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We come lastly, to the GENEALOGIES; and this portion of the Essay appears to
us by far the most curious and important contribution made to the early
history of Arabia for many years. Dr. Sprenger has brought a close and
philosophical analysis to bear on the copious materials amassed by him with
great labour and erudition. The subject is somewhat recondite, and from its
technical character not very easy to illustrate. But it has points of great
interest, and we shall be pardoned if in seeking to place before the reader
the results of Sprenger's researches, we are led into some detail
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But of all human means we trust most
to those exhibitions ofAt the outset, one is startled by finding an absolutely
complete and accurate list of the warriors who followed Mahomet to the field
of Bedr. We can tell off "the three hundred of Bedr" as exactly as,
from its muster-roll, we could tell off three companies of H.M.'s army now
proceeding to Abyssinia. Whence this absolute certainty in the midst of the
otherwise dim and varying statements of tradition? The answer is plain. The
heroes of Bedr were the nobility of Islam. They had cast in their lot with the
Prophet when his fate was trembling in the balance, and this their first
victory was the corner-stone of his claim to the temporal as well as the
spiritual sceptre. Moreover, in the first days of the faith, the distinction
was accompanied, as we shall see, with certain very substantial temporal
benefits.
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Another claim to the homage of the Moslem world was relationship to the
Prophet. We need but look around us at the respect still paid to the Syud,
infinitesimal as may be his share in Mahomet's blood, to understand the
strength of the feeling cherished towards the near relatives of the Prophet.
Each clan counted its dignity in proportion to the closeness of its connection
with the Prophet's. The Coreish was the first tribe in the Peninsula, and its
glory culminated in the immediate family of Mahomet.1 Thus,
relationship to the Prophet, and service
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