocked
and said, “Who can resist us who are so strong?”
For fifty years did the prophet Hud speak to the Adites, and their reply
to his exhortations is preserved in the Koran, “O Hud, you produce no
evidence of what you advance; we will not abandon our gods because of
your preaching. We mistrust your mission. We believe that one of our
gods bears a hatred against you.”
Hud replied, “I take God to witness, and you also be witnesses, that I
am innocent of your polytheism.”[270]
The words of the Adites, “We believe that one of our gods bears a hatred
against thee,” signified that they believed one of their gods had driven
him mad.
During the fifty years that Hud’s mission lasted, the Adites believed
neither in God nor in the prophet, with the exception of a very few, who
believed in secret.
At the end of that time God withheld the rain from heaven, and afflicted
the Adites with drought. All the cattle of Ad died, and the Adites
fainted for lack of water. For three years no rain fell.
Hud said to the Adites, “Believe in God, and He will give you rain.”
They replied, “Thou art mad.” But they chose three men to send to Mecca
with victims; for the infidels believe in the sanctity of Mecca, though
they believe not in the One true God.
But Eber said, “Your sacrifices will be unavailing, unless you first
believe.”
The three deputies started for Mecca with many camels, oxen, and sheep,
as sacrifices. And when they reached Mecca they made friends with the
inhabitants of that city, and were received with hospitality. They
passed their days and nights in eating and drinking wine, and in their
drunkenness they forgot their people, and the mission on which they had
been sent. The inhabitants of Mecca ordered musicians to sing the
afflictions of the Adites, to recall to the envoys the purpose of their
visit. Then Lokman and Morthed, two of the deputies, declared to Qaïl,
the third, that they believed in Allah; and they added, “If our people
had believed the words of the prophet Hud, they would not have suffered
from drought,” and Lokman and Morthed were not drunk when they said
these words.
Qaïl replied, “You do not partake in the affliction of our nation. I
will go myself and will offer the victims.”
He went and led the beasts to the top of a mountain to sacrifice them,
and turning his face to heaven, he said, “O God of heaven, hearken unto
my prayer, and send rain on my poor afflicted people.”
Instantly there appeared three clouds in the blue sky: one was red, one
was black, the third was white; and a voice issued from the clouds,
saying, “Choose which shall descend upon thy people.”
Then Qaïl said within himself, “The white cloud, if it hung all day over
my nation, would not burst in rain; the red cloud, if it hung over them
night and day, would not drop a shower; but the black cloud is heavy
with water.” So he chose the black cloud.
And a voice cried, “It is gone to fall upon thy people.”
Qaïl returned full of joy, thinking he had obtained rain; but that cloud
was big with the judgments of God. Qaïl told what he had done to his
companions, Lokman and Morthed, but they laughed at him.
Now the cloud, when it arrived over the land of Ad, was accompanied by a
wind. And the Adites looked up rejoicing, and cried, “The rain, the rain
is coming!”
Then the cloud gaped, and a dry whirlwind rolled out from it, and swept
up all the cattle that were in the land, and raised them in the air,
spun them about, and dashed them lifeless on the ground.
But the Adites said, “Fear not; first comes wind, then comes rain.” And
they rushed out of their houses into the fields. Hud thought they were
coming forth to ask his assistance; but they sought him not. Then the
whirlwind caught them up and cast them down again. Now each of these men
was like a palm-tree in stature, and they lay shattered and lifeless on
the sand.
Hud was saved, along with those who had believed his word.
Now when the envoys at Mecca heard what had befallen their people, they
went all three to the summit of the mountain, and Lokman and Morthed
said to Qaïl, “Believe.” But he answered, raising his face and hands to
heaven: “O God of heaven, if thou hast destroyed my people, slay me
also.”
Then the whirlwind came, and rushed on him, and caught him up and cast
him down, and he was dead.
But Lokman and Morthed offered their sacrifice, and a voice from heaven
said, “What is your petition?”
