(1.) The Kabbins hold a tradition that Joktan settled m India (see Joseph. Ant. i, G, 4), and the supposition of a Jewish influence in the Arab traditions respecting him is therefore untenable. In the present case, even were this not so, there is an absence of motive for JIo- hammed's adopting traditions which alienate from the race of Ishmael many tribes of Arabia: the influence here suspected may rather be found in the contradictory assertion, put forward by a few of the Arabs, and reject- ed by the great majority and the most judicious of their historians, that Kahtan was descended from Ishmael.
(2.) Tliat the traditions in question are post-Moham- medan cannot be proved ; the same may be said of ev- erything which Arab writers tell us dates before the prophet's time; for then oral tradition alone existed, if we except the rock-cut inscriptions of the Himyarites, whicli are too [ew, and our knowledge of them is too slight to admit of much weight attaching to them.
(3.) In the Jlir-ut ez-Zemnn it is stated, " Ibn El- Kelbi says, Yuktan [the Arabic equivalent of Joktan] is the same as Kahtan, son of 'Abir," i. e. Eber. and so say the generality of the Arabs. El-Beladhiri says, "People differ respecting Kalitan; some say he is the same as Yuktan, who is mentioned in the Pentateuch ; but the Arabs arabicized his name, and said Kahtan, the son of Ilild [because they identified their prophet liifd with Eber, whom they call 'Abir] ; and some say, son of Es-Semeyfa," or, as is said in one place by the au- thor here quoted, " El-IIemeysa, the son of iSTebt [or Nabit, i. e. Nebaioth], the son of Ismail," i. e. Ishmael. He then proceeds, in continuation of the former passage, "Abi-IIanifeh ed-Dinawarl says. He is Kahtan, the srm of Abir, and was named Kahtan onlv because of his sufTering from ikought" [which is termed in Ara- bic Kaht]. {.)fi,-at ez-Zemun; account of the sons of Shem.) Of similar changes of names by the Arabs there are numerous instances. (See the remarks occur- ring m the Koran, chap, ii, 248, in the Expositions of Ez- /amakhsherl and El-Heydawl.)
(4.) If the traditions of Kahtan be rejected (and in this rejection we cannot agree), they are, it must be re- mernl)ered, immaterial to the fact that the peoples caU- o<l by the Arabs dos.'endants of Kahtan are certainlv Joktflnites. His sons' .■ol.,ni/ation of Southern Arabia i^ Ijrovcd by indisputable and undisputo.l identifications, an.l the great kingdom which there existed for manv ages before our irra, and in its later davs was renowned in the world of classical antiquity, w^ as surely Jok- taiutic.
2. The settlements of the sons of Joktan are exam- ined ill the separate articles bearing their names, and generally in Arabia. They colonized the whole of the south of the peninsula, the old " Arabia Felix," or the Yemen (for this appellation had a very wide signifi- cance in early times), stretching, according to the Arabs (and there is in this case no ground for doubting their general correctness), to Mekkeh on the north-west, and along nearlj^ the whole of the southern coast eastwards, and far inland. At Mekkeh tradition connects the two great races of Joktan and Ishmael by the marriage of a daughter of Jurhum the Joktanite with Ishmael. It is necessary, in mentioning this Jurhum, who is called a " son" of Joktan (Kahtan), to observe that "son" in these cases must be regarded as signifying " descendant," and that many generations (though how manj', or in what order, is not known) are missing from the existing list between Kahtan (embracing the most important time of the Joktanites) and the establishment of the compar- atively modern Himyaritic kingdom , from this latter date, stated by Caussin, Essai, i, G3, at B.C. cir. 100, the succession of the Tubbaas is apparently preserved to us. At Mekkeh the tribe of Jurhum long held the office of guardians of the Kaabeh, or temple, and the sacred in- closure, until they were expelled by the Ishmaelites (Kutb ed-Din, Ilist. of Mekkeh, ed. Wiistenfeld, p. 35 and 39 sq. ; and Caussin, Essai, i, 194).
But it was at Seba, the Biblical Sheba, that the king- dom of Joktan attained its greatness. In the south- western angle of the peninsula, Sana (Uzal),Seba (She- ba), and Hadramaut (Hazarmaveth), all closely neigh- boring, formed together the principal known settlements of the Joktanites. Here arose the kingdom of Shelta, followed in later times by that of Himyar. Tlie domi- nant tribe from remote ages seems to have been that of Seba (or Sheba, the Sabaii of the Greeks), while the family of Himyar (Homeritm) held the first place in the tribe. The kingdom called that of Himyar we believe to have been merely a late phasis of the old Sheba, dating, both in its rise and its name, only shortly before our iera.
Next in importance to the tribe of Seba was that of Hadramaut, which, till the fall of the Himyaritic power, maintained a position of independence and a direct line of rulers from Kahtan (Caussin, i, 135-6). Joktanic tribes also passed northwards to Hireh, in El-Irak, and to Ghas2an, near Damascus. The emigration of these and other tribes took place on the occasion of the ru]i- ture of a great dike (the dike of El-Arim), above the metropolis of Seba; a catastrophe that appears, from the concurrent testimony of Arabic writers, to have de- vastated a great extent of country, and destroyed the city Ma-rib or Seba. This event forms the commence- ment of an asra, the dates of which exist in the inscrip- tions on the dike and elsewhere ; but when we should place that commencement is still quite an open ques- tion. (See the extracts from El-Mesildi and other au- thorities, edited by Schultens ; Caussin, i, 84 sq.)— Smith. See Tuch, Commentary/ on Genesis (HaUe, 1838), chap, x ; Knobel, Volkertufel, p. 178 sq.; Ritter, Ilalbinsel Ara- bien, i, 38 sq. ; Dr. Ley, De Templi Meccani origine (Ber- lin, 1849).