Travels In Arabia

J >> John Lewis Burckhardt >> Travels In Arabia

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[p.211] supplication for some days more, the same hadjy gave him the
whole sum that he asked for; but without being thanked. I have heard
people exclaim in the mosques at Mekka, immediately after prayers, "O
brethren, O faithful, hear me! I ask twenty dollars from God, to pay for
my passage home; twenty dollars only. You know that God is all-
bountiful, and may send me a hundred dollars; but it is twenty dollars
only that I ask. Remember that charity is the sure road to paradise."
There can be no doubt that this practice is sometimes attended with
success.

But learning and science cannot be expected to flourish in a place where
every mind is occupied in the search of gain, or of paradise; and I
think I have sufficient reason for affirming that Mekka is at present
much inferior even in Mohammedan learning to any town of equal
population in Syria or Egypt. It probably was not so when the many
public schools or Medreses were built, which are now converted into
private lodgings for pilgrims. El Fasy says, that in his time there were
eleven medreses in Mekka, besides a number of rebats, or less richly
endowed schools, which contained also lodgings for poor hadjys; many of
the Rebats in the vicinity of the mosque still remain, but are used only
as lodging-houses. There is not a single public school in the town where
lectures are given, as in other parts of Turkey; and the great mosque is
the only place where teachers of Eastern learning are found. The schools
in which boys are taught to read and write, are, as I have already
mentioned, held in the mosque, where, after prayers, chiefly in the
afternoon, some learned olemas explain a few religious books to a very
thin audience, consisting principally of Indians, Malays, Negroes, and a
few natives of Hadramaut and Yemen, who, attracted by the great name of
Mekka, remain here a few years, until they think themselves sufficiently
instructed to pass at home for learned men. The Mekkawys themselves, who
wish to improve in science, go to Damascus or to Cairo. At the latter
many of them are constantly found, studying in the mosque El Azhar.

The lectures delivered in the mosque at Mekka resemble those of other
Eastern towns. They are delivered gratis; each lecture occupies one hour
or two; and any person may lecture who thinks himself competent

[p.212] to the task, whether he belongs to the mosque or not. This
happens also in the Azhar at Cairo, where I have seen more than forty
different persons occupied at the same time in delivering their
lectures. The subjects of the lectures in the Beitullah of Mokka, are,
as usual, dissertations on the law, commentaries on the Koran, and
traditions of the Prophet. There were none, during my residence, on
grammar, logic, rhetoric, or the sciences, nor even on the Towhyd, or
explanation of the essence or unity of God, which forms a principal
branch of the learning of Moslim divines. I understood, however, that
sometimes the Arabic syntax is explained, and the Elfye Ibn Malek on
grammar. But the Mekkawys who have acquired an intimate knowledge of the
whole structure of their language, owe it to their residence at Cairo.

There is no public library attached to the mosque; the ancient
libraries, of which I have already spoken, have all disappeared. The
Nayb el Haram has a small collection of books which belonged originally
to the mosque; but it is now considered as his private property, and the
books cannot be hired without difficulty. The Azhar at Cairo is on a
very different footing. To each of the Rowak, or private establishments
for the different Mohammedan nations, which it contains, (and which are
now twenty-six in number,) a large library is annexed, and all the
members of the Rowak are at liberty to take books from it to assist them
in their studies. Mekka is equally destitute of private libraries, with
the exception of those of the rich merchants, who exhibit a few books to
distinguish them from the vulgar; or of the olemas, of whom some possess
such as are necessary for their daily reference in matters of law.

