Chapter 22

The dress of the Sherif is the same as that of all the heads of Sherif families at Mekka; consisting, usually, of an Indian silk gown, over which is thrown a white abba, of the finest manufacture of El Ahsa, in the Persian Gulf; a Cashmere shawl, for the head; and yellow slippers, or sometimes sandals, for the feet. I saw no Mekkawy Sherifs with green turbans. Such of them as enter into the service of government, or are brought up to arms, and who are called by the Mekkawys exclusively “Sherifs,” generally wear coloured Cashmere shawls; the others, who lead a private life, or are employed in the law and the mosque, tie a small white muslin shawl round their caps. The Sherifs, however, possess one distinguishing mark of dress--a high woollen cap of a green colour, round which they tie the white muslin or the Cashmere shawl; beyond which the cap projects, so as to screen the wearer’s face from the rays of the sun: for its convenience in this respect, it is sometimes used also by elderly persons; but this is far from being a common fashion.

When the Sherif rides out, he carries in his hand a short, slender stick, called metrek, such as the Bedouins sometimes use in driving their camels; a horseman, who rides close by him, carries in his hand

[p.227] an umbrella or canopy, of Chinese design, adorned with silk tassels, which he holds over the Sherif’s head when the sun incommodes him. This is the only sign of royalty by which the Sherif is distinguished when he appears in public; and even this is not used when he walks in the street. The Wahabys compelled him to lay aside the canopy, and to go on foot to the mosque, alleging as a reason, that it was inconsistent with the requisite humility, to come into the presence of the Kaaba on horseback. But when Ghaleb was in full power al Mekka, he obliged the Pashas who accompanied the pilgrim caravan, to acknowledge his right of precedency on all occasions; and he disseminated throughout the Hedjaz a belief that his rank was superior to that of any officer of the Porte; and that even at Constantinople the Sultan himself ought, in strictness of etiquette, to rise and salute him. I have already mentioned the annual investiture of the Sherif by the Kaftandjy Bashy. According to the ceremonial practised on the arrival of the caravan, the Sherif pays the first visit to the Pasha, or Emir el Hadj. The latter, on returning the visit, receives a horse, richly caparisoned, from the Sherif. After the return of the Hadj from Wady Muna, the Pasha presents him, on the first day, with a similar horse; and they both exchange visits in their tents at Muna. When the caravan is ready to leave Mekka, on its return home, the Sherif visits the Pasha a second time, in his camp outside the town, and is there presented with another horse.

The Sherif is supposed to have under his jurisdiction all the Bedouin tribes of the Hedjaz; at least they are named in his own and the Porte’s registers, as the dutiful subjects of the Sultan and of the Sherif. When in the full enjoyment of his power, Ghaleb possessed a considerable influence over these tribes, but without any direct authority. They looked upon the Sherif, with his soldiers and friends, in the same light as one of their own Sheikhs, with his adherents; and all the laws of war current in the Desert, were strictly observed by the Sherif. In his late expeditions against the Wahabys, he was accompanied by six or eight thousand Bedouins, who joined him, as they would have joined another Sheikh, without receiving any regular pay

[p.228] for their services, but following their own chiefs, whose interest and attachment Ghaleb purchased by presents.

To those who are unacquainted with the politics of the Desert, the government of Mekka will present some singularities; but every thing is easily explained, if the Sherif be considered as a Bedouin chief, whom wealth and power have led to assume arbitrary sway; who has adopted the exterior form of an Osmanly governor, but who strictly adheres to all the ancient usages of his nation. In former times, the heads of the Sherif families at Mekka exercised the same influence as the fathers of families in the Bedouin encampments; the authority of the great chief afterwards prevailed, and the others were obliged to submit; but they still retain, in many cases, the rights of their forefathers. The rest of the Mekkawys were considered by the contending parties, not as their equals, but as settlers under their domination; in the same way as Bedouin tribes fight for villages which pay to them certain assessments, and whose inhabitants are considered to be on a much lower level than themselves. The Mekkawys, however, were not to be dealt with like inhabitants of the towns in the northern provinces of Turkey; they took a part in the feuds of the Sherifs, and shared in the influence and power obtained by their respective patrons. When Serour and Ghaleb successively possessed themselves of a more uncontrolled authority than any of their predecessors had enjoyed, the remaining Sherifs united more closely with the Mekkawys, and, till the most recent period, formed with them a body respectable for its warlike character, as was evinced in frequent quarrels among themselves; and a resistance against the government, when its measures affected their lives, although they were so far reduced as never to revolt when their purses only were assailed.

