Indian Antiquary Vol 15

SR No.: 032507
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: John Faithfull Fleet, Richard Carnac Temple
Publisher: Swati Publications
Publication Year: 1984
Total Pages: 446
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 20 MB

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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
foes of those who engage in the pilgrimage to Makka.28
The power of these men in the Arabian continent is paramount over every other power,even that of the Sultan himself, who is popularly supposed to be the supreme ruler of the land and the power they wield without mercy is unique in its kind. With the single exception of the kingdom of Najd, the home of Wâhhâbiism in the Highlands of Arabia, these wild descendants of Isma'il are, for all practical purposes, masters of the whole continent through the length of it and the breadth of it. They hold such complete supremacy there, that they even exact from the representatives of the Sublime Porte itself an annual tax for the liberty of traversing the territory which their tribes severally hold in the Desert. The supremacy even of the Sultan himself, the political and ecclesiastical head of the Faith, is but nominal there, for even he has to pay a tax for travelling through a continent supposed to be part of his own dominions. Since the time of the supercession of the Fâtimî emperors at Cairo by the 'Usmânlis of Constantinople, no Sultân has ever made the pilgrimage to Makka. The Maḥmil, however, has for centuries past been the recognized symbol of royalty in the Syrian and Egyptian caravans, and this curious memorial is always surrounded, along the whole route, by certain high officers of state, who serve as the living representatives of the civil and ecclesiastical authority of the reigning Sultân. In other words, even though the Sultan himself were present in the caravan, that would make no difference to the Badawis. He still would have to submit to the impost. On one occasion, the Syrian caravan, which included (as it always and necessarily does) the representatives of his authority, declined to pay the tax. When the season of pilgrimage came round in the following year, a vast horde of Badawis (numbering forty thousand) lay in ambush among the hills of the Hijâz, and rushed without parley upon the pilgrim host, and slew
23 Palgrave, Central and Eastern Arabia, i. 223 of (Edn. 2nd, Lond. 1865).
[OCTOBER, 1886.
the main portion of them; nor would they permit the caravan to pass until the annual tax for that and the preceding year had been fully paid."
Now the men who thus, for all practical purposes, are the masters of Arabia, are the hereditary and time-worn enemies of the Faithful, and no dignitary of Islâm, from the Sultan downwards, can undertake the stupendous task of traversing the continent unless he make his account with them. Their demands, however exorbitant, have to be meekly conceded by all,without dispute, and with as little delay as possible; and their very subsistence, from century to century, is mainly derived from levies remorselessly exacted from those whose only business in their quarters is the fulfilment of the precepts of the Prophet. The pilgrims, rich or poor, have no greater enemies than these natives of Arabia, -whom they describe with a cynical sneer, as harám, highway robbers."""
The very name of these Arabians is a signal of terror to pilgrims. It is on record, that when the leaders of the ceremonies of 'Arafat are anxi. ous to hurry the worshipping multitude away with all possible haste to the next station, Muzdalifa, no 'cry' more effectually clears the ground than the cry of the near approach of a swarm of Badawis! It is a curious comment upon the often-vaunted supremacy of the Islamic religion throughout the continent of Arabia, that a Christian or a Jew quietly visiting the Shrine of the Faith, should, on detection, be instantly slain by the constituted authorities at Makka without the form of trial, while these hereditary foes of the Faithful should be at liberty to traverse even the Sacred Territory," everywhere and at all times, without fear of the reigning power or any of its representatives at the Holy Places of the Faith; and that any such thing as an appeal to the Sultan against the brutalities of these men in his own dominions even in Makka itself-could elicit from him nothing but a confession of utter helplessness. We submit that such an anomaly as this
Burckhardt, Bedouins and Wahabys. i. 5-8, 28, 118, 194, and ii. 3, 7, 23-4, 26, 31, 33-4, 229, 273; Niebuhr, Travels in Arabia, ii. 25-8 (Edn. Heron, Edinb. 1792); Crichton, History of Arabia, i. 183 (Edn. Edinb. 1834); Burckhardt, Arabia, i. 413; Burton, Pilgrimage, i. 255.
25 This name Harami' is an honourable title among the Badawis, especially among those of them who haunt the territory that lies between Makka and Madina. A man slain in a foray, Burton tells us (Pilgrimage, ii. 101), is said to die ghandus, a brave'-to die game,' in fact while the man among them who dies in his bed is called carrion' (fatte). The mother of such a one will exclaim, Oh that my son had perished of a cut throat! And her attendant crones will suggest, with deference, that such untoward event came of the will
4
of Allah.
Burton, Pilgrimage, ii. 324-5.
27 The term is the recognised translation of the word 'Haram'-the designation technically applied to the portion of the country stretching away from Makka as a centre to various distances ranging severally from forty to about a hundred and forty-five miles in the different directions from the city. The designation was first applied to the locality by the confederation known as the Harami League,'-an alliance of the local tribes which was found there long before the time of the Muhammadan ascendancy.
28 We allude, of course, to Makka and Madina, at both of which places there are certain established offcials appointed by the Turkish Government. Strictly speaking, however, the term is applied only to certain localities within the limits of the territory defined in the preceding footnote.