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Copyright

Introduction to Time Series Forecasting with Python

© Copyright 2020 Jason Brownlee. All Rights Reserved.

Edition: v1.9

Contents

Copyright
i

Welcome

iii

Fundamentals

Python Environment

1.1

Why Python? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

1.2

Python Libraries for Time Series

..........................

1.3

Python Ecosystem Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

1.4
Summary

.......................................

What is Time Series Forecasting?

2.1

Time Series . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

2.2

Time Series Nomenclature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

10

2.3

Describing vs. Predicting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

10

2.4

Components of Time Series

.............................

11

2.5
Concerns of Forecasting

...............................

12

2.6

Examples of Time Series Forecasting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

.

13

2.7

Summary

.......................................

13

Time Series as Supervised Learning

14

3.1

Supervised Machine Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

14

3.2

Sliding Window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

15
3.3

Sliding Window With Multivariates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

16

3.4

Sliding Window With Multiple Steps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

18

3.5

Summary

.......................................

18

II

Data Preparation

20

Load and Explore Time Series Data

21

4.1

Daily Female Births Dataset . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

21

4.2
Load Time Series Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

21

4.3

Exploring Time Series Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

22

4.4

Summary

.......................................

25

ii

iii

Basic Feature Engineering

26

5.1

Feature Engineering for Time Series . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

..

26

5.2

Goal of Feature Engineering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

27

5.3

Minimum Daily Temperatures Dataset . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

.

27

5.4

Date Time Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

28

5.5

Lag Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

29

5.6

Rolling Window Statistics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

31

5.7

Expanding Window Statistics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

33

5.8

Summary

.......................................
34

Data Visualization

36

6.1

Time Series Visualization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

36

6.2

Minimum Daily Temperatures Dataset . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

.

37

6.3

Line Plot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

37

6.4

Histogram and Density Plots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

40

6.5

Box and Whisker Plots by Interval

.........................
42

6.6

Heat Maps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

45

6.7

Lag Scatter Plots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

47

6.8

Autocorrelation Plots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

50

6.9

Summary

.......................................

52

Resampling and Interpolation

53

7.1

Resampling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

53
7.2

Shampoo Sales Dataset . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

54

7.3

Upsampling Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

54

7.4

Downsampling Data

.................................

59

7.5

Summary

.......................................

62

Power Transforms

63

8.1

Airline Passengers Dataset . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

63
8.2

Square Root Transform . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

64

8.3

Log Transform

....................................

68

8.4

Box-Cox Transform . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

72

8.5

Summary

.......................................

74

Moving Average Smoothing

76

9.1

Moving Average Smoothing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

76
9.2

Data Expectations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

77

9.3

Daily Female Births Dataset . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

77

9.4

Moving Average as Data Preparation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

.

77

9.5

Moving Average as Feature Engineering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

..

80

9.6

Moving Average as Prediction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

82

9.7

Summary

.......................................

84
iv

III

Temporal Structure

85

10 A Gentle Introduction to White Noise

86

10.1 What is a White Noise?

...............................

86

10.2 Why Does it Matter? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

..

86

10.3 Is your Time Series White Noise? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

....

87

10.4 Example of White Noise Time Series . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

....

87

10.5 Summary

.......................................

