The historians' history of the world in twenty-five volumes, volume 08

by Unknown

Consanguinity and contiguity combine to weld the tribe together; external bonds there are none. Blood-relationship is the higher and stronger principle, and neighbourhood passes into brotherhood. All political and military duties are looked upon as obligations of blood or brotherhood. The relations of the individual to larger associations and the community as a whole are precisely the same in character, though less intimate in degree, as those which bind him to his own family. There is no res publica in contradistinction to domestic concerns, no difference, in fact, between what is public and what is private. In principle, at least, all men have the same rights and duties, and no man has one-sided rights or duties. Everything is based on reciprocity, on loyalty and fellowship, and the complementary notions of duty and right, of ruler and subject, of patron and client, are expressed by one and the same word. There are neither officers nor officials, neither jailers nor executioners. There is no magisterial authority, no sovereign power, separable from the association and the individual, with a revenue of its own drawn from taxation and an independent administration by official organisation. The functions of the community are exercised by all its members equally. The prerogative and obligations of the state as we understand it, which can only be fitly discharged by its civil officers, are to the Arab things that the individual is bound to do, not under compulsion from without, but from the corporate feeling of neighbourhood and brotherhood. By his own active exertions the individual has constantly to create afresh those things which with us are permanent organisations and institutions, which lead or seem to lead an independent life of their own. The Arabs stop at the foundations, building no upper story upon them which could be handed over ready-made to their heirs and in which they might live at their ease.

In other words, among the Arabs political relations are moral, for morality is confined within the limits of the tribe. Political organisation is represented by the corporate feeling which finds expression in the exercise of the duties of brotherhood. These require a man to say “good day” to his fellows, or “God bless you,” if anyone sneezes, not to shut himself up from others, nor to take offence easily, to visit the sick, to pay the last honours to the dead, to feed the poor in time of dearth, to protect and care for the widow and the orphan; likewise to slaughter a camel now and again in winter, to arrange sports and there regale the rest with its flesh, for no man slaughters for himself alone, and every such occasion is a feast for the whole company. Such are the common demonstrations of brotherly kindness by which corporate spirit is kept alive under ordinary circumstances. But the greatest duty in which all others culminate is to help a brother in need. Political duty therefore occupies an essentially subordinate place. The great thing in all cases is that the individual should act and should see himself how to get along, but, of course, he is quite at liberty to concert measures with his comrades. The rest are only bound to assist him in time of need, and then they must answer to his call without asking whether he is right or wrong; as he has brewed, so they must drink. The whole tribe does not always rise at once, the primary obligation rests with the clan. The clan has the right of inheritance together with the next duty of paying the debts of any member of it, delivering him from captivity, acting as his compurgators, and assisting him in procuring vengeance or paying mulcts. The larger associations only become involved when the need is great, and more particularly in cases of enmity with another tribe.

It will readily be imagined that a community based so exclusively on mutual fellowship does not fulfil its tasks very satisfactorily, and that the system is not particularly workable. There are many indolent or refractory members who do not fulfil their duties towards the community for lack of coercion from without, and because the only pressure that can be brought to bear upon them, the shame of falling short in the eyes of their kinsfolk or in public opinion, is of no avail against their cowardice or perverse obstinacy. Moreover, individual liberty of action is too little restricted by a due regard for the interests of the community. There is nothing to prevent a man from undertaking on his own account a raid which may kindle a flame of war that will wrap his whole tribe in its conflagration and even spread beyond. Or by the admittance of a stranger into his tent and his clan, which he regards as an obligation of honour and of religion, he may involve his tribe in great difficulties by imposing on them the burden of henceforth protecting the said stranger against his pursuers who may be seeking to arrest him for some crime.

But a more fruitful source of discord than individual cases of friction is the competition between the tribe and the clan. There is no doubt that these polar associations did not spring from the same root, but differ in their very origin; the tribe probably coalesced under the rule of a communistic matriarchal system (endogamous), while the clan is based on an aristocratic patriarchal system (exogamous). At the present time the tribe is regarded as merely an expansion of the clan, both being held together by the same paternal consanguinity. But the degrees of political kinship vary, the ties of blood have not the same force throughout; they act far more effectively in the smaller circle than in the larger. The individual stands in no direct relation to the tribe; his connection with it is through the intermediate links of the clan and the family; his membership in the community is conditioned by his membership of the subordinate groups. As a rule, therefore, the individual finds that his skin is nearer to him than his shirt whenever the interests of tribe and clan diverge. And it goes without saying that this is very often the case.

