XX
SERUG
“And Eber lived four and thirty years, and begat Peleg.
“And Peleg lived thirty years, and begat Reu. And Reu lived two and thirty years, and begat Serug. And Serug lived thirty years, and begat Nahor.”266
Serug is said to have discovered the art of coining gold and silver money. In his days men erected many idols, into which demons entered and wrought great signs by them. Samiri was king of the Chaldees, and he discovered weights and measures and how to weave silk, and also how to dye fabrics. He is related to have had three eyes and two horns.
At the same time Apiphanus was king of Egypt. He built a ship, and in it made practical descents upon the neighboring people living on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. He was succeeded by Pharaoh, son of Saner, and the kings after him assumed his name as their title.267
Nahor was the son of Serug. In the twenty-fifth year of his life, Job the Just, underwent his trial, according to the opinion of Arudha the Canaanite. At that time Armun, king of Canaan, built the two cities Sodom and Gomorrah, and called them after the names of his two sons; but Zoar he named after his mother. At the same time, Murk or Murph, king of Palestine, built Damascus.268
XXI
THE PROPHET EBER
“Unto Shem, the father of all the children of Eber, the brother of Japheth the elder, even to him were children born.
“The children of Shem; – Elam, and Asshur, and Arphaxad and Lud and Aram.
“And the children of Aram; – Uz, and Hul, and Gether, and Mash.
“And Arphaxad begat Salah; and Salah begat Eber.”269
According to some Mussulman writers, Oudh (Lud), the son of Shem, had a son named Ad; but, according to others, Ad was the son of Aram, son of Shem.
The tribes of Ad and Thamud lived near one another in the desert of Hedjaz, in the south of Arabia. The land of the people of Ad was nearer Mecca than the valley of Hidjr, and the valley of Hidjr is situated at the extremity of the desert on the road to Syria.
Never in all the world were there such great and mighty men as the Adites. Each of them was twelve cubits high, and they were so strong that if any of them stamped on the ground he sank up to his knees.
The Adites raised great monuments in the land which they inhabited. Wherever these Cyclopean edifices exist, they are called by the Arabs the constructions of the Adites.
God ordered the prophet Hud (Eber) to go to the Adites and preach to them the One true God, and turn them from idolatry. But the Adites would not hearken to his words, and when he offered them the promises of God, they said, “What better dwellings can He give us than those which we have made?” And when he spoke to them of God’s threatenings, they mocked and said, “Who can resist us who are so strong?”
For fifty years did the prophet Hud speak to the Adites, and their reply to his exhortations is preserved in the Koran, “O Hud, you produce no evidence of what you advance; we will not abandon our gods because of your preaching. We mistrust your mission. We believe that one of our gods bears a hatred against you.”
Hud replied, “I take God to witness, and you also be witnesses, that I am innocent of your polytheism.”270
The words of the Adites, “We believe that one of our gods bears a hatred against thee,” signified that they believed one of their gods had driven him mad.
During the fifty years that Hud’s mission lasted, the Adites believed neither in God nor in the prophet, with the exception of a very few, who believed in secret.
At the end of that time God withheld the rain from heaven, and afflicted the Adites with drought. All the cattle of Ad died, and the Adites fainted for lack of water. For three years no rain fell.
Hud said to the Adites, “Believe in God, and He will give you rain.”
They replied, “Thou art mad.” But they choose three men to send to Mecca with victims; for the infidels believe in the sanctity of Mecca, though they believe not in the One true God.
But Eber said, “Your sacrifices will be unavailing, unless you first believe.”
The three deputies started for Mecca with many camels, oxen, and sheep, as sacrifices. And when they reached Mecca they made friends with the inhabitants of that city, and were received with hospitality. They passed their days and nights in eating and drinking wine, and in their drunkenness they forgot their people, and the mission on which they had been sent. The inhabitants of Mecca ordered musicians to sing the afflictions of the Adites, to recall to the envoys the purpose of their visit. Then Lokman and Morthed, two of the deputies, declared to Qaïl, the third, that they believed in Allah; and they added, “If our people had believed the words of the prophet Hud, they would not have suffered from drought,” and Lokman and Morthed were not drunk when they said these words.