Lokman answered: “O Lord, grant me a long life, that I may outlive seven
vultures.” Now a vulture is the longest-lived of all birds; it lives
five hundred years.
And the voice replied, “However long thy life may be, death will close
it.”
Lokman said, “I know; that is true.”
Then his prayer was granted. And Lokman took a young vulture and fed it
for five hundred years, and it died; then he took a second, and at the
expiration of five hundred years it died also; and so on till he had
reached the age of three thousand five hundred years, and then he died
also.
Morthed made his request, and it was, “O Lord, give me wheat bread,” for
hitherto in Ad he had eaten only barley bread. So Allah gave Morthed so
much wheat, that he was able to make bread thereof all the rest of his
life.
Hud lived fifty years with the faithful who had received his doctrine,
and his life in all was one hundred and fifty years. The prophet Saleh
appeared five hundred years after Hud; he was sent to the
Thamudites.[271]
But there is another version of the story given by Weil.
Hud promised Schaddad, king of the Adites, a glorious city in the
heavens, if he would turn to the true God. But the king said, “I need no
other city than that I have built. My palace rests on a thousand pillars
of rubies and emeralds; the streets and walls are of gold, and pearl,
and carbuncle, and topaz; and each pillar in my house is a hundred ells
long.”
Then, at Hud’s word, God let the city and palace of Schaddad fade away
like a dream of the night, and storm and rain descended, and night fell,
and the king was without home in the desert.[272]
Of Lokman we must relate something more. He was a great prophet; some
say he was nephew of Job, whose sister was his mother; others relate
that he was the son of Beor, the son of Nahor, the son of Terah.
One day, whilst he was reposing in the heat of the day, the angels
entered his room and saluted him, but did not show themselves. Lokman
heard their voices, but saw not their persons. Then the angels said to
him,—
“We are messengers of God, thy Creator and ours; He has sent us unto
thee to announce to thee that thou shalt be a great monarch.”
Lokman replied, “If God desires what you say, His will can accomplish
all things, and doubtless He will give me what is necessary for
executing my duty in that position in which He will place me. But if He
would suffer me to choose a state of life, I should prefer that in which
I now am,”—now Lokman was a slave,—“and above all would I ask Him to
enable me never to offend Him; without which all earthly grandeur would
be to me a burden.”
This reply of Lokman was so pleasing to Allah, that He gave him the gift
of wisdom to such a degree of excellence, that he became capable of
instructing all men; and this he did by means of a great multitude of
maxims, sentences, and parables to the number of ten thousand, each of
which is more valuable than the whole world.[273]
When Lokman did not know anything with which others were acquainted, he
held his tongue, and did not ask questions and thus divulge his
ignorance.
As he lived to a great age, he was alive in the days of King David. Now
David made a coat of mail, and showed it to Lokman. The sage had seen
nothing like it before, and did not know what purpose it was to serve,
but he looked knowing and nodded his head. Presently David put the
armour upon him, and marched, and said, “It is serviceable in war.” Then
Lokman understood its object; so his mouth became unsealed and he talked
about it.
Lokman used to say, “Silence is wisdom, but few practise it.”[274]
Thalebi relates, in his Commentary on the Koran, that Lokman was a
slave, and that having been sent along with other slaves into the
country to gather fruit, his fellow-slaves ate them, and charged Lokman
with having done so. Lokman, to justify himself, said to his master,
“Let every one of us slaves be given warm water to drink, and you will
soon see who has been the thief.”
The expedient succeeded; the slaves who had eaten the fruit vomited it,
and Lokman threw up only warm water.
The same story precisely is told of Æsop.
Lokman is always spoken of as black, with thick lips. He is regarded by
the Arabs much as is Bidpay by the Indians, and Æsop by the Europeans,
as the Father of Fable.
Footnote 269:
Gen. x. 21-24.
