Moslem authors are agreed that after the Amalik the Benu Israel ruled in the Holy Land of Arabia, but the learned in history are not agreed upon the cause of their emigration.  According to some, when Moses was returning from a pilgrimage to Meccah, a multitude of his followers, seeing in Al-Madinah the signs of the city which, according to the Taurat, or Pentateuch, should hear the preaching of the last Prophet, settled there, and were joined by many Badawin of the neighbourhood who

[p.346]conformed to the law of Moses.  Ibn Shaybah also informs us that when Moses and Aaron were wending northwards from Meccah, they, being in fear of certain Jews settled at Al-Madinah, did not enter the city,[FN#8] but pitched their tents on Mount Ohod.  Aaron being about to die, Moses dug his tomb, and said, “Brother, thine hour is come! turn thy face to the next world!” Aaron entered the grave, lay at full length, and immediately expired; upon which the Jewish lawgiver covered him with earth, and went his way towards the Promised Land.[FN#9]

Abu Hurayrah asserted that the Benu Israel, after long searching, settled in Al-Madinah, because, when driven from Palestine by the invasion of Bukht al-Nasr (Nebuchadnezzar), they found in their books that the last Prophet would manifest himself in a town of the towns of Arabiyah,[FN#10] called Zat Nakhl, or the “Place of Palm trees.”  Some of the sons of Aaron occupied the city; other tribes settled at Khaybar,[FN#11] and in the neighbourhood,

[p.347]building “Utum,” or square, flat-roofed, stone castles for habitation and defence.  They left an order to their descendants that Mohammed should be favourably received, but Allah hardened their hearts unto their own destruction.  Like asses they turned their backs upon Allah’s mercy,[FN#12] and the consequence is, that they have been rooted out of the land.

The Tarikh Tabari declares that when Bukht al-Nasr,[FN#13] after destroying Jerusalem, attacked and slew the king of Egypt, who had given an asylum to a remnant of the house of Israel, the persecuted fugitives made their way into Al-Hijaz, settled near Yasrib (Al-Madinah), where they founded several towns, Khaybar, Fadak, Wady al-Subu, Wady al-Kura, Kurayzah, and many others.  It appears, then, by the concurrence of historians, that the Jews at an early time either colonised, or supplanted the Amalik at, Al-Madinah.

At length the Israelites fell away from the worship of the one God, who raised up against them the Arab tribes of Aus and Khazraj, the progenitors of modern Ansar.  Both these tribes claimed a kindred origin, and

[p.348]Al-Yaman as the land of their nativity.  The circumstances of their emigration are thus described.  The descendants of Yarab bin Kahtan bin Shalik bin Arkfakhshad bin Sam bin Nuh, kinsmen to the Amalik, inhabited in prosperity the land of Saba.[FN#14] Their sway extended two months’ journey from the dyke of Mareb,[FN#15] near the modern capital of Al-Yaman, as far as Syria, and incredible tales are told of their hospitality and of the fertility of their land.  As usual, their hearts were perverted by prosperity.  They begged Allah to relieve them from the troubles of extended empire and the duties of hospitality by diminishing their possessions.  The consequence of their impious supplications was the well-known Flood of Iram.