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[-according-]{+Dr. Wallin’s Route in Northern Arabia.
39
according+} to still current traditions, the once powerful tribe of
Beni Suleim, who, besides this land, are said to have occupied the
towns of Teima and Khcibar. Of this now vanished tribe
Al-Kalkashendy gives the following account: the Beni Suleim are
a powerful tribe of Keis; the patrial noun from their name is
Sulamy ; they are of the posterity of Suleim, son of Mansoor
(Mansur), son of ’Akramd (’Akramah),sonofKhasaf;i (Khasafah),
son of Keis. Suleim had a son Bulita (Buhtali), through whom
his whole race is descended. The author of A1-Thar says,
“ their abodes were in the land called ’Aliiet Ncgd (Aliyat
Negd), that is, the higher parts of Negd, near Khcibar, and that,
besides other lands, they possessed Harrat Beni Suleim, and
Harrat Al-Nar, lying between Wadi Al-Kura and Teima. The
same author adds—“ In the present day there are no traces of
them in their original land, but numbers of them are to be found
in Afrikiya,” &c. The author of the Kit b Al-Buldan states,
the lands known by the name of Al-IIarra (Ilarrak) in Arabia to
be eight, to two of which he gives the above-mentioned names of
Harrat Beni Suleim and ljarrat Al-Nar, without further
determining their situation. Although the present Ilarra of the Beni
Bely, which I have endeavoured to describe, is not situated
precisely between Teima and Wadi Al-Kura (Wadi-l-Kurah),
as stated by the author of Al-’Ibar, I can only regard it as
identical with the Ilarra of the Beni Suleim.
With regard to Wadi Al-Kura (Wadi-l-Kurah) the author of
the Nashk Al-Azhar describes it to be a valley in the land
between Medina and Syria, and possessing a castle built amidst
mountains, in which are excavated grotto habitations. The soil
of this valley, he continues, is called Al-Athalib, which signifies
tracts covered with stones and rubbish ; and here dwelt the people
of Themood, whose well, from which they drank by turns with
the camels of Salih, is still to be seen. The description by Ibn
Al-’Athir, in his book of Tuhfat Al-’Agaib, amounts to the same
thing. The author of the Awdah Al-Mesalik contradicts Ibn
Hawkal, who places the town of Higr in the mountains of
Al-Iligaz at a distance of one day’s journey from Wadi Al-Kura,
and himself determines the distance between the two places
to amount to more than five days. Al-Sam’any, in the Kitab
Al-Ansab, gives the distance between Higr and Wadi Al-Kura
18 miles. Other geographers in specifying the limits of the
Arabian Peninsula state the Red Sea to extend along the coast
from Eile, by Mudian, Wadi Al-Kura, and Yainbu’, &c., down
to Al-Yaman. Upon weighing the discrepancies between these
statements, by the Arabian authors, of the situation of Wadi
Al-Kura, I conceive that the mouth of that valley ought to be sought
for on the coast between Mudian and Yambu’, probably at
Wcgh, and its head at Higr, where old excavations of the same
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