Footnote 270:
Koran, Sura xi. verse 57.
Footnote 271:
Tabari, i. c. xliv.: Abulfeda, Hist. Ante Islamica, pp. 19-21.
Footnote 272:
Weil, pp. 47, 48.
Footnote 273:
Herbelot, Biblioth. Orientale, s. v. Lokman.
Footnote 274:
Tabari, i. p. 432.
XXII.
THE PROPHET SALEH.
The prophet Saleh was the son of Ad, son of Aram, son of Shem, and is
not to be confused with Saleh, son of Arphaxad.
The Mussulmans say that he was sent to convert the Thamudites.
The Thamudites were in size and strength like their brethren the Adites,
but they inhabited the rocks, which they dug out into spacious mansions.
They had in the midst of their land an unfailing supply of sweet and
limpid water. They were idolaters. Saleh came armed with the command of
Allah to these men, and he preached to them that they should turn from
the worship of stocks and stones to that of the living God who made
them.
Now Saleh had been born among the Thamudites, but he had never been an
idolater. When he was young, the natives of the land had laughed at him,
and said, “He is young and inexperienced; when he is old, and has grown
wiser, he will adore our gods.”
When Saleh grew old, he forbade the Thamudites to worship idols, and he
spoke to them of the true and only God.
But they said, “What miracle can you work, to prove that your mission is
from God?”[275]
Then he said, “Oh, my people, a she-camel that shall come from God shall
be to you for a sign. Let her go and eat on the earth, and do her no
injury, that a terrible retribution fall not upon you.”[276]
Now Saleh had asked them what miracle they desired, and they had
answered, “Bring out of the rock a camel with red hair, and a colt of a
camel also with red hair; let them eat grass, and we will believe.”
Saleh said to them, “What you ask is easy,” and he prayed.
Then the rock groaned and clave asunder, and there came out a she-camel
with her foal, and their hair was red, and they began to eat grass.
Then the Thamudites exclaimed, “He is a magician!” and they would not
believe in him.
The camel went to the perpetual fountain, and she drank it up, so that
from that day forward from their spring they could get no water, and
they suffered from thirst.
The Thamudites went to Saleh and said, “We need water!”
Saleh replied, “The fountain shall flow one day for you, and one day for
the camel.”
So it was agreed that the camel should drink alternate days with the
people of the land, and that alternate days each should be without water
whilst the other was drinking.
Then Saleh said, for he saw that the people hated the camel and her
foal, “Beware that you slay not these animals, for the day that they
perish, great shall be your punishment.”
The she-camel lived thirty years among the Thamudites, but God revealed
to Saleh that they were bent on slaying the camel, and he said, “The
slayer will be a child with red hair and blue eyes.”
Now the Thamudites ordered ten midwives to attend on the women in their
confinement, and if a child were born with the signs indicated by the
prophet, it was to be destroyed instantly.
Nine children had thus been killed, and the parents conceived a deadly
animosity against Saleh the prophet, and formed a design to slay him.
One of the chiefs among the Thamudites had a son born to him with red
hair and blue eyes, and the nurses would have destroyed it, but the nine
men spake to the father of the child, and they banded together, and
saved the infant.
Now when this child had attained the age of eleven, he became great and
handsome; and each of the parents whose children had been put to death,
when he saw him, said, “Such an one would have been my son, had not he
been slain at the instigation of Saleh.” And they combined to put the
prophet to death. They said among themselves, “We will kill him outside
the city, and returning, say we were elsewhere when he was murdered.”
Having formed this project, they left the city and placed themselves
under a rock, awaiting his exit from the gates. But God commanded the
rock, and it fell and crushed them all.
Next day their corpses were recovered, but the Thamudites were very
wroth, and said, “Saleh has slain our children, and now he slays our
men;” and they added, “We will be revenged on his camel.”
But no one could be found to undertake the execution of this deed, save
the red-haired child. He went to the fountain where the camel was
drinking, and with one kick he knocked her over, and with another kick
he despatched her.
