A Pilgrimage to Nejd Volume Ii Part 11

[Picture: Plan view of hollow]

[Picture: Section view of hollow]

The size and depth of the fuljes varies greatly; some are, as it were, rudimentary only, while others attain a depth of 200 feet and more. The deepest of those I measured proved to be 280 feet, including the sand hill, which may have been 60 feet above the general level of the plain; its width seemed about a quarter of a mile. At the bottom of these deep fuljes, solid ground is reached, and there is generally a stony deposit there, such as I have often noticed in sandy places where water has stood. This bare s.p.a.ce is seldom more than a few paces in diameter. I heard of, but did not see, one which contained a well. The wells of s.h.a.gik do not stand in a fulj, but in a valley clear of sand, and those of Jobba in a broad circular basin 400 feet below the level of the Nefd.

The fuljes, I have said, run in strings irregularly from east to west, corresponding in this with their individual direction. {244} They are most regularly placed in the neighbourhood of the rocks of Aalem, but their size there is less than either north or south of it. The shape of the fuljes seems unaffected by the solid ground beneath, for at the rocks of Ghota there is a large fulj pierced by the rocks, but which otherwise retains its semi-circular form.

The physical features of the Nefd, whether they be ridges or mounds or fuljes, appear to be permanent in their character. The red sand of which they are composed is less volatile than the common sand of the desert and, except on the summits of the mounds and ridges, seems little affected by the wind. It is everywhere, except in such positions, sprinkled over with brushwood ghada trees and tufts of gra.s.s. The sides of the fuljes especially are well clothed, and this could hardly be the case if they were liable to change with a change of wind. In the Nefd between Jobba and Igneh I noticed well defined sheep tracks ascending the steep slopes of the fuljes spirally, and these I was a.s.sured were by no means recent. Moreover, the levelled track made according to tradition by Abu Zeyd is still discernible in places where cuttings were originally made. Sticks and stones left in the Nefd by travellers, the bones of camels and even their droppings, remain for years uncovered, and those who cross do so by the knowledge of landmarks constantly the same. I am inclined to think, then, that the Nefds represent a state of comparative repose in Nature. Either the prevailing winds which heaped them up formerly are less violent now than then, or the fuljes are due to exceptional causes which have not occurred for many years. That wind in some form, and at some time, has been their cause I do not doubt, but the exact method of its action I will not affect to determine. Mr.

Blandford, an authority on these subjects, suggests that the fuljes are s.p.a.ces still unfilled with sand; and if this be so, the strings of fuljes may in reality mark the site of such bare strips as one finds in the intermittent Nefds. It is conceivable that as the s.p.a.ces between the sand ridges grew narrower, the wind blocked between them acquired such a rotatory motion as to have thrown bridges of sand across, and so, little by little, filled up all s.p.a.ces but these. But to me no theory that has been suggested is quite satisfactory. What cause is it that keeps the floors of the deeper fuljes bare; floors so narrow that it would seem a single gale should obliterate them, or even the gradual slipping of the sand slopes above them? There must be some continuous cause to keep these bare. Yet where is the cause now in action sufficient to have heaped up such walls or dug out such pits?

Another strange phenomenon is that of such places as Jobba. There, in the middle of the Nefd, without apparent reason, the sand is pushed high back on all sides from a low central plain of bare ground three or four miles across. North, south, east, and west the sand rises round it in mountains 400 and 500 feet high, but the plain itself is bare as a threshing-floor. It would seem as if this red sand could not rest in a hollow place, and that the fact of Jobba's low level alone kept it free.

Jobba, if cleared of sand all round, would, I have no doubt, present the same feature as Jof or Taibetism. It would appear as a basin sunk in the plain, an ancient receptacle of the drainage from Mount Aja. Has it only in recent times been surrounded thus with sand? There is a tradition still extant there of running water.

_Jebel Shammar_.-A little north of lat.i.tude 29, the Nefd ceases as suddenly as it began. The stony plain reappears unchanged geologically, but more broken by the proximity of a lofty range of hills, the Jebel Aja. Between these, however, and the sand, there is an interval of at least five miles where the soil is of sandstone, mostly red, the material out of which the Nefd sand was made, but mixed with a still coa.r.s.er sand washed down from the granite range. This rises rapidly to the foot of the hills. There, with little preliminary warning, we come upon unmistakeable red granite cropping in huge rounded ma.s.ses out of the plain, and rising to a height of 1000 and 1500 feet. The shape of these rocks is very fantastic, boulder being set on boulder in enormous pinnacles; and I noticed that many of them were pierced with those round holes one finds in granite. The texture of the rock is coa.r.s.e, and precisely similar to that of Jebel Musa in the Sina peninsula, as is the scanty vegetation with which the wadys are clothed. There are the same th.o.r.n.y acacia, and the wild palm, and the caper plant as there, and I heard of the same animals inhabiting the hills.

