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NOVEMBER, 1874.]
INKSTAND WITH ARABIC INSCRIPTION
323
Jeremiah to remain in the land, and by no means to flee into Egypt, where they should be pursued by the king of Babylon, and afterwards by Darius Hystaspes acting in his place, who should smite the land of Egypt, and deliver such as were to death to death, and such as were for captivity to captivity. (See Jer. xlii. xliii.) They nevertheless went into Egypt; for "they obeyed not the voice of the Lord." They were there overtaken by the judgments threatened. Many of the captives were sent to the Hej Az in Arabia, where they founded sereral towns near Yathreb, afterwards called Medinah, and in which they maintained and er. tended their religion. These towns were visited by Tobba, a king of the Hemyarites, from Yemen in the south of Arabia, when he was advancing northwards on a military expedition it and he was influenced by the Jewish teachers Ka'ab and As'ad to embrace their faith, which, with the aid of these teachers and other Israelitish colonists, he afterwards propagated in his native land.. To this country, too, many of the Jews betook themselves after their dispersion by Titus and Hadrian, and the defeat of Zenobia by Aurelian. Judaism Was violently upheld and propagated by the kings of Yemen. Dhu Nâwâs, one of their number, proved such an eager opponent of Christianity when it began to be propagated in that country that he provoked an invasion of his territories by the Ethiopian sovereigns, whose country had been converted to Christianity in the fourth century,
who maintained their ground in it for four genes. tions, till, by the help of the Persian Khosru Anushirwan (Chosroes), they were finally expelled. not many years before the rise of Muhammadism, The Israelites of Yemen, descendants of the original stock of Abraham, and the Arabian proso. lytes, are still estimated at 200,000 or 300,000 souls. From this body of Israelites, the most contiguous to India, as we have already hinted, and maintain. ing intercourse with India to the present day, our Beni Israel, who so much resemble them, have most likely been derived. It is not improbable that, with some of their women, their forefathers left Yomen during its occupation au subjection and the retaliation against it, by the Ethiopian kings, in the sixth century of the Christian era: about which time also, we are now inclined to think, the Cochin Jews came to India : for their first copper-plate charter, which has not the early date commonly assigned to it. || seems to belong to this period, and was witnessed by Mark har Chattan, evidently a Christian, probably cne of the early converts of the Syrian missionaries to Malabar. The Bene-Israel themselves say that they have boen in India about fifteen or sixteen centuries, but they have not a single document confirmatory of this tradition. Oar present remarks show that a modification of some of the dates connected with the Indian Israelites is neces. sary. These dates do not much affect the question of their origin.
فلا تكتب بتفك غيرشي بسوك في القيمة ان تراه وما من كاتب الا سينقي فدات الحشر ما كتب بداء
SILVER INKSTAND WITH AN ARABIC INSCRIPTION.
BY E. REHATSEK, M.C.E. The explanation of the accompanying plate re. " Write not with thy hand except what it will presenting a silver inkstand is as follows:-1.- rejoice thee at the resurrection to see." Top of the box, full size, displaying the distich- "For there is no writer but will meet on the
morn of judgment what his hands wrote."
The space between the two lines contains, above,
the word JL, and, below, the number 110: it would • Price's History of Arabia, p. 99.
profess to be descendants of Jews who came to India im.
mediately after the destruction of Jerusalem; but their + Conf. Pococke, Specimen Historiæ Arabum: Michaelis,
fainily names, such as David Castil (David the Castilian) go 'ssui do Tables chronologiques des Anciens Rois de
to prove that they are descended of the Jews of Spain, probal'Yemen : De Sacy, Mémoire sur divers Erénemens de
bly of those drion frornaat country in the reign of Ferdinand I'Hist. des Arabes arant Mahomet ; Price, Essay on the
and Isabells, and of German and Egyptian Jews.-a fact Hist. of Arabic, from the Tarikh Tabari ; &c.-ED..
wbich ime been long ago noticed. The real ancient Jews De Sacy, Mém. de Littérature, tome xlviii. pp. 735.753. of Cochin aro,the Black Jews, descendants, we believe, of
Judeo-Arabians and Indian proselytes. Some rather $ Ibid. pp. 596, 597.
obscore references to the Jews of Cochin and Quilon (and I See Inl. Ant. vol. I. p. 229.-ED.
also of Aden) are made by Benjaminot Tudela, who
returned to Spain from his eastern journey A.D. 1173. He Irayan Châttan, another of the witnesses, was proba- found no White Jews in India. Speaking of those in the bly also a Christian. (Conf. Mad. Jour. of Lit. and Sc.
pepper-country near Chulam (Quiloul, he says: "All the vol. XIII. p. 1-10; Lands of the Bible, vol. II. p. 679; and
cities and countries inhabited by these people contain only Orient. Christ. Spectator, 1839.-ED.
about one hundred Jews (members of the synagogue), wbo • Lands of the Bible, vol. IL. pp. 667-678, also contains
are of black colour as well 29 the other inhabitants. The historical notices (pp. 651-664) of the Arabian Israelites,
Jewe are good inen, observers nf the law, and possess the from whom, we think, they are sprung.
Pentateuch and some little knowledge of the Talmud and
ita decisions." Asher's Benj. of Tud. vol. i. pp. 140, 141. + The accounts given of themselves by the White Jews More Black Jews seem at this time, according to Benjamin, of Cochin are to a great extent fabulous. These Jews i to have been in the island of Khandy or Ceylon."