The defects of the system are to some extent compensated by certain rudiments of government to be found among the Arabs. There is a leading aristocracy; the clans have their chief, and a head chief, the said, is at the head of every tribe. The position of all these chiefs depends upon voluntary recognition of the fact that they are fitted to hold it by their personal qualities and their fortune. They are spontaneously appointed by the common voice, without election or any similar process, and though there is an inclination to make the authority hereditary and the sons reap the advantage of gratitude felt toward their fathers, yet each man must, by his own ability, anew make good his claim to the honours he has inherited if he is to remain in power and public esteem. The word of these chieftains carries most weight in the assemblies in which they meet every evening to talk, dispute, and deliberate. The said gives the casting vote. He decides, for instance, when the tribe shall start on its migrations and when it shall encamp. Generally speaking, however, the chiefs and the said have no advantage over the rest in privilege, but only in obligation. Among the Arabs noblesse oblige is no empty phrase, but a substantial truth. The nobles must distinguish themselves above the rest in the duties incumbent upon all; they must take on their shoulders the burden which others pass by, and out of their own abundance make good the deficit caused by lack of corporate feeling in the multitude. They must be liberal in all things; must not spare their blood in feud nor their goods in peace; they must entertain the stranger, maintain the widow and the orphan, feed the hungry and help the debtor to pay. The principal share in bearing the common burden falls to the said. In return he receives the fourth part of all booty, but he nevertheless often spends his whole fortune for the common stock; his position brings him honour and reputation, but never gain, and therefore does not procure him the envy of baser natures. But his most important duty is to maintain the unity of the tribe and to check the disintegration to which it is liable from individual selfishness and the particularism of the various clans. He is there to step into the breach, as the biblical phrase has it. He is the born mediator and peacemaker.

For all that, he can only negotiate and apply moral pressure. He is but the first among equals; he has great authority but no supreme power, and in the last resort that is not enough either for the external or internal affairs of the community. In war there is no thought of compulsory service, no idea of discipline, of absolute command and obedience. If one clan will not go out with the rest, it separates from them and hardens its heart against their mockery and contempt. If the men will not follow their leader, he sometimes has recourse to an attempt to put them to shame by setting up his sword and threatening to fall upon it, unless he is obeyed. Danger from without is, however, the readiest means of inducing them to submit to a single will, whereas the lack of a central sovereign authority is much more sorely felt in internal affairs.

The only function of the ancient community, apart from self-defence, is the maintenance of peace within its own borders, and the means to this end is the law. The Old Testament, for instance, knows nothing of administration as a function of the state; to rule is to judge, and the generic term for ruler is judge.

The Arabs are not without law, though with them its limits are wider and less strictly defined than with us and include the decision of questions which do not lead to impeachments and law-suits, but refer to duties, not rights.

They also have judges who administer justice. Disputes between fellow tribesmen are brought under discussion in the daily palaver and are there settled without any legal formalities. But international disputes, i.e., matters disputed between members of different tribes, may also be settled by law, if both parties agree to choose an arbitrator to whom they will refer the decision. Anyone may undertake this office; in difficult cases a seer or priest is frequently applied to, or some other man who enjoys general confidence and has a reputation for exceptional wisdom. The arbitrator sometimes makes the parties swear to accept his verdict, whatever it may be, but his business is merely to discover and interpret the law, and he has no power to enforce it. The disputants consequently apply to the judge merely to learn the rules of the law, not to sue for and obtain their rights. His judgment has no legal force and does not entail the execution of the sentence, with which, in fact, it has nothing to do.

An instance of what appears to us so singular a state of things, may make the matter clearer. Shortly before Mohammed’s arrival at Medina, a man of that city went to law with a Bedouin from the neighbourhood before a wise woman about a sum of money, i.e., camels. The woman decided in favour of the man of Medina; he was a well-known person, Suwaid, the son of Samit, by name. When they came to the parting of the ways, Suwaid said to the Bedouin, “Who will be surety that thou wilt pay me the camels?” The other promised to send them as soon as he reached home. But Suwaid, not satisfied with this, wrestled with his debtor, threw him, and bound him. He then carried him off to Medina and kept him in custody, until his kinsmen redeemed him by paying him what he owed.