The Future of Islam

by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt

That the Ottoman Government is perfectly aware of this is certain. Even in the days of its greatest power it always showed its jealousy and distrust of Mecca, and was careful when any of the Grand Sherifs acquired what was considered dangerous influence, to supplant him by setting up a rival. Its physical power enabled it to do this, and though it could not abolish the office of the Grand Sherifate, it could interfere in the order of succession. Family feuds have, therefore, been at all times fostered by the Turks in Hejaz, and will be, as long as their presence there is tolerated. An excellent example of their system has recently been given in the episode of the late Grand Sherif's death, and the story of it will serve also to show the fear entertained by the present Sultan of this his great spiritual rival. To tell it properly I must go back to the epoch of the Wahhabite invasion of Hejaz in 1808.

At that time, and for the latter half of the previous century, the supreme dignity of the Sherifal House was held by a branch of it known as the Dewy Zeyd (the word Dewy is used in Hejaz, as are elsewhere Beni or Ahl, meaning people, family, house), which had replaced in 1750 the Barakat branch, mentioned by Niebuhr as in his day supreme. The actual holder of the title was Ghaleb ibn Mesaad, and he, finding himself unable to contend against the Wahhabis, became himself a Wahhabi. Consequently, when Mehemet Ali appeared at Mecca in 1812, his first act was to depose this Ghaleb, in spite of his protest that he had returned to orthodoxy, and to appoint another member of the Sherifal House in his place.

The Sherif chosen was Yahia ibn Serur, of a rival branch, the Dewy Aoun, and a bitter animosity was, by this means, engendered between the two families of Aoun and Zeyd, which is continued to the present day. Nor, as may be supposed, was this lessened by the subsequent changes rung by the Turkish and Egyptian Governments in their appointments to the office, for, in 1827, we find Abd el Mutalleb, the son of the deposed Wahhabite Ghaleb, reappointed, and in the following year again, Mohammed, the son of Yahia ibn Aoun, an intrigue which brought on a civil war. Then in 1848 a new intrigue reinstated Abd el Mutalleb and the Zeyds; and then, in 1853, these were again deposed for rebellion, and an Aoun was placed in power. From 1853 till 1880 the Aouns retained the Grand Sherifate and were supreme in Hejaz. Coming into power at a time when Liberal ideas were in the ascendant they have consistently been Liberal, and still represent the more humane and progressive party among the Meccans. In the desert, where all are latitudinarian, they are the popular party; and, though themselves beyond a suspicion of unorthodoxy, they have always shown a tolerant spirit towards the Shiahs and other heretics, with whom the Sherifal authority necessarily comes in contact every year at the Haj. They have even maintained friendly terms with the European element at Jeddah, and as long as they remained in power the relations between India and Mecca were of an amicable nature.

Abdallah ibn Aoun, the son of Mohammed, who succeeded his father in 1858, and reigned for nineteen years, was a man of considerable ability, and he is credited with having had views of so advanced a nature as to include the opening of Hejaz to European trade. Nor was his brother, who in 1877 became Grand Sherif, of a less liberal mind. Though of less ability than Abdallah, he is described as eminently humane and virtuous, and it is certain that, with the exception of his hereditary enemies, the Zeyds, he was universally beloved by the Hejazi. So much was this the case that, in the year following the disastrous Russian war, when Constantinople seemed on the point of dissolution, the Arabs began to talk openly of making El Husseyn ibn Aoun Caliph in the Sultan's place. I have not been able to ascertain that El Husseyn himself indulged the ambitious project of his friends, for he was eminently a man of peace, and the Caliphal title would hardly have given him a higher position than he held. But it is certain that his popularity gave umbrage at Constantinople, the more so as Abd el Hamid could not and dared not depose him. El Husseyn, too, became specially obnoxious to the reactionary party, when it resolved at last to quarrel with England, for he and his family persisted in remaining on friendly terms with the British Government on all occasions when the interests of Indian subjects of her Majesty's came in question at the Haj. For this reason, principally, it would seem his death was resolved on to make room for the agent of a new policy.