But the foal, seeing the fate of her mother, ran away, and the boy with
the red hair and blue eyes ran after her.
Saleh, seeing what had taken place, cried, “The judgment of God is about
to fall.”
The people were frightened, and asked, “What shall we do?”
“The judgment of God will not fall as long as the colt remains among
you.”
Hearing this, the whole population went in pursuit of the young camel.
Now it had fled to the mountain whence it had sprung, and the red-haired
boy was close on its heels. And when the young camel heard the shouting
of the inhabitants of the city, and saw the multitude in pursuit, it
stood before the rock, turned round, uttered three piercing cries, and
vanished.
The Thamudites arrived and beat the rock, but they could not open it.
Then said Saleh, “The judgment of God will fall; prepare to receive it.
The first day your faces will become livid, the second day they will
become black, and the third day red.”
Things happened as Saleh had predicted. And when the signs befel them
which Saleh had foretold, they knew that their end was near. The first
day they became ash pale, the second day coal black, and the third day
red as fire, and then there came a sound from heaven, and all fell dead
on the earth, save Saleh and those who believed in him; these heard the
sound, but did not perish.
By the will of God, when the people were destroyed, one man was absent
at Mecca; the name of this man was Abou-Ghalib. When he knew what had
befallen his nation, he took up his residence in Mecca; but all the rest
perished, as it is written in the Koran, “In the morning they were found
dead in their houses, stretched upon the ground, as though they had
never dwelt there.”
From Saleh to Abraham there was no prophet. At the time of that
patriarch there was no king over all the earth. The sovereignty had
passed to Canaan, the son of Cush, the son of Ham, who was the son of
Noah.[277]
The camel of the prophet Saleh was placed by Mohammed in the heavens,
together with the ass of Balaam, and other favoured animals.
Now wonderful as is this story, it is surpassed by that related by
certain Arabic historians of the mission of Saleh. This we proceed to
give.
Djundu Ibn Omar was king of the Thamudites, a people numbering seventy
thousand fighting men. He had a palace cut out of the face of a rock,
and his high priest, Kanuch Ibn Abid, had one likewise. The most
magnificent building in the city was a temple which contained the idol
worshipped by the people. This idol had the head of a man, the neck of a
bull, the body of a lion, and the feet of a horse. It was fashioned out
of pure gold, and was studded with jewels.
One day, as Kanuch, the high priest, was worshipping in the temple, he
fell asleep, and heard a voice cry, “The truth will appear, and the
madness will pass away.” He started to his feet in alarm, and saw the
idol prostrate on the floor, and its crown had fallen from its head.
Kanuch cried out for assistance, and fled to the king, who sent men to
set up the image, and replace on its head the crown that had fallen from
it.
But doubt took possession of the heart of Kanuch; he no longer addressed
the image in prayer, and his enthusiasm was at an end. The king observed
this, and sent two vizirs with orders to imprison and execute him. But
Allah struck the vizirs with blindness, and he sent two angels to
transport Kanuch to a well-shaded grotto, well supplied with all that
could content the heart of man.
As Kanuch was nowhere to be found, the king appointed his kinsman Davud
to be high priest. But on the third day he came to the king to announce
to him that the idol was again prostrate.
The monarch set it up once more, and Eblis, entering the image, spoke
through its mouth, exhorting all men to beware of novel doctrines which
were about to be introduced.
Next feast-day Davud was about to sacrifice two oxen to the idol, when
one of them opened its mouth, and thus addressed him:—
“Will you sacrifice creatures endued with life by the living God to a
mass of lifeless metal? O God, do Thou destroy this sinful nation!” And
the oxen broke their halters, and ran away.
Horsemen were deputed to pursue and capture them, but they escaped, for
Allah screened them.
But God in His mercy resolved to give the Thamudites another chance of
repenting of their idolatry.
