The Hedjaz tribes have never acknowledged the sovereignty of any foreign ruler. They have preserved their liberty with but little interruption since prehistoric times, and consequently they regard their personal freedom above all else. Great armies have been sent against them, but not even the Assyrians, the Medes, the Persians, the Greeks, or the Romans were able to conquer them.
Ever since the decline of the Arabian Empire, more than a thousand years ago, generals, sultans, and califs have attempted to unify the peoples of Arabia, and particularly of the province of Hedjaz, because it contains the two sacred Mohammedan cities. None were successful, but where they failed, Thomas Edward Lawrence, the unknown unbeliever, succeeded. It remained for this youthful British archæologist to go into forbidden Arabia and lead the Arabs through the spectacular and triumphant campaign which helped Allenby break the backbone of the Turkish Empire and destroy the Pan-German dream of world dominion. The way in which he swept the Turks from Holy Arabia and temporarily built this mosaic of peoples into a homogeneous nation, now known as the Kingdom of the Hedjaz, is a story that I should have failed to believe had I not visited Arabia and come into personal contact with Lawrence and his associates during their campaign.
Perhaps no factor played a greater part in simplifying Lawrence’s task in Arabia than the existence of an ancient desert fraternity which has been called “the cult of the Blood of Mohammed.” We must know something about this cult and its present-day leaders in order to understand the diplomacy and strategy of Colonel Lawrence which we are to follow during the desert war.
CHAPTER IV
THE CULT OF THE BLOOD OF MOHAMMED
During the long centuries of uncertain Turkish rule, there had persisted, in the sacred cities of the Hedjaz, “the cult of the Blood of Mohammed,” with its membership limited to descendants of the Prophet. These people were called shereefs or nobles by the other Arabs, and they had never lost their hatred for the Turks, whom they regarded as intruders. So powerful was this cult that the Ottoman Government could not destroy it. However, when shereefs living within reach of the string of fortified Turkish posts along the fringe of the desert protested openly against Ottoman tyranny, the sultan usually “invited” them to come and reside near him in Constantinople. There they would either remain as virtual prisoners or quietly be put out of the way. Abdul Hamid, the last great sultan, was an expert in following this private policy of his predecessors, and among the prominent Arabs he found it the better part of discretion to have near him at the Sublime Porte was one Shereef Hussein of Mecca. He was the oldest living descendant of Mohammed and was therefore believed by many to be the man really entitled to the califate, the spiritual and temporal head of Islam. The title of calif had originally been given only to the lineal descendants of Mohammed but later had been usurped by the Turks.
No people in the world take more pride in their ancestry than the Arabs. The births of all the leading princely families are recorded in Mecca at the mosque built around the black stone which millions of people regard as the most sacred spot in the world. Here, on a scroll of parchment, is inscribed the name of Hussein Ibn Ali, direct lineal descendant of Mohammed through his daughter Fatima and her eldest son Hassan.
When King Hussein was young, he had too much spirit to live tamely with his family in Mecca. Instead, he roamed the desert with the Bedouins and took part in all their raids and tribal wars. His mother was a Circassian, and much of his vigor is inherited from her. Abdul Hamid, the Red Sultan, received many disturbing reports regarding the wild life led by this independent shereef. Abdul had two ways of dealing with a man whom he feared or distrusted. He would either tie him in a sack and throw him into the Bosporus or keep him in Constantinople under close personal observation. Although he was afraid that Hussein might conspire against him, the fact that Hussein was a direct descendant of Mohammed made it difficult for old Abdul to chuck him into the Bosporus. So he gave him a pension and a little house on the Golden Horn, where the shereef and his family were compelled to live for eighteen years.
