The ancient idolatry of Arabia fell before the power -and promises of Mahornet, who, in a short time, estab lished his religion throughout the whole of this penin suls. The Christians, once a considerable sect in this country, have also mouldered away under the oppres sions and persecutions of the professors of Islam. But the Jcws arc still pretty numerous in Arabia ; and though they are odious to the Mahometans, and held in greater contempt than any other sect, yet, on thc moun tains of Khiebar, some tribes have maintained inviolate their religion and independence. Those dispersed through the principal towns have synagogues, and enjoy, without interruption, the exercise of their faith. They arc fond of living together, and generally form a village separate from the city. Mahometanism itself is no where in Arabia professed in its original purity ; it has split into various sects, who regard each other with jea lousy and aversion ; and, although they all acknowledge Mahomet as their prophet, and receive the Koran as their guide both in civil and ecclesiastical polity, yet they treat one another as heretics and infidels. The chief of these sects are the Sunnites and Zeidites. The religion professed by the Sunnites is very different from the religion of the Koran. They have corrupted the simplicity of Mahometanism, and converted it into a heap of cxtravaganeies and superstitious ceremonies. They acknowledge a long list of saints, to whom they impute the most absurd and ridiculous miracles. These arc, in cases of necessity, the objects of their worship and invocation, and then they are addressed in prefer ence to the Deity. The posterity of these saints are treated with equal veneration as the descendants of their prophet ; and he who can number a reputed saint in his family is looked upon as an ecclesiastic by birth, and dignified with the title of Schieck. All the sherriffes are in general rigid The Zeidites are less bigotted and superstitious. They have neither saints, santons, nor derrises, nor are they so exact in respect of prayers and ceremonies; they are, however, exclud ed by the Sunnitcs from worshipping in the Caaba, and every pilgrim of this sect is obliged to pay a heavy tax to the Sherriffe of Mecca, for permission to visit the holy city. The Imam of Sana is a Zeidite, and this sect prevails throughout Yemen. In the province of Neds jed, a new sect has lately sprung up, which threatens a revolution in the religion of Arabia. The founder of this sect was Abd' ul Wahheb, a man learned in all the sciences of Arabia. He was a native of Aijxne, a town in the district of El Ared ; and, after prosecuting the studies which arc chiefly cultivated in his own country, he travelled into Persia. Returning to his native place he began to propagate his opinions, and soon succeed ed in converting several independent Schiecks, whose subjects immediately embraced his religion, and re ceived him as their prophet. His tenets are, that God is the only object of adoration and prayer; that the in vocation of saints, or the mentioning of Mahomet's name, or any other prophet's, in prayer, is idolatry ; that no books were ever written by divine inspiration, or brought down from heaven by the angel Gabriel ; and that Mahomet, Jesus Christ, and Moses, were merely great men, whose histories might be read with improvement. This religion is spreading fast among the inhabitants of Nedsjcd, and the whole district of El Ared already acknowledges its authority. The inde pendent Arabs, who inhabit the district lying between the territories of the Sherriffes of Mecca and Abu Arisch, are still idolaters.
The learning of the Arabs, before the time of Maho met, which they denominate the age of ignorance, con sisted chiefly in astronomy, and a perfect acquaintance with their own language. A people lying night and clay in the open plains under a cloudless sky, leading an unsettled and roving life, and employed solely in the care of their flocks and herds, could not but be attract ed with the appearance of the heavenly luminaries. Their attention, however, was principally directed to the fixed stars, contrary to the practice of the Greeks and Chaldcans, whose observations were, in a great measure, confined to the planets. But their knowledge in astronomy was derived only from long observation and experience ; and the Arabs seem to have made no farther progress in this science, than merely to give names to the stars, and to observe their influence upon the weather. Their principal accomplishments were eloquence and poetry, and he that could persuade his countrymen to a great enterprise, or dissuade them from a dangerous one, was ever after honoured with the title of Khatcb, or orator. Their eloquence was j addressed to the imaginations, rather than to the udg- ments of their audience, and the beauty of their ora tions, according to Pococke, consisted chiefly " in the fullness of the periods, the elegance of the expressions, and the acuteness of their proverbial sayings." An ele gant and instructive poem was held up as the highest effort of human genius, and the poet reflected more ho nour upon his tribe by the performance, than the great est military achievement could confer. At the annual fair of Ocadh, a prize was disputed by the principal bards of the nation. Their compositions were repeated aloud, and the victorious performance was deposited in the archives of the kingdom. An emulation was thus excited among the different tribes, who should produce the best poem, and he who excelled was looked upon as affording the most satisfactory proof of his nobility and ingenuous extraction ; but, from their great ignorance of the art of writing, many of their best compositions have been lost. However, seven of these ancient poems, entitled " filoallahat," which were inscribed in golden letters upon Egyptian silk, and suspended in the Caaba at Mecca, are still extant, and have been translated into English, by the late Sir William Jones.