Qaïl replied, “You do not partake in the affliction of our nation. I will go myself and will offer the victims.”
He went and led the beasts to the top of a mountain to sacrifice them, and turning his face to heaven, he said, “O God of heaven, hearken unto my prayer, and send rain on my poor afflicted people.”
Instantly there appeared three clouds is the blue sky: one was red, one was black, the third was white; and a voice issued from the clouds, saying, “Choose which shall descend upon thy people.”
Then Qaïl said within himself, “The white cloud, if it hung all day over my nation, would not burst in rain; the red cloud, if it hung over them night and day, would not drop a shower; but the black cloud is heavy with water.” So he chose the black cloud.
And a voice cried, “It is gone to fall upon the people.”
Qaïl returned full of joy, thinking he had obtained rain; but that cloud was big with the judgments of God. Qaïl told what he had done to his companions, Lokman and Morthed, but they laughed at him.
Now the cloud, when it arrived over the land of Ad, was accompanied by a wind. And the Adites looked up rejoicing, and cried, “The rain, the rain is coming!”
Then the cloud gaped, and a dry whirlwind rolled out from it, and swept up all the cattle that were in the land, and raised them in the air, spun them about, and dashed them lifeless on the ground.
But the Adites said, “Fear not; first comes wind, then comes rain.” And they rushed out of their houses into the fields. Hud thought they were coming forth to ask his assistance; but they sought him not. Then the whirlwind caught them up and cast them down again. Now each of these men was like a palm-tree in statue, and they lay shattered and lifeless on the sand.
Hud was saved, along with those who had believed his word.
Now when the envoys at Mecca heard what had befallen their people, they went all three to the summit of the mountain, and Lokman and Morthed said to Qaïl, “Believe.” But he answered, raising his face and hands to heaven: “O God of heaven, if thou hast destroyed my people, slay me also.”
Then the whirlwind came, and rushed on him, and caught him up and cast him down, and he was dead.
But Lokman and Morthed offered their sacrifice, and a voice from heaven said, “What is your petition?”
Lokman answered: “O Lord, grant me a long life, that I may outlive seven vultures.” Now a vulture is the longest-lived of all birds; it lives five hundred years.
And the voice replied, “However long thy life may be, death will close it.”
Lokman said, “I know; that is true.”
Then his prayer was granted. And Lokman took a young vulture and fed it for five hundred years, and it died; then he took a second, and at the expiration of five hundred years it died also; and so on till he had reached the age of three thousand five hundred years, and then he died also.
Morthed made his request, and it was, “O Lord, give me wheat bread,” for hitherto in Ad he had eaten only barley bread. So Allah gave Morthed so much wheat, that he was able to make bread thereof all the rest of his life.
Hud lived fifty years with the faithful who had received his doctrine, and his life in all was one hundred and fifty years. The prophet Saleh appeared five hundred years after Hud; he was sent to the Thamudites.271
But there is another version of the story given by Weil.
Hud promised Schaddad, king of the Adites, a glorious city in the heavens, if he would turn to the true God. But the king said, “I need no other city than that I have built. My palace rests on a thousand pillars of rubies and emeralds; the streets and walls are of gold, and pearl, and carbuncle, and topaz; and each pillar in the house is a hundred ells long.”
Then, at Hud’s word, God let the city and palace of Schaddad fade away like a dream of the night, and storm and rain descended, and night fell, and the king was without home in the desert.272
Of Lokman we must relate something more. He was a great prophet; some say he was nephew of Job, whose sister was his mother; others relate that he was the son of Beor, the son of Nahor, the son of Terah.
One day, whilst he was reposing in the heat of the day, the angels entered his room and saluted him, but did not show themselves. Lokman heard their voices, but saw not their persons. Then the angels said to him, —
“We are messengers of God, thy Creator and ours; He has sent us unto thee to announce to thee that thou shalt be a great monarch.”
