[330] Wellknown tribes of protohistoric Arabs who flourished before the time of Abraham： see Koran （chaps. xxvi. et passim）.
They will be repeatedly mentioned in The Nights and _disibledevent=the frontingplace of prayer，Meccah for Moslems，Jerusalem for Jews and early Christians. See Pilgrimage （ii. 321） for the Moslem change from Jerusalem to Meccah and ibid. （ii. 213） for the way in which the direction was shown.
[343] The Koran says （chaps. ii.）： 'Your wives are your tillage： go in therefore unto your tillage in what manner so ever ye will.'Usually this is understood as meaning in any posture，standing or sitting，lying，backwards or forwards. Yet there is a popular saying about the man whom the woman rides （vulg. St.
George，in France，le Postillon）；'Cursed be who maketh woman Heaven and himself earth！'Some hold the Koranic passage to have been revealed in confutation of the Jews，who pretended that if a man lay with his wife backwards，he would beget a cleverer child.
Others again understand it of preposterous venery，which is absurd： every ancient lawgiver framed his code to increase the true wealth of the peoplepopulationand severely punished all processes，like onanism，which impeded it. The Persians utilise the hatred of women for such misuse when they would force a wive to demand a divorce and thus forfeit her claim to Mahr （dowry）；they convert them into catamites till，after a month or so，they lose all patience and leave the house.