From this state of barbarism and ignorance, which the Mahometans represent as so deplorable, the Arabs were far from being relieved by the introduction of Is lamism. Instead of contributing towards the progress of knowledge and philosophy, it involved them in great er darkness. Their illiterate prophet had grafted his religion upon the ignorance and prejudices of his coun trymen, and it was necessary, for the success of his plans, that this ignorance should continue. For this
purpose, he suppressed the annual meeting at Ocadh, where the only spirit of improvement and emulation was cherished and maintained : and issued an edict, whereby the study of the liberal arts and sciences was rendered a capital offence. To supply the place of philosophy and true science, to captivate the imaginations of his upstart followers, and to enthral their minds in darkness and superstition, he sent forth the Koran as the rule of their faith and practice. This book he compelled them to receive as a revelation from heaven, and as contain ing whatever was necessary and useful to be known; and he required implicit submission to his authority, as the interpreter of the Deity. From this time to the accession of the family of the Abbasid to the caliphate, no ray of science shone upon Arabia. Knowledge was trampled under foot by ignorance and bigotry. Con quest and plunder were the chief employments of the Mahometan caliphs ; and the ruthless Omar sacrificed to the barbarous edict of his prophet, the irretrievable labours of philosophy and science, and ordered the royal libraries of Alexandria, which had been accumu lating for ages, to be delivered to the flames. But in the 136th year of the Hegira, (A. D. 754,) under the auspices of Al Mansor, the second caliph of the Abba sidian dynasty, the light of science began to dawn upon Mahometan darkness. Al Mansor has removed the seat of empire to Bagdat, which was at that time the residence of numerous Christians, eminent for their learning and their knowledge in medicine. Some of these being introduced into the court of the caliph, as his physicians, inspired him with the love of literature and philosophy. Under his zealous patronage, many works upon philosophy, astronomy, mathematics, and medicine, were translated from the Greek, and a taste for knowledge was thus diffused among his subjects. The Christian physicians, by their superior skill in medicine and the sciences, gained them the favour and esteem of his successor, and the happy effects of Al Mansor's exertions appeared in the caliphates of Al Rashid and his youngest son Al Manion. This last prince was not only a liberal rewarder of merit and ge nius in others, but was himself an enlightened scholar. and applied his mind assiduously to literary pursuits. He collected with care, the most valuable manuscripts in the Greek, Persian, Chaldean, and Egyptian lan guages, which had escaped the barbarity of Omar, and employed learned men to translate them into Arabic. To his honour it is recorded, that one express condition in a treaty of peace, which lie entered into with Michael III., emperor of Constantinople, was, that he should have liberty to search out all the books on philosophy that could be found in Greece. But we must not forget (and we mention it with regret), that this illustrious patron of learning, through an ill-judged partiality for his native language, commanded, that, after the Arabic versions were finished, all the original manuscripts should be destroyed. He instituted several schools, where pupils were instructed in philosophy and other branches of learning; and such a love of science and spirit of research was excited among the Arabians by his example, that scarcely a mosque was erected with out annexing to it a school, in which were taught phi losophy and literature. See ALMANSOR and ALMAMON. By this increase of knowledge, their attention was natu rally directed to their religion. To reconcile its doc trines with reason and common sense, and to defend it against the reasonings and ridicule of the Jews and Christians, was their chief study. The philosophy of Aristotle, whose writings held a distinguished place among the translations, and which were studied with great assiduity, was pressed into the service of the Koran; and in order to gloss over the absurdities of this book, and to conceal its real dogmas, they were obliged to have recourse to metaphysical subtilties, which were highly displeasing to the most pious and zealous Mussulmen. This scholastic theology was de nominated by the Arabians, .41-Calum, or " the wisdom of words," which afterwards became so unpopular among them, that it was said by Al-Shafi, " Whoever devotes himself to the wisdom of words, ought to be impaled, and carried through all the tribes of Mussul men, the public crier every where proclaiming, This is the reward of the man who has forsaken the Koran, and the sacred traditions, to follow 4/-Ca/am." While uni versal barbarism prevailed among the western Chris tians, the sciences were flourishing and protected in Arabia; Bagdat became the seat of learning and the muses; and, in the I2th century, its college could boast of containing 6000 persons, including masters and scho lars, among whom were many eminent mathematicians and astronomers. From this centre, the light of philo sophy was disseminated by the conquests of the Arabs through a great part of the world; and the schools of Spain and Africa were distinguished by the names of ?Iverroes, 4vicenna, and other eminent philosophers. Few discoveries, however, were made in the sciences by the Arabs, who may be said to have preserved, ra ther than to have improved them. But we must ac knowledge our obligations to them for the science of algebra, or universal arithmetic. Medicine is also in debted to them for considerable improvements, chiefly in the pharmaceutical and chemical parts. Though the sciences were particularly cultivated in Arabia, yet it would seem that the arts were not entirely neglected A clod: of curious workmanship, resembling a Clepsy dra, is said to have bezn sent by the caliph ?l-Rashid, as a present to the emperor Charlemagne. Learning and learned men thus continued to enjoy the counte nance and support of the Arabian princes, till the 13th century, when the caliphate was abolished by Hulacu the Tartar, and Bagdat yielded to his victorious arms. This city, then the richest and most powerful in the world, was delivered up to plunder and to the flames, in the 656th year of the Hegira, (A. D. 1258.) Learn ing was thus driven from her asylum, and compelled to fly for refuge to Europe, which was then emerging from superstition and barbarism.