Book I

, chaps. 178-89, fully describes these edifices, and dwells upon the huge extent of the metropolis, which was estimated to have a circuit of fifty miles. Xerxes destroyed the city. Alexander the Great contemplated the restoration of Bel's Temple, but as it would have taken two months for 10,000 men merely to remove the rubbish, he abandoned the attempt. The ruins have been recently explored by Germans. The embankments which regulated the flow of the Euphrates and Tigris have given way, and at the present time the whole region round Babylon is marshy and malarious. In the words of Jeremiah, li. 43, "Her cities are a desolation, a sterile land, and a wilderness, a place wherein no man dwelleth."]

[Footnote 137: The Valley of Dura mentioned in Daniel iii. is here referred to. See Dr. Berliner's _Beiträge zur Geographie und Ethnographie Babyloniens_; also Layard's _Nineveh and Babylon_, p. 469. Cf. Berachot, 57 b.]

[Footnote 138: Bereshith Rabba, chap, xxxviii, says the tower was at Borsippa, and the ruins here spoken of are probably those of the Birs Nimroud, fully described by Layard, _Nineveh and Babylon_, chap, xxii, p. 496. He says: "The mound rises abruptly to the height of 198 feet, and has on its summit a compact mass of brickwork 37 feet high by 28 broad.... On one side of it, beneath the crowning masonry, lie huge fragments torn from the pile itself. The calcined and vitreous surface of the bricks, fused into rock-like masses, show that their fall may have been caused by lightning. The ruin is rent almost from top to bottom. No traces whatever now remain of the spiral passage spoken of by the Jewish traveller." Cf. Professor T.K. Cheyne's article, "The Tower of Babel," in the new _Biblical Cyclopaedia_. Nebuchadnezzar, in his Borsippa inscription, records that the tower, which had never originally been completed, had fallen into decay, and that the kiln-bricks had split. These are the Agur bricks mentioned by Benjamin; cf. Isaiah xxvii. 9. Al-ajur is the word still used by the Arabs for kiln-burnt bricks.]

[Footnote 139: Niebuhr, vol. II, 216, gives a full account of his visit to the tomb. Layard, speaking of Birs Nimroud, says: "To the south-west in the extreme distance rise the palm-trees of Kifil, casting their scanty shade over a small dome, the tomb of Ezekiel. To this spot occasionally flock in crowds, as their forefathers have done for centuries, the Jews of Bagdad, Hillah, and other cities of Chaldea.... It is now but a plain building, despoiled of the ornaments and MSS. which it once appears to have contained" (_Nineveh and Babylon_, p. 500). Alcharizi composed a beautiful ode when visiting this tomb (chap, xxxv, also chap. L).]

[Footnote 140: This Mohammed, as in the case referred to p. 40, must have been a predecessor of the reigning Caliph, as the Prophet was never in Babylonia, and in no case would he have granted favours to the Jews. It should be noted that the British Museum MS. on which our text is based, as well as the Casanatense MS., generally styles the Prophet [Hebrew]. The MS., on which the Constantinople _editio princeps_ is based, had probably all passages where this epithet or other objectionable remarks were used excised by the censor, and it will be seen that the passage before us, with reference to the grant of land by Mohammed, as well as that further on, referring to Ali, the son-in-law of Mohammed, do not appear in any of the printed editions. Dr. Hirschfeld is of opinion that, on the one hand, the epithet is the translation of the Arabic _majn[=u]n_, a term against which Mohammed protested several times in the Koran, because it means he was possessed by a _jinn_, like a soothsayer. On the other hand, the word was chosen having regard to Hosea ix. 7. This was done long before Benjamin's time, by Jafeth and others.]

[Footnote 141: See picture of the traditional tomb of Ezekiel in the _Jewish Encyclopaedia_, vol. V, p. 315.]

[Footnote 142: The Talmud (Sabbath, II a) speaks of the destruction of Mata Mehasya. Sura took its place as a centre of learning.]

