The Itinerary Of Benjamin Of Tudela Part 13

There are many legends connected with the reputed sepulchre, one of which is to the effect that the men of Susa diverted the river in order to bury Daniel's coffin in its bed. See Guy Le Strange, p. 240.

E.N. Adler, in his recent work _Jews in many Lands_, Jewish Historical Society of England, p. 224, in describing Samarkand, writes as follows: "Tradition has it that Tamerlane had seen the tomb at Susa in Persia, with a warning inscribed thereon, that none should open its door; and so he broke it open from behind, and found it written that Nebi Daniel was there buried. The impetuous conqueror had the sarcophagus removed with all reverence, and carried it with him to his own capital to be its palladium. The sarcophagus is over twenty yards long as beseems a prophet's stature. It has been recently covered by a brick chapel with three cupolas, but photographs of the ancient structure can be had in Samarkand. It is grandly placed at the edge of a cliff overhanging the rapid river Seop. The local Jews do not believe the story, nor do they quite disbelieve it, for I went with two who prayed there at the grave of the righteous."]

[Footnote 155: The reader will recollect that reference to this sect has already been made on page 16. See Guy Le Strange, p. 220 and p. 354.]

[Footnote 156: Amadia (Imadiyah) is a city in Kurdistan in a mountainous district, north of Mosul. Ben Virga and R.

Joseph Hacohen, the author of _Emek Habacha_, state that 1,000 Jewish families lived in the city at that time. It is strange that in all the MSS., including Asher's text, this city is called Amaria instead of Amadia. The mistake doubtless arose from the fact that the copyists mistook the [Hebrew letter 'resh'] for a [Hebrew letter 'daleth']. The scribe of the British Museum MS. had made other errors of this kind, writing [Hebrew:] for [Hebrew:], [Hebrew:] for [Hebrew:], &c. See Guy Le Strange, p. 92.]

[Footnote 157: The author of _Emek Habacha_ gives the date of the Alroy tragedy as 1163. It should, however, be antedated by a few years. Benjamin must have pa.s.sed through Egypt on his return journey some time before Sept., 1171.

See note 2, p. 1. He here tells us that the Alroy catastrophe took place just ten years before his visit to Bagdad and the neighbourhood. It is clear therefore that 1160 is the latest date when this event could have taken place.]

[Footnote 158: This Turkoman may have been the Prince of Arbela who in 1167 joined Saladin in his successful invasion of Egypt. He was remarkable for his great strength and courage (see Bohadin's _Life of Saladin_, Palestine Pilgrims' Text Society, p. 51).]

[Footnote 159: The accounts given by Ben Virga in _Sheret Jehudah_, and by Joseph Hacohen in _Emek Habacha_, are evidently based upon Benjamin's record, and throw no fresh light on this Messianic movement. Asher, vol. II, note 300, promises but fails to give the contents of an Arabic doc.u.ment written by a contemporary, the renegade Samuel Ibn Abbas, which the savant S. Munk had discovered in the Paris library; a German translation of this doc.u.ment appears in Dr. Wiener's _Emek Habacha_, 1858, p. 169. The name of the pseudo-Messiah is given as Menahem, surnamed Al-Ruhi, but Munk satisfactorily proves that he is identical with our David Alroy. Being a young man of engaging appearance and great accomplishments, he gained considerable influence with the governor of Amadia, and had a considerable following among the Jews of Persia. With the intention of occupying the castle, he introduced a number of his armed adherents into the town, who were careful, however, to conceal their weapons. The governor detected the conspiracy, and put Alroy to death. The excitement among the Jews lasted for a considerable time. Two impostors, with letters purporting to emanate from Alroy, came to Bagdad, and worked upon the credulity of the community. Men and women parted with their money and jewellery, having been brought to believe that on a certain night they would be able to fly on angels' wings from the roofs of their houses to Jerusalem. The only thing which made the women feel unhappy was the fear that their little ones might not be able to keep pace with them in the aerial flight. At daybreak the fraud was discovered, but the impostors had meanwhile decamped with their treasure. The chronicler adds that the year in which this occurred was called The Year of Flight.

De Sacy, in his _Chrestomathie Arabe_, I, p. 363, gives a similar story, the authors.h.i.+p of which he ascribes to Schahristani.]