Lokman replied, “If God desires what you say, His will can accomplish all things, and doubtless He will give me what is necessary for executing my duty in that position in which He will place me. But if He would suffer me to choose a state of life, I should prefer that in which I now am,” – now Lokman was a slave, – “and above all would I ask Him to enable me never to offend Him; without which all earthly grandeur would be to me a burden.”
This reply of Lokman was so pleasing to Allah, that He gave him the gift of wisdom to such a degree of excellence, that he became capable of instructing all men; and this he did by means of a great multitude of maxims, sentences, and parables to the number of ten thousand, each of which is more valuable than the whole world.273
When Lokman did not know any thing with which others were acquainted, he held his tongue, and did not ask questions and thus divulge his ignorance.
As he lived to a great age, he was alive in the days King David. Now David made a coat of mail, and showed it to Lokman. The sage had seen nothing like it before, and did not know what purpose it was to serve, but he looked knowing and nodded his head. Presently David put the armor upon him, and marched, and said, “It is serviceable in war.” Then Lokman understood its object; so his mouth became unsealed and he talked about it.
Lokman used to say, “Silence is wisdom, but few practise it.”274
Thalebi relates, in his Commentary on the Koran, that Lokman was a slave, and that having been sent along with other slaves into the country to gather fruit, his fellow-slaves ate them, and charged Lokman with having done so. Lokman, to justify himself, said to his master, “Let every one of us slaves be given warm water to drink, and you will soon see who has been the thief.”
The expedient succeeded; the slaves who had eaten the fruit vomited it, and Lokman threw up only warm water.
The same story precisely is told of Æsop.
Lokman is always spoken of as black, with thick lips. He is regarded by the Arabs much as is Bidpay by the Indians, and Æsop by the Europeans, as the Father of Fable.
XXII
THE PROPHET SALEH
The prophet Saleh was the son of Ad, son of Aram, son of Shem, and is not to be confused with Saleh, son of Arphaxad.
The Mussulmans say that he was sent to convert the Thamudites.
The Thamudites were in size and strength like their brethren the Adites, but they inhabited the rocks, which they dug out into spacious mansions. They had in the midst of their land an unfailing supply of sweet and limpid water. They were idolaters. Saleh came armed with the command of Allah to these men, and he preached to them that they should turn from the worship of stocks and stones to that of the living God who made them.
Now Saleh had been born among the Thamudites, but he had never been an idolater. When he was young, the natives of the land had laughed at him, and said, “He is young and inexperienced; when he is old, and has grown wiser, he will adore our gods.”
When Saleh grew old, he forbade the Thamudites to worship idols, and he spoke to them of the true and only God.
But they said, “What miracle can you work, to prove that your mission is from God?”275
Then he said, “Oh, my people, a she-camel that shall come from God shall be to you for a sign. Let her go and eat on the earth, and do her no injury, that a terrible retribution fall not upon you.”276
Now Saleh had asked them what miracle they desired, and they had answered, “Bring out of the rock a camel with red hair, and a colt of a camel also with red hair; let them eat grass, and we will believe.”
Saleh said to them, “What you ask is easy,” and he prayed.
Then the rock groaned and clave asunder, and there came out a she-camel with her foal, and their hair was red, and they began to eat grass.
Then the Thamudites exclaimed, “He is a magician!” and they would not believe in him.
The camel went to the perpetual fountain, and she drank it up, so that from that day forward from their spring they could get no water, and they suffered from thirst.
The Thamudites went to Saleh and said, “We need water!”
Saleh replied, “The fountain shall flow one day for you, and one day for the camel.”
So it was agreed that the camel should drink alternate days with the people of the land, and that alternate days each should be without water whilst the other was drinking.
Then Saleh said, for he saw that the people hated the camel and her foal, “Beware that you slay not these animals for the day that they perish, great shall be your punishment.”
The she-camel lived thirty years among the Thamudites, but God revealed to Saleh that they were bent on slaying the camel, and he said, “The slayer will be a child with red hair and blue eyes.”
