The Revolt in Arabia/The Shereefate of Mecca
THE REVOLT IN ARABIA
I
THE SHEREEFATE OF MECCA
HOW the public insists upon making a snap judgment on the significance of passing events is shown by the haste with which speculations are given out, speculations that are purely hypothetical because the truth of the reports that reach us can, as yet, be verified only approximately.
According to a Reuter despatch, the Great Shereef of Mecca has revolted against Turkish authority and, at the head of his Arabs, has succeeded in forcing the capitulation of the garrisons of Mecca, Jidda, Taʾif, and Medina, and has seriously hampered the movements of Turkish troops, menacing to him, by the destruction of a section of the railroad from Medina to the north. Wolff's Bureau, on the other hand, spreads a report of the "Milli Agency"—the Turkish National Agency—that a troop of Arabs, to whom robbery was no unaccustomed calling, had been persuaded by their captain, he being instigated by English marines, to bombard Mecca, that the Turkish troops had, however, speedily restored order, and that the raiders themselves, when it was proven that their leader had been seduced by English money to act thus basely, had delivered the miscreant to the Turkish authorities.
If the German-Turkish statement be correct, the occurrence was insignificant and not deserving attention. If Reuter be right in the main point, then it is well worth while to consider what may be the possible consequences of the Arab movement.
In either case, to comprehend the matter rightly, the political significance of the Shereefate of Mecca should be understood and the reading public should have a clearer idea of what the title "Grand Shereef of Mecca" covers than is possessed by the majority.
Mecca, the birth-place of the Prophet Mohammed, was not the centre from which he extended his sovereignty over a great part of Arabia. The capital of the realm founded by him was Medina, situated a ten-day caravan journey to the north. Moreover, when, about twenty years after his first appearance as Allah's messenger, Mohammed conquered Mecca, he did not think of transferring the seat of government thither. He had his own good reasons for this, which we can pass over here. Still weightier were the reasons that influenced his successors in the administration of the theocracy of Islam from such a step. Mecca was far too remote from the then existing centres of civilisation to be a convenient vantage point for the world conquest considered by Islam as its appointed task, and as a capital from which to administer the empire which the first Caliphs were able to establish by force of arms. Even Medina seemed unsuited for the purpose, permanently. Then, when the Persian Empire, Syria, Egypt, North Africa, and Spain were subjected to Islam, Arabia, regarded politically, became a remote territory with a steadily decreasing significance.
The residence of the Caliphs was removed first to Damascus, later to Bagdad, where they remained established for five centuries—down to 1250 A.D.
Still the Arabian peninsula, arid though it is in the main, retained its prestige in the Moslem world, not only as the fatherland of the conquerors, but also as the Holy Land of Islam. Mecca might be ill adapted for a political capital, but it was, in the eyes of the faithful, the earth's centre, where the first human pair had walked, where Abraham had founded the first House of God, the Kaba, where every normal Mohammedan was bound to go once in his life to take part in the religious festival annually celebrated there.
While Mecca had already long been a religious centre for the heathen Arabians, after Mohammed's death Medina was classed with it as a spot where the foundations of Moslem theocracy were laid, where the Prophet had built his first mosque, and where he was buried. The lieutenants of the Caliphs in West Arabia (the Hijaz), with Medina as the first, Mecca as the second, capital, thus had the chief sanctuaries of Islam entrusted to their care, and they were bound to provide for the preservation of order at the enormous international gatherings for which the two holy cities had furnished a stage every year since Mohammed's death.
Truly, the task was no easy one. The inhabitants of Mecca and Medina were, usually, at odds, and unanimous only in obstinacy and insubordination. The nomads of the intervening district continued to be, under Islam, the anarchists that they had been from time immemorial. Only a very strong hand could bridle the disorders native to the Holy Land. And a strong hand had always been lacking.
Very soon after its rise, the great empire of Islam fell asunder and the continuous contests between the state and statelets into which it dissolved made the central authority of the Caliph a mere fiction, incapable of efficient exercise of power. Even the states, prominent from their position and thus better situated to maintain order in the Holy Land, as it was their interest to do, could not spare the military force essential for the governor of the Hijaz (West Arabia). Thus the holiest, the least productive, and most difficult-to-rule portion of the Moslem Empire was practically given over to confusion as its natural vital element, and the more vigorous Mohammedan countries limited themselves to the protection of the pilgrim caravans which set out from their realms for Arabia, and of such of their own subjects as had settled there.