[Footnote 143: See Berliner, pp. 45, 47, 54, and 57, for

## particulars derived from the Talmud and Midrash as to the

several centres of Jewish learning in Babylonia.]

[Footnote 144: This synagogue is repeatedly mentioned in the Talmud. Zunz (Note 255) omits mentioning Aboda Zarah, 43 b, where Rashi explains that Shafjathib was a place in the district of Nehardea, and that Jeconiah and his followers brought the holy earth thither, giving effect to the words of the Psalmist: "For thy servants take pleasure in her stones, and favour the dust thereof" (Ps. cii. 14).]

[Footnote 145: Benjamin visited the various seats of learning in the neighbourhood, and thus came again to Nehardea, which has been already mentioned on p. 34. Rab Jehuda, not Rab, is there associated with Samuel.]

[Footnote 146: Asher, at this stage of Benjamin's narrative, has the following note: "For the illustration of that portion of our text which treats of Arabia, we refer the reader to the Rev. S.L. Rapoport's paper, 'Independent Jews of Arabia,' which will be found at the end of these notes." No such account appeared in the work, but in the _Bikkure Haittim_ for the year 1824, p. 51, there appears an interesting essay in Hebrew on the subject by Rapoport, to which the reader is referred. It is a matter of history that the powerful independent Jewish communities which were settled at Yathrib, afterwards called Medina, and in the volcanic highlands of Kheibar and Teima called the Harrah, were crushed by Mohammed. Dr. Hirschfeld, in the _Jewish Quarterly Review_, vol. XV, p. 170, gives us the translation of a letter found in the Cairo _Genizah_, addressed by Mohammed to the people of Kheibar and Maqna, granting them certain privileges from which the Jews, who were allowed to remain in their homes, benefited. Omar, the second Caliph, broke the compact, but allowed them to settle at Kufa on the Euphrates. Although pilgrims pass annually up and down the caravan tracks to Mecca, the information respecting the old Jewish sites in the Harrah is most meagre. Edrisi and Abulfeda throw no light on Benjamin's account. In the year 1904 an able work by Mr. D.G. Hogarth appeared under the title of _The Penetration of Arabia_, being a record of the development of Western knowledge concerning the Arabian Peninsula. He gives a full account of the European travellers who have described the country. Niebuhr, who visited Yemen in 1762, repeated the statement made by the Italian traveller Varthema that there were still wild Jews in Kheibar. The missionary Joseph Woolf visited Arabia in 1836, and he gives us an account of an interview he had with some of the Rechabites. No weight, however, can be attached to his fantastic stories. W.G. Palgrave, who resided for some years in Syria as a Jesuit, where he called himself Father Michael (Cohen), was entrusted in 1862 with a mission to Arabia by Napoleon III in connexion with the projected Suez Canal; he was one of the few visitors to the Harrah, but he makes no special reference to the Jews. Joseph Halevi made many valuable discoveries of inscriptions in South Arabia, which he traversed in 1869. He visited the oppressed Jewish community at Sanaa in Yemen; he further discovered traces of the ancient Minaean kingdom, and found that the Jews in the Nejran were treated with singular tolerance and even favour; but he was not able to tell us anything respecting the Jews of the Harrah.

C.M. Doughty was, however, more successful when visiting this district in 1875. Of Kheibar he says "that it is now a poor village whose inhabitants are a terrible kindred, Moslems outwardly, but, in secret, cruel Jews that will suffer no stranger to enter among them." See C.M. Doughty's _Arabia Deserta_, vol. II, p. 129. "Teima is a Nejd colony of Shammar; their fathers came to settle there not above 200 years past. Old Teima of the Jews, according to their tradition, had been (twice) destroyed by flood. From those times there remain some great rude stone buildings. It is now a prosperous open place" (vol. I, p. 286).