[Footnote 160: Asher, vol. II, p. 167, n. 304, gives expression to a keen desire for further particulars as to this tomb. Dr. J.E. Polak, formerly Physician to the late Shah of Persia, gives the desired information, on p. 26, in an interesting work on Persia. He writes as follows: "The only national monument which the Jews in Persia possess is the tomb of Esther at Hamadan, the ancient Ecbatana, whither they have made pilgrimages from time immemorial. In the centre of the Jewish quarter there is to be seen a low building with a cupola, on the top of which a stork has built its nest. The entrance is walled up for the greater part; there only remains below a small aperture which can be closed by a movable flat stone serving the purpose of a door and affording some protection from attacks, which are not uncommon. In the entrance hall, which has but a low ceiling, are recorded the names of pilgrims; also the year when the building was restored. Thence one gains access into a small four-cornered chamber in which there are two high sarcophagi made of oak, which are the monuments of Esther and Mordecai.

On both of them are inscribed in Hebrew the words of the last chapter of the Book of Esther, as well as the names of three Physicians at whose expense the tomb was repaired."

Dr. Polak states that in the Middle Ages the Jewish population of Persia was very large, especially in the southern provinces. In recent years it has greatly diminished in consequence of dire persecution. He was a.s.sured that not more than 2,000 Jewish families remained in the country. Eighty years ago the entire community at Meshed were forcibly converted to Islam. Cf. E.N. Adler, _Jews in Many Lands_, p. 214.]

[Footnote 161: Referring to Benjamin's statement that Mordecai and Esther are buried at Hamadan, an interesting article by Mr. Israel Abrahams upon the subject, with an ill.u.s.tration of the traditional tomb, as well as a picture of ancient Susa, will be found in the _Jewish Chronicle_ of March 19, 1897. In the issue of March 4, 1898, Mr. Morris Cohen, of Bagdad, furnished a full copy of the inscriptions in the Mausoleum, but they possess no historical value. The reputed Prayer of Esther seen there by former travellers is no longer extant.

The statement of E. Jehiel Heilprin, in the _Seder Hadoroth_, that Mordecai and Esther are buried at Shomron is devoid of foundation, and may have arisen through reading here [Hebrew:] for [Hebrew:]. For information derived from the works of mediaeval Arab writers respecting Persia and the adjacent countries the reader should consult Mr. Guy Le Strange's book, _The Lands of the Eastern Caliphate_. The maps will be found most useful.]

[Footnote 162: The British Museum version omits this pa.s.sage. An inspection of the map will show that Tabaristan lies a long distance to the north of the trade route which leads from Hamadan to Ispahan.]

[Footnote 163: The great extent of Ispahan is accounted for by the fact that it consisted of two towns; the one called Jay, measured half a league across; the other, Al Yahudiyah, the "Jew Town" two miles to the westward, was double the size of Jay. Mukada.s.si states that the city had been originally founded by the Jews in the time of Nebuchadnezzar, because its climate resembled that of Jerusalem. Le Strange, p. 203.]

[Footnote 164: Lord Curzon, in his work on Persia, devotes chap. xix in vol. II to a description of the City of Ispahan, and of his journey there. Chap. xx contains an account of his journey from Ispahan to s.h.i.+raz. The distance between the two cities is 81 parasangs, equivalent to 312 miles. It will be seen that here, as well as in the cases of Ghaznah, Samarkand, and Tibet, Benjamin altogether under-estimates the true distances.]

[Footnote 165: Asher, following the printed editions, quotes the Jewish population of this place as 8,000, and a.s.sumes, without any justification, that Khiva is here referred to.

He also subst.i.tutes Oxus for Gozan. In the Middle Ages the Oxus was known under the name of Jayhun or Gihon (Gen. ii.