The _Jebel Aja_ range has a main direction of E. by N. and W. by S. Of this I am convinced by the observations I was able to take when approaching it from the N.W. The weather was clear and I was able to see its peaks running for many miles in the direction mentioned. With regard to its length I should put it, by the accounts I heard, at something like 100 miles, and its average breadth may possibly be 10 or 15. In this I differ from the German geographers, who give Jebel Aja a direction of N.E. by S.W., on the authority I believe of Wallin. But as they also place Hal on the southern slope of the hills, a gross error, I do not consider the discrepancy as of any importance.

Of _Jebel Selman_, I can only speak according to the distant view I had of it. But I should be much surprised to learn that any portion of it pa.s.sed west of the lat.i.tude of Hal. That portion of it visible from Hal certainly lies to the S.E., and at an apparent distance of 30 miles, with no indication of its being continued westwards. It is by all accounts of the same rock (red granite) as Jebel Aja.

Between Jebel Selman and the Nefd lie several isolated hills rising from broken ground. All these are of the sandstone formation of the Hamad, and have no geological connection with Aja or Selman. Such are Jebels Jildiyeh, Yatubb, and Jilfeh, Jildiyeh the tallest having a height of perhaps 3800 feet above the sea, or 300 above Hal.

Hal lies due east of the extreme eastern b.u.t.tress of Jebel Aja, and not south of it as has been supposed. Both it and Kefar, as indeed all the towns and villages of the district, lie in a single broad wady, draining the south-eastern rocks of Aja, and sweeping round them northwards to the Nefd. The height of Hal is 3,500 feet above the sea, and the plain rises southwards behind it, almost imperceptibly. The small isolated hills close to the town, belong, I think, geologically to the granite range. The main drainage of the plain south of Hal would seem to be received by the Wady Hannasy, whose course is north, so that the highest part of the plain is probably between Aja and Selman, and may be as much as 4,000 feet above the sea. This, I take it, is the highest plateau of Arabia-as Aja is its highest mountain, 5000 to 5600 feet,-an all sufficient reason for including Jebel Shammar in the term Nejd or Highland.

I feel that I am taking a very serious liberty with geographers in placing Hal 60 miles farther south than where it is found in our modern maps. I consider, however, that until its position has been scientifically determined, I am justified in doing this by the fact, that my dead reckoning gave it this position, not only according to the out journey, but by the return one, measured from Meshhed Ali. I am so much in the habit of measuring distances by a rough computation of pace and time, that I doubt if I am much out in the present instance. On this, however, I forbear to dogmatise.

I had hoped to conclude this sketch with a list of plants found in the Nefd. But our small collection has proved to be so pulverised by its journey, that Sir Joseph Hooker, who kindly undertook to look over it, has been able to identify hardly half-a-dozen specimens.

Of wild animals, I have ascertained the existence of the ostrich, the leopard, the wolf, the fox, the hyaena, the hare, the jerboa, the white antelope, and the gazelle in the Nefd; and of the ibex and the marmot in Jebel Aja. Of these it may be remarked that the ostrich is the most valuable and perhaps the most rare; I had not the luck to see a single wild specimen, though once a fresh egg was brought me. Neither did I see, except in confinement, the white antelope (Oryx beatrix), which is the most important quadruped of the Nefd. This antelope frequents every part of the red sand desert, and I found its track quite one hundred miles from any spring, so that the Arabs may be pardoned for affirming that it never drinks. The hare too is found and plentifully throughout; but the gazelle haunts only the outskirts within reach of the hills or of wells where the Arabs are accustomed to water their flocks. The same may be said of the wolf, the fox, and the hyaena, which seem fairly abundant.

The tracks of these grew frequent as we approached Jebel Aja, and it may be a.s.sumed that it is there they have their lairs, making use of the Nefd as a hunting ground. The Jebel Aja, a granite range not less than 5,500 feet above the sea, furnishes the water required by these animals, not indeed in streams, for none such are found in the range, but in springs and natural tanks where rain water is stored. These seem by all accounts to be fairly numerous; and if so, the ancient tradition of a wild horse having also been found in the Nefd, may not be so improbable as at first sight it seems. There is certainly pasture and good pasture for the horse in every part of it. The sheep of the Nefd requires water but once in a month, and the Nefd horse may have required no more.

