THE FALL OF JEDDAH AND MECCA
When the World War pulled Turkey into the maelstrom, with Great
Britain, France, Russia, and Italy pitted against her, it was the
hour of opportunity for Arabia. Unable to obtain sufficient funds
and ammunition, Shereef Hussein was compelled to let many months
pass by without declaring himself. Then came the news of the
surrender of Kut el Amara by General Townsend. This was a serious
reverse for the Allies and an important victory for the Turks.
Hussein could no longer hold his followers. He sent word to the
British Government that he could not stand by and permit his people
to remain subject to the Turks. He asked for assistance, but before
receiving a reply, with all the pent-up fury and hatred of five
hundred years of oppression and dishonor, the Arabs of the Hedjaz
leaped at the throats of the Turks. From all parts of the desert
came the swarthy, lean, picturesque sons of Ishmael to avenge and
free themselves at last.
Hussein and his four sons had worked out all the details of their
plan for the revolution, but kept them secret until a few weeks
before they touched off the fuse. They did not even dare to trust
their close associates, because in Turkish territory plots were
usually discovered before they matured, and no man knew whom he
could trust. Not only were there spies but innumerable spies on
spies.
Early in 1916, when Lieutenant Lawrence was making a reputation
for himself with the Secret Corps in Cairo, Grand Shereef Hussein
sent word to all the tribes of Holy Arabia to be ready at a moment’s
notice. Then, on June 9, he gave the signal. At the same instant
he himself publicly denounced Enver, Talaat, Djemal, and their
infamous Committee of Unity and Progress. Simultaneous attacks were
launched against Mecca, Jeddah, the seaport to the holy city, and
Medina, three of the least known and most interesting cities in
the world. And before we continue to the point in the Arab Revolt
where Lawrence made his entrance, let us stop and see these centers
of life in the Hedjaz whence came so many of Lawrence’s associates.
When you land at Jeddah you blink your eyes and pinch yourself to
see if you are awake. The Koran forbids the use of intoxicating
liquors, but either the architects who designed this city were not
faithful Mussulmans or most of the buildings were constructed
before Mohammed introduced prohibition into Arabia. The streets of
Jeddah are a bewildering maze of narrow zigzag canons between tall
tottering houses, which look as though they had been joggled about
by incessant earthquakes. Many of the houses are of five and six
stories and are used only for the accommodation of pilgrims who
pass through on their way to Mecca during Ramadan, a time when the
population of the city increases from twenty thousand to perhaps
one hundred thousand. The most fitting way I can think of describing
this weird Arabian seaport is to say that it looks like any ordinary
Oriental city might look to a man suffering from delirium tremens.
The Leaning Tower of Pisa would be in an appropriate setting if it
were transferred to Jeddah. Symmetry seems to be an unknown quantity
in this part of the Near East. It is said that an Arab carpenter
cannot draw a right angle, and an Arab waiter never puts a
table-cloth on square. The sacred shrine of the Mohammedans in
Mecca, known as the Kaaba, meaning “cube,” has none of its sides
or angles equal. Arab streets are seldom parallel, and even “the
street that is called straight” in Damascus is not straight!
Jeddah, with its inebriated buildings, its crazy fragile balconies,
its leaning minarets, its lazy Arab merchants squatting cross-legged
on top of tables in front of chaotic shops, its fantastic arcaded
bazaars covered in with patchwork roofs pieced together like the
sails of a Chinese junk, is the nearest approach to a futurist
paradise of any city in the world.
Arabia is indeed a topsyturvy land. Where we measure most of our
liquids and weigh most of our solids, they weigh their liquids and
measure their solids. Where we use knives and forks and spoons,
they use their hands. Where we use tables and chairs they recline
on the floor. Where we mount from the left, they mount their camels
and horses from the right. We read from left to right, while they
read from right to left. The desert-dweller keeps his head covered
in the summer and winter alike, and his feet usually unprotected.
Where we take off our hats in entering a friend’s house, they take
off their shoes.
In addition to its Arab population, Jeddah is inhabited by the
remnants of a thousand pilgrimages, descendants of pilgrims who
had sufficient money to enable them to reach Mecca but not enough
to enable them to leave Arabia after fulfilling their religious
vows. Many of them are poverty-stricken and barely able to eke out
a living at the odd jobs which they get during the short pilgrimage
season each year. Among them are Javanese, Filipinos, Malays,
representatives of a dozen different Indian races, Kurds, Turks,
Egyptians, Sudanese, Abyssinians, Senegalese, tribesmen from the
Sahara, Zanzibaris, Yemenites, Somalis, and numerous others.
