The fair of 'Okáẓ "was not only a great mart opened annually to all the tribes of Arabia; but it was also a literary congress, or rather a general concourse of virtues, of glory and of poetry, whither the hero-poets resorted to celebrate their exploits in rhyming verse, and peacefully to contend for every kind of honour. This fair was held in the district of Mekkeh, between Eṭ-Ṭáïf and Nakhleh, and was opened at the new moon of Zu-l-Ḳaạdeh; that is to say, at the commencement of a period of three sacred months, during which all war was suspended, and homicide interdicted.... How is it possible to conceive that men whose wounds were always bleeding, who had always acts of vengeance to execute, vengeances to dread, could at a certain epoch impose silence upon their animosities, so as tranquilly to sit by a mortal enemy? How could the brave who required the blood of a father, a brother, or a son, according to the phraseology of the desert and of the Bible,[141] who long, perhaps, had pursued in vain the murderer,--meet him, accost him peacefully at 'Okáẓ, and only assault with cadences and rhymes him whose presence alone seemed to accuse him of impotence or cowardice,--him whom he was bound to slay, under pain of infamy, after the expiration of the truce? In fine, how could he hear a panegyric celebrating a glory acquired at his own expense, and sustain the fire of a thousand looks, and yet appear unmoved? Had the Arabs no longer any blood in their veins during the continuance of the fair?--These questions, so embarrassing, ... were determined [to a great degree], during the age of Arab paganism, in a manner the most simple and most refined.--At the fair of 'Okáẓ, the heroes were masked [or veiled].--In the recitations and improvisations, the voice of the orator was aided by that of a rhapsodist or crier, who was stationed near him, and repeated his words. There is a similar office in the public prayers: it is that of the muballigh (transmitter), who is employed to repeat in a loud voice what is said in a lower tone by the Imám. These two facts have been revealed to me by the same manuscript which I am translating, and upon which I am commenting. The use of the mask [or veil] might, however, be either adopted or dispensed with, _ad libitum_; as is proved by the narratives of a great number of quarrels begun and ended at 'Okáẓ.... It was in this congress of the Arab poets (and almost every warriour was a poet at the age which I am considering) that the dialects of Arabia became fused into a magic language, the language of the Ḥejáz, which Moḥammad made use of to subvert the world; for the triumph of Moḥammad is nothing else than the triumph of speech."[142]--The Ḳur-án is regarded by the Arabs as an everlasting miracle, surpassing all others, appealing to the understanding of every generation by its inimitable eloquence. A stronger proof of the power of language over their minds could hardly be