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 Alys 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 fathers 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 fathers 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.