“I shall do well:
The people love me, and the Desert’s mine;
My power’s a crescent, and my auguring hope
Says it will come to the full.”
SHAKESPEARE.
Political and historical—Shepherd role in Arabia—An hereditary policy—The
army—The law—Taxation—The finances of Jebel Shammar—Ibn Rashid’s
ambition.
THE following is the result of our inquiries made while at Haïl into the
political condition and resources of the country. It has no pretension
to rigid accuracy, especially in the figures given, but it will serve to
convey an idea of the kind of government found in Arabia, and of the
capacity for self-rule of the Arab race.
The political constitution of Jebel Shammar is exceedingly curious; not
only is it unlike anything we are accustomed to in Europe, but it is
probably unique, even in Asia. It would seem, in fact, to represent some
ancient form of government indigenous to the country, and to have sprung
naturally from the physical necessities of the land, and the character of
its inhabitants. I look upon Ibn Rashid’s government as in all
likelihood identical with that of the Kings of Arabia, who came to visit
Solomon, and of the Shepherd Kings who, at a still earlier date, held
Egypt and Babylonia; and I have little doubt that it owes its success to
the fact of its being thus in harmony with Arab ideas and Arab tradition.
To understand it rightly, one ought to consider what Arabia is, and what
the Arab character and mode of life. The whole of the peninsula, with
the exception, perhaps, of Yemen, and certain districts of Hadramaut
within the influence of the monsoon winds, is a rainless, waterless
region, in every sense of the word a desert. The soil is a poor one,
mainly of gravel or of sand, and except in a few favoured spots, unsuited
for cultivation; indeed, no cultivation is possible at all in Nejd,
except with the help of irrigation, and, as there is no water above
ground, of irrigation from wells. Even wells are rare. The general
character of the central plateaux, and of the peninsula, is that of vast
uplands of gravel, as nearly destitute of vegetation as any in the world,
and incapable of retaining water, even at a great depth. It is only in
certain depressions of the plain, several hundred feet lower than the
general level, that wells as a rule are found, and wherever these occur
with a sufficient supply of water, towns and villages with gardens round
them, have sprung up. These, however, are often widely apart, showing as
mere spots on the map of Arabia, and unconnected with each other by any
intervening district of agricultural land. Indeed, it is not too much to
say, that Nejd contains no agricultural region, as we understand
agriculture, and that all its production is garden produce. From this
state of things, it happens that there is also no rural class, and that
each town is isolated from its neighbours to a degree impossible with us.
The desert surrounds them like a sea, and they have no point of contact
one with the other in the shape of intervening fields or villages, or
even intervening pastures. They are isolated in the most literal sense,
and from this fact has sprung the political individuality it has always
been their care to maintain. Each city is an independent state.
Meanwhile the desert outside, though untenanted by any settled
population, is roamed over by the Bedouin tribes, who form the bulk of
the Arab race. These occupy for the most part the Nefûds, where alone
pasture in any abundance is found; but they frequent also every part of
the upland districts, and being both more warlike and more numerous than
the townsmen, hold every road leading from town to town, so that it
depends upon their good will and pleasure, to cut off communication for
the citizens entirely from the world.
The towns, as I have said, are for the most part self-supporting; but
their production is limited to garden produce, and the date. They grow
no wheat and rear no stock, so that for bread and meat they are dependent
on without. They require also a market for their industries, the weaving
of cloth, the manufacture of arms and utensils, and it is necessary, at
least in Jebel Shammar, to send yearly caravans to the Euphrates for
corn. Thus security of travelling outside their walls is essential to
the life of every town in Arabia, and on this necessity the whole
political structure of their government is built. The towns put
themselves each under the protection of the principal Bedouin Sheykh of
its district, who, on the consideration of a yearly tribute, guarantees
the citizens’ safety outside the city walls, enabling them to travel
unmolested as far as his jurisdiction extends, and this, in the case of a
powerful tribe, may be many hundred miles, and embrace many cities. The
towns are then said to “belong” to such and such a tribe, and the Bedouin
Sheykh becomes their suzerain, or Lord Protector, until, from their
common vassalage, and the freedom of intercourse it secures them with
each other, the germs of federation spring up, and develop sometimes into
nationality.
This has, I believe, been always the condition of Arabia.