One afternoon, accompanied by Major Goldie, an officer attached to
the British mission which had its headquarters there during the
campaign, I rode out through the Mecca gate to the Abyssinian
quarter. The dwellings of these primitive people are round huts
with conical thatched roofs, surrounded by high kraal fences made
of rusty petrol and preserved-meat tins. We pulled up our ponies
in front of a hut where a negro woman was busy tanning a hide. The
moment she saw us she began screaming: “Oh, why have you come to
destroy my home? Oh, why are you going to carry away my child? Oh!
Oh! Oh! What have I done that you should want to shoot me?” Although
Goldie did his best to reassure her, she continued this wail until
we rode out of hearing.
On either side of Jeddah, a few miles distant, are small ports
which foreigners scrupulously avoid visiting. Tourists have never
been welcome because these villages for many years have been
slave-trading centers. Here negroes, smuggled across from the
African coast, were sold to wealthy Arabs. The Turkish Government
winked at this vicious commerce, but King Hussein is vigorously
endeavoring to stamp it out. As a result of Hussein’s stand on the
slavery question, the price of a well-built young negro has advanced
from the pre-war quotation of £50 to £300 or even as high as £500.
Although the trade may continue surreptitiously for a short time,
the king and his sons are so bitterly opposed to it that it is only
a question of months until they will have driven it out.
Beyond the north gate of the Jeddah wall Major Goldie took me to
see what thousands of Mohammedans believe to be the tomb of the
common ancestor of us all. There is a century-old tradition to the
effect that it was here near Jeddah that the ark grounded after
the Great Flood. According to one version of the story, on his six
hundred and first birthday, not long after the waters had abated,
Noah and his three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, were walking along
the beach when they came to a depression in the sand. This
depression seemed to resemble a human form. It was about three
hundred feet long. Ham asked his father what he thought it could
be, and the venerable patriarch replied, “Ham, my lad, that is the
last resting-place of Mother Eve.” Of course there are many educated
Mohammedans who laugh at this legend, but, nevertheless, a wall
three hundred feet long has been built around the supposed
depression, and within this inclosure is a white mosque where
thousands of women worship every year. They believe Mother Eve was
three hundred feet in height. Just think how the rest of us must
have degenerated! But the city takes its name from this tomb, for
the word “Jeddah” means grandmother or ancestress.
Since the time of Mohammed, no Jews, Christians, followers of
Zoroaster, or other unbelievers, have been welcome anywhere in the
Hedjaz except along the coast. None but the faithful are even
allowed to go beyond the Jeddah wall through the east gate, which
leads in the direction of Mecca. The British officers who were
stationed in Jeddah from the outbreak of the revolution until the
end of the war scrupulously observed this unwritten law. During
the campaign no Allied representatives ever visited the forbidden
capital of the king of the Hedjaz—at any rate not officially or
for publication. King Hussein even went so far as to request the
British authorities to instruct all officers piloting seaplanes
attached to war-ships cruising in the Red Sea under no circumstances
to profane the air by flying over either Mecca or Medina.
This very day millions of Moslems are turning their faces five
times toward Mecca and declaring over and over again:
“La ilaha Allah wa Muhammad-ar-rasul Allah! There is but one God,
Allah, and Mohammed is His Prophet.”
Mecca and Medina, its sister metropolis of the desert, are the two
most mysterious cities in the world. Any man in the vicinity of
either who declared that Christ was the son of God would be torn
to pieces.
Since the time of Mohammed, Mecca and Medina have been forbidden
to all but Moslems. In fact, the fanatical followers of the founder
of Islam would destroy any intruder whom they even suspected of
being an unbeliever. For this reason all conferences between King
Hussein and the representatives of the British and French
Governments were held in Jeddah.
We have a record of only a dozen or so Christians who have visited
Mecca during the past one thousand years—and lived to tell the
tale. The most celebrated of these, of course, was Sir Richard
Burton. Fewer still have visited Medina. At the end of the
eighteenth century a puritanical and fanatical sect from Central
Arabia called the Wahabis overran the Hedjaz and captured Mecca.
They were driven out by an Egyptian army under Mohammed Ali, and
for a time an adventurer and ex-sergeant in the Black Watch had
the unique honor of acting as governor of Medina and guardian of
the tomb of the Prophet.
Photograph: HUSSEIN I King of the Hejaz, “Commander of the
Faithful,” and founder of a new Arabian dynasty
Photograph: EMIR FEISAL, NOW KING OF MESOPOTAMIA (IRAK)
Not only do all Mohammedans turn toward Mecca to pray, because it
was the birthplace of their Prophet, but many of them build their
houses, and even their outhouses, facing Mecca; and when they die
they are buried facing Mecca.