The government of Ghaleb, notwithstanding his pecuniary extortion, was lenient and cautious: he respected the pride of the Mekkawys, and seldom made any attempts against the personal safety or even fortunes of individuals, although they smarted under those regulations which affected them collectively. He permitted his avowed enemies to live peaceably in the bosom of their families, and the people

[p.229] to indulge in bloody affrays among themselves, which frequently happened either in consequence of blood-revenge, or the jealousies which the inhabitants of different quarters of the town entertained against each other; sometimes fighting for weeks together, but generally with sticks, lances, and daggers, and not with fire-arms.

The Sherifs, or descendants of Mohammed, resident at Mekka and in the neighbourhood, who delight in arms, and are so often engaged in civil broils, have a practice of sending every male child, eight days after its birth, to some tent of the neighbouring Bedouins, where it is brought up with the children of the tent, and educated like a true Bedouin for eight or ten years, or till the boy is able to mount a mare, when his father takes him back to his home. During the whole of the above period, the boy never visits his parents, nor enters the town, except when in his sixth month; his foster-mother then carries him on a short visit to his family, and immediately returns with him to her tribe. The child is, in no instance, left longer than thirty days after his birth in the hands of his mother; and his stay among the Bedouins is sometimes protracted till his thirteenth or fifteenth year. By this means, he becomes familiar with all the perils and vicissitudes of a Bedouin life; his body is inured to fatigue and privation; and he acquires a knowledge of the pure language of the Bedouins, and an influence among them that becomes afterwards of much importance to him. There is no sherif, from the chief down to the poorest among them, who has not been brought up among the Bedouins; and many of them are also married to Bedouin girls. The sons of the reigning Sherif family were usually educated among the tribe of Adouan, celebrated for the prowess and hospitality of its members; but it has been so much reduced by the intestine wars of the Sherifs, in which they always took part, and by the late invasion of Mohammed Aly, that they found it expedient to abandon the territory of the Hedjaz, and seek refuge in the encampments of the tribes of the Eastern plain. Othman el Medhayfe, the famous Wahaby chief, a principal instrument employed by Saoud in the subjugation of the Hedjaz, was himself a Sheikh of Adouan; and Sherif Ghaleb had married his sister. The other Sherifs

[p.230] sent their children to the encampments of Hodheyl, Thekyf, Beni Sad, and others; some few to the Koreysh, or Harb.

The Bedouins in whose tent a Sherif has been educated, were ever after treated by him with the same respect as his own parents and brethren; he called them respectively, father, mother, brother; and received from them corresponding appellations. Whenever they came to Mekka, they lodged at the house of their pupil, and never left it without receiving presents. During his pupilage, the Sherif gave the name of Erham to the more distant relatives of the Bedouin family, who were also entitled to his friendship and attention; and he considered himself, during his life, as belonging to the encampment in which he had passed his early years: he termed its inhabitants “our people,” or, “our family;” took the liveliest interest in their various fortunes; and, when at leisure, often paid them a visit during the spring months, and sometimes accompanied them in their wanderings and their wars.

Sherif Ghaleb always showed himself extremely attentive to his Bedouin foster-parents; whenever they visited him, he used to rise from his seat, and embrace them, though in no way distinguished from any meanly- dressed inhabitant of the Desert. Of course, it often happened that Sherif boys could not easily be induced to acknowledge their real parents at home; and they sometimes escaped, and rejoined the friends of their infancy, the Bedouins in the Desert.

