Travels In Arabia

J >> John Lewis Burckhardt >> Travels In Arabia

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[p.223] 1750. Sherif Mesaad was appointed to the government of Mekka,
which he held for twenty years. The power of the Sherifs involved him in
frequent wars with them; as he seldom succeeded, their influence
remained undiminished. Having betrayed symptoms of enmity towards Aly
Beg, then governor of Egypt, the latter sent his favourite slave, Abou
Dahab, whom he had made Beg, with a strong body of soldiers, as chief of
the Hadj caravan, to Mekka, in order to expel Mesaad; but the Sherif
died a few days before his arrival.

1769, or 1770. After Mesaad's death, Hosseyn, who, although of the same
tribe, had been his opponent on every occasion, was raised by his own
party to the government, and confirmed therein by the assistance of Abou
Dahab. He continued to rule till the year

1773 or 4, when he was slain in a war with Serour, the son of Mesaad.
The name of Serour, who reigned thirteen or fourteen years, is still
venerated by the Mekkawys: he was the first who humbled the pride and
power of the Sherifs, and established rigid justice in the town.
Previous to his reign, every Sherif had in his house at Mekka an
establishment of thirty or forty armed slaves, servants, and relations,
besides having powerful friends among the Bedouins. Ignorant of every
occupation but that of arms, they lived upon the cattle which they kept
among the Bedouins, and in different parts of the Hedjaz; the surra
which they were entitled to receive from the Hadj; and the presents
which they exacted from the pilgrims, and from their dependents in the
town. Some of them, in addition to these general sources of income, had
extorted from former chief Sherifs lucrative sinecures, such as duties
on ships, or on certain articles of merchandize; tolls collected at one
of the gates of Djidda; the capitation-tax levied upon the Persian
pilgrims, &c. &c. Their behaviour in the town was wild and disorderly;
the orders of the chief Sherif were disregarded; every one made use of
his personal authority to increase his wealth; family quarrels
frequently occurred; and, in the time of the Hadj, they often waylaid
small parties of pilgrims in their route from Medina or Djidda to Mekka,
plundering those who made no defence, and killing those who resisted.

After a long struggle, Serour succeeded at length in reducing

[p.224] the Sherifs to obedience, chiefly by cultivating the goodwill of
the common class of Mekkawys, and of the Bedouins, by his great
simplicity of manners, personal frugality, and generosity towards his
friends, together with a reputation for excessive bravery and sagacity.
He had often made peace with his enemies; but fresh wars as repeatedly
broke forth. It is said that he once discovered a conspiracy to murder
him in one of his nightly walks round the Kaaba; and that he generously
spared the lives of the conspirators, and only banished them. He
strengthened the great castle of Mekka; kept a large body of armed
slaves and Bedouins constantly in his service, the expenses of which he
defrayed by his commercial profits, being an active trader with Yemen;
and, finally, he obliged the most powerful Sherif families to expatriate
themselves, and seek for refuge in Yemen, while many Sherifs were killed
in battle, and others fell by the hands of the executioner. After this,
Serour applied himself to re-establish the administration of justice;
and numerous acts are related of him, which reflect equal honour upon
his love of equity and his sagacity. He drove the Jews from Djidda,
where they had acquired considerable riches by their brokerage and
fraudulent dealings; protected the pilgrims in their progress through
the Hedjaz; and regulated the receipt of customs and taxes, which had
previously been levied in a very arbitrary manner. When he died, the
whole population of Mekka followed his remains to the grave. He is still
considered by the Mekkawys as a kind of saint, and his name is venerated
even by the Wahabys.

1785, or 86. After the death of Serour, Abd el Mayn, one of his
brothers, succeeded for four or five days, when his younger brother
Ghaleb, by his superior skill in intrigue, and by the great popularity
which his valour, understanding, and engaging address had acquired for
him in the time of Serour, dispossessed Abd el Mayn, and suffered him
quietly to retire. During the first years of his reign, Ghaleb was the
tool of Serour's powerful slaves and eunuchs, who were completely
masters of the town, and indulged in the same disorderly behaviour,
injustice, and oppression which had formerly characterized the Sherifs.
Ghaleb, however, soon freed himself from their influence, and acquired
at length a firmer authority over the Hedjaz than any of his
predecessors

[p.225] had possessed, and which he retained till the wars of the
Wahabys, and the treachery of Mohammed Aly put an end to his reign.
Ghaleb's government was milder than that of Serour, though far from
being so just. Very few individuals were put to death by his orders; but
he became avaricious, and culprits were often permitted to purchase
their lives by large fines. To accomplish this extortion, he filled his
prisons with the refractory; but blood only flowed in his transactions
with the Wahabys. During his wars with these invaders, the younger sons
of Serour Abdulla ibn Serour, and Seyd ibn Serour, attempted to wrest
the government from their uncle, but without success; when reconciled
with Ghaleb, they were permitted to return quietly to Mekka, and here
they resided when Mohammed Aly arrived. He sent Abdulla to Cairo
together with Ghaleb, but was ordered by the Porte to set the former at
liberty. Abdulla had been once at Constantinople to obtain the Sultan's
assistance against Ghaleb. The great temerity of Abdulla has gained him
more admirers than friends at Mekka; but it seems probable that, should
the Turks be again obliged to abandon the Hedjaz, he would replace his
brother Yahia, the present chief, who received the appointment from
Mohammed Aly in 1813, and whose reputation and influence at Mekka are
only suited to this honorary situation. The Pasha having seized the
revenues of the government of Mekka, has assigned to the Sherif a
monthly allowance of only fifty purses, or about eight hundred pounds,
to support both his troops and his household. The latter is nominally
the same it was before the Turkish conquest, and consists of a few
Sherifs, some Mekkawys, and Abyssinian or black slaves, who are
indiscriminately appointed to the several employments about his person,
the pompous titles of which are borrowed from the red book of the
Turkish court. At Yembo, Tayf, Mekka, and Djidda, Ghaleb kept his
vizier, who was called El Hakem at Mekka and Tayf. He had, besides, his
khasnadar, or treasurer; his selahdar, or sword-bearer; moherdar, or
keeper of the seal; and a few other officers, who, however, were far
from keeping up so strict an etiquette, or being persons of as much
consequence, as those officers are in the Turkish court. The whole of
the private establishment of Ghaleb consisted of fifty or sixty servants
and officers,

[p.226] and as many slaves and eunuchs. Besides his wives, he kept about
two dozen of Abyssinian slaves, and double that number of females to
attend upon them and to nurse his children. In his stables were from
thirty to forty horses of the best Arabian breed; half a dozen mules,
upon which he sometimes rode; and as many dromedaries. I learned from
one of his old servants, that an erdeb (about fifteen bushels) was
issued daily from the store for the use of the household; this, with
perhaps half a hundred weight of butter, and two sheep, formed the
principal expenditure of provision. It was partly consumed by the
Bedouins, who came to Mekka upon business, and who were in the habit of
repairing to the Sherif's house, to claim his hospitality, just as they
would alight at the tent of a Sheikh in an encampment in the Desert.
When they departed, their sacks were filled with provisions for the
road, such being the Arab custom, and the Sherifs of Mekka having always
shown an anxious desire to treat the Bedouins with kindness and
liberality.

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