Chapter XXI: The People of Al-Madinah (11)

[p.270] Jeddah displays all the license of a seaport and garrison town. Fair Corinthians establish themselves even within earshot of the Karakun, or guard-post; a symptom of excessive laxity in the authorities, for it is the duty of the watch to visit all such irregularities with a bastinado preparatory to confinement. My guardians and attendants at the Wakalah used to fetch Araki in a clear glass bottle, without even the decency of a cloth, and the messenger twice returned from these errands decidedly drunk. More extraordinary still, the people seemed to take no notice of the scandal.

The little Dwarka had been sent by the Bombay Steam Navigation Company to convey pilgrims from Al-Hijaz to India. I was still hesitating about my next voyage, not wishing to coast the Red Sea in this season without a companion, when one morning Omar Effendi appeared at the door, weary, and dragging after him an ass more weary than himself. We supplied him with a pipe and a cup of hot tea, and, as he was fearful of pursuit, we showed him a dark hole full of grass under which he might sleep concealed.

The students fears were realised; his father appeared early the next morning, and having ascertained from the porter that the fugitive was in the house, politely called upon me. Whilst he plied all manner of questions, his black slave furtively stared at everything in and about the room. But we had found time to cover the runaway with grass, and the old gentleman departed, after a fruitless search. There was, however, a grim smile about his mouth which boded no good.

That evening, returning home from the Hammam, I found the house in an uproar. The boy Mohammed, who had been miserably mauled, was furious with rage; and Shaykh Nur was equally unmanageable, by reason of his fear. In my absence the father had returned with a posse comitatus of friends and relatives. They questioned the

[p.271] youth, who delivered himself of many circumstantial and emphatic mis-statements. Then they proceeded to open the boxes; upon which the boy Mohammed cast himself sprawling, with a vow to die rather than to endure such a disgrace. This procured for him some scattered slaps, which presently became a storm of blows, when a prying little boy discovered Omar Effendis leg in the hiding-place. The student was led away unresisting, but mildly swearing that he would allow no opportunity of escape to pass. I examined the boy Mohammed, and was pleased to find that he was not seriously hurt. To pacify his mind, I offered to sally out with him, and to rescue Omar Effendi by main force. This, which would only have brought us all into a brunt with quarterstaves, and similar servile weapons, was declined, as had been foreseen. But the youth recovered complacency, and a few well-merited encomiums upon his pluck restored him to high spirits.

The reader must not fancy such escapade to be a serious thing in Arabia. The father did not punish his son; he merely bargained with him to return home for a few days before starting to Egypt. This the young man did, and shortly afterwards I met him unexpectedly in the streets of Cairo.

Deprived of my companion, I resolved to waste no time in the Red Sea, but to return to Egypt with the utmost expedition. The boy Mohammed having laid in a large store of grain, purchased with my money, having secured all my disposable articles, and having hinted that, after my return to India, a present of twenty dollars would find him at Meccah, asked leave, and departed with a coolness for which I could not account. Some days afterwards Shaykh Nur explained the cause. I had taken the youth with me on board the steamer, where a bad suspicion crossed his mind. Now, I understand, said the boy Mohammed to his fellow-servant, your master is a Sahib from India; he hath laughed at our beards.

[p.272] He parted as coolly from Shaykh Nur. These worthy youths had been drinking together, when Mohammed, having learned at Stambul the fashionable practice of Bad-masti, or liquor-vice, dug his fives into Nurs eye. Nur erroneously considering such exercise likely to induce blindness, complained to me; but my sympathy was all with the other side. I asked the Hindi why he had not returned the compliment, and the Meccan once more overwhelmed the Miyan with taunt and jibe.

It is not easy to pass the time at Jeddah. In the square opposite to us was an unhappy idiot, who afforded us a melancholy spectacle. He delighted to wander about in a primitive state of toilette, as all such wretches do; but the people of Jeddah, far too civilised to retain Moslem respect for madness, forced him, despite shrieks and struggles, into a shirt, and when he tore it off they beat him. At other times the open space before us was diversified by the arrival and the departure of pilgrims, but it was a mere rechauffe of the feast, and had lost all power to please. Whilst the boy Mohammed remained, he used to pass the time in wrangling with some Indians, who were living next door to us, men, women, and children, in a promiscuous way. After his departure I used to spend my days at the Vice-Consulate; the proceeding was not perhaps of the safest, but the temptation of meeting a fellow-countryman, and of chatting shop about the service was too great to be resisted. I met there the principal merchants of Jeddah; Khwajah Sower, a Greek; M. Anton, a Christian from Baghdad, and others.[FN#11]And I was introduced to Khalid Bey, brother of Abdullah bin Saud, the Wahhabi. This noble Arab once held the

[p.273] official position of Mukayyid al-Jawabat, or Secretary, at Cairo, where he was brought up by Mohammed Ali. He is brave, frank, and unprejudiced, fond of Europeans, and a lover of pleasure. Should it be his fate to become chief of the tribe, a journey to Riyaz, and a visit to Central Arabia, will offer no difficulties to our travellers.