The custom which I have just described is very ancient in Arabia. Mohammed was educated among foreigners, in the tribe of Beni Sad; and his example is continually quoted by the Mekkawys, when speaking of the practice still usual among the Sherifs. But they are almost the only people in Arabia by whom it is now followed. The Bedouins called Mowalys, [This tribe is originally from the Hedjaz: it lived in the neighbourhood of Medina, and is often mentioned by the historians of that town, during the first century after Mohammed.] once a potent tribe, but now reduced to a small number, and pasturing their flocks in the vicinity of Aleppo, are the only Arabs among whom I met with any thing similar. With them it is an established

[p.231] usage, that the son of the chief of that tribe should be educated in the family of another individual of the same tribe, but generally of a different encampment, until he is sufficiently old to be able to shift for himself. The pupil calls his tutor Morabby, and displays the greatest regard for him during the rest of his life.

The Sherifs derive considerable advantages from their Bedouin education; acquiring not only strength and activity of body, but some part of that energy, freedom of manners, and boldness, which characterize the inhabitant of the Desert; together with a greater regard to the virtues of good faith and hospitality, than if they had been brought up in Mekka.

I did not see many Sherifs. Of the small number now remaining, some were employed, during my residence at Mekka, either as guides with the army of Mohammed Aly, or were incorporated by him in a small corps of Bedouins, commanded by Sherif Radjeh, one of their most distinguished members; or in the service of Sherif Yahya, who sent them on duty to the advanced posts towards Yemen. Some of them had retired, after Ghaleb was taken, to the Wahabys, or to Yemen, where a few of them still remained. Those whom I had an opportunity of seeing, were distinguished by fine manly countenances, strongly expressive of noble extraction; and they had all the exterior manners of Bedouins; free, bold, frank, warm friends; bitter enemies; seeking for popularity, and endowed with an innate pride, which, in their own estimation, sets them far above the Sultan of Constantinople. I never beheld a handsomer man than Sherif Radjeh, whose heroism I have mentioned in my history of Mohammed Aly’s campaign, and the dignity of whose deportment would make him remarked among thousands; nor can a more spirited and intelligent face be easily imagined, than was that of Sherif Ghaleb. Yahya, the present Sherif, is of a very dark complexion, like that of his father; his mother was a dark brown Abyssinian slave.

The Mekkawys give the Sherifs little credit for honesty, and they have constantly shown great versatility of character and conduct; but this could hardly be otherwise, considering the sphere and the times in which they moved: their Bedouin education has certainly

[p.232] made them preferable, in many respects, to the common class of Mekkawys.

It is a rule among the Sherifs, that the daughters of the reigning chief can never marry; and while their brothers are often playing in the streets with their comrades, from whom they are in no way distinguished, either in dress or dignity of appearance, the unfortunate girls remain shut up in the father’s house. I have seen a son of Sherif Ghaleb, whose father was then in exile at Salonica, play before the door of his house. But I have heard that, when the boys of the reigning Sherif return from the Desert, and are not yet sufficiently grown up to appear with a manly air in public, they are kept within their father’s house or court-yard, and seen only by the inmates of the family, appearing for the first time in public, on horseback, by the side of their father; from which period they are considered to be of age, soon after marry, and take a share in public affairs.

The greater part of the Sherifs of Mekka, and those especially of the reigning tribe of Dwy Zeyd, are strongly suspected to be Muselman sectaries, belonging to the Zyoud, or followers of Zeyd, a sect which has numerous proselytes in Yemen, and especially in the mountains about Sada. This, however, the Sherifs do not acknowledge, but comply with the doctrines of the orthodox sect of Shafeys, to which most of the Mekkawys belong; but the Sherifs residing abroad do not deny it; and whenever points of law are discussing upon which the Zyoud are at variance with the Sunnys, the Sherifs always decline taking an active part in the discussion.