92
Another Random Scribd Document
with Unrelated Content
 The very conditions of their existence, in early times, necessarily
precluded the idea of systematic organization or concerted union
among the vagabond tribes of Arabia. Their polity, if it may be
dignified by that name, was essentially patriarchal. Chief’s and rulers
were selected from families renowned for individual merit, noble
descent, and antiquity of origin, and, in accordance with the paternal
custom of the Orient, all retainers of the prince—who, in fact, were
usually related to him—were in time enrolled as members of his
household; and, in this way, fragments of certain tribes, drawn to a
common centre by the ties of real or fancied kindred or through the
fear of annihilation, acquired a great preponderance over their
neighbors. Before the establishment of Mohammedan rule, there
was no government, no code of laws, no superior authority either
delegated to or assumed by the magistrate. Each family was
independent; each member of it recognized no obligation to society
except the protection of his clansmen. The instinct of self-
preservation, the force of public opinion, and the apprehension of the
encroachments of rival tribes were the only motives sufficiently
powerful to effect a temporary union of those whose vital interests
were threatened. The power of the sheik was nominal; his functions
advisory rather than executive. His station was one of more honor
than usefulness; of his own volition he could neither direct military
operations, enforce obedience, reward merit, nor inflict punishment.
The affairs of the tribe were administered by such of its members as
were conspicuous for age, dignity, and wisdom. Even the decision of
such a council was not imperative in cases where the general
welfare was concerned; for, under such circumstances, the judgment
of every personage of wealth, rank, or social distinction was
consulted. Absolutism, so prominent a feature of Asiatic government,
and carried to such an extreme by Mohammed’s successors, was
thus unknown in ancient Arabia. Dominated by the tumultuous
freedom of individual caprice, its isolated communities were not even
subject to the ordinary legal restrictions imposed by the voice of
democracy; and their control approached as near to anarchical
license as was compatible with the bare preservation of society.
Natural obstacles, such as the scarcity of water and the barrenness
of the soil, added to long-inherited prejudice, traditional enmity, and
difficulty of intercommunication, have always prevented the political
and intellectual development of the Arabs in their native land. The
persistence of his original institutions after the mighty revolutions
elsewhere wrought by Islam prove conclusively that national
regeneration of the Arab under the sky of the Desert is a practical
impossibility.
The life of the Bedouin was passed in unremitting hostility. War
was the normal condition of his existence; it supplied the sole
incentives he deemed worthy of attention—the gratification of
revenge, the acquisition of glory, the appropriation of the property of
his neighbor. The indulgence of these passions, and especially of the
ignoble propensity to rapine, and his cruelty, were his most
conspicuous and discreditable characteristics. The occupation of
robbery was in the eyes of the Arab rather honorable than otherwise,
as it was intimately associated with the profession of arms. In a
society without the resources of agriculture, manufactures, or
commerce, violent means must be relied on for the sustenance of
life. In the Desert the only available expedients to this end were the
plunder of enemies and the blackmail of travellers. The total absence
of organized government rendered the possession of property
doubly precarious. Nowhere else was the fickleness of fortune so
apparent. The attack of a hostile tribe might render the most opulent
individual a pauper in a single night. No vigilance could prevent such
a catastrophe in a region affording unlimited opportunities for
surprise and ambuscade, where there was no title to the soil, where
the wealth of a community consisted largely of flocks of sheep and
herds of camels. Under circumstances where a man’s importance
and position among his fellows were dependent upon his inclination
to encounter danger and his capacity to elude detection in the
pursuit of pillage, poverty became disgraceful. Constant
apprehension bred distrust of strangers, until it became a
predominant national trait. Where two parties of Bedouins, unknown
to each other, met in the Desert, the stronger immediately attacked
the weaker. A daring predatory enterprise conferred the highest
popular distinction upon its hero. A great robber, who united the
qualities of courage and duplicity, and who had amassed wealth by
his exploits, was the idol of his tribe. The memory of the famous
brigand Harami is even now cherished in the Hedjaz with an
admiring veneration scarcely inferior to that conferred upon his
countryman Mohammed.
The mental constitution of the ancient Arab presented many
remarkable inconsistencies, most of which are still apparent in the
character of his descendants. Brave even to temerity, he felt no
compunction at the secret assassination of a foe. Professing
reverence for age and relying for guidance upon the advice of the
elders of his tribe, he did not hesitate to drive the old and infirm from
the public feast. While the greatest renown attended the plunder of
an encampment, the commission of a trifling theft made the
perpetrator an object of universal detestation. He assisted the
unfortunate and plundered the defenceless with equal alacrity. The
exercise of a generous and unselfish hospitality was no bar to the
pursuit of a guest after he had left the inviolable precincts of the
camp. In many respects, however, the character of the Bedouin was
eminently worthy of admiration. His courage was undisputed. He
possessed a high sense of personal honor. The fugitive who solicited
his protection, even though he were an enemy, was safe so long as
he remained within the enclosure of his tent, and he espoused the
cause of the unknown suppliant as if it were his own. After sunset,
his blazing watch-fire, like a friendly beacon, guided the course of
the belated wanderer over the desert sea. He disputed with his
neighbors for the honor of entertaining the stranger, and the deepest
reproach he could undergo was the imputation that he was deficient
in the virtue of hospitality. His sense of chivalry, nurtured amidst the
constant perils of an uncertain existence, was conspicuous in the
respect and consideration he afterwards exhibited in the treatment of
woman. His simplicity of manner and gravity of demeanor imparted
an air of dignity to his appearance, which elicited the respect of
those far superior to him in rank, education, and knowledge. Patient