Mohammed enjoined his followers to make pilgrimages to Mecca. He
advocated this in order to satisfy the pagans of Arabia, who had
been doing it for centuries. The city has no economic importance,
but the pilgrims who go there each year during the month of Zu el
Hajz are a source of income to its one hundred and fifty thousand
inhabitants.
Tens of thousands of pilgrims visit Mecca annually, although for
many who come from far-off lands two years are required to make
the trip.
The region about Mecca is all holy. Pilgrims are not permitted to
disturb the wild animals nor even to cut the thorns or desert
herbs. The holy city of Islam is located in a narrow pocket between
the hills where two valleys join. Three forts frown down upon Mecca
from the heights and were occupied by Turkish troops until King
Hussein’s followers drove them out.
In the center of Mecca is the Great Mosque, which was built as a
place of pagan worship many centuries before the birth of Mohammed.
It is known as the Mosque of the Kaaba or Masjid Al Haram, which
means “the sacred temple.” Within the courtyard is a small
cube-shaped building, the famous Kaaba. It is covered over with a
gorgeous holy carpet of black silk with a wide border of gold
lettering, texts from the Koran. The roof is supported by pillars
of aloe wood. Around the edge is a spout of gold, which carries
off rain-water. Embedded in one of the walls is the most sacred
object in the world to more than two hundred millions of people.
It is the black stone of meteoric origin which the Mohammedans
believe was tossed down from heaven by the Angel Gabriel to Father
Abraham. They say it was once whiter than milk but that it has been
turned black by the sins of the people who have kissed it. Others
say that it derived its color from Adam’s tears. It has been broken
in seven pieces, and its parts are now held together by a background
of cement surrounded by a silver band studded with silver nails.
The followers of the Prophet believe that this cube-shaped building
rests directly underneath the throne of God. They say it was
lowered down from heaven at the request of Adam and that it is an
exact duplicate of one that he had seen in paradise before his
expulsion, called Beit al Mamur, and frequented by angels. Very
few people ever enter the Kaaba, but those who do keep their eyes
down in an attitude of reverence and humble submission to divine
power. If a pilgrim from Syria enters it, for the rest of his life
he never goes barefoot, because he believes that his skin has
touched holy ground and therefore must never be placed on profane
earth again.
The holy carpet which covers the Kaaba is replaced each year by a
new one. Formerly there were two sent each year, one of which came
down from Damascus from the sultan of Turkey, while the other was
made in Cairo and presented to the mosque by the sultan of Egypt.
When a new one is put up, the old one is cut into bits by the
pilgrims, who take the pieces home for souvenirs.
According to tradition, from the dawn of creation to judgment day
at least one pilgrim is always supposed to be engaged in walking
seven times around the Kaaba. But about every twenty years great
floods come and fill all the streets of Mecca, including the
mosque, and when these floods occur men are hired to swim around
it day and night in order that the ceremony may never be interrupted.
The pilgrims kiss the black stone, run around the building seven
times, take a drink from a holy well called Zem Zem, and kiss the
stone again. Sir Richard Burton said that when he tried to kiss
the black stone he found himself in a milling throng of religious
devotees, each of whom was trying to force his way through the
crowd in order that he might press his lips against the most sacred
object in the world. He said that these religious enthusiasts were
all calling out their prayers in loud voices, and between sentences
of their prayers they would stop and curse the man who was elbowing
them away from the black stone.
The most important well in Mecca is this well of Zem Zem in the
courtyard of the mosque. The water in it is slightly brackish but
is said to be delightful when one becomes accustomed to using it.
The well is eight feet wide and quite deep. According to Moslem
tradition one of the direct routes to heaven is through the bottom
of this well. The pilgrims from India, who take such superstitions
literally, frequently threw themselves into the well, making the
water undrinkable for days. In fact, so many people tried the short
cut to paradise that it became necessary to stretch a net over the
bottom to break their fall.
There is an ancient tradition among Mohammedans that the approach
of the day of resurrection will be indicated by the sun rising in
the west and by the appearance of a monster which will rise out of
the earth in the courtyard of the Masjid Al Haram. This beast is
to be sixty cubits in height, just twice as high as the Lord
commanded Noah to make the ark. It is to be a complex combination
of eleven different animals, having the head of a bull, the eyes
of a hog, the ears of an elephant, the horns of a stag, the neck
of a giraffe, the breast of a lion, the color of a tiger, the back
of a cat, the tail of a ram, the legs of a camel, and the voice of
an ass. She is to bring with her the rod of Moses and the seal of
Solomon. So swift will be this monster that none will escape. With
the rod of Moses she will smite all true believers on the cheek,
branding them with a mark which will indicate that they are of the
faithful. Unbelievers will be stamped with the seal of King Solomon.