Now the Thamudites ordered ten midwives to attend on the women in their confinement, and if a child were born with the signs indicated by the prophet, it was to be destroyed instantly.
Nine children had thus been killed, and the parents conceived a deadly animosity against Saleh the prophet, and formed a design to slay him.
One of the chiefs among the Thamudites had a son born to him with red hair and blue eyes, and the nurses would have destroyed it, but the nine men spake to the father of the child, and they banded together, and saved the infant.
Now when this child had attained the age of eleven, he became great and handsome; and each of the parents whose children had been put to death, when he saw him, said, “Such an one would have been my son, had not he been slain at the instigation of Saleh.” And they combined to put the prophet to death. They said among themselves, “We will kill him outside the city, and returning, say we were elsewhere when he was murdered.”
Having formed this project, they left the city and placed themselves under a rock, awaiting his exit from the gates But God commanded the rock, and it fell and crushed them all.
Next day their corpses were recovered, but the Thamudites were very wroth, and said, “Saleh has slain our children, and now he slays our men;” and they added, “We will be revenged on his camel.”
But no one could be found to undertake the execution of this deed, save the red-haired child. He went to the fountain where the camel was drinking, and with one kick he knocked her over, and with another kick he despatched her.
But the foal, seeing the fate of her mother, ran away, and the boy with the red hair and blue eyes ran after her.
Saleh, seeing what had taken place, cried, “The judgment of God is about to fall.”
The people were frightened, and asked, “What shall we do?”
“The judgment of God will not fall as long as the colt remains among you.”
Hearing this, the whole population went in pursuit of the young camel. Now it had fled to the mountain whence it had sprung, and the red-haired boy was close on its heels. And when the young camel heard the shouting of the inhabitants of the city, and saw the multitude in pursuit, it stood before the rock, turned round, uttered three piercing cries and vanished.
The Thamudites arrived and beat the rock, but they could not open it. Then said Saleh, “The judgment of God will fall; prepare to receive it. The first day your faces will become livid, the second day they will become black, and the third day red.”
Things happened as Saleh had predicted. And when the signs befel them which Saleh had foretold, they knew that their end was near. The first day they became ash pale, the second day coal black, and the third day red as fire, and then there came a sound from heaven, and all fell dead on the earth, save Saleh and those who believed in him; these heard the sound, but did not perish.
By the will of God, when the people were destroyed, one man was absent at Mecca; the name of this man was Abou-Ghalib. When he knew what had befallen his nation, he took up his residence in Mecca; but all the rest perished, as it is written in the Koran, “In the morning they were found dead in their houses, stretched upon the ground, as though they had never dwelt there.”
From Saleh to Abraham there was no prophet. At the time of that patriarch there was no king over all the earth. The sovereignty had passed to Canaan, the son of Cush, the son of Ham, who was the son of Noah.277
The camel of the prophet Saleh was placed by Mohammed in the heavens, together with the ass of Balaam, and other favored animals.
Now wonderful as is this story, it is surpassed by that related by certain Arabic historians of the mission of Saleh. This we proceed to give.
Djundu Ibn Omar was king of the Thamudites, a people numbering seventy thousand fighting men. He had a palace cut out of the face of a rock, and his high priest, Kanuch Ibn Abid, had one likewise. The most magnificent building in the city was a temple which contained the idol worshipped by the people. This idol had the head of a man, the neck of a bull, the body of a lion, and the feet of a horse. It was fashioned out of pure gold, and was studded with jewels.
One day, as Kanuch, the high priest, was worshipping in the temple, he fell asleep, and heard a voice cry, “The truth will appear, and the madness will pass away.” He started to his feet in alarm, and saw the idol prostrate on the floor, and its crown had fallen from its head.
Kanuch cried out for assistance, and fled to the king, who sent men to set up the image, and replace on its head the crown that had fallen from it.
But doubt took possession of the heart of Kanuch; he no longer addressed the image in prayer, and his enthusiasm was at an end. The king observed this, and sent two vizirs with orders to imprison and execute him. But Allah struck the vizirs with blindness, and he sent two angels to transport Kanuch to a well-shaded grotto, well supplied with all that could content the heart of man.