in adversity, he considered the display of grief as an unpardonable
evidence of weakness. His love of liberty dominated his nature to an
extent impossible of appreciation by those subject to the salutary
restraints of civilized communities. The existence of many noble
qualities in the character of the Arab, however, only rendered its
defects the more glaring. His apparent imperturbability screened
from the public gaze many vices and imperfections. Like all
barbarians, his disposition was largely infantile and capricious,
petulant, diverted by trifles, controlled by instinct rather than by
reason, quick to take offence, and relentlessly vindictive. Of all
beings he was pre-eminently the creature of impulse. His pride was
inordinate, his rapacity insatiable. With him the prosecution of
vengeance was a sacred duty, which took precedence of every
moral and social obligation; and such was his enmity, that he
regarded the forgiveness of a serious injury as the badge of a
coward. An incorrigible braggart, he never hesitated to employ
treachery when it would accomplish the purposes of valor. He
practised cannibalism, and like the ferocious Scandinavians drank
from the skulls of slaughtered victims. Participation in these horrid
banquets was not confined to warriors; women also were present at
them, and wore, with savage pride, necklaces and amulets
composed of the ears, noses, and bones of the dead.
Under the pretext of preventing future dishonor, but really with a
view to economy, under conditions of existence involving a perpetual
struggle, he often buried his female children alive. It is said that
Othman was never known to weep except when, at the burial of his
little daughter, she reached up and caressingly wiped the dust of her
grave from his beard. From such unspeakable atrocities as this did
Mohammed deliver his countrymen.
The Arabs practised both polyandry and polygamy to an extent
rarely countenanced by other barbarians. One woman, whose career
would seem to be unique in the history of matrimonial achievement,
was celebrated for having been the wife of forty husbands. In a
society where communal marriage prevailed, the passion of jealousy
was necessarily unknown. The Pagan Arab indulged to the utmost
the vice of drunkenness, and prided himself upon his capacity to
absorb great quantities of liquor—there were some Himyarite princes
who obtained an unenviable immortality by drinking themselves to
death. Gambling was so popular in the Desert that the Bedouin, like
the ancient German, often staked his liberty, his most priceless
possession, on the toss of a pebble. Like the Hebrew patriarchs, he
contracted incestuous marriages. He gloried in the name of brigand,
and regarded the capture of a caravan as the principal object of life.
It was not unusual for him, after plundering the dead, to mutilate
them with a brutal malignity that would disgrace an American Indian.
He tested guilt or innocence by ordeals of fire and water, which he
and his kinsman the Jew had inherited from a remote antiquity. The
practice of licentious gallantry, universally prevalent in the Peninsula,
and celebrated in many an amatory stanza of the Bedouin poet, was
temporarily checked by the austere rule of Islam; but, reviving ere
long, under the congenial skies of Spain and Sicily, spread
northward, and, inseparably associated with deeds of chivalry and
romantic adventure, infected, in time, the rude and comparatively
virtuous barbarians of Europe.
An unusual degree of intelligence, a lively imagination, a vivid
curiosity, a retentive memory, a childish love of the marvellous,
distinguished the Arab of the Age of Ignorance from the other
pastoral nations of Africa and Asia. Feuds between tribe and tribe,
nourished by injuries mutually borne and inflicted for a hundred
generations, intensified the ferocity of a nature which became, under
such provocations, incapable of pity. Everything connected with the
daily life of the warrior had a direct tendency to foster an already too
violent inclination to deeds of blood. The war-horse had his
biography; the sword of every famous chieftain had a name and a
history. The sayings of the successful marauder, often uttered with
epigrammatic terseness, passed into proverbs, and were quoted,
with extravagant admiration, by his most remote descendants; his
exploits, immortalized by the stirring verses of the poet, were
recounted nightly by the camp-fires of his tribe. In case of the murder
of a kinsman, no mourning was tolerated until ample vengeance had
been taken for the crime. The execution of the savage law of blood-
feud, while it contributed to stifle every sentiment of humanity where
an hereditary foe was the offender, does not appear to have had any
marked effect in increasing the fierceness of the character of the
Arab in his contests with those against whom he had no special
cause of enmity. Where tribal hostility was, however, a point of honor
as well as a religious duty, the vendetta was prosecuted with
implacable severity. No circumstance of gratitude or chivalric
attachment, neither the memory of past favors nor the hope of future
distinction, was permitted to interfere with its rigid enforcement. The
right of revenge, originally descending to the fifth generation, passed
by inheritance, and was, in fact, never lost, and seldom relinquished.
A regular schedule of fines was recognized, dependent upon the
age, rank, and social position of the person murdered; but no family
that entertained a becoming idea of its own importance and of the
dignity of its tribe would condescend to accept the stated number of
camels which ancient prescription and common consent had
established as the equivalent of a homicide. This barbarous custom
applied to every soldier slain in honorable warfare, as fully as to the
victim of the assassin’s dagger; and the wholesome dread of the
consequences of a hard-fought conflict, where a score of lives might
be exacted in return for every fallen enemy, usually rendered the
encounters of the Arab comparatively bloodless. An extraordinary
value therefore attached to human life in the Desert, where the killing
of an individual might entail the extermination of a clan. Considering
the bitter hostility evinced by many tribes towards one another, the
consequences of animosity inherited for ages, and the continual
opportunities for mutual destruction, with their insignificant results,
we may, without hesitation, conclude that the law of blood-revenge,
despite the idea of ferocity it conveys, has, in reality, been powerfully
instrumental in the preservation of the Arab race.
The habits of the Arab were necessarily abstemious. The
requirement of constant exertion to obtain the necessaries of life, the
uncertain tenure of property, the menacing presence of danger, the
poverty of the soil, the national prejudice against industrial