The only writer that casts any doubt upon Benjamin's record as to independent Jewish tribes in Arabia is R. Jacob Safir, who visited Yemen and other Arabian ports in the Red Sea in the year 1864. See chaps. xv and xliii of _Iben Safir_, Lyck, 1866. Dr. L. Grünhut, in his introduction, _Die Reisebeschreibungen des R. Benjamin von Tudela_, Jerusalem, 1903, p. 16, refutes Safir's statements.

In Hogarth's work, p. 282, is shown a print of the Teima stone, with its Aramaic inscription, considered to belong to the fourth or fifth century B.C., and on p. 285 will be found Doughty's interesting sketch of Kheibar.]

[Footnote 147: It is clear that, when speaking of the population of some of these places, the whole oasis or district is intended, and not a particular town.]

[Footnote 148: In reading through the foregoing account of the Jews in Arabia, it is quite clear that Benjamin never visited the country, nor did he pretend to have done so. In the words of Mr. C.E. Beazley (The Dawn of Modern Geography, p. 252), "It is no longer, for the most part, a record of personal travel; it is rather an attempt to supplement the first part 'of things seen' by a second 'of things heard.'" But Beazley is wrong when he characterizes as "wild" the account of the Jews of Southern Arabia "who were Rechabites." Does Benjamin say so? There is no such reading in the MS. of the British Museum. The student, it is thought, will by this time have come to the conclusion that it is the oldest and most trustworthy of our available authorities. The whole misconception has arisen from the fact that the unreliable MS. E and all the printed editions have transposed the letters of [Hebrew:] and made [Hebrew:] of it. Rapoport, in the article already referred to, seems to suspect the faulty reading: to justify it, he connects the men of Kheibar with the Rechabites and the sons of Heber the Kenite, basing his argument upon Jer. xxxv, Judges i. 16, I Sam. xxvii. 10, and I Chron. ii. 55.

Neither Zunz nor Asher makes any comments upon this chapter of the itinerary. Graetz gives an abstract of Benjamin's account; he, as well as all other writers, is unable to identify Tilmas, but is of opinion that Tanai must be Sanaa, the capital of Yemen, which, however, is twenty-five days' journey beyond Kheibar. It is well known that Yemen has, since Bible times, harboured a Jewish population, who--notwithstanding all oppression, intensified under Turkish rule--inhabit many of its towns and villages to the present day. It is comparatively accessible, owing to its proximity to the sea. We must cherish the hope that Great Britain, now that it claims the Hinterland of Aden, will extend its protection to the Jews.

The volcanic highlands (Harrah) of Kheibar were always inaccessible, owing to their being surrounded by waterless deserts and fanatic Bedouin tribes.

R. Abraham Farissol, who flourished at the beginning of the sixteenth century, writes that there was a large number of Jews in the district, who lived in tents and in wooden houses or huts. His contemporary, David Reubeni, who crossed from Arabia to Abyssinia and came to Europe in 1524, pretended to be brother of Joseph, king of the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and half-Manasseh in the desert of Chabor (Kheibar). Benjamin takes care to qualify his statement as to the origin of the Jews of Kheibar by adding [Hebrew:] "_people say_ they belong to the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh, whom Salmanesser, King of Assyria, led hither into captivity."

I would here mention an interesting work of Dr. R. Dozy, Professor of History and Oriental Languages at Leyden, _Die Israeliten in Mecca_, 1864. By a series of ingenious inferences from Bible texts (1 Sam. xxx, 1 Chron. iv. 24-43, &c.) he essays to establish that the tribe of Simeon, after David had dispersed the Amalekites who had already been weakened by Saul, entered Arabia and settled all along in the land of the Minaeans and at Mecca, where they established the worship at the Kaaba and introduced practices which have not been altogether abandoned up to the present day. Dr. Dozy further contends that after Hezekiah's reign numerous Jewish exiles came to Arabia.