13). The name of the city according to our text is Ghaznah, which eight hundred years ago was the capital of Afghanistan. Ibn Batuta says it was ten stages from Kandahar on the way to Herat. Le Strange (p. 348) writes as follows: "Ghaznah became famous in history at the beginning of the eleventh century as the capital of the great Mahmud of Ghaznah, who at one time was master both of India on the east and Bagdad on the west." Istakhri says: "No city of this countryside was richer in merchants and merchandise, for it was as the port of India." The river Gozan, on which we are told Ghaznah lies, must appear to the reader to be ubiquitous. On p. 33 we find the Habor of Kurdistan is its affluent; on p. 55 it is at Dabaristan; on p. 59 in Khorasan. There is a simple solution of the difficulty. In each of the localities Benjamin was told that the river was called Gozan; for in the Mongolian language "Usun" is the name for water or river. Thus "Kisil-Usun" means "Red River." The addition of a "g" before a "u" or "w" is quite a common feature in language; it occurs, for instance, in the Romance and Keltic languages.]

[Footnote 166: The British Museum text has: "And he put them in Halah and in Habor and the mountains of Gozan and the mountains of the Medes." Having regard to the pa.s.sages 2 Kings xix. 12 and Isaiah x.x.xvii. 12, Noldeke maintains that there was a tract of land watered by the river Gozan, known as Gozanitis, which Scripture refers to. See _J. Q.R._, vol. I, p. 186.

Naisabur is a city near Meshed, and close to high mountains which are a continuation of the Elburz mountain range.

We draw attention to the cautious manner in which Benjamin speaks here and elsewhere when alluding to the whereabouts of any of the ten tribes. The tradition is widespread that independent Jewish tribes were to be found in Khorasan until recent times. Mr. E.N. Adler was told that in an Armenian monastery near Kutais, ancient records are preserved which conclusively prove that the Jews were paramount in certain districts three or four centuries ago; _Jews in many Lands_, p. 178. Cf. _Wo waren die zehn Stamme Israels zu suchen?_ Dr. M. Lewin, Frankfort, 1901.]

[Footnote 167: It should be remembered that _Cush_ in ancient Jewish literature does not always signify Ethiopia, but also denotes parts of Arabia, especially those nearest to Abyssinia. The name _Cush_ is also applied to countries east of the Tigris, see p. 63.]

[Footnote 168: Rayy is the ancient city of Rages, spoken of in the Book of Tobit i. 14. The ruins are in the neighbourhood of Teheran.]

[Footnote 169: The incidents here related are fully gone into by Dr. Neubauer in the third of his valuable articles "Where are the ten tribes?" (_J. Q.R._, vol. I, p. 185).

There can be little doubt that the Kofar-al-Turak, a people belonging to the Tartar stock, are identical with the so-called subjects of Prester John, of whom so much was heard in the Middle Ages. They defeated Sinjar in the year 1141; this was, however, more than fifteen years prior to Benjamin's visit. To judge from the above pa.s.sage, where the allies of the Jews are described as "infidels, the sons of Ghuz of the Kofar-al-Turak," Benjamin seems to confound the Ghuzes with the Tartar hordes. Now the Ghuzes belonged to the Seldjuk clans who had become Mohammedans more than 100 years before, and, as such, Benjamin would never have styled them infidels. These Ghuzes waged war with Sinjar in 1153, when he was signally defeated, and eventually made prisoner.

It is to this battle that Benjamin must have made reference, when he writes that it took place fifteen years ago. See Dr.

A. Muller's _Islam,_ also Dr. G. Oppert's _Presbyter Johannes in Sage und Geschichte, 1864._]

[Footnote 170: It will be noted that Benjamin uses here the terms [Hebrew: ] evidently implying that he himself did not go to sea.

In the Middle Ages the island of Kish or Kis was an important station on the trade route from India to Europe.

Le Strange writes, p. 257, that in the course of the twelfth century it became the trade centre of the Persian Gulf. A great walled city was built in the island, where water-tanks had been constructed, and on the neighbouring sea-banks was the famous pearl-fishery. s.h.i.+ps from India and Arabia crowded the port. Kish was afterwards supplanted by Ormuz and Bandar-Abbas; England held possession of the island from 1820 to 1879, and it has recently been visited officially by Lord Curzon. For a description of the island see _The Times,_ Jan. 18, 1904.]