occupations, were not conducive to indulgence in those vices which
flourish most vigorously under the artificial conditions of an
established civilization. The scanty harvests of the South were
insufficient to maintain even the population of those thinly settled
provinces. Among the products of the vegetable kingdom, the date
was the principal reliance of the nomadic people of Arabia. Of this
most valuable fruit a hundred varieties grew in the neighborhood of
Medina alone. Its highly nutritious properties, its easy preservation,
the convenience with which it could be transported for great
distances, rendered it an article of food especially adapted to the
denizen of those arid and unproductive regions in which it flourished,
and which, without it, would have been depopulated. Even its seeds
were an object of traffic, and were fed to horses and camels. With
the Arabs, as with other nomadic races, a vegetable diet was
resorted to only in case of necessity. The quantity of meat served at
a repast was an index to the host’s importance as well as the
measure of his hospitality. A brass caldron was considered as of only
ordinary size when it would easily hold a sheep, and some were so
large that a horseman could, without difficulty, eat from them without
dismounting. The morsels served from these seething receptacles
were proportioned to the vessels in which they were cooked and to
the voracious appetites of those who consumed them. The belief,
prevalent among barbarians, that the characteristics of an animal are
transmitted with undiminished vigor to all who feed upon its flesh,
was shared by the Arabs. As their favorite meat was that of the
camel, they attributed to its use their irascible temper, a trait which is
prominently developed in that beast, also noted among quadrupeds
for its dogged obstinacy. In a land where barrenness so discouraged
the labors of the husbandman and the shepherd, no object affording
nutrition could be neglected, and even the insect world was called
upon to contribute its share to the urgent necessities of humanity.
Locusts, dried and salted, have always formed a staple article of diet
among the poorer classes of Arabia, and, an important part of the
larder of every camp, are sold in vast quantities in the markets of the
Peninsula.
The differences and the prejudices of caste, the most serious
impediments to progress, were unknown to the proud rovers of the
Desert, where individual merit was the highest title to respect. The
authority of the chief was founded on the consideration he had
obtained among the members of his tribe rather than on the
illustrious circumstances of his birth or the antiquity of his lineage.
Age was an essential requisite to the attainment of official dignity, as
indicative of the wisdom supposed to be the result of long
experience. With the Bedouin, there was none of that greed of power
whose indulgence so often disturbs the peace, and inflames the
passions of societies in an advanced state of civilization. The sheik
governed through the respect entertained for his character, through
the influence of his manners, above all, through his relationship with
his clansmen. The paternal sentiment was paramount among the
Arabian people. They cherished the memory of their forefathers with
peculiar respect. The right of sanctuary attached to their sepulchre;
the tribal organization and domestic traditions of the Bedouin were
derived from this feeling of ancestral veneration. Like other Asiatics,
they considered a numerous family the greatest of distinctions; the
father of ten sons was ennobled by a title of honor; and no nation
attached more importance to the possession of phenomenal virility.
In their treatment of women, a striking contrast exists, in numerous
instances, between the Pagan and the later Arabians. With both, it is
true, woman was generally a slave. Yet sometimes, in the Age of
Ignorance, she was raised to official dignities, even to the throne
itself; her opinion was solicited in momentous affairs of state; and in
the rôle of diviner and sorceress she wielded a power, unlimited for
good or evil, over her superstitious followers. Often gifted with rare
poetic talent, she competed, not without distinction, for the coveted
palm of literary excellence. Tradition has also handed down the
names and achievements of certain intrepid amazons, who fought by
the side of their husbands and brothers; and whose determined
courage contributed, in a marked degree, to change the fortunes of
more than one doubtful battle. But, as a rule, both before and after
Mohammed, the advancement of the sex from a condition of
servitude was resolutely discountenanced by the Arabs. In the Age
of Ignorance, it was stigmatized by the ungallant epithet of “Nets of
the Demon.” The sacred ties of blood, and the fact that with marriage
woman did not renounce her hereditary privileges, could always
command the assistance of her kinsmen, seek refuge among them,
and be avenged by their valor in case of grievous personal injury,
gave her a considerable degree of importance in the social system of
Arabia. It is very evident that in early times polyandry prevailed
everywhere in that country, an indication of a scarcity of females,
and a custom always incident to a certain stage in the formation and
development of society. Its prior existence is demonstrated by the
vestiges of communal marriage to be traced to-day in remote
portions of the Peninsula, and in the well authenticated tradition that
female kinship was originally the rule in the Desert, the child
belonging to the tribe and following the fortunes of the mother.
Among the Bedouins, the only recognized methods of obtaining a
wife were those of capture and purchase. The former was thoroughly
congenial with the warlike instincts of a race whose possessions
acquired an especial value as the result of martial prowess; the latter
represented an indemnity for the possible loss of sons who, under
other circumstances, would have become warriors of the maternal
tribe. There was, however, no real difference between the lot of the
bride who, as the prize of victory, was dragged shrieking from the
folds of her tent, and that of the smiling victim whose beauty had
been bartered for a hundred camels. Both were regarded as
chattels, and descended with other personal property to the heir. As
the population increased, and the means of livelihood became more
difficult to procure, the appearance of a female child was looked
upon as a calamity; infanticide grew common; and nothing but the
hope of being able, at some future day, to add to his herd the camels
of some prospective suitor, ever reconciled the mercenary Bedouin
to the birth of a daughter.
The attainment to a high degree of civilization with all its
demoralizing influence was not able to destroy the native politeness,