Raghwah, Kanuch’s wife, had shed incessant tears since the disappearance
of her husband. Allah dispatched a bird out of Paradise to guide her to
the grotto of Kanuch.
This bird was a raven; its head was white as snow, its back was green as
emerald. Its feet were purple; its beak of heaven’s blue. Its eyes were
gems; only its body was black, for this bird did not fall under the
curse of Noah, as it was in Paradise.
It was midnight when the raven entered Raghwah’s dark chamber, where she
lay weeping on a carpet; but the glory of its eyes illumined the whole
room, as though the sun had suddenly flashed into it. Raghwah rose from
her place, and gazed in wonder on the lovely bird, which opened its beak
and said, “Arise and follow me! God has seen thy tears, and will reunite
thee to thy husband.”
Raghwah followed the raven, which flew before her, and with the light of
its eyes turned the night into day. The morning star had not risen, when
they stood before Kanuch’s grot. Then cried the raven, “Kanuch, open to
thy wife!” and so vanished.
Nine months after that Raghwah had rejoined her husband, she bore him a
son, who was the image of Seth, and had on his brow the prophetic light;
and Kanuch, in the hope of drawing him to the knowledge of the true God
and to a pious life, gave him the name of Saleh (The Blessed).
Not long after Saleh’s birth, Kanuch died; and the raven of Paradise
returned to the grotto to lead back Saleh to his own people.
Saleh grew in beauty and strength, to the admiration of his mother and
all who saw him.
A war was being waged between the descendants of Ham and the Thamudites,
and the latter had lost many battles and a large portion of their army,
when Saleh suddenly appeared in the battle-field at the head of a few
friends, and, by his personal heroism, turned the tide of victory, and
routed the enemy.
This success drew upon him the gratitude and love of the people, but the
envy of the king was kindled, and he sought the life of the young
prophet. But as often as assassins were sent by the king to take his
life, their arms shrivelled up, and were only restored at the
intercession of Saleh. These circumstances tended to increase and
confirm the number of his adherents, so that he was able to build a
mosque, and occupy with worshippers of the true God one whole quarter of
the city.
But one day the king surrounded the mosque with his troops, and
threatened Saleh and his followers with death if they would not work a
miracle to prove their worship to be the true one.
Saleh prayed, and instantly the leaves of the date-tree that stood
before the mosque were transformed into serpents and scorpions, which
fell over the king and his soldiers; whilst two doves, which dwelt on
the terrace of the mosque, sang aloud, “Believe in Saleh, he is a
prophet and messenger of God!”
But Saleh was moved with compassion when he saw the anguish of those who
had been bitten by the scorpions and vipers, and he prayed to God, and
the noxious reptiles were transformed back again into date-leaves, and
those who had been stung were made whole. Nevertheless the king hardened
his heart, and continued to worship false gods.
When Saleh saw the impenitence of the Thamudites, he besought God to
destroy them; but an angel appeared to him in a cave, and sent him to
sleep for twenty years.
When he woke he betook himself towards the mosque he had built, never
doubting that he had slept but a single night. The mosque was gone, his
friends and adherents were dead or dispersed, a few remained, but they
were old, and he hardly recognized them. Falling into despair, the angel
Gabriel came to him and said,—
“Thou wert hasty in desiring the destruction of this people, therefore
God hath withdrawn from thy life twenty years, which He has taken from
thee in sleep. Now He sends thee precious relics wherewith to establish
thy mission, to wit, Adam’s shirt, Abel’s sandals, Seth’s overcoat,
Enoch’s seal ring, Noah’s sword, and Hud’s staff.”
Next day, as the king Djundu with his brother Schihab, and the priests
and the princes of the people, formed a procession to an idol temple
near the town, Saleh ran before the procession, entered the temple, and
stood in the door.
“Who art thou?” asked the king in astonishment: for he did not recognize
Saleh, so greatly had God changed him in his sleep of twenty years.