Moslem and Frank;

Moslem and Frank; - or, Charles Martel and the rescue of Europe from the threatened yoke of the Saracens

Story! bless youI have none to tell.Cannings Knifegrinder. It is an old and trite saying: Good wine needs no bush, and even the finest and most flourishing bush will fail to put either body or flavor into the growth of a bad vintage. It is left to the reader of this little volume to decide whether or not the author has succeeded in producing an acceptable and readable book. July 1, 1854. [Pg 1] ARABIA AND ITS INHABITANTS.LIFE AND DOCTRINE OF MOHAMMED. The Arabian peninsula, called by the natives Jesira-al-Arab, by the Persians and Turks Arabistan, forms the south-westernmost part of Asia. It is bounded on the north by Syria and the river Euphrates, on the east by the Persian Gulf, on the south by the Indian Ocean, on the west by the Red Sea, or Arabian Gulf. Including the north-eastern desert, it occupies an area ten times the extent of that of Great Britain and Ireland. The connecting link between Asia and Africa, to which latter continent it is joined by the Isthmus of Suez, it presents in its natural features, a faithful copy of its colossal tropical neighbour, modified, however, by the imprint of a strongly marked individual character, the result of its peculiar isolated position. The attempted derivation of the name of the country from Eber[1], the common progenitor of the Joctanites and Ismaelitesthe two races which are assumed to constitute the great bulk of the native population of Arabiais, at the best, but very problematical; that from the word Araba, the[2] name of a district of the province of Tehama, and which signifies a level desert, would seem to rest on a safer and more rational foundation, the far greater part of the country being indeed a dreary waste, a boundless level of sand, destitute of rivers, intersected by naked mountains, and barely relieved here and there by a shady grove or a green sward of aromatic herbs. The date-palm is often the solitary representative of vegetable life in these sterile tracts, which are scorched by a tropical sun, and hardly ever refreshed by a grateful shower. There are, however, some more favored districts, where the fertile soil produces dates and other palms, tamarinds, vines, rice, sugar, figs, tobacco, indigo, cotton, durra,[2] coffee, gum, benzoin, frankincense, manna, balsam, aloe, myrrh, spices, &c. The high lands in the south-west, that border on the Indian Ocean, are distinguished in this respect, above all other parts of Arabia, by a more temperate air, superior fertility, and comparative abundance of wood and water. No wonder, then, that the appellation happy, bestowed upon this blessed region by Ptolemy, should have been generally adopted, although originating in a mistranslation of the word Yemen, the Arabian name of this part of the peninsula, and which does not signify happy, but is simply meant to designate the land lying, with respect to the East, to the right of Mecca, just as Al-Sham (Syria) means the land to the left of that city. Ptolemys division of the country into the sandy, the petraie, and the happy (Arabia Deserta, Petra, and Felix), is, however, unknown to the Arabians themselves, who speak only of high land and low land. The epithet stony, so generally applied by geographers to the petraic division, is founded in error: Ptolemy derived the word from Petra, the name of the then flourishing capital of the Nabathans, and not from the Greek word petra, a rock or stone. Ptolemys Arabia Petra forms now part of the province of Hejaz, along the coast of the Red Sea. Yemen, as we have seen, occupies the south-western coast. On the south-eastern coast lies the maritime district of Oman; on the[3] Persian Gulf, the district of Lahsa: the inland space bears the name of Neged, or Naged. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 63390
Author: Strauss, G. L. M. (Gustave Louis Maurice)
Release Date: Oct 6, 2020
Format: eBook
Language: English