As Kanuch was nowhere to be found, the king appointed his kinsman Davud to be high priest. But on the third day he came to the king to announce to him that the idol was again prostrate.
The monarch set it up once more, and Eblis, entering the image, spoke through its mouth, exhorting all men to beware of novel doctrines which were about to be introduced.
Next feast-day Davud was about to sacrifice two oxen to the idol, when one of them opened its mouth, and thus addressed him: —
“Will you sacrifice creatures endued with life by the living God to a mass of lifeless metal? O God, do thou destroy this sinful nation!” And the oxen broke their halters, and ran away.
Horsemen were deputed to pursue and capture them, but they escaped, for Allah screened them.
But God in his mercy resolved to give the Thamudites another chance of repenting of their idolatry.
Raghwah, Kanuch’s wife, had shed incessant tears since the disappearance of her husband. Allah despatched a bird out of Paradise to guide her to the grotto of Kanuch.
This bird was a raven; its head was white as snow, its back was green as emerald. Its feet were purple; its beak of heaven’s blue. Its eyes were gems; only its body was black, for this bird did not fall under the curse of Noah, as it was in Paradise.
It was midnight when the raven entered Raghwah’s dark chamber, where she lay weeping on a carpet; but the glory of its eyes illumined the whole room, as though the sun had suddenly flashed into it. Raghwah rose from her place, and gazed in wonder on the lovely bird, which opened its beak and said, “Arise and follow me! God has seen thy tears, and will reunite thee to thy husband.”
Raghwah followed the raven, which flew before her, and with the light of its eyes turned the night into day. The morning star had not risen, when they stood before Kanuch’s grot. Then cried the raven, “Kanuch, open to thy wife!” and so vanished.
Nine months after that Raghwah had rejoined her husband, she bore him a son, who was the image of Seth, and had on his brow the prophetic light; and Kanuch, in the hope of drawing him to the knowledge of the true God and to a pious life, gave him the name of Saleh (The Blessed).
Not long after Saleh’s birth, Kanuch died; and the raven of Paradise returned to the grotto to lead back Saleh to his own people.
Saleh grew in beauty and strength, to the admiration of his mother and all who saw him.
A war was being waged between the descendants of Ham and the Thamudites, and the latter had lost many battles and a large portion of their army, when Saleh suddenly appeared in the battle-field at the head of a few friends, and, by his personal heroism, turned the tide of victory, and routed the enemy.
This success drew upon him the gratitude and love of the people, but the envy of the king was kindled, and he sought the life of the young prophet. But as often as assassins were sent by the king to take his life, their arms shrivelled up, and were only restored by the intercession of Saleh. These circumstances tended to increase and confirm the number of his adherents, so that he was able to build a mosque, and occupy with worshippers of the true God one whole quarter of the city.
But one day the king surrounded the mosque with his troops, and threatened Saleh and his followers with death if they would not work a miracle to prove their worship to be the true one.
Saleh prayed, and instantly the leaves of the date-tree that stood before the mosque were transformed into serpents and scorpions, which fell over the king and his soldiers; whilst two doves, which dwelt on the terrace of the mosque, sang aloud, “Believe in Saleh, he is a prophet and messenger of God!”
But Saleh was moved with compassion when he saw the anguish of those who had been bitten by the scorpions and vipers, and he prayed to God, and the noxious reptiles were transformed back again into date-leaves, and those who had been stung were made whole. Nevertheless the king hardened his heart, and continued to worship false gods.
When Saleh saw the impenitence of the Thamudites, he besought God to destroy them; but an angel appeared to him in a cave, and sent him to sleep for twenty years.
When he awoke he betook himself towards the mosque he had built, never doubting that he had slept but a single night. The mosque was gone, his friends and adherents were dead or dispersed, a few remained, but they were old, and he hardly recognized them. Falling into despair, the angel Gabriel came to him and said, —
“Thou wert hasty in desiring the destruction of this people, therefore God hath withdrawn from thy life twenty years, which He has taken from thee in sleep. Now He sends thee precious relics wherewith to establish thy mission, to wit, Adam’s shirt, Abel’s sandals, Seth’s overcoat, Enoch’s seal ring, Noah’s sword, and Hud’s staff.”
