'The Expedition for the survey of the rivers Euphrates and Tigris, carried on by order of the British government, in the years 1835, 1836, and 1837; preceded by geographical and historical notices of the regions situated between the rivers Nile and Indus. In four volumes. With fourteen maps and charts, and embellished with ninety-seven plates, besides numerous wood-cuts. Volume the first.' [‎662] (761/905)

662
ASTROLOGY IN ARABIA. [CHAP. XXV.
objects of instance, worshipped the planet Jupiter; the Beni Asad,
the r Arabs mong Mercury; and the Maisanites, the eye of Taurus, (Alde-
baran). 1 Almost every tribe had a particular idol: the
Hodhailites of Medinah worshipped Say; the Madhagites,
Yagut; the Taminites, Faras. There were also the Syrian
Gods, Asaf and Naicla ; 2 and Surva and Ya'uk, two idols which,
it is pretended, were worshipped in the time of Noah. 3 After
wards deceased men became objects of adoration; but some,
as the Korashites and Beni Kenana, worshipped the Creator,
(Aziz) ; others paid divine honours to angels or genii, whilst
some denied all kinds of revelation, and followed the very
lowest kind of idolatry. The tribe of Kodhail worshipped
Sawa ; the tribe Modlig and the tribes of Yemen, Yagtruth ;
Dhu el Kela worshipped the eagle (Nasr) ; Hamdan wor
shipped Ya'uk ; and Tafif, Allat. But the followers of Shem
generally, and the descendants of Abraham more particularly,
continued to be pure theists, until their tenets were gradually
lost in Sabaism, which became general in the time of the
Israelites, when even the ornaments about the necks of the
camels, particularly, one of a crescent shape 4 had reference to
this idolatry. 5
Belief of the Astrology always formed a part of Sabaism, in which mode
astrology/ 11 of faith the heavenly bodies were peopled with divine intel
ligences, by whom it was supposed the lives and actions of
men were regulated. The Arabians believed the predictions
of astrology, but their faith was not so comprehensive as that
which prevailed in Chaldea and Egypt, where a separate class
of men, devoted to astronomy, professed, from celestial obser
vations, to deduce a knowledge of coming events. Amongst
the Arabs the regularity of the movements of the heavenly
bodies was made subservient to a more practical purpose, and
the stars became objects of interest as the guides of their
wanderings; whilst the return of the seasons, the phases of
the moon, and other phenomena were observed with care, on
account of their use in regulating the ordinary concerns of
1 Volney's Supplement to Larcher's Herodotus, p. 193. 2 Ibid.
3 From the Kamus, by Dr. Aloys Sprenger.
Isaiah, chap. III., v. 18. 5 Judges, chap. VIII., v. 21.