I now proceed to the last of my visitations. Outside the town of Jeddah lies no less a personage than Sittna Hawwa, the Mother of mankind. The boy Mohammed and I, mounting asses one evening, issued through the Meccan gate, and turned towards the North-East over a sandy plain. After half an hours ride, amongst dirty huts and tattered coffee-hovels, we reached the enceinte, and found the door closed. Presently a man came running with might from the town; he was followed by two others; and it struck me at the time they applied the key with peculiar empressement, and made inordinately low conges as we entered the enclosure of whitewashed walls.

The Mother is supposed to lie, like a Moslemah, fronting the Kaabah, with her feet northwards, her head southwards, and her right cheek propped by her right hand. Whitewashed, and conspicuous to the voyager and traveller from afar, is a diminutive dome with an opening to the West; it is furnished as such places usually are in Al-Hijaz. Under it and in the centre is a square stone, planted upright and fancifully carved, to represent the omphalic region of the human frame. This, as well as the dome, is called Al-Surrah, or the navel. The cicerone directed me to kiss this manner of hieroglyph, which I did, thinking the while, that, under the circumstances, the salutation was quite uncalled-for. Having prayed here, and at the head, where a few young trees grow, we walked along the side of the two parallel dwarf walls which define the outlines of the body: they are about six paces apart, and between them, upon Eves

[p.274] neck, are two tombs, occupied, I was told, by Osman Pasha and his son, who repaired the Mothers sepulchre. I could not help remarking to the boy Mohammed, that if our first parent measured a hundred and twenty paces from head to waist, and eighty from waist to heel, she must have presented much the appearance of a duck. To this the youth replied, flippantly, that he thanked his stars the Mother was underground, otherwise that men would lose their senses with fright.

Ibn Jubayr (twelfth century) mentions only an old dome, built upon the place where Eve stopped on the way to Meccah. Yet Al-Idrisi (A.D. 1154) declares Eves grave to be at Jeddah. Abd al-Karim (1742) compares it to a parterre, with a little dome in the centre, and the extremities ending in barriers of palisades; the circumference was a hundred and ninety of his steps. In Rookes Travels we are told that the tomb is twenty feet long. Ali Bey, who twice visited Jeddah, makes no allusion to it; we may therefore conclude that it had been destroyed by the Wahhabis. Burckhardt, who, I need

[p.275] scarcely say, has been carefully copied by our popular authors, was informed that it was a rude structure of stone, about four feet in length, two or three feet in height, and as many in breadth; thus resembling the tomb of Noah, seen in the valley of Al-Bukaa in Syria. Bruce writes: Two days journey from this place (? Meccah or Jeddah) Eves grave, of green sods, about fifty yards in length, is shown to this day; but the great traveller probably never issued from the town-gates. And Sir W. Harris, who could not have visited the Holy Place, repeats, in 1840, that Eves grave of green sod is still shown on the barren shore of the Red Sea. The present structure is clearly modern; anciently, I was told at Jeddah, the sepulchre consisted of a stone at the head, a second at the feet, and the navel-dome.

The idol of Jeddah, in the days of Arab litholatry, was called Sakhrah Tawilah, the Long Stone. May not this stone of Eve be the Moslemized revival of the old idolatry? It is to be observed that the Arabs, if the tombs be admitted as evidence, are inconsistent in their dimensions of the patriarchal stature. The sepulchre of Adam at the Masjid al-Khayf is, like that of Eve, gigantic. That of Noah at Al-Bukaa is a bit of Aqueduct thirty-eight paces long by one and a half wide. Jobs tomb near Hulah (seven parasangs from Kerbela) is small. I have not seen the grave of Moses (south-east of the Red Sea), which is becoming known by the bitumen cups there sold to pilgrims. But Aarons sepulchre in the Sinaitic peninsula is of moderate dimensions.