Next day, as the king Djundu with his brother Schihab, and the priests and the princes of the people formed a procession to an idol temple near the town, Saleh ran before the procession entered the temple, and stood in the door.
“Who art thou?” asked the king in astonishment: for he did not recognize Saleh, so greatly had God changed him in his sleep of twenty years.
He answered: “I am Saleh, the messenger of the only God, who preached to you twenty years ago, and showed to you many signs and wonders, but you would not believe. And now once more I appear unto you to give you a proof of my mission. Ask what miracle I shall perform and it shall be done.”
Then the king said, “Bring me here out of the rock a camel one hundred ells long, of every color under the sun, whose eyes are like lightning, and whose feet are swifter than the wind.”
Saleh consented. Then said Davud, “Let its fore feet be golden and its hinder feet silver, its head of emerald and its ears of ruby. Let it bear on its hump a tent of silver, woven with gold threads and adorned with pearls, resting on four pillars of diamonds!”
When Saleh agreed to this also, the king added, “And let it bring with it a foal like to its mother, just born, and running by her side; then will I believe in Allah, and in thee as His prophet.”
“And wilt thou believe too?” asked Saleh of the high priest.
“Yes,” answered Davud, “if she give milk without being milked, cold in summer and warm in winter.”
“And one thing more,” threw in the king’s brother, Schihab, “the milk must heal the sick, enrich the poor, and the camel must of its own accord go into every house, and fill the pails with milk.”
“Be it according to your will,” said Saleh. “But I warn you, – no one must injure the camel, deprive it of its food or drink, attempt to ride it, or use it for any other kind of labor.”
When they consented, Saleh prayed to God, and the earth opened under his feet and a well of fragrant water gushed up, and poured over the rock, and the rock was rent, and the camel started forth in every particular such as the king and his high priest had desired. So they cried, “There is no God but God, and Saleh is his prophet.”
Then the angel Gabriel came down from heaven, having in his hand a flaming sword, wherewith he touched the camel, and she bore instantly a foal like her parent.
Then the king fell on Saleh’s neck, and kissed him and believed. But his brother Schihab and Davud attributed all that had been done to magic, and they labored to convince the people that the camel was the work of necromancy.
But as daily the camel gave her milk, and, whenever she drank, said her grace with formality, the number of true believers increased daily, and the high priest and all the chiefs of the infidels resolved on her destruction. Schihab, the king’s brother, hoping to overturn the king and take his place, by adhering to the established religion and ignoring all novelties, was resolute in his resistance to the true religion. Therefore he promised his daughter Rajan in marriage to whosoever should kill the wondrous camel.
Now there was a young man of humble origin, named Kaddar, who had long loved the maiden, but had never ventured to show his passion; he armed himself with a great sword and attacked the camel as it was drinking, in the rear, and wounded it in the hock.
Instantly all nature uttered a piercing cry. Then the youth, filled with compunction, ran to the top of a mountain, and cried, “God’s curse on you, ye sinful people!”
Saleh betook himself with the king, who would not be separated from him, into the town, and demanded the punishment of Kaddar and his accomplices. But Schihab, who in the mean time had seized on the throne, threatened them with death, and Saleh, obliged to fly to save his life, had only time to speak his threat, “Three days are given you for repentance; after that ye shall be slain.”
Next day every man’s face was yellow as the leaves in autumn, and wherever the wounded camel limped a spring of blood bubbled out of the soil.
On the second day the faces of all were blood-red, and on the third they were coal-black.
Towards evening the camel spread a pair of scarlet wings and flew away, and then mountains of fire were rained from heaven on the city, by the hands of angels; and the keepers of the fire beneath the earth opened vents, and blew fire from below in the form of flaming camels.
When the sun went down, all that remained of the Thamudites was a heap of ashes.
Saleh alone, and the king Djundu, were saved.278