The Wahabys, according to report, carried off many loads of books; but
they were also said to have paid for every thing they took: it is not
likely that they carried away all the libraries of Mekka, and I
endeavoured in vain to discover even a single collection of books. Not a
book-shop or a book-binder is found in Mekka. After the return of the
Hadj from Arafat, a few of the poorer olemas expose some books for sale
in the mosque, near Bab-es'-Salam: all those which I saw were on the
law, korans with commentaries, and similar works, together with a few on
grammar. No work on history, or on any other branch

[p.213] of knowledge, could be found; and, notwithstanding all my pains,
I could never obtain a sight of any history of Mekka, although the names
of the authors were not unknown to the Mekkawys. They told me that book-
dealers used formerly to come here with the Hadj from Yemen, and sell
valuable books, brought principally from Szanaa and Loheya. The only
good work I saw at Mekka was a fine copy of the Arabic Dictionary called
Kamous; it was purchased by a Malay for six hundred and twenty piastres;
at Cairo it might be worth half that sum. Many pilgrims inquired for
books, and were inclined to pay good prices for them; and it was matter
of surprise to me that the speculating Mekkawys did not avail themselves
of this branch of trade, not so lucrative certainly as that of coffee
and India goods. I much regretted my total want of books, and especially
the copies of the historians of Mekka, which I had left at Cairo; they
would have led me to many inquiries on topography, which by Azraky in
particular is treated with great industry.

The Persian hadjys and the Malays are those who chiefly search for
books: the Wahabys, it is said, were particularly inquisitive after
historical works; a remark I heard repeated at Medina. During my stay at
Damascus, which is the richest book-market in the East, and the
cheapest, from being very little frequented by Europeans, I heard that
several Arabs of Baghdad, secretly commissioned for that purpose by
Saoud, the Wahaby chief, had purchased there many historical works. When
Abou Nokta plundered the harbours of Yemen, he carried off a great
number of books, and sent them to Derayeh.

The scarcity of valuable books at Mekka may, perhaps, be ascribed to the
continual purchases made by pilgrims; for there are no copyists at Mekka
to replace the books which have been exported. [At Cairo, I saw many
books in the Hedjaz character, some of which I purchased.] The want of
copyists is, indeed, a general complaint also in Syria and Egypt, and
must, in the end, lead to a total deficiency of books in those
countries, if the exportation to Europe continues. There are at Cairo,
at this time, not more than three professed copyists, who write a good
hand, or who possess sufficient knowledge to enable them to avoid the
grossest

[p.214] errors. At Mekka, there was a man of Lahor, who wrote Arabic
most beautifully, though he spoke it very indifferently. He sat in a
shop near Bab-es'-Salam, and copied for the hadjys such prayers as it
was necessary to recite during the pilgrimage. The hand-writing of the
Hedjaz is different from that used in Egypt or Syria; but a little
practice makes it easily read. In general, not only every country, but
every province, even, of the East, has its peculiar mode of writing,
which practice alone can enable one to distinguish. There are shades of
difference in the writing of the Aleppines, of the people of Damascus,
and of Acre; and, in Egypt, the writing of a Cahirein is easily
distinguished from that of a native of Upper Egypt. That of the Moslims
is different every where from that of the Christians, who are taught to
write by their priests, and not by Turkish schoolmasters. The Copts of
Egypt have also a character differing from that of the other Christians
established in the country. An experienced person knows, from the
address of a letter, the province and the race to which the writer
belongs. The dialects, and the style of letter-writing are not less
distinguishable than the hand-writing; and this remark is particularly
applicable to the complimentary expressions with which the letters
always abound. The style of Syria is the most flowery; yet even in
letters of mere business we find it used. That of Egypt is less
complimentary; that of the Hedjaz is simple and manly, and approaches to
Bedouin frankness, containing, before the immediate purport of the
letter, only a few words of inquiry after the health and welfare of the
person addressed. Each country has also its peculiar manner of folding a
letter. In the Hedjaz, letters are sealed with gum-Aabic; and a small
vessel full of the diluted gum is suspended near the gate of every large
house or khan.