On leaving the graveyard I offered the guardian a dollar, which he received with a remonstrance that a man of my dignity should give so paltry a fee. Nor was he at all contented with the assurance that nothing more could be expected from an Afghan Darwaysh, however pious. Next day the boy Mohammed explained the

[p.276] Mans empressement and disappointment,I had been mistaken for the Pasha of Al-Madinah.

For a time my peregrinations ended. Worn out with fatigue, and the fatal fiery heat, I embarked (Sept. 26) on board the Dwarka; experienced the greatest kindness from the commander and chief officer (Messrs. Wolley and Taylor); and, wondering the while how the Turkish pilgrims who crowded the vessel did not take the trouble to throw me overboard, in due time I arrived at Suez.

And here, reader, we part. Bear with me while I conclude, in the words of a brother traveller, long gone, but not forgottenFa-hianthis Personal Narrative of my Journey to Al-Hijaz: I have been exposed to perils, and I have escaped from them; I have traversed the sea, and have not succumbed under the severest fatigues; and my heart is moved with emotions of gratitude, that I have been permitted to effect the objects I had in view.[FN#12]

[FN#1] This second plan was defeated by bad health, which detained me in Egypt till a return to India became imperative. [FN#2] The usual hire is thirty piastres, but in the pilgrimage season a dollar is often paid. The hire of an ass varies from one to three riyals. [FN#3] Besides the remains of those in ruins, there are on this road eight coffee-houses and stations for travellers, private buildings, belonging to men who supply water and other necessaries. [FN#4] In Ibn Jubayrs time the Ihram was assumed at Al-Furayn, now a decayed station, about two hours journey from Al-Haddah, towards Jeddah. [FN#5] The favourite Egyptian kitchen; held to be contemptible food by the Arabs. [FN#6] In 1817 Abdullah bin Saud attacked Jeddah with 50,000 men, determining to overthrow its Kafir-works; namely, its walls and towers. The assault is described as ludicrous. All the inhabitants aided to garrison: they waited till the wild men flocked about the place, crying, Come, and let us look at the labours of the infidel, they then let fly, and raked them with matchlock balls and old nails acting grape. The Wahhabi host at last departed, unable to take a place which a single battery of our smallest siege-guns would breach in an hour. And since that day the Meccans have never ceased to boast of their Gibraltar, and to taunt the Madinites with their wall-less port, Yambu. [FN#7] Al-Idrisi places Meccah forty (Arab) miles from Jeddah. Burckhardt gives fifty-five miles, and Ali Bey has not computed the total distance. [FN#8] Abulfeda writes the word Juddah, and Mr. Lane, as well as MM. Mari and Chedufau, adopt this form, which signifies a plain wanting water. The water of Jeddah is still very scarce and bad; all who can afford it drink the produce of hill springs brought in skins by the Badawin. Ibn Jubayr mentions that outside the town were 360 old wells(?), dug, it is supposed by the Persians. Jeddah, or Jiddah, is the vulgar pronounciation; and not a few of the learned call it Jaddah (the grandmother), in allusion to the legend of Eves tomb. [FN#9] In Chapters iii. and vi. of this work I have ventured some remarks upon the advisability of our being represented in Al-Hijaz by a Consul, and at Meccah by a native agent, till the day shall come when the tide of events forces us to occupy the mother-city of Al-Islam. My apology for reverting to these points must be the nature of an Englishman, who would everywhere see his nation second to none, even at Jeddah. Yet, when we consider that from twenty-five to thirty vessels here arrive annually from India, and that the value of the trade is about twenty-five lacs of rupees, the matter may be thought worth attending to. The following extracts from a letter written to me by Mr. Cole shall conclude this part of my task: You must know, that in 1838 a commercial treaty was concluded between Great Britain and the Porte, specifying (amongst many other clauses here omitted), 1. That all merchandise imported from English ports to Al-Hijaz should pay 4 per cent. duty. 2. That all merchandise imported by British subjects from countries not under the dominion of the Porte should likewise pay but 5 per cent. 3. That all goods exported from countries under the dominion of the Porte should pay 12 per cent., after a deduction of 16 per cent. from the market-value of the articles. 4. That all monopolies be abolished. Now, when I arrived at Jeddah, the state of affairs was this. A monopoly had been established upon salt, and this weighed only upon our Anglo-Indian subjects, they being the sole purchasers. Five per cent. was levied upon full value of goods, no deduction of the 20 per cent. being allowed; the same was the case with exports; and most vexatious of all, various charges had been established by the local authorities, under the names of boat-hire, weighing, brokerage, &c., &c. The duties had thus been raised from 4 to at least 8 per cent. * * * This being represented at Constantinople, brought a peremptory Firman, ordering the governor to act up to the treaty letter by letter. * * * I have had the satisfaction to rectify the abuses of sixteen years standing during my first few months of office, but I expect all manner of difficulties in claiming reimbursement for the over-exactions. [FN#10] M. Rochet (soi-disant dHericourt) amusingly describes this manuvre of the governor of Al-Hodaydah. [FN#11] Many of them were afterwards victims to the Jeddah massacre on June 30, 1858. I must refer the reader to my Lake Regions of Central Africa (Appendix, vol. ii.) for an account of this event, for the proposals which I made to ward it off, and for the miserable folly of the Bombay Government, who rewarded me by an official reprimand. [FN#12] The curious reader will find details concerning Patriarchal and Prophetical Tombs in Unexplored Syria, i. 3335.