I believe that the Zeyds are divided into different sects. Those of Yemen and Mekka acknowledge as the founder of their creed El Imam el Hady ill el Hak Yahyn ibn el Hosseyn, who traces his pedigree to Hassan, the son of Aly. He was born at Rass, in the province of Kasym, in A.H. 245, and first rose as a sectary at Sada, in Yemen, in 280. He fought with the Abassides, took Sana, out of which he was driven, afterwards attacked the Karmates, and died of poison at Sada in A.H. 298. Others trace the origin of this sect higher, to Zeyd ibn Aly Zeyn el Aabedyn ibn el Hosseyn ibn Aly ibn Aby Taleb, who was killed at Koufa in A.H. 121, by the party of the Khalif Hesham. The

[p.233] Zeydites appear, generally, to entertain a great veneration for Aly; at the same time that they do not, as the Persians, curse Abou Beker and Omar. They entertain notions different from those of the Sunnys respecting the succession of the twelve Imams, but agree, in other respects, much more with them than with the Persians. The Zeydites of Yemen, to whom the Imam of Sana himself belongs, designate their creeds as the fifth of the orthodox Mohammedan creeds, next to the Hanefys, Shafeys, Malekys, and Hanbalys, and for that reason they are called Ahl el Khams Mezaheb. In Yemen they publicly avow their doctrines; at Mekka they conceal them. I heard that one of their principal tenets is, that in praying, whether in the mosque, or at home, no other expressions should be used than those contained in the Koran, or such as are formed from passages of that book.

The Mekkawys regard the Zyoud as heretics; and assert that, like Persians, they hold in disrespect the immediate successors of Mohammed. Stories are related of the Zyoud in Yemen writing the name of Mawya over the most unclean part of their houses, to show their contempt of him; but such tenets are not avowed, and the Sherifs agree outwardly in every point with the Sunnys, whatever may be their private opinions.

I have already stated that the Kadhy of Mekka is sent annually from Constantinople, according to the usual practice of the Turkish government with respect to the great cities of the empire. This system began with the early emperors, who thought that, by depriving the provincial governors of the administration of justice, and placing it in the hands of a learned man sent periodically from Constantinople, and quite independent of the governors, they might prevent the latter from exercising any undue influence over the courts of law, at the same time that the consequences likely to result from the same judge remaining in office for any length of time were avoided. But manners are very different throughout the empire from what they were three hundred years ago. In every town the Kadhy is now under the immediate influence of the governor, who is left to tyrannize at pleasure, provided he sends his regular subsidies to the Porte. No person can gain a suit at law unless he enjoys credit with the government, or

[p.234] gives a bribe to the judge, which the governor shares or connives at, in return for the Kadhy’s compliance with his interests in other cases. The fees of court are enormous, and generally swallow up one fourth of the sum in litigation; while the court is deaf to the clearest right, if not supported by largesses to the Kadhy and the swarm of officers and servants who surround his seat. These disorders are countenanced by the Porte: the office of Kadhy is there publicly sold to the best bidder, with the understanding that he is to remunerate himself by the perquisites of his administration.

In those countries where Arabs flock to his court, the Kadhy, who generally knows but little of the Arabic language, is in the hands of his interpreter, whose office is usually permanent, and who instructs every new Kadhy in the modes of bribery current in the place, and takes a full share of the harvest. The barefaced acts of injustice and shameless briberies daily occurring in the Mehkames, or halls of justice, would seem almost incredible to an European, and especially an Englishman.

