George Sale, The Koran, commonly called the Alcoran of Mohammed, translated into English immediately from the original Arabic; with Explanatory Notes, taken from the most approved Commentators. To which is prefixed A Preliminary Discource (1734)

The Arabs different way of life.
The Arabians before Mohammed were, as they yet are, divided into two sorts, those who dwell in cities, and towns, and those who dwell in tents. The former lived by tillage, the cultivation of palm trees breeding and feeding of cattle, and the exercise of all sorts of trades ¹, particularly merchandizing ², wherein they were very eminent, even in the time of Jacob. The tribe of Koreish were much addicted to commerce, and Mohammed, in his younger years, was brought up to the same business; it being customary for the Arabians to exercise the same trade that their parents did ³. The Arabs who dwelt in tents, employed themselves in pasturage, and sometimes in pillaging of passengers; they lived chiefly on the milk and flesh of camels; they often changed their habitations, as the convenience of water and of pasture for their cattle invited them, staying in a place no longer than that lasted, and then removing in search of other ⁴. They generally wintered in Irâk, and the confines of Syria. This way of life, is what the greater part of Ismael’s posterity have used, as more agreeable to the temper and way of life of their father; and is so well described by a late author ⁵, that I cannot do better than refer the reader to his account of them.

Their language, learning, accomplishments, &c. before Mohammed.
The Arabic language is undoubtedly one of the most ancient in the world, and arose soon after, if not at, the confusion of Babel. There were several dialects of it, very different from each other: the most remarkable were that spoken by the tribe of Hamyar and the other genuine Arabs, and that of the Koreish. The Hamyaritic seems to have approached nearer to the purity of the Syriac, than the dialect of any other tribe; for the Arabs acknowledge their father Yarab to have been the first, whose tongue deviated from the Syriac (which was his mother tongue, and is almost generally acknowledged by the Asiatics to be the most ancient) to the Arabic. The dialect of the Koreish is usually termed the pure Arabic, or, as the Korân, which is written in this dialect, calls it, the perspicuous and clear Arabic; perhaps, says Dr. Pocock, because Ismael, their father, brought the Arabic he had learned of the Jorhamites nearer to the original Hebrew. But the politeness and elegance of the dialect of the Koreish, is rather to be attributed to their having the custody of the Caaba, and dwelling in Mecca, the centre of Arabia, as well more remote from intercourse with foreigners, who might corrupt their