Whatever may be the indifference of the Mekkawys for learning, [I may
mention, as a strong proof of the neglect of learning at Mekka, that of
a dozen persons, respectable from their situations in life, of whom I
inquired respecting the place Okath, not one of them knew where it was,
or if it still existed. The Okath was the place where the ancient
Arabian poets, as late even as the time of Mohammed, used to recite
their works to crowds assembled there at a great fair. The prize poems
were afterwards suspended at the Kaaba. It is to this custom that we owe
the celebrated poems called the Seba Moallakat. A Bedouin of Hodheyl
told me that the Okath was now a ruined place in the country of Beni
Naszera, between two and three days' journey south of Tayf. But in El
Fasy's history, I find it stated to be one day's journey from Tayf; and
that it ceased to be frequented as a fair in A.H. 1229. El Azraky says
that it was at that distance from Tayf, on the road to Szanaa in Yemen,
and belonged to the tribe of Beni Kanane.]

[p.215] the language of their city is still more pure and elegant, both
in phraseology and pronunciation, than that of any other town where
Arabic is spoken. It approaches more nearly than any other dialect to
the old written Arabic, and is free from those affectations and
perversions of the original sense, which abound in other provinces. I do
not consider the Arabic language as on the decline: it is true, there
are no longer any poets who write like Motanebbi, Abol' Ola, or Ibn el
Faredh; and a fine flowing prose the Arabs never possessed. The modern
poets content themselves with imitating their ancient masters, humbly
borrowing the sublime metaphors and exalted sentiments produced from
nobler and freer breasts than those of the olemas of the present day.
But even now, the language is deeply studied by all the learned men; it
is the only science with which the orthodox Moslim can beguile his
leisure hours, after he has explored the labyrinth of the law; and every
where in the East it is thought an indispensable requisite of a good
education, not only to write the language with purity, but to have read
and studied the classic poets, and to know their finest passages by
heart. The admiration with which Arabic scholars regard their best
writers, is the same as that esteem in which Europeans hold their own
classics. The far greater part of the Eastern population, it is true,
neither write nor read; but of those who have been instructed in
letters, a much larger proportion write elegantly, and are well read in
the native authors, than among the same class in Europe.

The Mekkawys study little besides the language and the law. Some boys
learn at least as much Turkish as will enable them to cheat the Osmanly
pilgrims to whom their knowledge of that tongue may recommend them as
guides. The astronomer of the mosque learns to know the exact time of
the Sun's passing the meridian, and occupies himself occasionally with
astrology and horoscopes. A Persian doctor, the only avowed medical
professor I saw at Mekka, deals in nothing

[p.216] but miraculous balsams and infallible elixirs; his potions are
all sweet and agreeable; and the musk and aloe-wood which he burns,
diffuse through his shop a delicious odour, which has contributed to
establish his reputation. Music, in general so passionately loved among
the Arabs, is less practised at Mekka than in Syria and Egypt. Of
instruments they possess only the rababa, (a kind of guitar,) the nay,
(a species of clarinet,) and the tambour, or tambourine. Few songs are
heard in the evenings, except among the Bedouins in the skirts of the
town. The choral song called Djok, is sometimes sung by the young men at
night in the coffee-houses, its measure being accompanied with the
clapping of hands. In general, the voices of the Hedjazys are harsh, and
not clear: I heard none of those sonorous and harmonious voices which
are so remarkable in Egypt, and still more in Syria, whether giving
utterance to love songs, or chanting the praises of Mohammed from the
minarets, which in the depth of night has a peculiarly grand effect.
Even the Imams of the mosque, and those who chant the anthems, in
repeating the last words of the introductory prayers of the Imam, men
who in other places are chosen for their fine voices, can here be
distinguished only by their hoarseness and dissonance.

The Sherif has a band of martial music, similar to that kept by Pashas,
composed of kettle-drums, trumpets, fifes, &c.: it plays twice a day
before his door, and for about an hour on every evening of the new moon.