The Kadhy of Mekka has shared the fate of his brother judges in other parts of the empire, and has been for many years so completely under the influence of the Sherif, that all suits were carried directly before his tribunal, and the Kadhy was thus reduced to spend his time in unprofitable leisure. I was informed by the Kadhy himself, that the Grand Signior, in consideration of the trifling emoluments of the situation, had, for some time back, been in the habit of paying to the Kadhy of Mekka one hundred purses per annum out of his treasury. Since the conquest of Mohammed Aly, the Kadhy has recovered his importance, in the same proportion as the influence of the Sherif has been diminished. When I was at Mekka, all law-suits were decided in the Mehkame. Mohammed Aly seldom interposed his authority, as he wished to conciliate the good-will of the Arabs, and the Kadhy himself seems to have received from him very strict orders to act with circumspection; for justice was, at this time, tolerably well administered, at least in comparison with other tribunals; and the inhabitants were not averse to the new order of things. The Kadhy of Mekka appoints to the law-offices of Djidda and Tayf, which are filled

[p.235] by Arabs, not Turks. In law-suits of importance, the Muftis of the four orthodox sects have considerable influence on the decision.

The income of the Sherif is derived principally from the customs paid at Djidda, which, as I have already mentioned, instead of being, according to the intention of the Turkish government, divided between himself and the Pasha of Djidda, were seized wholly by the late Sherifs, and are now in the hands of Mohammed Aly. The customs of Djidda, properly the same as those levied in every other part of the Turkish empire, were much increased by Ghaleb, which was the principal reason why the whole body of merchants opposes him. He had also engrossed too large a share of the commerce to himself. Eight dows belonging to him were constantly employed in the coffee-trade between Yemen, Djidda, and Egypt; and when the sale of that article was slow, he obliged the merchants to purchase his cargoes for ready money at the market-price, in order to send off the sooner his returns of dollars to Yemen. Two of the largest of his vessels (one an English-built ship of three or four hundred tons, purchased at Bombay,) made a voyage annually to the East Indies, and the cargoes which they brought home were either sold to the Hadj at Mekka, or were divided among the merchants of Djidda, who were forced to purchase them.

Besides the port of Djidda, that of Yembo, where the Sherif kept a governor, was subjected to similar duties. He also levied a tax as well upon all cattle and provisions carried from the interior of the country into Djidda, as upon those carried into Mekka, Tayf, and Yembo, except what came with the two great hadj-caravans from the north, which passed every where duty-free. The inhabitants of Mekka and Djidda pay no other taxes than those just mentioned, their houses, persons, and property being free from all other imposts; an advantage which they have never sufficiently acknowledged, though they might have readily drawn a comparison between themselves and their neighbours of Syria and Egypt. The other branches of the Sherif’s revenues were the profits derived from the sale of provisions at Mekka, of which, although he did not monopolize them like Mohammed Aly, yet he had always such a considerable stock on hand, as enabled him to

[p.236] influence the daily prices; the capitation-tax on all Persian hadjys, whether coming by land from Baghdad, or by the way of the Red Sea and Yemen; and presents to a considerable amount, either offered to him gratuitously, or extorted from the rich hadjys of all countries. [Formerly, when the Sherifs of Mekka were more powerful, they levied a tribute upon the two great pilgrim-caravans, similar to that exacted by the Bedouins on the road. Abou Nima, in A.H. 654, took from every camel of the Yemen caravan thirty dirhems, and fifty upon every one in the Egyptian caravan.]

Of the money sent from Constantinople to the holy city, temple, &c. a large portion was appropriated by the Sherif to his own treasury; and it is said that he regularly shared in all the presents which were made to the mosque. Ghaleb possessed considerable landed property; many of the gardens round Tayf, and of the plantations in the valley of Hosseynye, Wady Fatme, Wady Lymoun, and Wady Medyk, belonged to him. At Djidda he had many houses and caravansaries, which he let out to foreigners; and so far resembled his successor Mohammed Aly, that the most trifling profit became a matter of consideration with him, his attention being constantly directed towards the acquiring of wealth. The annual revenue of Ghaleb, during the plenitude of his power, may have amounted to about three hundred and fifty thousand pounds sterling; but, since the occupation of the Hedjaz by the Wahabys, it has probably not exceeded half that sum.