Meanwhile the desert outside, though untenanted by any settled population, is roamed over by the Bedouin tribes, who form the bulk of the Arab race. These occupy for the most part the Nefûds, where alone pasture in any abundance is found; but they frequent also every part of the upland districts, and being both more warlike and more numerous than the townsmen, hold every road leading from town to town, so that it depends upon their good will and pleasure, to cut off communication for the citizens entirely from the world.
The towns, as I have said, are for the most part self-supporting; but their production is limited to garden produce, and the date. They grow no wheat and rear no stock, so that for bread and meat they are dependent on without. They require also a market for their industries, the weaving of cloth, the manufacture of arms and utensils, and it is necessary, at least in Jebel Shammar, to send yearly caravans to the Euphrates for corn. Thus security of travelling outside their walls is essential to the life of every town in Arabia, and on this necessity the whole political structure of their government is built. The towns put themselves each under the protection of the principal Bedouin Sheykh of its district, who, on the consideration of a yearly tribute, guarantees the citizens’ safety outside the city walls, enabling them to travel unmolested as far as his jurisdiction extends, and this, in the case of a powerful tribe, may be many hundred miles, and embrace many cities. The towns are then said to “belong” to such and such a tribe, and the Bedouin Sheykh becomes their suzerain, or Lord Protector, until, from their common vassalage, and the freedom of intercourse it secures them with each other, the germs of federation spring up, and develop sometimes into nationality.
This has, I believe, been always the condition of Arabia.
A farther development then ensues. The Bedouin Sheykh, grown rich with the tribute of a score of towns, builds himself a castle close to one of them, and lives there during the summer months. Then with the prestige of his rank (for Bedouin blood is still accounted the purest), and backed by his power in the desert, he speedily becomes the practical ruler of the town, and from protector of the citizens becomes their sovereign. He is now dignified by them with the title of Emir or prince, and though still their Sheykh to the Bedouins, becomes king of all the towns which pay him tribute.
This form of government, resting as it does on a natural basis, has always been reverted to in Arabia, whenever the country has, after an interval of foreign or domestic tyranny, succeeded in emancipating itself. Of very early Arabia little is known; neither the Persian nor the Macedonian nor the Roman Empires embraced it, and it is probable that Nejd at least existed till the time of Mahomet exclusively under the system of government I have described. Then for a short time it became part of the Mussulman Empire, and shared in the centralised or semi-centralised administration of the Caliphs, which substituted a theocratic rule for the simpler forms preceding it. But though the birthplace of Islam, no part of the Arabian Empire was sooner in revolt than Arabia itself. In the second century of the Mahometan era, nearly all the peninsula had reverted to its ancient independence, nor, except temporarily, has Nejd itself ever been since included in the imperial system of a foreign king or potentate. In the middle of last century, however, just as Mahomet had asserted his spiritual authority over the peninsula, the Wahhabi Emir of Aared once more established a centralized and theocratic government in Arabia. The Bedouin Princes were one after another dispossessed, and a new Arabian Empire was established. This included not only the whole of Nejd, but at one time Yemen, Hejaz, and Hasa, with the northern desert as far north as the latitude of Damascus. For nearly sixty years the independence of the towns and tribes of the interior was crushed, and a system of imperial rule substituted for that of old Arabia. The Ibn Saouds, “Imâms of Nejd,” governed neither more nor less than had the first Caliphs, and with the same divine pretensions. But their rule came to an end in 1818, when Nejd was conquered by the Turks, and the reigning Ibn Saoud made prisoner and beheaded at Constantinople. Then, on the retirement of the Turks, (for they were unable long to retain their conquest,) shepherd government again asserted itself, and the principality of Jebel Shammar was founded.
