11. In tiie 7ih century took place the extraordinary Arabian revolution under Moliammed which has given a new religion to so many millions of mankind. In the years A.D. 633-63« all Syria and Palestine, from the Dead Sea to Antioch, were conquered by the calii)h Omar. This conquest was so complete that in both those countries the language of Mohammed has almost totally supplanted the language of Christ. In Syria there are only three villages where Syriac (or Aramaic) is tiie vernacular language. In Palestine it is not the language of a single native; and in Jerusalem, to a stranger who understands what is involved in this mo- mentous revolution, it is one of the most suggestive of all sounds to hear the muezzin daily call Mohammedans to prayers in the Arabic language of Mohammed with- in the sacred precincts wiiere once stood the Temple in which Christ worshipped in Hebrew or in Aramaic. (As to the Syriac language, see Porter, //andLoukfor Syria and Palestine, ii, 551.) But even this conquest did not cause the overthrow of Tyre. The most essen- tial conditions on which peace was granted to Tyre, as to other Syrian cities, were tiie payment of a poll-tax, the obligation to give board and lodging for tliree days to every jMoslem traveller, the wearing a peculiar dress, the admission of Moslems into the churches, the doing away with all crosses and all sounds of bells, tlie avoid- ing of all insulting expressions towards the Mohamme- dan religion, and the prohibition to ride on horseback or to build new churches (see WeW, Gesch. der (.'hiiUfen, i, 81-82). Some of these conditions were humiliating and nearly heart-breaking; but if submitted to, the lives
TYRE
620
TYRE
and private property of the inhabitants remained un- touched. Notwitlistanding the establishment of an im- perial dyeinji manufactory at Constantino()le, Tyre yet retained her ancient celebrity fur lier purple, which was imported into Lombardy at the time of Charlemagne. Under the caliphs it enjoyed the benefits of a mild and enlightened dominion, and during the crusades was much admired both for its natural beauty and its line edifices and its generally prosperous aspect. It again had at that time to sustain a long siege, but finally sur- rendered (1124), and was made an archbishopric, be- stowed four years afterwards upon William of Tyre, the chronicler of the crusades. In August, 1192, it was fixed as the northern boundary of the Christian terri- tories in Palestine, and continued to flourish, chiefly through the Venetian trade, as a commercial city until the conquest of Syria by Selim I in 1516, from which time forth its decline, further aided by the discovery of the New World and the route to Asia by the Cape of Good Hope, has been rapid and complete.
IV. Present Condilion. — In the first half of the 1-ith century Tyre was visited by Sir John Maundeville, who says, speaking of "Tyre, which is now called Silr, here was once a great and goodly city of the Christians; but the Saracens have destroyed it in great part, and they guard that haven carefully for fear of the Chris- tians" (Wright, A7<//y Tnu'cls inPulestine, p. 141). About 1610-11 it was visited by Sandys, who said of it, " But this once famous Tyre is now no other than a heap of ruins; yet have they a reverent aspect, and do in- struct the pensive beholder with their exemplary frail- ty. It hath two harbors, that on the north side the fairest and best throughout all the Levant (which the cursours enter at their pleasure) ; the other choked with the decays of the city" (Purchas, Pibjrims, ii, 1393). Towards the close of tlie same century, in 1697, Maun- drell says of it, " On the north side it has an old Turk- ish castle, besides which there is nothing here but a mere Babel of broken walls, pillars, vaults, etc., there being not so much as an entire house left. Its present inhabitants are only a few poor wretches that harbor in vaults and subsist upon fishing" (see Harris, Voyages and Travels, ii,846). Lastly, without quoting at length Dr. Richard Pococke, who in 1737-40 stated (see vol. x of Pinkerton, Voyages and Travels, p. 470) that, except some janizaries, there were few other inhabitants in the cit}' than two or three Christian families, the words of Hasselquist, the Swedish naturalist, may be recorded, as they mark the lowest point of depression which Tyre seems to have reached. He was there in May, 1751, and he thus speaks of his visit: " We followed the sea- shore . . . and came to Tyre, now called Zur, where we lay all night. None of these cities, which formerly
were famous, are so totallv ruined as this except Troy. Zur now scarcely can be called a miserable village, though it was formerly Tyre, the queen of the sea. Here are about ten inhahitants, Turks and Christians, who live hy Jis/ring" (^Voyages and Travels in the Levant [Lond. 1766J). A slight change for the better began soon after. Volney states that in 1766 the INletawileh took possession of the place, and built a wall round it twenty feet high, which existed when he visi.ed Tyre nearly twenty years afterwards. At that time Volney estimated the population at fiftv or sixty ])oor fam- ilies. Since the beginning of the present century there has been a jjartial revival of prosperity. But it has been visited at different times during the last thirty years by Biblical scholars, such as Kobinson, Stanley {Sinai and Pal. p. 270), and Kenan (Letter in the Mon- iteur, July 11, 1861), who all concur in the account of its general aspect of desolation. Mr. Porter, who re- sided several years at Damascus, and had means of ob- taining correct information, stated in 1858 tliat •■ the moilern town, or rather village, contains from 3000 to 4000 inhabitants, about one half being Metawileh, and the other Christians" {/lamlbook, p. 391). They are living among the broken ruins of its former magnifi- cence, eking out a scanty livelihood upon insignificant exports of tobacco, cotton, w^ool, and wood. The place as it now stands was founded under the old name Sur in 1766, and suffered very considerably during the earth- quake in 1837. The remains of an ancient cathedral church probably enclose the bones of the emperor Fred- erick Barbarossa and of Origen. About one and a half mile distant from Tj-re is the so-called Tomb of Hi- ram, an immense sarcophagus of limestone, popularly supposed to contain the corpse of that king. See Hi-