the air of conscious dignity, the noble hospitality, and the courtly
graces of manner which distinguished the fierce and untaught
tribesman of the Desert. His sense of independence was not
hampered by invidious distinctions of rank or inconvenient
regulations of property. His intuitive knowledge of human nature, his
rare susceptibility to every impression which can improve and
develop the mind, his capacity to deal with the most difficult
questions of policy, his willingness to encounter the most appalling
dangers, were qualities which insured his success in the most distant
countries and under the most adverse and discouraging conditions.
Despite his readiness to profit by the superior knowledge of his
adversaries, he entertained the most extravagant ideas of his own
importance, and looked down upon all who were of different
manners, religious faith, or nationality. His inordinate family pride
preserved for the astonishment of subsequent generations the
endless nomenclature of his progenitors; and, at the birth of
Mohammed, the most obscure and poverty-stricken individual could
name, with a fluency born of long practice and traditional inheritance,
his ancestors for six hundred years. His language, wonderfully
complex but flexible, offering to the purposes of the poet and the
orator—by reason of its prodigal richness and inexhaustible variety—
every resource of sentiment, pathos, and eloquence, yet so easily
acquired that it was spoken by young children with grammatical
correctness and fluency, he justly boasted as one of the most perfect
idioms ever invented by man. In short, the Arab regarded himself as
the highest exemplar of humanity; his arrogance revolted at the idea
of matrimonial connections with races which he deemed inferior to
his own; and the pre-eminence he claimed for himself and his
countrymen was indicated by the prerogatives which he asserted
Allah had vouchsafed to them alone of all nations; “that their turbans
should be their diadems, their tents their houses, their swords their
intrenchments, and their poems their laws.”
The pre-Islamitic religion of the Arabs was mainly a debasing
idolatry polluted by human sacrifices, and ascending, by ill-defined
gradations, from the lowest forms of fetichism to the adoration of the
stars. Their faith was far from uniform, and almost every tribe had
special objects of veneration and peculiar modes of worship. Some
were absolutely destitute of the idea of a God; some grovelled before
roughly-hewn blocks of stone; others worshipped trees and springs,
—the most grateful gifts of nature in a parched and thirsty land;
others, again, greeted with praise the rising sun as its beams
illuminated the purple mists of the Desert, or bowed reverently at
night before the glittering majesty of the heavens. The members of
certain tribes were materialists; not a few accepted the
metempsychosis; many were familiar with the philosophical creed of
the Buddhist, which regarded death as the irrevocable end of all
spiritual activity, the beginning of a state of absolute quiescence, of
eternal and immutable rest. The majority of the Arab races, however,
looked upon their idols as mediators between the Supreme Being
and man. Hence they erected temples in their honor, named their
children for them, made pilgrimages to their shrines, and solicited
their good offices with precious gifts and offerings. The heavenly
bodies were placed in the same category. Their intercession with the
Deity was also invoked by frequent applications; and to their power,
thus indirectly exercised, were attributed the most important as well
as the most trivial occurrences of life, the benefits of fortune, the
infliction of calamities, the mysterious and terrifying effects of natural
phenomena. It is a superstition as old as the human race to imagine
the universe to be peopled with mysterious beings, and the lives of
men to be moulded by the beneficent or malignant influence of the
stars. The worship of the Sun, the genial dispenser of light, of
warmth, of health, in whose train follow the increase of flocks, the
bursting of buds, the welcome sight of refreshing verdure, the author
of all that is useful and attractive in every species of organic life, a
worship which in ages of primeval simplicity has always most
strongly appealed to the gratitude and veneration of man, was highly
popular in Pagan Arabia. Classic historians have established the fact
that it was at one time almost universal in the Peninsula, where the
idol which was the terrestrial manifestation of that great luminary was
designated by the appellation Nur-Allah, “The Light of God.” His
authority was everywhere paramount, whether openly worshipped,
represented by fire the great purifying agent, or exhibited under
various symbols of force and power, which all nations, however
separated, and differing in physical and mental characteristics, have,
with wonderful unanimity, adopted as his peculiar emblems. Temples
were also raised to the Moon, Sirius, Canopus, the Hyades, Mercury,
and Jupiter. But of all the starry bodies none enjoyed greater favor,
or was worshipped with more splendor, than Saturn. His attributes
were often confounded by his votaries with those of his kindred
divinities Mars and the Sun. It has been proved by the learned
researches of Dozy, that the famous Kaaba was originally a shrine
dedicated to that deity. He was the Baal of the Hebrews, and once
their tutelary god as well as that of the Phœnicians—carried by the
former during their sojourn in the wilderness, venerated by the latter
in the magnificent temples of Sidon and Tyre. The extent of his
worship in the East was, it might be said, coincident with the view of
the brilliant planet by which he was represented in the tropical
heavens. The giver of all material blessings, he was, in this capacity,
invoked as the creator and preserver of terrestrial life; but he was
also propitiated as the avenger of sacrilege and crime. Among
different peoples he was adored under innumerable manifestations.
The familiar word Israel is a synonym of Saturn; the Hebrew priests
knew him as Sabbathai—whence is derived our Sabbath; and in
Judea, as in Egypt, the first day of the week was dedicated to and
named for him. In Arabia, this popular divinity was known as Hobal,
a word indisputably derived from the Hebrew language. Occupying
the most exalted position in the Arabic Pantheon, while his image
was anthropomorphic, he was, in reality, a representative of the
monotheistic principle. His name and his worship in the Peninsula
were alike of Jewish origin. Antiquarian ingenuity and research have
traced his various migrations from the eastern shore of the
Mediterranean to the province of Hedjaz, and have elucidated
certain obscure Scriptural texts relative to his shrine, his worship,
and his festivals. Among the multitudinous divinities which claimed