Of reptiles the Nefd boasts by all accounts the horned viper and the cobra, besides the harmless grey snake called Suliman, which is common everywhere. There are also immense numbers of lizards.

Birds are less numerous, but I noticed the frilled bustard Houbara, and one or two hawks and buzzards. A large black buzzard was especially plentiful. The Bedouins of Nejd train the Lanner falcon, the only n.o.ble hawk they possess, to take hares and bustards. In the Nefd, most of the common desert birds are found, the desert lark, the wheatear, and a kind of wren which inhabits the ghada and yerta bushes.

Of insects I noticed the dragon-fly, several beetles, the common house-fly, and ants, whose nests, made of some glutinous substance mixed with sand, may be seen under these bushes. I was also interested at finding, sunning itself on the rocks of Aalem, a specimen of the painted lady b.u.t.terfly, so well known for its adventurous flights. This insect could not well have been bred at any nearer point than Syria or the Euphrates, respectively 400 and 300 miles distant. Fleas do not exist beyond the Nefd, and our dogs became free of them as soon as we reached Hal. Locusts were incredibly numerous everywhere, and formed the chief article of food for man, beast, and bird. They are of two colours, red and green, the latter being I believe the male, while the former is the female. They both are excellent eating, but the red locust is preferred.

Sand-storms are probably less common in the Nefd than in deserts where the sand is white, for reasons already named; nor do the Bedouins seem much to dread them. They are only dangerous where they last long enough to delay travellers far from home beyond the time calculated on for their supplies. No tales are told of caravans overwhelmed or even single persons. Those who perish in the Nefd perish of thirst. I made particular inquiries as to the simoom or poisonous wind mentioned by Mr.

Palgrave, but could gain no information respecting it.

In the Jebel Aja an ibex is found, specimens of which I saw at Hal, and a mountain gazelle, and I heard of a leopard, probably the same as that found in Sina. The only animal there, which may be new, is one described to me as the Webber, an animal of the size of the hare, which climbs the wild palms and eats the dates. It is described as sitting on its legs and whistling, and from the description I judged it to be a marmot or a coney (hierax). But Lord Lilford, whom I spoke to on the subject, a.s.sures me it is in all probability the Lophiomys Imhausii.

W. S. B.

[Picture: Lophiomys Imhausii]

HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE RISE AND DECLINE OF WAHHABISM IN ARABIA.

COMPILED PRINc.i.p.aLLY FROM MATERIALS SUPPLIED BY LT.-COLONEL E. C. ROSS, H.M.'S RESIDENT AT BUSHIRE.

AT the beginning of last century, Nejd, and Arabia generally, with the exception of Oman, Yemen, and Hejaz, was divided into a number of independent districts or townships, each ruled by a tribal chief on the principle already explained of self-government under Bedouin protection.

Religion, except in its primitive Arabian form, was almost forgotten by the townspeople, and little if any connection was kept up between them and the rest of the Mahometan world.

In 1691, however, Mohammed Ibn Abd-el-Wahhab, founder of the Wahhabi sect, was born at Eiyanah in Aared, his father being of the Ibn Temim tribe, the same which till lately held power in Jebel Shammar. In his youth he went to Bussorah, and perhaps to Damascus, to study religious law, and after making the pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina returned to his native country, and soon after married in the village of h.o.r.eylama near Deriyeh. There and at Eyaneh he began his preaching, and about the year 1742 succeeded in converting Mohammed Ibn Saoud, Emir of Deriyeh, the princ.i.p.al town of Aared.

The chief features of his teaching were:-

1st. The re-establishment of Mahometan beliefs as taught by the Koran, and the rejection of those other beliefs accepted by the Sunis on tradition.

2nd. A denial of all spiritual authority to the Ottoman or any other Caliph, and of all special respect due to sherifs, saints, dervishes, or other persons.

3rd. The restoration of discipline in the matter of prayer, fasting, and pilgrimage.

4th. A strict prohibition of wine, tobacco, games of chance, magic, silk and gold in dress, and of tombstones for the dead.

Ibn Abd-el-Wahhab lived to an advanced age at Deriyeh, and died in 1787.

