[FN#1] To the East he limits Al-Hijaz by Yamamah (which some include in it), Nijd, and the Syrian desert, and to the West by the Red Sea.  The Greeks, not without reason, included it in their Arabia Petraea.  Niebuhr places the Southern boundary at Hali, a little town south of Kunfudah (Gonfoda).  Captain Head (Journey from India to Europe) makes the village Al-Kasr, opposite the Island of Kotambul, the limit of Al-Hijaz to the South. [FN#2] Or, according to others, between Al-Yaman and Syria. [FN#3] If you ask a Badawi near Meccah, whence his fruit comes, he will reply “min Al-Hijaz,” “from the Hijaz,” meaning from the mountainous part of the country about Taif.  This would be an argument in favour of those who make the word to signify a “place tied together,” (by mountains).  It is notorious that the Badawin are the people who best preserve the use of old and disputed words; for which reason they were constantly referred to by the learned in the palmy days of Moslem philology.  “Al-Hijaz,” also, in this signification, well describes the country, a succession of ridges and mountain chains; whereas such a name as “the barrier” would appear to be rather the work of some geographer in his study.  Thus Al-Nijd was so called from its high and open lands, and, briefly, in this part of the world, names are most frequently derived from some physical and material peculiarity of soil or climate. [FN#4] Amongst a people, who, like the Arabs or the Spaniards, hold a plurality of names to be a sign of dignity, so illustrious a spot as Al-Madinah could not fail to be rich in nomenclature.  A Hadis declares, “to Al-Madinah belong ten names”:  books, however, enumerate nearly a hundred, of which a few will suffice as a specimen.  Tabah, Tibah, Taibah, Tayyibah, and Mutayyibah, (from the root “Tib,” “good,” “sweet,” or “lawful,”) allude to the physical excellencies of Al-Madinah as regards climate-the perfume of the Prophet’s tomb, and of the red rose, which was a thorn before it blossomed by the sweat of his brow-and to its being free from all moral impurity, such as the presence of Infidels, or worshippers of idols.  Mohammed declared that he was ordered by Allah to change the name of the place to Tabah, from Yasrib or Asrib.  The latter, according to some, was a proper name of a son of Noah; others apply it originally to a place west of Mount Ohod, not to Al-Madinah itself; and quote the plural form of the word, “Asarib,” ("spots abounding in palms and fountains,”) as a proof that it does not belong exclusively to a person.  However this may be, the inauspicious signification of Yasrib, whose root is “Sarab,” (destruction,) and the notorious use of the name by the Pagan Arabs, have combined to make it, like the other heathen designation, Al-Ghalabah, obsolete, and the pious Moslem who pronounces the word is careful to purify his mouth by repeating ten times the name “Al-Madinah.”  Barah and Barrah allude to its obedience and purity; Hasunah to its beauty; Khayrah and Khayyarah to its