the reverence of the ancient Arabians was also the Hebrew Jehovah,
adored under the form of a he-goat, sculptured in gold, as well as the
profligate Venus, known to the Babylonians as Mylitta, and to the
Phœnicians as Astarte. As a tribute to their eminence in the
Christian world, the Virgin and the Child occupied a post of honor
among the three hundred and sixty idols which crowded the
sanctuary of Mecca. In the religious system of the Peninsula there
was no mythology, a fact which perhaps contributed not a little to its
speedy overthrow. But, though polytheistic to the last degree, the
Arabs recognized a Supreme Being whose majesty was confined to
no particular locality, to whom no altar was dedicated, and who, too
awful to be directly addressed, could be approached only through his
celestial ministers the stars. This was the great Al-Lah, whose name,
corresponding to the El and the Elohim of the Jews, was pre-eminent
in honor and dignity, both in the Age of Ignorance and in the Age of
Islam. The most superstitious races of men, and those that are the
highest in intelligence among the most civilized, have and require no
shrines. In Arabia the whole Desert was the temple of the Supreme
God.
Associated with the most exalted ideas of divine power were to be
found superstitions usually encountered only in the primitive epochs
of society. The wide-spread worship of the generative forces of
nature, whose remaining monuments seem to the uninstructed
sense of our cavilling age mere evidences of a depraved
imagination, had its share of public favor in Arabia, where the male
and female principles were adored under various symbolical forms.
Many of these have survived in the monoliths scattered throughout
the Peninsula, whose towering masses are regarded, even by
devout Moslems, with no small degree of superstitious awe. The
stone-circles and menhirs mentioned by travellers as existing in
Oman and Nedjd are evidently of the same general type as those of
Carnac and Stonehenge, and, from the descriptions given of them,
of scarcely inferior dimensions, and perhaps of still higher antiquity. It
is a singular circumstance, that gigantic structures, bearing such a
common resemblance as to suggest that they were erected by the
same race of builders and designed for similar purposes, should be
found in countries so different in physical features, climate,
inhabitants, religious traditions, language, and history, as Central
Arabia and Western Europe.
Like other nations of ancient times, the Arabs invested certain
trees with a sacred character, a custom indicative of the lingering
influence of phallicism; a worship whose original principles, long
forgotten in the Peninsula, survived only in the exhibition of its
peculiar emblems and in the practice of a gross and shameless
immorality. Among the Pagan Arabs, no form of superstition was too
debasing to claim its votaries. They raised altars to fire. They
attributed supernatural powers to the crocodile and the serpent.
Each tent had its image; every hovel of sun-dried bricks was filled
with tutelary deities. Shapeless masses of stone, which tradition had
associated with remarkable events or endowed with celestial origin,
were approached with a reverence not vouchsafed to idols of the
most costly materials and elaborate workmanship. Of these blocks,
which partook of the nature of the fetich, the black were sacred to
the Sun, the white to the Moon. In the Pagan world two of the former
were especially famous; over one was erected a splendid temple on
the mountain near Emesa in Syria, whence the infamous Roman
emperor Heliogabalus derived his name; the other was built into the
wall of the Kaaba of Mecca. The latter was the most remarkable
object of the kind known to antiquity. A plain fragment of basalt,
seven inches in diameter, whose composition is apparently identical
with that of a neighboring mountain, it had acquired, in the eyes of
the people of Arabia, a sanctity not shared by any other emblem of
idolatrous worship. It was probably, in its origin, a phallic symbol, and
stood alone in an open square of the city, ages preceding the
building of the Kaaba, an event which tradition has assigned to a
date four hundred years before the foundation of the temple of
Solomon. Thus invested with the sanction of immemorial prescription
and the virtues of a miraculous relic, it has received the reverent
homage of millions upon millions of idolaters and Moslems. It has
survived the accidents of conquest, of iconoclasm, of conflagration.
The silver bands which unite its fragments bear witness to the
vicissitudes and rough usage to which it has been subjected. The
healing power it was supposed to possess attracted the sick and the
disabled from regions far beyond the limits of Arabia. It was the
starting-point of ceremonial and pilgrimage. It imparted its virtues to
the Kaaba, that temple where alone, in all the Peninsula, hereditary
feuds were suspended; where violence was forgotten; where
rudeness gave way to courtesy; where the temporary surrender of
individual freedom, and the voluntary relinquishment of tribal
animosity, seemed to announce the existence of national sentiment
and the possibility of national union. The recognition by Mohammed
of the claims of the Black Stone and the Kaaba—the ancient temple
of Saturn—to public veneration, in a creed otherwise
uncompromisingly hostile to idolatry, demonstrated the high
estimation in which they were held by the Arabs. The latter, with their
numerous shrines, their swarms of deities, their elaborate
paraphernalia of worship and imposture, were, however, far from
being a religious people. They evinced a decided aversion to
metaphysics. Their ideas of personal liberty were not consistent with
unquestioning submission to the tyranny of a priesthood. Their native
intelligence rendered them. skeptical; their nomadic habits were
unfavorable to the maintenance of a permanent ecclesiastical
establishment. The multiplicity of deities had, as is invariably the
case, weakened the faith of the masses in any. The genuine piety of
a people is always in an inverse ratio to the number of its gods.
The early Arabians practised magic and divination, had recourse
to oracles, maintained wizards and sorcerers—charlatans whose
ascendency was largely due to the narcotics they made use of to
open a pretended communication with the spirit world. Amulets were
universally worn as a protection against the baneful consequences
of the evil eye. Hand in hand with presages and magical arts,
auguries, and incantations, came the incipient doctrine of the
influence of the planets upon mineral substances, as well as a belief
in their power to affect the destiny and welfare of man; theories
which, eventually developing into the vain pursuits of alchemy and
judicial astrology, indicate an acquaintance with the principles of