[p.277] APPENDICES.

[p.279] APPENDIX I.

OF HAJJ, OR PILGRIMAGE.

The word Hajj is explained by Moslem divines to mean Kasd, or aspiration, and to express mans sentiment that he is but a wayfarer on earth wending towards another and a nobler world. This explains the origin and the belief that the greater the hardships the higher will be the reward of the pious wanderer. He is urged by the voice of his soul: O thou who toilest so hard for worldly pleasures and perishable profit, wilt thou endure nothing to win a more lasting reward? Hence it is that pilgrimage is common to all old faiths. The Hindus still wander to Egypt, to Tibet, and to the inhospitable Caucasus; the classic philosophers visited Egypt; the Jews annually flocked to Jerusalem; and the Tartars and MongolsBuddhistsjourney to distant Lamaserais. The spirit of pilgrimage was predominant in mediæval Europe, and the processions of the Roman Catholic Church are, according to her votaries,[FN#1] modern memorials of the effete rite. Every Moslem is bound, under certain conditions,[FN#2]

[p.280] to pay at least one visit to the Holy City. This constitutes the Hajjat al-Farz (the one obligatory pilgrimage), or Hajjat al-Islam, of the Mohammedan faith. Repetitions become mere Sunnats, or practices of the Prophet, and are therefore supererogatory. Some European writers have of late years laboured to represent the Meccan pilgrimage as a fair, a pretext to collect merchants and to afford Arabia the benefits of purchase and barter. It would be vain to speculate whether the secular or the spiritual element originally prevailed; but most probably each had its portion. But those who peruse this volume will see that, despite the comparatively lukewarm piety of the age, the Meccan pilgrimage is religious essentially, accidentally an affair of commerce.

Moslem pilgrimage is of three kinds.

1. Al-Mukarinah (the uniting) is when the votary performs the Hajj and the Umrah[FN#3] together, as was done by the Prophet in his last visit to Meccah. 2. Al-Ifrad (singulation) is when either the Hajj or the Umrah is performed singularly, the former preceding the latter. The pilgrim may be either Al-Mufrid bil Hajj

[p.281] (one who is performing only the Hajj), or vice versa, Al-Mufrid bil Umrah. According to Abu Hanifah, this form is more efficacious than the following. 3. Al-Tamattu (possession) is when the pilgrim assumes the Ihram, and preserves it throughout the months of Shawwal, Zul Kaadah, and nine days (ten nights) in Zul Hijjah,[FN#4] performing Hajj and Umrah the while.

There is another threefold division of pilgrimage:

1. Umrah (the little pilgrimage), performed at any time except the pilgrimage season. It differs in some of its forms from Hajj, as will afterwards appear. 2. Hajj (or simple pilgrimage), performed at the proper season. 3. Hajj al-Akbar (the great pilgrimage) is when the day of Arafat happens to fall upon a Friday. This is a most auspicious occasion. M. Caussin de Perceval and other writers, departing from the practice of (modern?) Islam, make Hajj al-Akbar to mean the simple pilgrimage, in opposition to the Umrah, which they call Hajj al-Asghar.

The following compendium of the Shafei pilgrim-rites is translated from a little treatise by Mohammed of Shirbin, surnamed Al-Khatib, a learned doctor, whose work is generally read in Egypt and in the countries adjoining.