Mohammed Ibn Saoud, the first Wahhabi Emir, belonged to the Mesalikh tribe of anazeh, itself an offshoot of the Welled Ali of western Nejd (deriving, according to the account of the Ibn Saouds themselves, from the Beni Bekr Wail, through Maane Ibn Rabiia, king of Nejd, Hasa and Oman in the 15th century). He embraced the tenets of Abd-el-Wahhab, as has been said, in the year 1742, and was followed in his conversion by many of the inhabitants of Deriyeh and the neighbouring districts, who at last so swelled the number of Ibn Saoud's adherents, that he became the head of the reformed religion, and according to the Wahhabi pretensions the head of all Islam. Guided by the counsels of Ibn Abd-el-Wahhab, and carried forward on the wave of the new teaching, he gradually established his authority over all Aared and eventually over the greater part of Nejd. His hardest contests there were with the people of Riad, who, under their Sheykh, Mohammed Ibn Daus, long held out, and with the Ibn Ghureyr (Areyr or Aruk), Sheykhs of the Beni Khaled. These latter, who owned the districts of Hasa and Katif, though forced to tribute, have always been hostile to the Ibn Saouds, and are so at the present day.

Another opponent, bitterly hostile to the new religion, was the Emir's brother, Theniyan, whose descendants still belong to the anti-Wahhabi faction in Aared. Mohammed Ibn Saoud died in 1765 and was succeeded by his son Abdel Aziz.

Abd-el-Aziz Ibn Saoud, a man of energy and ambition, completed the subjugation of Nejd and Hasa, and carried the Wahhabi arms as far northwards as Bussorah, and even it would seem to Mesopotamia and the Sinjar Hills. These latter raids so greatly alarmed the government of the Sultan, that in 1798 a Turkish expeditionary force was sent by land from Bagdad into Hasa, under the command of one Ali Pasha, secretary to Suliman Pasha the Turkish Valy. It consisted of 4000 or 5000 regular infantry, with artillery, and a large contingent of Bedouin Arabs collected from the Montefik, Daffir, and other tribes hostile to the Wahhabi power. These marched down the coast and took possession of the greater part of Hasa, but having failed to reduce Hofhuf, a fortified town, were returning northwards when their retreat was intercepted by Saoud, the Emir's son, who took up a position under the walls of Taj. A battle was then imminent, but it was averted by the mediation of the Arab Sheykhs, and Ali Pasha was allowed to continue his retreat to Bussorah, while Saoud retook possession of Hasa and punished those who had submitted to the Turks. This affair contributed much to the extension and renown of the Wahhabi power; and offers of submission came in from all sides. The Emir, nevertheless, thought it prudent to endeavour to conciliate the Turkish Valy, and despatched horses and other valuable presents to Bagdad.

The Wahhabi State was now become a regular Government, with a centralised administration, a system of tax instead of tribute, and a standing army which marched under the command of Saoud Ibn Saoud, the Emir's eldest son. The Emir, Abd-el-Aziz himself, appears to have been a man of peace, simple in his dress and habits, and extremely devout. Saoud, however, was a warrior, and it was through him that the Wahhabis pushed their fortunes. There seems, nevertheless, to have been always a strong party of opposition in the desert, where the Bedouins clung to the traditions of their independence and chafed under the religious discipline imposed on them. Kasim and Jebel Shammar, both of them centres of Bedouin life, never accepted the Wahhabi tenets with any enthusiasm, and the people of Hasa, an industrious race standing in close commercial relations with Persia, accepted the rule of the Ibn Saouds only on compulsion. Southern Nejd alone seems to have been fanatically Wahhabi, but their fanaticism was their strength and long carried all before it.

In 1799, Saoud made his first pilgrimage to Mecca, at the head of 4000 armed followers, and in the following year he repeated the act of piety.

Pa.s.sage through Nejd, however, seems to have been forbidden to the Shiah pilgrims whom the Wahhabis regarded as infidels, and a violent feeling was roused against the Wahhabis in Persia and in the Pashalik of Bagdad, where most of the inhabitants are Shiahs. It ended in the a.s.sa.s.sination of the Emir Abd-el-Aziz by a Persian seyyid from Kerbela, in 1800, at the age of 82 years. (Colonel Ross gives 1803 as the date of this event, but, according to members of the Ibn Saoud family themselves, it happened three years earlier; a date which accords better with other events.)

In 1801, a first expedition was despatched against Oman under Selim-el-Hark, one of Saoud's lieutenants; and in the same year Saoud himself, to avenge his father's murder, marched northwards with 20,000 men to the Euphrates, and on the 20th of April sacked Kerbela, whence, having put all the male inhabitants to the sword and razed the tomb of Husseyn, he retired the same afternoon with an immense booty. The success of this attack, made in the name of a reformed Islam upon the stronghold of the Shiah heretics and within the nominal dominions of the Sultan, spread consternation throughout the Mussulman world.

In 1802 the island of Bahreyn was reduced to tribute, and the Wahhabi power extended down the Eastern coast as far as Batinah on the Sea of Oman, and several of the Oman tribes embraced the Wahhabi faith, and became tributary to Ibn Saoud.