Weddings are attended by professional females, who sing and dance: they
have, it is said, good voices, and are not of that dissolute class to
which the public singers and dancers belong in Syria and Egypt. The
Mekkawys say, that before the Wahaby invasion, singers might be heard
during the evening in every street, but that the austerity of the
Wahabys, who, though passionately fond of their own Bedouin songs,
disapproved of the public singing of females, occasioned the ruin of all
musical pursuits:--this, however, may be only an idle notion, to be
ranked with that which is as prevalent in the East as it is in Europe,
that old times were always better in every respect than the present.

[p.217] The sakas or water-carriers of Mekka, many of whom are
foreigners, having a song which is very affecting from its simplicity
and the purpose for which it is used, the wealthier pilgrims frequently
purchase the whole contents of a saka's water-skin, on quitting the
mosque, especially at night, and order him to distribute it gratis among
the poor. While pouring out the water into the wooden bowls, with which
every beggar is provided, they exclaim "Sebyl Allah, ya atshan, Sebyl!"
"hasten, O thirsty, to the ways of God!" and then break out in the
following short song of three notes only, which I never heard without
emotion.

Ed-djene wa el moy fezata ly Saheb es-sabyl "Paradise and forgiveness be
the lot of him who gave you this water!"

I cannot describe the marriage-feasts as celebrated at Mekka, not having
attended any; but I have seen the bride carried to the house of her
husband, accompanied by all her female friends. No canopy is used on
this occasion, as in Egypt, nor any music; but rich clothes and
furniture are displayed, and the feasting is sumptuous, and often lasts
for three or four days. On settling a marriage, the money to be paid for
the bride is carried in procession from the house of the bridegroom to
that of the girl's father; it is borne through the streets upon two
tabourets, wrapped up in a rich handkerchief, and covered again with an
embroidered satin stuff. Before the two persons who hold these
tabourets, two others walk, with a flask of rose-water in one hand, and
a censer in the other, upon which all sorts of perfumes and odours are
burning. Behind them follow, in a long train, all the kindred and
friends of the bridegroom, dressed in their best clothes. The price paid
for virgins among the respectable classes, varies at Mekka from forty to
three hundred dollars, and from ten to twenty dollars among the poor
classes. Half the sum only is usually paid down; the other half is left
in possession of the husband, who pays it in case he should divorce his
wife.

[p.218] The circumcision feasts are similar to those at Cairo: the
child, after the operation, is dressed in the richest stuffs, set upon a
fine horse highly adorned, and is thus carried in procession through the
town with drums beating before him.

Funerals differ in nothing from those in Egypt and Syria.

The people of Mekka, in general, have very few horses; I believe that
there are not more than sixty kept by private individuals. The Sherif
has about twenty or thirty in his stables; but Sherif Ghaleb had a
larger stud. The military Sherifs keep mares, but the greater part of
these were absent with the army. The Bedouins, who are settled in the
suburb Moabede, and in some other parts of the town, as being concerned
with public affairs, have also their horses; but none of the merchants
or other classes keep any. They are afraid of being deprived by the
Sherif of any fine animal they might possess, and therefore content
themselves with mules or gedishes (geldings of a low breed). Asses are
very common, but no person of quality ever rides upon them. The few
horses kept at Mekka are of noble breed, and purchased from the
Bedouins: in the spring they are usually sent to some Bedouin
encampment, to feed upon the fine nutritious herbage of the Desert.
Sherif Yahya has a gray mare, from the stud of Ghaleb, which was valued
at twenty purses; she was as beautiful a creature as I ever saw, and the
only one perfectly fine that I met with in the Hedjaz. The Bedouins of
that country, and those especially around Mekka, are very poor in
horses; a few Sheikhs only having any, pasture being scarce, and the
expense of a horse's keep being three piastres a day.

In the Eastern plain, behind Tayf, horses are more numerous, although
much less so than in Nedjed and the deserts of Syria, in consequence of
the comparative scarcity of corn, and the uncertainty of the rain; a
deficiency of which often leaves the Bedouin a whole year without
vegetation; a circumstance that rarely happens in the more northern
deserts, where the rains seldom fail in the proper seasons.