Out of the chaos in West Arabia, resulting from the disintegration of the Islamic Empire, was born the Shereefate of Mecca. From the extraordinarily numerous posterity of Mohammed, issue of the union of his daughter Fatima with his nephew Ali, many remained settled in Arabia as owners of date gardens, as robber knights at the head of Bedouin clans, or as speculators in the gradually increasing superstitious adoration of the Mohammedans for the Prophet's blood. Outside of Arabia, the descendants of Ali participated in political revolutions on greater or lesser scale, or had their hands filled by the governors of the Moslem lands. Their short-sighted avarice and their common lack of political talent, however, hindered them from carrying any important project to completion. Any success which they achieved was always transient. The universal condition of things in Arabia afforded the opportunity of turning a portion of the Holy Province into a personal domain. In about 1000 A.D., the heads of certain families among the descendants of Ali began to make themselves powerful in the Hijaz and held their ground. From 1200 A.D. to the present time, one line of these children of Ali, that of Katada, has succeeded in maintaining supremacy in Mecca.
The names sharif—anglicized as shereef—that is "The Noble," and sayyid signifying "Seigneur" or "Lord," have become, little by little, titles of nobility throughout the entire Mohammedan world, especially among the posterity of the Prophet. The head of the reigning family in Mecca is "The Shereef of Mecca" par excellence, and the people call him Sayyidana, that is "Our Master" (or Our Lord). How far the realm of these Shereefs was extended beyond Mecca depended, as long as the petty dynasties existed, entirely on the chances of circumstance; the more that confusion reigned in the surrounding Mohammedan realms and the greater the energy manifested by the ruling head of the family, the greater the portion of the Hijaz that came under his authority. The reverse was equally true. The defects of the most respected race of Islam were, to a great extent, the peculiar characteristics of the Mecca branch. They were incapable of carrying out any great undertaking.
The pilgrims, except when escorted by an imposing military force, were pitilessly stripped of their every possession by the Shereef and his satellites. Like the Bedouins through whose territory the hajjis or pilgrims had to pass, who counted all money and property as God-given booty, the Shereefs considered themselves justified in making Allah's guests at Mecca submit to every kind of bleeding, and the latter had no remedy.
Further, there were among the members of the noble race one quarrel after another about their heritage, so that it was almost the normal state of affairs for one head of two rival branches of the family to fill the Shereefate while the other besieged Mecca or rendered the roads thither unsafe. The stable population of Mecca were sacrificed to this struggle for mastery; the blessings of peace were an unknown luxury to them.
When the Hijaz was still actually governed from the political centre of Islam, Medina was the appointed capital. For an independent local principality, such as the Shereefate, Mecca had the advantage of not being so accessible to the military forces of powers that might trouble themselves about the Hijaz. Only occasionally could the Shereefs of Mecca control Medina at the same time, as the intervening distance was too great for the transportation facilities of the country. The alpine city Taʾif, two or three days' journey east of Mecca, where many people from Mecca resorted for the summer, and the port Jidda, one to two days' journey to the west, ordinarily fell under the Shereef. Several smaller ports were also included under his rule. The connection with the interior, mainly inhabited by nomadic tribes, varied according to the personal relations of the Shereef with the head of the Bedouin clan.
The Shereefate of Mecca differed from most of the states and principalities into which the great Islam Empire was divided, because it had not been developed gradually from a governorship to a condition of greater independence, but was born, spontaneously, during a period of confusion.
At Bagdad, as well as in other neighbouring capitals, people had accepted the change as a fait accompli. The Shereefate was neither expressly recognised nor expressly objected to as unlawful. Its century-long existence attained, moreover, a sort of virtual legitimacy through its acceptance by many Moslem tribes, who were represented in the Holy City by the annual deputations of pilgrims. These visitors were constantly exposed to ill treatment on the part of the Shereef. Yet, in spite of that, they held to a belief that domination over the Holy City belonged rightfully to a branch of the Holy Family. The fact was simply accepted as irrefutable.
The chief Islam powers have always attached a certain reservation to their tacit recognition of the Shereefs of Mecca which the latter have found themselves forced to accept. He was never an independent ruler and, in the long run, had to recognise the suzerainty of the protecting states.