In 1803, a quarrel having occurred between the Wahhabi Emir and Ghalib the Sherif of Mecca, Saoud marched into Hejaz with a large army, reduced Taif, and on the 1st of May entered Mecca, where he deposed the Sherif and appointed a Governor of his own. He did not, however, appear there as an enemy but as a pilgrim, and his troops were restrained from plunder, the only act of violence permitted being the destruction of the large tombs in the city, so that, as they themselves said, "there did not remain an idol in all that pure city." Then they abolished the taxes and customs; destroyed all instruments for the use of tobacco and the dwellings of those who sold hashish or who lived in open wickedness.

Saoud returned to Nejd, having received the submission of all Central Arabia, including the holy city of Medina. This may be considered as the zenith of the Wahhabi power. Law and order prevailed under a central government, and the Emir on his return to Deriyeh issued a proclamation promising strict protection of life, property, and commerce throughout his dominions. This fortunate state of things continued for several years.

In 1807 Saoud once more marched to the Euphrates and laid siege to Meshhed Ali, but failed to capture that walled town and was forced to retreat.

In 1809 he collected an army of 30,000 men with the intention of attacking Bagdad, but disturbances having broken out in Nejd he abandoned his intention and marched instead with his army on pilgrimage to Mecca, whence he returned home by Medina, now annexed to his empire.

In Oman the Wahhabi arms continued to gain ground, and their name seems first to have become known in India in connexion with piratical raids committed on the Indian Sea. This led to an expedition undertaken in 1809 by the English against Ras-el-Kheymah on the Persian Gulf. But in spite of this, the Wahhabis advanced next year to Mattrah, a few miles only from Muscat, and to Bahreyn, which was occupied by them and received a Wahhabi governor.

In 1810 Saoud invaded Irak, and in 1811 his son Abdallah arrived close to Bagdad on a plundering raid, while another Wahhabi army, under Abu Nocta, a slave of the Emir's, invaded Syria and held Damascus to ransom. In Syria, indeed, for some years tribute had been paid by the desert towns of the Hauran and the districts east of Jordan to Nejd; and it seemed probable that the new Arabian Empire would extend itself to the Mediterranean, and Abd-el-Wahhabi's reformation to all the Arab race. A coalition of the Northern Bedouins, however, under Eddrehi Ibn Shaalan, Sheykh of the Roala, saved Damascus from Abu Nocta, and after sustaining a defeat from them on the Orontes the Wahhabi army returned to Nejd.

The danger, however, to orthodox Islam was now recognized, and in the same year, 1811, the Ottoman Sultan, urged by his Suni subjects to recover the holy places of Arabia to orthodox keeping, resolved on serious measures against Nejd. Matters had been brought to a crisis the year before by an act of fanaticism on the part of Saoud which had roused the indignation of all sects in Islam against him. On the occasion of a fourth pilgrimage which he had then made, he had caused the tomb of the prophet to be opened at Medina and the rich jewels and precious relics it contained to be sold or distributed among his soldiers, an act of sacrilege which it was impossible to tolerate. The Sultan was reminded that one of the claims on which his ancestors of the House of Ottoman rested their tenure to the Caliphate was that they possessed the Holy Places, and he was called upon to a.s.sert his protectorate of Mecca and Medina by force. It is probable, indeed, that only the great interests at stake in Europe during the previous years of the century had delayed vigorous action. The invasion of Egypt by Napoleon, and the disorganisation of the Turkish Empire resulting from it, had contributed not a little to the Wahhabi successes. Now, however, Egypt was under the rule of Mehemet Ali, and to his vigorous hands the Sultan entrusted the duty of punishing the Ibn Saouds. The absence of the Emir's armies in the north gave a favourable opportunity to the Egyptian arms, a force of 8000 men was despatched to Hejaz, and Mecca was occupied by Tusun Pasha without resistance. On advancing inland, however, beyond Taif, Tusun was met by Abdullah Ibn Saoud, and defeated in the desert with the loss of half his army; nor was he able to do more than hold his own in Mecca until relieved from Egypt.

In 1813, Mehemet Ali, impatient of his son's failure, went in person to Arabia, and seized Ghalib the Sherif, whom he suspected of Wahhabism, at Mecca and sent him prisoner to Cairo. Tusun was again entrusted with the command of an expedition destined for Nejd, but was again met and defeated beyond Taif in the spring of 1814.

In April 1814, while preparations were being pressed for a renewal of the campaign, Saoud Ibn Saoud the Wahhabi Emir, died, and Abdallah, his son and recognized successor, was acknowledged without opposition, chief of the Wahhabis.