The Shammar tribe is the most powerful of Northern Nejd, and the towns of Haïl, Kefar, Bekaa, and the rest, put themselves under the protection of Abdallah ibn Rashid, who had succeeded in gaining the Shammar Sheykhat for himself. He seems to have been a man of great ability, and to him is due the policy of rule which his descendants have ever since pursued. He took up his residence in Haïl, and built the castle there, and caused himself to be recognized as Emir, first in vassalage to the Ibn Saouds, who had reappeared in Aared, but later on his own account. His policy seems to have been first to conciliate or subdue the other Bedouin tribes of Nejd, forcing them to become tributary to his own tribe, the Shammar, and secondly to establish his protectorate over all the northern towns. This was a simple plan enough, and one which any Bedouin Sheykh might have devised; but Abdallah’s merit consists in the method of its application. He saw that in order to gain his object, he must appeal to national ideas and national prejudices. The tribute which he extracted from the towns, he spent liberally in the desert, exercising boundless hospitality to every sheykh who might chance to visit him. To all he gave presents, and dazzled them with his magnificence, sending them back to the tribes impressed with his wealth and power. Thus he made numerous friends, with whose aid he was able to coerce the rest, his enemies or rivals. In treating with these he seems always to have tried conciliation first, and, if forced to arms, to have been satisfied with a single victory, making friends at once with the vanquished, and even restoring to them their property, an act of generosity which met full appreciation in the desert. By this means his power and reputation increased rapidly, as did that of his brother and right-hand man Obeyd, who is now a legendary hero in Nejd.
Another matter to which the founder of the Ibn Rashid dynasty paid much attention was finance. Though spending large sums yearly on presents and entertainments, he took care that these should not exceed his revenue, and at his death he left, according to common report, a house full of silver pieces to his son. Nor have any of his successors been otherwise than thrifty. It is impossible of course to guess the precise amount of treasure thus saved, but that it represents a fabulous fortune in Arabia is certain; the possession of this, with the prestige which in a poor country wealth gives, is an immense source of power.
Lastly Abdallah, and all the Ibn Rashid family, have been endowed with a large share of caution. No important enterprise has been embarked on in a hurry; and certainly at the present day affairs of state are discussed in family council, before any action is taken. It seems to have been always a rule with the Ibn Rashids to think twice, thrice, or a dozen times before acting, for even Mohammed’s violent deeds towards his nephews were premeditated, and thought over for many months beforehand. In their conduct with the Ibn Saouds and the Turkish Sultans, they have always waited their opportunity, and avoided an open rupture. It is very remarkable that so many members of this family should be superior men, for it is difficult to say who has been the ablest man of them, Abdallah, Obeyd, Tellál, Mohammed, or his cousin Hamúd. Nor is the rising generation less promising.
Having united into a sort of confederation all the Bedouin tribes of Northern Nejd, Abdallah became naturally supreme over the towns; but he was not satisfied merely with power, he aimed at making his rule popular. It is much to his credit, and to that of his successors, that none of them seem to have abused their position. Liberality and conciliation, combined with an occasional display of power, have been no less their policy with the townsmen than with the Bedouins, and they have thus placed their rule on its only secure basis, popularity. In early days the Ibn Rashids had to fight for their position at Haïl, and later in Jôf and at Meskakeh. But their rule is now acknowledged freely everywhere, enthusiastically in Jebel Shammar. It strikes a traveller fresh from Turkey as surpassingly strange to hear the comments passed by the townspeople of Haïl on their government, for it is impossible to converse ten minutes with any one of them without being assured that the government of the Emir is the best government in the world. “El hamdu lillah, ours is a fortunate country. It is not with us as with the Turks and Persians, whose government is no government. Here we are happy and prosperous. El hamdu lillah.” I have often been amused at this chauvinism.
In the town of Haïl the Emir lives in state, having a body-guard of 800 or 1000 men dressed in a kind of uniform, that is to say, in brown cloaks and red or blue kefiyehs, and armed with silver-hilted swords. These are recruited from among the young men of the towns and villages by voluntary enlistment, those who wish to serve inscribing their names at the castle, and being called out as occasion requires. Their duties are light, and they live most of them with their families, receiving neither pay nor rations, except when employed away from home on garrison duty in outlying forts and at Jôf. Their expense, therefore, to the Emir is little more than that of their clothes and arms. To them is entrusted any police work that may be necessary in the towns, but it is very seldom that the authority of the Emir requires other support than that of public opinion. The Arabs of Nejd are a singularly temperate race, and hardly ever indulge in brawling or breaches of the peace. If disputes arise between citizens they are almost always settled on the spot by the interference of neighbours; and the rowdyism and violence of European towns are unknown at Haïl. Where, however, quarrels are not to be settled by the intervention of friends, the disputants bring their cases to the Emir, who settles them in open court, the mejlis, and whose word is final. The law of the Koran, though often referred to, is not, I fancy, the main rule of the Emir’s decision, but rather Arabian custom, an authority far older than the Mussulman code. I doubt if it is often necessary for the soldiers to support such decisions by force. Thieving, I have been repeatedly assured, is almost unknown at Haïl; but robbers or thieves taken redhanded, lose for the first offence a hand, for the second their head.