Essay Towards the History of Arabi

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II. We shall in this place, from the relation of the Rouzut-us-suffa, ven- Rouzut- US-SUr FA. ture to introduce the history of another illustrious personage, who is de- scribed to have flourished during the period to which we have just referred, betwixt the time of Salah and Abraham; and this was...
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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II. We shall in this place, from the relation of the Rouzut-us-suffa, ven- Rouzut- US-SUr FA. ture to introduce the history of another illustrious personage, who is de- scribed to have flourished during the period to which we have just referred, betwixt the time of Salah and Abraham; and this was the renowned Zdlkernein Akbar, or greater Zulkernein, so called to distinguish him from Zulkernein-ul-segheir, the lesser Zulkernein, or Alexander of Macedon. These two, according to the most approved authorities, were entirely distinct personages; the one invested with the prophetic character, and the other a mere temporal Sovereign, as represented in the annals of the Persian Empire; and the latter being, moreover, descended from Esau, the son of Isaac, of the posterity of Shem, while the greater Zulkernein traced his descent to Japhet. The Zulkernein, of whom we are here about to speak, is described at all events, on authority which is entitled to some attention, to have lived in the intermediate period between the days of Salah and of Abraham, in the country of Ferrengue?the regions of the west, so called by the orientals; to have swayed the sceptre of an extensive and powerful monarchy, and to have employed the armies under his authority with successful energy in the extermination of idolaters and infidels on every side, until the period at which he engaged in his stupendous expedition to survey the different countries of the earth. First of all, indeed, it would appear that he directed his course towards the west, as far as the remotest limits of which he pushed his victorious career; for, having failed by the admonitions of wisdom to reclaim the unbelieving nations from their profane and impious practices, he had recourse, as usual, to the argument of the s...