The revolt in Arabia

by C. Snouck Hurgronje

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 Ta'if, 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.