science only acquired by much study and repeated experiments. The
practice of these rites, so severely reprobated in the Koran, was
associated in the minds of the people with the ceremonies of public
worship during the age of polytheism. The words altar and talisman
are practically synonymous in Arabic, a fact which discloses the
intimate alliance originally existing between divination, sorcery, and
religion in the Peninsula.
Human sacrifices, so repugnant to all our ideas of piety and
justice, but common to nations of Semitic origin, were of frequent
occurrence among the Arabs before Mohammed. The mode of death
was by fire, which removed every earthly impurity; but it was only in
the fulfilment of a solemn vow, on an occasion of national rejoicing,
or to avert some impending calamity, that such a costly expiation
was exacted. The Israelites, allied to the Arabs by the ties of
consanguinity, and by similar religious conceptions, had also long
been familiar with these revolting and cruel rites; instances of whose
observance will at once suggest themselves to all who are familiar
with the Pentateuch.
The Hebrew has always exerted a remarkable influence upon the
public sentiment, the religious faith, and the foreign and domestic
relations of the inhabitants of Arabia. A great analogy exists between
the languages of the two nations, and the Hebrew alphabet was
used by the prehistoric Arabs. It is believed by many Oriental
scholars that Israel was not the founder of the people who bear his
name; that the twelve tribes have a mystic relation to certain of the
heavenly bodies or to the months of the year; and it is known that the
word Keturah means simply “frankincense.” No doubt now exists that
the Jew and the Arab are of common ancestry. For a period of
twenty-five hundred years before the Hegira the former had been
established in Yemen. The trade of that kingdom, with all its vast
ramifications, was in his hands. His power enabled him constantly to
dictate the policy of its sovereigns.
His worship, equally idolatrous with that of the Bedouin—for he
was the descendant of the Simeonites, against whom, among
others, the anathemas of the Bible were directed—surpassed the
latter in the splendor of its appointments and the insolence of its
priests. In a land where toleration was otherwise universal, he was
enabled to persecute, with implacable enmity, Christian exiles, whom
even the rapacity of the desert freebooter had spared. The rich
settlements of northwestern Arabia were, to all intents and purposes,
Jewish colonies. In the barren and inhospitable region of the Hedjaz,
the Jew founded the towns of Medina and Mecca. In such a
congenial atmosphere, the superstitions of Asia Minor obtained a
ready acceptance. He established the worship of Baal, the most
renowned of the Phœnician divinities. He introduced the rite of
circumcision, hitherto unknown in Arabia. He communicated his
idolatrous observances to the population of the country which had
offered him a refuge. He gave a name to its principal city, for the
word Mecca is Hebrew, signifying “Great Field of Battle;” the Pagan
ceremonial of the Hedjaz can be traced to Palestine, and the Kaaba
was originally known as Beth-El, “The House of God.” Quick to
recognize the advantages to be derived by commerce from religious
pilgrimage, he made that city the centre of national devotion as well
as the chief distributing point of the vast trade of Europe, Asia Minor,
Ethiopia, and India. The excellent commercial situation of Mecca,
near the Red Sea and on the great caravan highway connecting
Syria and Yemen, could scarcely compensate, however, for the
serious physical disadvantages which unfriendly nature had imposed
upon it. Its houses were crowded into a narrow valley two miles long
by only nine hundred feet wide. The rays of a vertical sun beat
pitilessly down upon a landscape destitute of verdure. Water, the
most priceless of blessings in the Desert, was scarce and
unpalatable. A salt effervescence covered the neighboring plains.
The seasons were irregular; storms were violent; the coast of the
Hedjaz possessed the unenviable reputation of being one of the
most pestilential in the world. The city was dependent upon trade for
the necessaries of life, and the unexpected delay of the caravan
often menaced the population with famine. Yet, with all these
drawbacks, the commerce of Mecca flourished almost beyond
precedent. Caravans of more than two thousand camels were no
uncommon sight in its narrow streets. Each of these beasts of
burden carried a load of four hundred pounds of rare and costly
commodities,—silks, spices, ivory, gold-dust, and perfumes. The
annual exports of the town in the closing days of Pagan ascendency
reached the enormous sum of fifteen million dollars, half of which
was profit. Not the least of the sources of gain to the people of
Mecca were the valuable offerings left by pilgrims and merchants in
their temples. For a distance of leagues the ground was holy, and all
who trod upon it could claim the right of sanctuary. The blood of
neither man nor beast could be shed within these sacred precincts
without incurring the imputation of sacrilege and the punishment of
death. There was no traveller, from whatever country he came, who
could not find, among the innumerable idols of the Kaaba, a familiar
divinity upon whom to bestow the tribute of his devotion or gratitude.
Of the immense profits resulting from the politic combination of traffic
and superstition, the Hebrew exacted the lion’s share. His rulers met
each day at the Kaaba to exchange views on finance and theology.
The heathen legends of Palestine were incorporated into the new
system, with the astral worship of the Sabeans and the polytheism of
the aboriginal inhabitants of the Desert, itself derived from a
thousand different and uncertain sources. The monotheism of Israel
was not recognized by the tribe of Simeon, which had been driven
into exile long before the Pentateuch was written. Ideas thus blended
in the popular mind for centuries might, under favorable conditions,
be modified, but never obliterated. There is no question that Islam is
largely Hebrew in origin, although a considerable number of its
ceremonies can be deduced from the customs of Pagan Arabia. In
their migrations, which closed with the settlement of the Hedjaz, the
Jews, while wandering far, had at last returned to the cradle of their
race.
The arbitrary rules of ceremonial cleanliness; the exclusion of
blood from the precincts of the temple; the classification of certain
animals as “holy,” which an error of the translator has transformed
into “unclean;” the penalties for many offences; the adoration of
Phœnician divinities; the nomenclature disclosed by family
genealogies; the correspondence in meaning of many terms used in
their languages—peculiarities common to both the Arab and the Jew