[Footnote 171: Katifa or El-Katif lies on the Persian Gulf, on the East coast of Arabia, near Bahrein. Bochart is of opinion that this part of Arabia is the land of Havilah, where, according to Gen. ii. 11 and 12, there is gold, bdellium, and the onyx stone. Jewish authorities are divided in opinion as to whether [Hebrew] is a jewel, or the fragrant gum exuded by a species of balsam-tree. Benjamin follows Saadia Gaon, who in his Arabic translation of the Bible renders it [Hebrew], the very word used by our author here for pearls. Masudi is one of the earliest Arabic writers who gives us a description of the pearl-fisheries in the Persian Gulf, and it very much accords with Benjamin's account. See Sprenger's translation of Masudi's _Meadows of Gold_, p. 344. At the present time more than 5,000 boats are engaged in this industry along this coast, and it yields an annual income of 1,000,000. See P.M. Sykes, _Ten Thousand Miles in Persia_, 1902.]

[Footnote 172: Khulam, now called Quilon, was a much frequented seaport in the early Middle Ages where Chinese s.h.i.+ppers met the Arab traders. It afterwards declined in importance, being supplanted by Calicut, Goa, and eventually by Bombay. It was situated at the southern end of the coast of Malabar. Renaudot in a translation of _The Travels of Two Mohammedan Traders_, who wrote as far back as 851 and 915 respectively, has given us some account of this place; Ibn Batuta and Marco Polo give us interesting details. Ritter, in the fifth volume of his Geography, dilates on the cultivation of the pepper-plant, which is of indigenous growth. In Benjamin's time it was thought that white pepper was a distinct species, but Ritter explains that it was prepared from the black pepper, which, after lying from eight to ten days in running water, would submit of being stripped of its black outer covering. Ritter devotes a chapter to the fire-wors.h.i.+p of the Guebers, who, as Pa.r.s.ees, form an important element at the present day in the population of the Bombay Presidency. Another chapter is devoted to the Jewish settlement to which Benjamin refers.

See _Die judischen Colonien in Indien_, Dr. Gustav Oppert; also _Semitic Studies_, (Berlin,1897), pp. 396-419.

Under the heading of "Cochin", the Jewish Encyclopaedia gives an account of the White and Black Jews of Malabar. By way of supplementing the Article, it may be well to refer to a MS., No. 4238 of the Merzbacher Library formerly at Munich. It is a doc.u.ment drawn up in reply to eleven questions addressed by Tobias Boas on the 12 Ellul 5527 (= 1767) to R. Jeches Kel Rachbi of Malabar. From this MS. it appears that 10,000 exiled Jews reached Malabar A.C. 68 (i.

e. about the time of the destruction of the Second Temple) and settled at Cranganor, Dschalor, Madri and Plota. An extract of this MS. is given in Winter and Wunsche's _Judische Literatur_, vol III, p. 459. Cf. article on the Beni-Israel of India by Samuel B. Samuel, _The Jewish Literary Annual_, 1905.]

[Footnote 173: The British Museum text has Ibrig, and the Casanatense has Ibriag: neither can be identified. The printed editions have [Hebrew:] the islands of Candig, which Asher thinks may be taken to refer to Ceylon, having regard to the name of the capital, Kandy. It was not the capital in Benjamin's time. The difficulty still remains that it does not take twenty-three days, but about four days, to reach Ceylon from Quilon. Renaudot states that in the tenth century a mult.i.tude of Jews resided in the island, and that they took part in the munic.i.p.al government as well as other sects, as the King granted the utmost religious liberty. See Pinkerton's _Travels_, vol. VII, p. 217. A full description is also given of the ceremonial when any notability proceeds to immolate himself by committing himself to the flames.]

[Footnote 174: Benjamin's statements as to India and China are of course very vague, but we must remember he was the first European who as much as mentions China. Having regard to the full descriptions of other countries of the old World by Arabic writers of the Middle Ages, and to the fact that the trade route then was princ.i.p.ally by sea on the route indicated by Benjamin, it is surprising that we have comparatively little information about India and China from Arabic sources. In none of their records is the Sea of Nikpa named, and it is not improbable that Benjamin coined this name himself from the root [Hebrew:] which occurs in the Bible four times; in the Song of Moses (Exod. xv. 8): [Hebrew:] "The depths were curdled in the heart of the sea"

(not "_congealed_" as the Version has it), Job x. 10: [Hebrew:] "curdled me like cheese"; and in Zeph. i. 12 and Zech. xiv. 6. The term "the curdling sea" would be very expressive of the tempestuous nature of the China Sea and of some of its straits at certain seasons of the year.]