On the 14th of March, 1880, Jeddah was the scene of a solemn pageant. The Haj was just over, and the seaport of Mecca crowded with pilgrims was waiting for the Grand Sherif, the descendant of the prophet and the representative of the Sacred House of Ali, to give the blessing of his presence to the last departing votaries. Travelling by night from Mecca, El Husseyn and his retinue appeared at dawn outside the city walls, and when it was morning, mounted on a white mare from Nejd, and preceded by his escort of Koreysh Arabs and the Sultan's guard of honour, he rode into the town. The streets of Jeddah are narrow and tortuous, and the way from the gate to the house of Omar Nassif, his agent, where he was accustomed to alight, was thronged with pious folk, who struggled for the privilege of kissing his feet and the hem of his Arab cloak. He had nearly reached the place when an old beggar from the crowd pushed his way forward asking loudly for alms in the name of God. It was an appeal not to be denied, and as the Sherif turned to those near him to order a contribution from the bag kept for such distributions, the old man rose upon him, and drawing a ragged knife (so it was described to me) struck him in the belly. At first, even those who saw the deed hardly knew what had happened, for El Husseyn did not fall or dismount, and without speaking rode on to the house. There he was lifted from his mare and carried to an upper chamber, and in the course of some hours he expired.

Those nearest him, meanwhile, had seized and cudgelled the old man, and some of the escort had taken him to the guard-house. When it became known what had happened, a great cry arose in Jeddah, and old and young, and women and children, and citizens and strangers wept together. I have heard the scene described as one beyond description moving, and the women shrieked and wailed the whole night long. El Husseyn was beloved, and he was taken in the flower of his manhood.

No satisfactory judicial investigation seems to have been made of the deed, though a formal mejlis was held at Mecca whither the assassin was immediately transferred, and on the fourth day he was publicly executed. Who and what he was it is difficult to determine. The Turkish bulletin on the event described him as a Persian fanatic, but no one confessed to having known him, and those who saw and spoke to him while in custody maintain that he was an Afghan and a Sunite. He seems to have given half-a-dozen contradictory accounts of himself; but the general impression remains that he came from Turkey, and was by profession a dervish. He had not come with the Haj, but had been first noticed as a beggar at Mecca ten days before, when he had asked and received an alms of the Sherif, and had since been several times found obtrusively in El Husseyn's path. No one at Jeddah holds the Turkish Governor to have been cognisant of the crime. He was personally on good terms with El Husseyn, and has since been disgraced; but all point to the Stamboul Camarilla and even the Sultan himself as its author. It is known that Abd el Hamid constantly employs dervishes as his spies and private agents, and some who pretend to know best affirm that the old man received his mission directly from the Caliph. I do not affect to decide upon the point, but think the onus probandi to lie with those who would deny it.

Assassination of a dangerous rival or of too powerful a chieftain has been the resource time out of mind of the Ottoman sovereigns, and they can hardly claim indulgence now from public opinion. The Sheykh of the Dervishes is all powerful with his fanatical followers, and he is the Sultan's servant; a word from him would doubtless have secured the services of twenty such devotees. One circumstance points decidedly to Constantinople. It is known in Jeddah that El Husseyn's successor, who had long been resident at Constantinople, sent orders to his agent at Jeddah to prepare for his return as Grand Sherif two months before El Husseyn, who was a young man, died; and that he had, moreover, dispatched most of his baggage in anticipation.

The last words of the old assassin are curious. Having done his deed he seemed quite happy, and neither ate nor drank, but prepared for the next world. A little while before he was executed he related a story. "There was once," he said, "an elephant, a great and noble beast, and to him God sent a gnat, the smallest thing which is. It stung him on the trunk and the elephant died. Allah Kerim: God is merciful."

El Husseyn's successor, the man for whom room was made, and who knew beforehand that it was to be made, was none other than the aged and twice deposed Abd el Mutalleb, the son of the Wahhabite Ghaleb, the fiercest fanatic of the Dewy Zeyd.