—go farther to prove an intimate relationship between the two races
than the uncertainties of tradition or the association of neighborhood
would tend to establish. The antipathy to the Hebrew, subsequently
so bitter among Mohammedans, did not exist in ancient Arabia. The
Jew served with distinction in the armies of Khaled and Amru. Mutual
aversion, however great in subsequent times, was never sufficient to
induce the Israelite to destroy those whom he regarded as his
kinsmen. As his myths had formed the basis of a new religion, his
enterprise and assistance contributed, in no insignificant degree, to
the foundation of a new and magnificent empire. He guided the
councils of the most renowned Mohammedan princes. Without the
dogmas he furnished, the history of Islam would never have been
written. Without the suggestions he voluntarily offered, and the
treasure he poured into the Moslem camps, the conquest of Spain
could never have been achieved. The fairest of Mussulman writers
have rarely failed to acknowledge the obligations of their countrymen
to an unfortunate race which the prejudices of nearly twenty
centuries have subjected to universal proscription.
Christianity made no progress in Arabia until after its political
alliance with Constantine had imparted such a tremendous impulse
to the dissemination of its doctrines. The latter do not seem to be
adapted to the Asiatic mind, and have never been able either to
appeal to the reason or to arouse the enthusiasm of nations of
Semitic blood. It offered little that was congenial with, and much that
was abhorrent to, the lax and tolerant code of the independent and
polytheistic rovers of the Desert. At the birth of Mohammed it had
already, for four centuries, been established in the Peninsula, and
still, in the very shadow of its temples, the mocking Arab bowed
before his thousand gods. The principles of the Ebionite sect, which
prevailed in the Arabian churches, so far from attracting the curiosity
or awakening the reverence of the sarcastic Bedouin, only served to
excite his ridicule. The sublime truths of the religion of the Bible, the
eloquence of its teachers, the piety of its saints, the pomp of its
ritual, the promises and threats of its revelation, were lost upon the
reckless freebooters, devoted to sensual pleasures, to escapades of
gallantry, to the generous rivalry of poesy, to daring feats of arms.
The only mark of attention its adherents received was their
classification with the despised Hebrew as Ahl-al-Kitab, “The People
of the Book.” In its adaptability to the requirements and the mental
capacity of the multitude, it was ill-fitted to cope with the religion that
eventually supplanted it. On one side were the incomprehensible
dogmas of a debased Christianity, indispensable to its acceptance;
on the other, the simplicity of the profession of Islam, which even a
child could understand. For these reasons it made comparatively few
proselytes in the Peninsula, and at no time was acknowledged over
any considerable area, except during the short period which
intervened between the Abyssinian conquest of Yemen and the rise
of Mohammedanism.
Many of the rites and customs adopted by the great Lawgiver, or
preserved by his followers and generally regarded as peculiar to
Islam, antedated the Koran by centuries. The Mohammedan
attitudes of worship are the same as those depicted upon the eternal
monuments of the Pharaohs. The heathen pilgrims, clad in the
Ihram, or sacred garment, seven times made the circuit of the
Kaaba; embraced the Black Stone; ran the courses between the holy
stations of Al-Safa and Al-Marwa; cast stones in the valley of Mina;
performed the ancient duties of sacrifice and local pilgrimage, and
were systematically plundered by the greedy and scoffing Meccans,
just as all good Moslem pilgrims are to-day. The primitive Arabs
inculcated the duty of personal cleanliness by frequent ablution.
They shaved their heads, and used the depilatory for the removal of
superfluous hair from the body. Like the Egyptians, they stained their
hands and feet with henna, and blackened their eyelids with
antimony. They removed their sandals, as Moses did, when they
stood on holy ground. They scrupulously abstained from certain
kinds of food, and their actions were often governed by regulations
practically identical, in their general character, with those prescribed
by the canons of Jewish and Moslem law.
 The spirit of Arabian genius, destined in subsequent ages to effect
such a revolution in the literary and scientific history of the world, had
in the sixth century of the Christian era disclosed no indications of its
gigantic powers. No condition of existence could be less suggestive
of a capacity for intellectual achievement than that whose main
dependence was violence and plunder. The Arab of that epoch had
no written records save a few obscure inscriptions in the Himyarite
dialect, which have been deciphered by the plodding industry of
modern scholars, and are, for the most part, epitaphs. Traditions,
modified or corrupted by the vanity or the prejudice of each
successive generation, were the sole and uncertain reliance of the
chronicler. The power of memory by which these were retained and
transmitted from an unknown antiquity seems absolutely miraculous
and incredible.
Although destitute of authentic history, and even unskilled in the
common arts by which a nation’s glory may be perpetuated, the early
Arab excelled in a species of literary composition in which barbarian
races have always exhibited the greatest proficiency. A talent for
poetry, which invariably attains its highest development among those
least exposed to the practical ideas and refined vices of civilization,
was considered by the Bedouin as the most noble of human
accomplishments. His temperament, his situation, his pursuits,
rendered him peculiarly susceptible to the charms of the Muse. His
spirit was impetuous, his invention inexhaustible, his imagination
riotous, his enthusiasm unbounded. From an abnormally sensitive
nervous organization which nature had bestowed upon him, on
occasions of prolonged mental excitement often proceeded an
hysterical frenzy, a state declared by the most renowned of poets to
be indispensable for perfection in his art. The scenery of the Desert;
its impressive solitudes; the enchanting illusions of the mirage; the
magnificent constellations of the tropical heavens; the life of
incessant peril; the exploits of romantic gallantry; the nocturnal
excursion,—the surprise, the battle, the retreat, the rescue,—these
all stimulated the imaginative faculty of the Arab, and urged him to
the cultivation of a talent which might transmit to posterity events
whose immortality was at once his personal title to honor, the
pastime of his camp-fire, and the glory of his tribe. In the means at