[Footnote 175: Marco Polo has much to say about the bird "gryphon" when speaking of the sea-currents which drive s.h.i.+ps from Malabar to Madagascar. He says, vol. II, book III, chap. 33: "It is for all the world like an eagle, but one indeed of enormous size. It is so strong that it will seize an elephant in its talons and carry him high into the air and drop him so that he is smashed to pieces; having so killed him, the gryphon swoops down on him and eats him at leisure. The people of those isles call the bird 'Rukh.'"

Yule has an interesting note (vol. II, p. 348) showing how old and widespread the fable of the Rukh was, and is of opinion that the reason that the legend was localized in the direction of Madagascar was perhaps that some remains of the great fossil Aepyornis and its colossal eggs were found in that island. Professor Sayce states that the Rukh figures much--not only in Chinese folk-lore--but also in the old, Babylonian literature. The bird is of course familiar to readers of _The Arabian Nights_.]

[Footnote 176: Neither Al-Gingaleh nor Chulan can be satisfactorily identified. Benjamin has already made it clear that to get from India to China takes sixty-three days, that is to say twenty-three days from Khulam to Ibrig, and thence forty days to the sea of Nikpa. The return journey, not merely to India but to Zebid, which Abulfeda and Alberuni call the princ.i.p.al port of Yemen, seems to take but thirty-four days. With regard to Aden, the port long in England's possession, and the so-called first outpost of the Indian Empire, it has already been explained (p. 50) that this part of Arabia as well as Abyssinia on the other side of the Red Sea were considered part of Middle India. Ibn Batuta says about Aden: "It is situated on the sea-sh.o.r.e and is a large city, but without either seed, water, or tree.

They have reservoirs in which they collect the rain for drinking. Some rich merchants reside here, and vessels from India occasionally arrive." A Jewish community has been there from time immemorial. The men until recent times used to go about all day in their Tephillin. Jacob Saphir devotes vol. II, chaps, i-x of his _Eben Saphir_, to a full account of the Jews of Aden.]

[Footnote 177: We must take Benjamin's statements here to mean that the independent Jews who lived in the mountainous country in the rear of Aden crossed the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb and made war against the inhabitants of the Plains of Abyssinia. J. Lelewel, in a series of letters addressed to E. Carmoly, ent.i.tled _Examen geographique des Voyages de Benjamin de Tudele_ (Bruxelles, 1852), takes great pains to locate the land of Hommatum [Hebrew:] in lieu of which our text reads [Hebrew:] the land of the Plains; but he quite fails in this and in many other attempts at identification. The Jews coming from Aden had to encounter the forces of the Christian sovereign of Abyssinia, and sought safety in the mountainous regions of that country.

Here they were heard of later under the name of Falasha Jews. Cf. Marco Polo, vol. III, chap. x.x.xv. The reader is referred to Colonel Yule's valuable notes to this chapter.

He quotes Bruce's _Abstract of Abyssinian Chronicles_ with regard to a Jewish dynasty which superseded the royal line in the tenth century. See also Dr. Charles Singer's interesting communication in _J. Q.R._, XVII, p. 142, and J. Halevy's _Travels in Abyssinia_ (Miscellany of Hebrew Literature: 2nd Series, p. 175).]

[Footnote 178: a.s.suan, according to Makrizi, was a most flouris.h.i.+ng town prior to 1403, when more than 20,000 of its inhabitants perished. Seba cannot be identified. No doubt our author alludes to Seba, a name repeatedly coupled in Scripture with Egypt, Cush and Havilah.]

[Footnote 179: Heluan is the present Helwan, fourteen miles from Cairo, which was greatly appreciated by the early Caliphs for its thermal sulphur springs. Stanley Lane Poole, in _The Story of Cairo_, p. 61, tells us of its edifices, and adds: "It is curious to consider how nearly this modern health-resort became the capital of Egypt." Heluan is situated on the right bank of the Nile. One would have thought that the caravans proceeding to the interior of Africa through the Sahara Desert would have started from the left bank of the Nile; but we must remember that ancient Memphis, which stood on the left bank and faced Heluan, had been abandoned long before Benjamin's time. Edrisi and Abulfeda confirm Benjamin's statement respecting Zawila or Zaouyla, which was the capital of Gana--the modern Fezzan--a large oasis in the Sahara Desert, south of Tripoli.]