Hommel, in two articles in Ersch and Gruber's _Encyclopaedia_, under "Bedouins" and "Anzah," gives full

## particulars respecting the Anizeh, otherwise Anaessi,

tribe--that they were in the habit of joining the Wahabees and other Bedouin tribes in attacking caravans and levying blackmail. The Turkish Pasha at Damascus had to pay annually passage-money to ensure the safety of the pilgrims to Mecca. On one occasion two of the Bedouin sheiks were decoyed by the Turks and killed; but the Anaessi, aided by other tribes to the number of 80,000, took ample revenge by pillaging the Mecca caravan on its return. They seized a quantity of pearls, and the women were said to have attempted boiling them with the rice. Seetzen (_Journey through Syria, &c._, I, ch. i, p. 356) says, "In Kheibar are no Jews now, only Anaessi." Layard and other modern writers often refer to the Anizeh Bedouins. Travellers go in dread of them in the Syrian desert and all along the Euphrates. Doughty mentions that they, more than any other tribe, resemble the Jews both in appearance and disposition.

Ritter (_Geographie_, vol. XII), in quoting Niebuhr, makes mention of the widespread Anizeh tribe of Bedouins who were anciently known to be Jews. He further states that the Jews of Damascus and Aleppo shun them as they are non-observant Jews, considered by some to be Karaites. Does all this give ground for any presumption that they are or were crypto-Jews, the descendants of the former Kheibar Jews, possibly also of those whom Omar allowed to settle at Kufa?

This lengthy note may be closed fitly with the following mysterious remark in Doughty's usual quaint style (vol. I, p. 127), in connexion with the murder of a Bagdad Jew who tried to reach Kheibar: "But let none any more jeopardy his life for Kheibar! I would that these leaves might save the blood of some: and God give me this reward of my labour! for who will, he may read in them all the tale of Kheibar."]

[Footnote 149: It will be seen further on (p. 67) that Benjamin speaks of Aden as being in India, "which is on the mainland." It is well known that Abyssinia and Arabia were in the Middle Ages spoken of as "Middle India." It has been ascertained that in ancient times the Arabs extensively colonized the western sea-coast of the East Indies. Cf. the article "Arabia," in the ninth edition of the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_ and Supplement.]

[Footnote 150: The Casanatense MS. here interpolates: "Thence it takes seven days to Lusis, where there are 2,000 Israelites." Asher substitutes for Lusis Wasit, a place near the Tigris. I am unable to identify the river Virae, and the words "which is in the land of Al Yemen" are evidently out of place.]

[Footnote 151: See Dr. Hartwig Hirschfeld's account of a Fragment of a Work by Judah Al-harizi, being a description of a pilgrimage through Mesopotamia with a view to visit Ezra's grave. The Arab geographer Yakut locates the grave in the village Maisan on the river Samara near the place where the Euphrates and Tigris unite (_J. Q.R._, vol. XV, 683). Layard writes as follows:--"We stopped at the so-called tomb of the prophet Ezra, about twenty-five miles from the junction of the Tigris and Euphrates, at Korna. The building, which is of a comparatively modern date, consisted of two chambers, an outer one which was empty, and an inner one containing the tomb built of bricks, covered with white stucco and enclosed in a wooden case, over which was thrown a large blue cloth fringed with yellow tassels with the name of the donor embroidered on it in Hebrew characters. No trace of either the large synagogue or of the mosque mentioned by Benjamin now exists, and it may be doubted whether the present building covers the tomb which was seen by the Hebrew traveller. We could find no ancient remains near it, as the Tigris is constantly changing its course, and was still eating away the bank of alluvial soil, upon the edge of which the building stood. It is highly probable that the tomb seen by Benjamin of Tudela had long before been carried away by the river." Layard's _Early Adventures in Persia, Susiana, and Babylonia_, vol. II, p. 214. See also an elaborate note of Dr. Benisch, p. 91 of his edition of Pethachia's Travels, and I.J. Benjamin II, _Eight Years in Asia and Africa_, p. 167.]

[Footnote 152: As for the river Gozan see p. 33, n. 3, and p. 58, n. 4. The mountains of Chafton, referred to also in pp. 54, 55, would seem to include not only the Zagros range, but also the highlands of Kurdistan.]

[Footnote 153: _Marco Polo_,