[p.219] GOVERNMENT OF MEKKA.

The territories of Mekka, Tayf, Gonfade, (which stretches southwards as
far as Haly, on the coast,) and of Yembo, were, previous to the Wahaby
and Egyptian conquests, under the command of the Sherif of Mekka, who
had extended his authority over Djidda also, though this town was
nominally separated from his dominions, and governed by a Pasha, sent
thither by the Porte, to be sole master of the town, and to divide its
revenue with the Sherif. The Sherif, raised to his station by force or
by personal influence, and the consent of the powerful Sherif families
of Mekka, held his authority from the Grand Signor, who invariably
confirmed the individual that had possessed himself of it. [The
government of the Hedjaz has often been a subject of dispute between the
Khalifes of Baghdad, the Sultans of Egypt, and the Imams of Yemen. The
honour attached, even to a nominal authority over the holy cities, was
the only object they had in view, although that authority, instead of
increasing their income, obliged them to incur great expenses. The right
of clothing the Kaaba, and of having their name inserted in the Friday's
prayers in the mosque, was the sole benefit they derived. The supremacy
of Egypt over Mekka, so firmly established from the beginning of the
fifteenth century, was transferred, after the conquest of that country
by Selim I., to the Sultans of Constantinople.] He was invested annually
with a pelisse, brought from Constantinople by the Kaftandji Bashy; and,
in the Turkish ceremonial, he was ranked among the first Pashas of the
empire. When the power of the Pashas of Djidda became merely nominal,
and the Porte was no longer able to send large armies with the Hadj
caravans of the Hedjaz, to secure its command over that country, the
Sherifs of Mekka became independent, and disregarded all the orders of
the Porte, although

[p.220] they still called themselves the servants of the Sultan,
received the annual investiture of the pelisse, acknowledged the Kadhi
sent from Constantinople, and prayed for the Sultan in the great mosque.
Mohammed Aly has restored the authority of the Osmanlys in the Hedjaz,
and usurps all the power of the Sherif; allowing to the present Sherif
Yahya a merely nominal sway.

The Sherif of Mekka was chosen from one of the many tribes of Sherifs,
or descendants of the Prophet, who settled in the Hedjaz; these were
once numerous, but are now reduced to a few families of Mekka. Till the
last century, the right of succession was in the Dwy [Dwy means Ahl, or
family.] Barakat, so called after Barakat, the son of Seyd Hassan
Adjelan, who succeeded his father in A.H. 829; he belonged to the sherif
tribe of Katade, which was originally settled in the valley of Alkamye,
forming part of Yembo el Nakhel, and was related, by the female side, to
the Beni Hashem, whom they had dispossessed of the government of Mekka
in A.H. 600, after the death of the last Hashemy, called Mekether.
During the last century, the Dwy Barakat had to sustain many wars with
their rival tribes, and finally yielded to the most numerous, that of
Dwy Zeyd, to whom the present Sherifs belong, and which, together with
all the Ketade, form part of the great tribe of Abou Nema. Most of the
Barakat emigrated; many of them settling in the fertile valleys of the
Hedjaz, and others in Yemen. Of the Sherifs still existing in and about
Mekka, besides the tribes above mentioned, the following five were named
to me: Abadele, Ahl Serour, Herazy, Dwy Hamoud, Sowamele. [In addition to
these, I find several others mentioned by Asamy, as Dwy Masoud, Dwy
Shambar, Dwy el Hareth, Dwy Thokaba, Dwy Djazan, Dwy Baz. It would
demand more leisure than I enjoy, to compile a history of Mekka from the
above-mentioned sources. D'Ohsson has given an historical notice on the
Sherifs of Mekka, in which are several errors. The long pedigrees that
must be traced, to acquire a clear notion of the rulers of any part of
Arabia, render the history of that country extremely intricate.]