[Footnote 180: This sentence is out of place, and should follow the sentence in the preceding paragraph which speaks of the Sultan Al-Habash.]

[Footnote 181: Kutz, the present Kus, is halfway between Keneh and Luxor. The old town, now entirely vanished, was second in size to Fostat, and was the chief centre of the Arabian trade. The distance of Kus from Fayum is about 300 miles. The letter [Hebrew: 'Sin'] denotes 300, not 3.]

[Footnote 182: In the Middle Ages the Fayum was wrongly called Pithom. E. Naville has identified the ruins of Tell-el-Maskhuta near Ismailieh with Pithom, the treasure city mentioned in Exodus i. 11. Among the buildings, grain-stores have been discovered in the form of deep rectangular chambers without doors, into which the corn was poured from above. These are supposed to date from the time of Rameses II. See _The Store City of Pithom and the Route of the Exodus_: A Memoir of the Egypt Exploration Fund. E.

Naville, 1885. The Fayum, or Marsh-district, owes its extraordinary fertility to the Bahr Yussuf (Joseph's Ca.n.a.l).

The Arab story is that when Joseph was getting old the courtiers tried to bring about his disgrace by inducing Pharaoh to set him what appeared to be an impossible task, viz. to double the revenues of the province within a few years. Joseph accomplished the task by artificially adapting a natural branch of the Nile so as to give the district the benefit of the yearly overflow. The ca.n.a.l thus formed, which is 207 miles in length, was called after Joseph. The storehouses of Joseph are repeatedly mentioned by Arabic writers. Cf. Koran xii. 55, _Jacut_, IV, 933 and _Makrizi_, I, 241.]

[Footnote 183:'Mr. Israel Abrahams, in _J. Q.R._, XVII, 427 sqq., and Mr. E.J. Worman, vol. XVIII, 1, give us very interesting information respecting Fostat and Cairo, as derived from Geniza doc.u.ments, but to comprehend fully Benjamin's account, we must remember that at the time of his visit the metropolis was pa.s.sing through a crisis. Since March, 1169, Saladin had virtually become the ruler of Egypt, although nominally he acted as Vizier to the Caliph El-Adid, who was the last of the Fatimite line, and who died Sept. 13, 1171, three days after his deposition. The student is referred to the biography of Saladin by Mr. Stanley Lane Poole, 1878. Chap, viii gives a full account of Cairo as at 1170 and is accompanied by a map. The well-known citadel of Cairo, standing on the spurs of the Mukattam Hills, was erected by Saladin seven years later. The Cairo of 1170, which was styled El Medina, and was called by Benjamin [Hebrew:], was founded in 969, and consisted of an immense palace for the Caliph and his large household. It was surrounded by quarters for a large army, and edifices for the ministers and government offices. The whole was protected by ma.s.sive walls and imposing Norman-like gates.

The civil population--more particularly the Jews--dwelt in the old Kasr-esh-Shama quarter round the so-called Castle of Babylon, also in the city of Fostat, founded in 641, and in the El-Askar quarter, which was built in 751. These suburbs went under the name of Misr or Masr, but are called by Benjamin "Mizraim." Fostat was set on fire on Nov. 12, 1168, by the order of the Vizier Shawar, in order that it might not give shelter to the Franks who had invaded Egypt, but was soon rebuilt in part. It now goes under the name Masr-el-Atika, and is noted at the present day for its immense rubbish heaps. See Stanley Lane Poole's _Cairo_, p.

34.]

[Footnote 184: Cf. two elaborate papers by Dr. A. Buchler, "The Reading of the Law and Prophets in a Triennial Cycle,"

_J. Q.R._, V, 420, VI, I, and E.N. Adler, ib. VIII, 529.

For details as to synagogues, see _J. Q.R._, XVIII, 11; Letter I of R. Obadja da Bertinoro; _Miscellany of Hebrew Literature_, p. 133; Joseph Sambari's Chronicle in Dr.

Neubauer's _Anecdota Oxoniensia_, p. 118. Sambari must have had Benjamin's _Itinerary_ before him, as has been pointed out by Mr. I. Abrahams, _J. Q.R._, II, 107.]