over, such has not been the fact, whether we regard the Ishmaelites apart from the other Arabians, or consider the promise made to Ishmael as applicable to the whole Arabian family. The Arabian tribes are in a state of subjection at this moment; and the great Wahabj^ con- federacy among them, which not many years ago filled Western Asia with alarm, is now no longer heard of.
The prophecy which drew their character has been fulfilled with equal minuteness of detail. " He shall be a u-ild ass of a man (CnX X^IS) ; his hand against ev- ery man, and every man's hand against him." This means, in short, that he and his descendants shoidd lead the life of the Bedouins of the Arabian deserts; and how graphically this description portrays their habits may be seen in notes on these verses in the Pictorial Bible, and in the works of Niebuhr, Burckhardt, Lane, etc. ; and, more particularly, in the Arabian romance of A ntar, which presents the most perfect picture of real Bedouin manners now in existence. A recent commen- tator on the passage has illustrated the prophecy with equal force and beauty. " The character of the Ishma- elites, or the Bedouins, could not be described more apt- ly or more powcrfulh^ Against them alone time setms to have no sickle, and the conqueror's sword no edge. They have defied the softening influence of civilization, and mocked the attacks of the invader. Ungovernable and roaming, obejing no law but their spirit of adven- ture, regarding all mankind as their enemies, whom they must either attack with their spears or elude with their faithful steeds, and cherishing their deserts as heartily as they despise the constraint of towns and communi- ties, the Bedouins are the outlaws among the nations. Plunder is legitimate gain, a daring robbery is praised as valor" (Kalisch, ad loc). See Ishjiaelite.
7. The notions of the Arabs respecting Ishmael {Is- mail) are partly derived from the Bible, partly Irom the Jewish Rabbins, and partly from native traditions. The origin of many of these traditions is obscure, but a great number may be ascribed to the fact of Mohammed's having, for political reasons, claimed Ishmael for his ancestor, and striven to make out an impossible pedi- gree ; while both he and his followers have, as a conse- quence of accepting this assumed descent, sought to ex- alt that ancestor. Another reason may be safely found in Ishmael's acknowledged headship of the naturalized Arabs, and this cause existed from the very period of his settlement. See Arabia. Yet the rivalry of the Joktanite kingdom of Southern Arabia, and its inter- course with classical and mediaeval Europe, the wander- ing and unsettled habits of the Ishmaelites, their hav- ing no literature, and, as far as we know, only a meagre oral tradition, all contributed, till the importance it ac- quired with the promulgation of El-Islam, to render our knowledge of the Ishmaelitic portion of the people of Arabia, before Mohammed, lamentably defective. That they maintained, and still maintain, a patriarchal and primitive form of life, is known to us. Their religion, at least in the period immediately preceding Moham- med, was in Central Arabia chicflj' the grossest fetish- ism, probably learnt from aboriginal inhabitants of the land; southwards it diverged to the cosmic worship of the Joktanite Himyerites (though these were far from being exempt from fetishism), and northwards (so at least in ancient times) to an approach to that true faith which Ishmael carried with him, and his descendants thus gradually lost. This last point is curiously illus- trated by the numbers who, in Arabia, became either Jews (Karaites) or Christians (though of a very corrupt form of Christianity), and by the movement in search of the faith of the patriarchs which had been put for- ward, not long before the birth of Mohammed, by men not satisfied with Judaism or the corrupt form of Chris- tianity with which alone they were acquainted. This movement first aroused Jlohammed, and was afterwards the main cause of his success.
The Arabs believe that Ishmael was the first-bom of Abraham, and the majority of their doctors (but the
ISHMAEL
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ISHMAEL
point is ill dispute) assert that this son, and not Isaac, was offered by Abraham in sacrifice. The scene of this sacrifice is Mount 'Arafdt, near Mecca, the last holy place visited by pilgrims, it being necessary to tlie com- pletion of pilgrimage to be present at a sermon delivered there on the Dth of the Mohammedan month Zu-l-Hej- jeh, in commemoration of the offering, and to sacrifice a victim on the following evening after sunset, in the valley of Mine. The sacrifice last mentioned is observ- ed throughout the JIuslim world, and the day on which it is made is called " The Great Festival" (Lane's Mod. Egypt, ch. iii). Ishmael, say the Aralis, dwelt with his mother at jMekkeh, and both are buried in the place called the " Hejr," on the north-west (termed \>y the Arabs the nortli) side of the Kaabeh, and inclosed by a curved wall called the " Hatim." Ishmael was visited at Mekkeh by Abraham, and they together rebuilt the temple, whicli had been destroyed by a flood. At Mek- keh, Ishmael married a daughter of jMudad or El-Mu- dad, chief of the Joktanite tribe Jurhum, and had thir- teen children {Mir-dt ez-Zemdn, JIS.), thus agreeing with the Biblical number, including the daughter,