[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 Mesaads 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 Serours 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. Ghalebs 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 Sultans 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 Sherifs 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 wearers 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