"The population of Arabia, after long centuries, more especially after the propagation and triumph of Islamism, became uniform throughout the peninsula. ... But it was not always thus. It was very slowly and gradually that the inhabitants of the various parts of Arabia were fused into one race. ... Several distinct races successively immigrated into the peninsula and remained separate for many ages. Their distinctive characteristics, their manners and their civilisation prove that these nations were not all of one blood. Up to the time of Mahomet, several different languages were spoken in Arabia, and it was the introduction of Islamism alone that gave predominence to that one amongst them now called Arabic. The few Arabian historians deserving of the name, who have used any discernment in collecting the traditions of their country, Ibn Khaldoun, for example, distinguish three successive populations in the peninsula. They divide these primitive, secondary, and tertiary Arabs into three divisions, called Ariba, Motareba, and Mostareba. ... The Ariba were the first and most ancient inhabitants of Arabia. They consisted principally of two great nations, the Adites, sprung from Ham, and the Amalika of the race of Aram, descendants of Shem, mixed with nations of secondary importance, the Thamudites of the race of Ham, and the people of the Tasm, and Jadis, of the family of Aram. The Motareba were tribes sprung from Joktan, son of Eber, always in Arabian tradition called Kahtan. The Mostareba of more modern origin were Ismaelitish tribes. ... The Cushites, the first inhabitants of Arabia, are known in the national traditions by the name of Adites, from their progenitor, who is called Ad, the grandson of Ham. All the accounts given of them by Arab historians are but fanciful legends. ... In the midst of all the fabulous traits with which these legends abound, we may perceive the remembrance of a powerful empire founded by the Cushites in very early ages, apparently including the whole of Arabia Felix, and not only Yemen proper. We also find traces of a wealthy nation, constructors of great buildings, with an advanced civilisation analogous to that of Chaldæa, professing a religion similar to the Babylonian; a nation, in short, with whom material progress was allied to great moral depravity and obscene rites. ... It was about eighteen centuries before our era that the Joktanites entered Southern Arabia. ... According to all appearances, the invasion, like all events of a similar nature, was accomplished only by force. ... After this invasion, the Cushite element of the population, being still the most numerous, and possessing great superiority in knowledge and civilisation over the Joktanites, who were still almost in the nomadic state, soon recovered the moral and material supremacy, and political dominion.