44 THE INFLUENCE OF ANCIENT ARABIAN

mad in some countries today 1. If there is any difference — of which we cannot be certain since we do not know whether the Greek traveller ever saw an Arab bareheaded — it lies in the fact that the shaving is continued from the forehead to the back of the neck, the hair being allowed to grow, though cut short, only on the sides of the head. Abu'l Fida 2 calls attention to the number of religious observances which were thus perpetuated under the new system. "The Arabs of the times of ignorance 3, " he says, "used to do things which the religious law of Islam has adopted 4. For they used not to wed their mothers or their daughters, and among them it was deemed a most detestable thing to marry two sisters, and they used to revile the man who married his father's wife, and to call him Daizan. They used, moreover, to make the Pilgrimage 5 (Hajj) to the House" (the Ka'bah), "and visit the consecrated places, and wear the Ihram 6" (the single garment worn to the present
1 Some Arabs wear their hair long, as they used to do in Muhammad's time. There seems to be no religious rule on the subject, hence the difference in Muslim practice in different places.
2 Hist. Ante-Islamica, ed. Fleischer, p. 180.
3 That is the time before Muhammad's mission.
4 See also the Apology of Al Kindi, Sir W. Muir's translation, pp. 92, 93.
5 As is well known, this pilgrimage to Mecca is still incumbent upon every male Muslim who can possibly make it.
6 Others say that the heathen Arabs used to perform the Tawwaf (the ceremony of running round the Ka'bah) naked, but that Muhammad introduced the wearing of the Ihram.
BELIEFS AND PRACTICES. 45

day by a pilgrim when running round the Ka'bah), "and perform the Tawwaf and run" (between the hills As Safa and Al Marwa), "and take their stand at all the Stations, and cast the stones" (at the devil in the valley of Mina); "and they were wont to intercalate a month 1 every third year." He goes on to mention many other similar examples in which the religion of Islam has enjoined as religious observances ancient Arabian customs, for instance ceremonial washings after certain kinds of defilement, parting the hair, the ritual observed in cleansing the teeth, paring the nails, and other such matters. He informs us that then as now the punishment for theft was the loss of a hand 2, and says that circumcision was practised by the heathen Arabs, as it still is by all Muslims, though nowhere enjoined in the Qur'an. This last statement is confirmed by the author of the apocryphal epistle of Barnabas 3, who says, "Every Syrian and Arab and all the priests of the idols are circumcised." It is well known that the same practice prevailed among the ancient Egyptians also. Ibn Ishaq 4
1 In Islamic times this unfortunately went out of use.
2 As in the Laws of Amraphel (Hammurabi).
3 Περιτέμνεται ... πας Συρος και Αραψ και πάντες οι ιερεις των ειδώλων.
4 Siratu'r Rasul, part I., p. 27:—
وفيهم على ذلك بقايا من عهد ابرهيم يتمسّكون بها من تعظيم البيت والطّوّاف به والحجّ والعمرة والوقوف على عرفة والمزدلفة وهدى البدن والاهلال بالحجّ والعمرة مع ادخالهم فيه ما ليس مِنْهُ.