I hope that I may be excused for ignoring in a work such as this the information regarding Ancient Arabian history which it is possible to glean from the Babylonian and Assyrian monuments. Any sketch that might be drawn of the Arabs, say from 2500 B.C. to the beginning of our era, would resemble a map of Cathay delineated by Sir John Mandeville. But amongst the shadowy peoples of the peninsula one, besides Saba and Ḥimyar, makes something more than a transient impression. The Nabaṭæans (_Nabaṭ_, pl. _Anbáṭ_) dwelt in towns, drove a flourishing trade long before the birth of Christ, and founded the kingdom of Petra, which attained a high degree of prosperity and culture until it was annexed by Trajan in 105 A.D. These Nabaṭæans were Arabs and spoke Arabic, although in default of a script of their own they used Aramaic for writing.[15] Muḥammadan authors identify them with the Aramæans, but careful study of their inscriptions has shown that this view, which was accepted by Quatremère,[16] is erroneous. 'The Book of Nabaṭæan Agriculture' (_Kitábu ’l-Faláḥat al-Nabaṭiyya_), composed in 904 A.D. by the Moslem Ibnu ’l-Waḥshiyya, who professed to have translated it from the Chaldæan, is now known to be a forgery. I only mention it here as an instance of the way in which Moslems apply the term 'Nabaṭæan'; for the title in question does not, of course, refer to Petra but to Babylon. [Sidenote: Three periods of Arabian history.] From what has been said the reader will perceive that the history of the Arabs, so far as our knowledge of it is derived from Arabic sources, may be divided into the following periods:-- I. The Sabæan and Ḥimyarite period, from 800 B.C., the date of the oldest South Arabic inscriptions, to 500 A.D. II. The Pre-islamic period (500-622 A.D.). III. The Muḥammadan period, beginning with the Migration (Hijra, or Hegira, as the word is generally written) of the Prophet from Mecca to Medína in 622 A.D. and extending to the present day. [Sidenote: The Sabæans and Ḥimyarites.] For the first period, which is confined to the history of Yemen or South Arabia, we have no contemporary Arabic sources except the inscriptions. The valuable but imperfect information which these supply is appreciably increased by the traditions preserved in the Pre-islamic poems, in the Koran, and particularly in the later Muḥammadan literature. It is true that most of this material is legendary and would justly be ignored by any one engaged in historical research, but I shall nevertheless devote a good deal of space to it, since my principal object is to make known the beliefs and opinions of the Arabs themselves. [Sidenote: The pagan Arabs.]