The Maryville times. (Maryville, Tenn.) 1884-1944, 1891-01-07
TEMPERANCE NOTES.
PROHIBITION IN ARABIA.
. Country Where Total Abstinence Has
Been Practiced for Cent uries.

feet that milk is the wine Of youth and
wine the milk of old age" That absurd
adage has been made the test of nu-
merous dissertations in defense of the
old world drink habits. America" said
those apologists, lis young country,
offering its inhabitants sufficient excite
ment in the form of adventures in the
struggle with the perils of the wilder
ness and of manifold inducements to
activity and enterprise. The older civ
ilized nations on the other hand, need
an artificial stimulus to prevent the
stagnation of their vital spirits"
Such sophists ought to visit Arabia,
the ancient home of total abstinence.
The Mohammedans date the triumph
of their religion from the year 622,
though the complete conversion of the
Arabian peninsula was not accom-
plished before the end of the
seventh century. But under the Calf
ate of Omar prohibition of intoxicating
beverages was enforced throughout the
Moslem dominions, and since that time
the followers of Islam, with the rarest
exceptions, have remained total alb
stainers in all continents and all climes
1t would be mistake to suppose that
the Mohammedan Scriptures interdict
wine alone and permit other noxious
stimulants. Wine-drinking, indeed, had
become a synonym of the poison-habit,
but the precepts of the Koran are COM
prehensive enough to answer all the
practical purposes of Temperance:
"Avoid Drunkenness" "Renounce the
Vice of Intoxication." The Wahabites,
or Mohammedan Protestants, as they
have been called, on account of their
reform doctrines, make, indeed, the
Koran their warrant for prohibiting
coffee and tobacco, as well as wine and
brandy, and the opium excesses of the
modern Turks have never been sane
toned by the strict expounders of their
faith. In that part of Araby known as
Arabia Felix (the hill country in the
south of the peninsula) grapes flourish
in hundreds of gardens, but the crop is
gathered exclusively for the sake Of the
IdlSlHo. anu WIG AdtlNCo dCbudllN
pense with all fluid stimulants except
coffee; yet the effects of that abstemi-
BUSINESS can by no means be traced in
their lack of mental energy. what
struck me most in the character of the
nation" says the traveller, Burkhardt,
who visited every part Of the peninsula,
sis the dignified bearing of their poor
and the vivacity of their old men. Pa.
triarchs of sixty or seventy years will
enter with unaffected pleasure into the
spirit of the liveliest conversation; will
handy repartees with precocious
youngster, or shake with laughter al
the recital of a practical joke. So uni
versal is that disposition among the
graybeards both of the well-to-do class
es and of the poorest, that l can moi
help thinking the lack of mental buoy
ance among the aged persons of oul
own nation must be due to some cause
besides the depressing influence of long
continued drudgery."
Can there be much doubt that that
"other cause" is the lethargizing after
effect of habitual intoxication? Wine
and brandy stimulate or rather irritate
but eventually blunt the mental ener
gies, and the Arabs escape that
cause of vital exhaustion in spite O
their torrid climate, and in spite O
their rather far-going habit of earl,
marriage. In the nomad camps O
Yemen, boys of twelve years are ire
quently married to girls OF ten. ant
young fellows of twenty may thus b,
burdened with all the cares of respon
sibility for the support of a numerous
family, for polygamy, too, is practicet
now and then. War, fearful drought
and famine add their share to the sor
rows of existence, but Temperance
steeled health bears up against all that
and an Arab sheik at eighty years is
to all purposes, younger than a Frencl
Marquis at fifty. Neutrality-suspicious.
and horse races are amusements shared
by all the adult males of an Arab tribe
with the exception of cripples, sickness
being so rare that it is almost limited
to indigestions contracted by the eatin,
of unwholesome substances in time 0
famine. On the fight before pursu
ing enemy the Arabs of the deser
brave with IMMUNITY almost indescrib
able fatigues, thinking nothing of be
striding trotting dromedary for TWEEN
ty consecutive hours, or of travelling TO
lays in the teeth of binding sand
storm.
Nor does poverty daunt the spirit O
that plucky race. 1.-THE natives o
Araby have no proletariate," say
Baron Won Wrede; mo lower classes il
our uncomfortable sense of the word
The poorest tiller of the soil maintain
his dignity as man, declines to cring
before superior wealth or power, an
never loses sight of the rules of decorur
in the presence of guest. TIL
wealthy sheiks of Hadramant, wit
all their overbearing treatment O
mental foreigners, at once drop thei
hectoring manner on approaching
fellow countryman. They know tina
negro will put up with kicks for tn
sake of bread, and a Frankish peddle
with taunts for the sake of profit; bu
they also know that the self-respect O
an Arab is poverty-proof."
In the pursuit of science Arabia ha
remained behind the countries of tn
civilized North, but in a land of desert
the development of educational institr
tons is hardly fair test of mental er
Ngy. Science, like art, is more or les
product of leisure which again presur
poses a surplus of wealth. In thei
prosperous colonies, in Syria, Norther
Hindostan and Egypt, the Arabs cult