The succession to the government of Mekka, like that of the Bedouin
Sheikhs, was not hereditary; though it remained in the same tribe as
long as the power of that tribe preponderated. After the

[p.221] death of a Sherif, his relative, whether son, brother, or
cousin, &c. who had the strongest party, or the public voice in his
favour, became the successor. There were no ceremonies of installation
or oaths of allegiance. The new Sherif received the complimentary visits
of the Mekkawys; his band played before the door, which seems to be the
sign of royalty here, as it is in the black country; and his name was
henceforth inserted in the public prayers. Though a succession seldom
took place without some contest, there was little bloodshed in general;
and tho[u]gh instances of cruelty sometimes occurred, the principles of
honour and good faith which distinguish the wars of the Desert tribes,
were generally observed. The rivals submitted, and usually remained in
the town, neither attending the levees of their victorious relative, nor
dreading his resentment, after peace had once been settled. During the
war, the rights of hospitality were held as sacred as they are in the
Desert; the dakhyl, or refugee, was always respected: for the blood shed
on both sides, atonement was made by fines paid to the relations of the
slain, and the same laws of retaliation were observed, which prevail
among the Bedouins. There was always a strong party in opposition to the
reigning power; but this opposition was evinced more in the protection
afforded to individuals persecuted by the chief, than in open attempts
against his authority. Wars, however, frequently happened; each party
had its adherents among the neighbouring Bedouins; but these were
carried on according to the system in Bedouin feuds, and were seldom of
long duration.

Though such customs might have a tendency to crush the power of the
reigning Sherif, they were attended with bad consequences to the
community: every individual was obliged to attach himself to one or
other of the parties, and to some protector, who treated his adherents
with the same tyranny and injustice that he experienced from his
superior; laws were little respected; every thing was decided by
personal influence. The power of the Sherifs was considerably diminished
by Serour, who reigned from 1773 to 1786; but even, in later times,
Ghaleb, although possessed of more authority than any of his
predecessors, had often to fight with his own relations.

This continued prevalence of intestine broils, the wars and contentions
[p.222] of the prevailing parties, the vicissitudes of fortune which
attended them, and the arts of popularity which the chiefs were obliged
to employ, gave to the government of the Hedjaz a character different
from that of most of the other governments in the East, and which it
retained, in outward appearance, even after Ghaleb had almost succeeded
in reigning as a despot. None of that ceremony was observed, which draws
a line of distinction between the Eastern sovereigns, or their
vicegerents, and the people. The court of the Sherif was small, and
almost entirely devoid of pomp. His title is neither Sultan, nor Sultan
Sherif, nor "Sire," as Aly Bey Abbas asserts. "Sydna," "our Lord," was
the title which his subjects used in conversing with him; or that of
"Sadetkum," or "your Highness," which is given to all Pashas. The
distance between the subject and the chief was not thought so great as
to prevent the latter, in cases of need, from representing his griefs
personally, and respectfully but boldly demanding redress.
The reigning Sherif did not keep a large body of regular troops;
but he summoned his partisans among the Sherifs, with their adherents,
whenever war was determined upon. These Sherifs he attached to his
person by respecting their rank and influence, and they were accustomed
to consider him in no other light than as the first among equals.
To give a history of the events which have occurred at Mekka since
the period at which the Arabian historians conclude, (about the middle,
I believe, of the seventeenth century,) would be a work of some labour,
as it must be drawn from verbal communications; for nobody, in this
country, thinks of committing to paper the events of his own times. The
circumstances under which I visited the place would have prevented me
from obtaining any very extensive and accurate information on the
political state of the country, even if I had had leisure, as such
inquiries would have obliged me to mix with people of rank, and those
holding offices; a class of society which, for obvious reasons, it was
my constant endeavour to shun. The following is the amount of what
information I was able to collect concerning the recent history of
Mekka.