It is also believed that this strange beast will speak Arabic.
After the appearance of this mammoth creature all mortals who have
inhabited the earth since the dawn of creation will be required to
cross a valley on a hair, from which the iniquitous will tumble
off into the fires of hell, while the pure in heart will cross
safely into paradise. There are many different versions of this
tradition which were believed in by the adherents of other religions
long before the time of Mohammed.
Among other signs believed by some to be indications of the approach
of the day of resurrection are a war with the Turks; the advancement
of the meanest to positions of dignity and power; the coming of
Antichrist from Khorasan, mounted on an ass and followed by seventy
thousand Jews; the return of Jesus, who certain Mohammedans believe
will embrace the Mohammedan religion, marry a wife, slay Antichrist,
and rule the earth in peace and security; and the bestowal of the
power of speech on all animals, birds, fishes, reptiles, and
inanimate things.
Until recently Mecca was, perhaps, the most evil and licentious
city in the world. “The holier the city, the wickeder its people,”
runs the Arab proverb. A block away from the Holy Kaaba stands the
slave-market, which was closed not long ago by Hussein. There were
in the city of Mecca until recently, and perhaps still are, many
women who are legally married and divorced almost monthly, and
sometimes semi-monthly. A pilgrim arriving at Mecca, before King
Hussein’s puritanical régime, could be legally married during the
time he was a resident and performing his religious rites. He could
then have his marriage legally dissolved when he left the city.
The people of Mecca do not share those fine primitive virtues and
simplicity of tastes which have made the Bedouins famous. Since
olden times those born there have been distinguished from other
Arabians by three scars on the cheek—a trade-mark of viciousness,
say visitors to Mecca. The language of the Meccans is the most
salacious to be found anywhere in the dissolute East. The city is
filled with unspeakable diseases and practices. Travelers have
described scenes occurring in the Great Mosque as licentious as
any reported to have occurred in the most dissolute days of ancient
times.
But to get back to our story of the capture of the holy cities by
the Arabs, the aged Grand Shereef supervised the attack on Mecca,
while Feisal and Ali were in command of the force directed against
Medina. The Grand Shereef was successful at Mecca. The forts on
the three hills overlooking that forbidden and sacred city were
garrisoned by the sultan’s most faithful Circassian mercenaries
and by picked Turkish troops. On the day of the attack the Arabs
swept through the gates and captured the main bazaar, the
residential section, the administration buildings, and the sacred
mosque of the Holy Kaaba. For a fortnight the battle raged around
the two smaller forts, which were finally taken. During all this
fighting the aged shereef remained in his palace directing
operations in spite of scores of Turkish three-inch shells that
riddled his residence.
The Turks might have been able to hang on for many months had it
not been for their own folly. The Ottoman seems to be a Mohammedan
in theory only, occasionally adhering to the ritual, and even less
frequently adhering to the spirit of the Koran. Heedless of the
deep-set religious feelings of their enemies and coreligionists,
they suddenly began to bombard the mosque of the Kaaba, the most
sacred shrine of all Islam. One shell actually struck the black
stone, burning a hole in the holy carpet and killing nine Arabs
who were kneeling in prayer. Hussein’s followers were so enraged
by this impious act that they swarmed over the walls of the great
fort and captured it after desperate hand-to-hand fighting with
knives and daggers.
Both Mecca and the near-by seaport of Jeddah were captured during
the first month’s fighting. Jeddah was taken in five days as a
result of the coöperation of five small British merchantmen under
Captain Boyle, a daring red-headed Irishman, who was second in
command to Sir Rosslyn Wemyss, then admiral of the Near Eastern
Fleet.
More than a thousand Turkish and German prisoners were taken at
Jeddah. The bombardment of this port of entry to the holy city of
Mecca nearly started a revolution in India. The eighty million
Mohammedans living in India are the most fanatical of all Islam in
many respects. They erroneously charged the British with having
bombarded one of their holy places. As a matter of fact, Jeddah,
being merely the port to Mecca, has never been regarded as a holy
city by the Arabs themselves and is the one city in the Hedjaz to
which unbelievers have always been admitted.
