the foundations of Turkey, and preparing the way for a religious, moral and social regeneration
and transformation of the East. "God’s mills grind slowly, but surely and wonderfully fine." A
thousand years before Him are as one day, and one day may do the work of a thousand years.
§ 41. The Home, and the Antecedents of Islâm.
On the Aborigines of Arabia and its religious condition before Islam, compare the preliminary
discourse of Sale, Sect.1 and 2; Muir, Vol. I. ch. 2d; Sprenger, I. 13–92, and Stobart, ch. 1.
The fatherland of Islâm is Arabia, a peninsula between the Red Sea, the Indian Ocean and the
Persian Gulf. It is covered with sandy deserts, barren hills, rock-bound coasts, fertile wadies, and
rich pastures. It is inhabited by nomadic tribes and traders who claim descent from five patriarchal
stocks, Cush, Shem, Ishmael, Keturah, and Esau. It was divided by the ancients into Arabia Deserta,
Arabia Petraea (the Sinai district with Petra as the capital), and Arabia Felix (El-Yemen, i.e. the
land on the right hand, or of the South). Most of its rivers are swelled by periodical rains and then
lose themselves in the sandy plains; few reach the ocean; none of them is navigable. It is a land of
grim deserts and strips of green verdure, of drought and barrenness, violent rains, clear skies, tropical
heat, date palms, aromatic herbs, coffee, balsam, myrrh, frankincense, and dhurra (which takes the
place of grain). Its chief animals are the camel, "the ship of the desert," an excellent breed of horses,
sheep, and goats. The desert, like the ocean, is not without its grandeur. It creates the impression
of infinitude, it fosters silence and meditation on God and eternity. Man is there alone with God.
The Arabian desert gave birth to some of the sublimest compositions, the ode of liberty by Miriam,
the ninetieth Psalm by Moses, the book of Job, which Carlyle calls "the grandest poem written by
the pen of man."
The Arabs love a roaming life, are simple and temperate, courteous, respectful, hospitable,
imaginative, fond of poetry and eloquence, careless of human life, revengeful, sensual, and fanatical.
Arabia, protected by its deserts, was never properly conquered by a foreign nation.
The religious capital of Islâm, and the birthplace of its founder—its Jerusalem and Rome—is
Mecca (or Mekka), one of the oldest cities of Arabia. It is situated sixty-five miles East of Jiddah
on the Red Sea, two hundred and forty-five miles South of Medina, in a narrow and sterile valley
and shut in by bare hills. It numbered in its days of prosperity over one hundred thousand inhabitants,
now only about forty-five thousand. It stands under the immediate control of the Sultan. The streets
are broad, but unpaved, dusty in summer, muddy in winter. The houses are built of brick or stone,
three or four stories high; the rooms better furnished than is usual in the East. They are a chief
source of revenue by being let to the pilgrims. There is scarcely a garden or cultivated field in and
around Mecca, and only here and there a thorny acacia and stunted brushwood relieves the eye.
The city derives all its fruit—watermelons, dates, cucumbers, limes, grapes, apricots, figs,
almonds—from Tâif and Wady Fatima, which during the pilgrimage season send more than one
hundred camels daily to the capital. The inhabitants are indolent, though avaricious, and make their
living chiefly of the pilgrims who annually flock thither by thousands and tens of thousands from
all parts of the Mohammedan world. None but Moslems are allowed to enter Mecca, but a few
Christian travellers—Ali Bey (the assumed name of the Spaniard, Domingo Badia y Leblich, d.