At Medina the Bedouins, under Shereefs Feisal and Ali, were less
successful. The tribesmen in northern Hedjaz, who had rallied round
the Shereefian flag, swept out of the desert mists early on the
same morning in June on which the attack was launched against
Mecca. Occupying all the palm-groves which extend for miles around
the outskirts, they drove the Turkish outposts from the gardens of
the Medina palaces, fabled for their sparkling fountains, apricot,
banana, and pomegranate orchards. The troops of the garrison
withdrew inside the city walls. There they knew they had the
additional protection afforded by the Tomb of Mohammed, the tomb
which causes Medina to be regarded as the second holiest city of
Islam. Although Feisal and Ali could have brought up cannon from
Jeddah and perhaps taken the city by storm after a bombardment,
Hussein refused to permit this for fear of causing the destruction
of the Prophet’s tomb, a catastrophe which would have incurred the
anger of every one of the two hundred and fifty million Mohammedans
in the world.
Medina is the city to which Mohammed made his hegira or flight from
Mecca in July, 622 a. d., to save himself from the daggers of
assassins hired by his religious enemies. All Mohammedans count
time not from the birth of Christ but from the date of that flight.
Mohammed was buried in Medina, and on one side of him rests his
favorite daughter, Fatima, and on the other side the second of the
great Arabian rulers, Calif Omar. But between the graves of Mohammed
and Omar a space was left, so the Moslem’s say, that Christ upon
His second coming and death may be buried by the side of the
Prophet. So Medina, in addition to being a city of considerable
commercial importance, is a great pilgrimage center.
Shortly after the war, the Turks, in order to facilitate the
movement of troops to quell possible uprisings in Arabia, but
ostensibly to make it easier for pilgrims to reach Medina from the
north, built a single-track railway line all the way down from
Damascus. One of the first acts that the attacking Bedouin hordes
committed when they approached Medina was to tear up several miles
of rails with their bare hands, in order to isolate the garrison.
After surrounding the town the Arabs sat down to await its
surrender; but the Turks, encouraged by their inactivity, slipped
out of the gates at dawn, surprised some of the Arabs who were
camping in the suburb of Awali, and set fire to all the houses.
Large numbers of women and children were shot down by machine-guns,
and scores of others were burned alive in their homes. This so
enraged the Bedouins and the thousands of Arab townsmen who came
out of Medina to join Feisal and Ali that they immediately assaulted
the great Turkish fort just outside the walls of the city. But the
Turks opened fire with their heavy artillery and mowed great gaps
in the tightly packed whirling mass of frenzied Arabians. Never
having encountered artillery fire before in their lives, the frenzy
soon turned to panic, and the mob fled to the shelter of a near-by
hill. Seeing this, the Turkish commander sent out a force of picked
men to cut them to pieces. Shereef Feisal saw the plight of his
men and dashed up on his horse, utterly regardless of the bursting
shrapnel and machine-gun fire from the fort which raked the
intervening open ground. The Bedouins whom he had brought up to
help him rescue the broken and panic-stricken forces that had made
the original attack on the fort held back, reluctant to face the
enemy fire that formed such a deadly barrage between them and their
comrades. But Feisal laughed and rode on alone. To give his
followers confidence he even made his horse walk across the open
space. Unwilling to be put to shame by their fearless commander,
the relieving force gave a wild desert cry and charged, the name
of Allah on the lips of every warrior. The two forces then combined
and made a second attempt to storm the fort. Their ammunition was
nearly exhausted. Night, which comes in Arabia with a suddenness
suggestive of an electrician switching off the sun’s light, dropped
down like a black curtain just in time to save them from
annihilation. On the morrow, Feisal and Ali called all the tribal
chieftains to a conference at their pavilion, and it was agreed
that for the present it was futile to continue the attack; so they
retired into the hills fifty miles to the south and camped astride
the pilgrim road to prevent any Turkish forces from attempting to
retake Mecca. The Turks at once repaired the railway line connecting
them with Damascus, drove the thirty thousand civilian Arabs living
in Medina out into the desert, brought down reinforcements from
Syria, and fortified the city to resist all future attacks. After
the war refugees from Medina were found all over the Turkish
Empire, in Jerusalem, Konia, Damascus, Aleppo, and Constantinople.
The Arabs, however, were still in undisputed possession of Mecca;
and with the possible exception of the capture of Jerusalem and,
later on, the combined capture of Damascus, Beyrouth, and Aleppo
by Allenby’s army and the Arabs, the fall of Mecca is sure to rank
in history as one of the greatest disasters ever suffered by the
descendants of Othman. To her control of the holy city of Mecca
Turkey largely owed her leadership of the Mohammedan peoples of
the world.
Then came a long pause. The Arabs were unable to go on with their
revolution because they had expended all their ammunition. Shereef
Hussein again appealed to the Allies, and the British responded.
At that critical moment young Lawrence appeared on the Arabian
stage.