A farther development then ensues. The Bedouin Sheykh, grown rich with
the tribute of a score of towns, builds himself a castle close to one of
them, and lives there during the summer months. Then with the prestige
of his rank (for Bedouin blood is still accounted the purest), and backed
by his power in the desert, he speedily becomes the practical ruler of
the town, and from protector of the citizens becomes their sovereign. He
is now dignified by them with the title of Emir or prince, and though
still their Sheykh to the Bedouins, becomes king of all the towns which
pay him tribute.
This form of government, resting as it does on a natural basis, has
always been reverted to in Arabia, whenever the country has, after an
interval of foreign or domestic tyranny, succeeded in emancipating
itself. Of very early Arabia little is known; neither the Persian nor
the Macedonian nor the Roman Empires embraced it, and it is probable that
Nejd at least existed till the time of Mahomet exclusively under the
system of government I have described. Then for a short time it became
part of the Mussulman Empire, and shared in the centralised or
semi-centralised administration of the Caliphs, which substituted a
theocratic rule for the simpler forms preceding it. But though the
birthplace of Islam, no part of the Arabian Empire was sooner in revolt
than Arabia itself. In the second century of the Mahometan era, nearly
all the peninsula had reverted to its ancient independence, nor, except
temporarily, has Nejd itself ever been since included in the imperial
system of a foreign king or potentate. In the middle of last century,
however, just as Mahomet had asserted his spiritual authority over the
peninsula, the Wahhabi Emir of Aared once more established a centralized
and theocratic government in Arabia. The Bedouin Princes were one after
another dispossessed, and a new Arabian Empire was established. This
included not only the whole of Nejd, but at one time Yemen, Hejaz, and
Hasa, with the northern desert as far north as the latitude of Damascus.
For nearly sixty years the independence of the towns and tribes of the
interior was crushed, and a system of imperial rule substituted for that
of old Arabia. The Ibn Saouds, “Imâms of Nejd,” governed neither more
nor less than had the first Caliphs, and with the same divine
pretensions. But their rule came to an end in 1818, when Nejd was
conquered by the Turks, and the reigning Ibn Saoud made prisoner and
beheaded at Constantinople. Then, on the retirement of the Turks, (for
they were unable long to retain their conquest,) shepherd government
again asserted itself, and the principality of Jebel Shammar was founded.
The Shammar tribe is the most powerful of Northern Nejd, and the towns of
Haïl, Kefar, Bekaa, and the rest, put themselves under the protection of
Abdallah ibn Rashid, who had succeeded in gaining the Shammar Sheykhat
for himself. He seems to have been a man of great ability, and to him is
due the policy of rule which his descendants have ever since pursued. He
took up his residence in Haïl, and built the castle there, and caused
himself to be recognized as Emir, first in vassalage to the Ibn Saouds,
who had reappeared in Aared, but later on his own account. His policy
seems to have been first to conciliate or subdue the other Bedouin tribes
of Nejd, forcing them to become tributary to his own tribe, the Shammar,
and secondly to establish his protectorate over all the northern towns.
This was a simple plan enough, and one which any Bedouin Sheykh might
have devised; but Abdallah’s merit consists in the method of its
application. He saw that in order to gain his object, he must appeal to
national ideas and national prejudices. The tribute which he extracted
from the towns, he spent liberally in the desert, exercising boundless
hospitality to every sheykh who might chance to visit him. To all he
gave presents, and dazzled them with his magnificence, sending them back
to the tribes impressed with his wealth and power. Thus he made numerous
friends, with whose aid he was able to coerce the rest, his enemies or
rivals. In treating with these he seems always to have tried
conciliation first, and, if forced to arms, to have been satisfied with a
single victory, making friends at once with the vanquished, and even
restoring to them their property, an act of generosity which met full
appreciation in the desert. By this means his power and reputation
increased rapidly, as did that of his brother and right-hand man Obeyd,
who is now a legendary hero in Nejd.
Another matter to which the founder of the Ibn Rashid dynasty paid much
attention was finance. Though spending large sums yearly on presents and
entertainments, he took care that these should not exceed his revenue,
and at his death he left, according to common report, a house full of
silver pieces to his son. Nor have any of his successors been otherwise
than thrifty. It is impossible of course to guess the precise amount of
treasure thus saved, but that it represents a fabulous fortune in Arabia
is certain; the possession of this, with the prestige which in a poor
country wealth gives, is an immense source of power.
Lastly Abdallah, and all the Ibn Rashid family, have been endowed with a
large share of caution. No important enterprise has been embarked on in
a hurry; and certainly at the present day affairs of state are discussed
in family council, before any action is taken. It seems to have been
always a rule with the Ibn Rashids to think twice, thrice, or a dozen
times before acting, for even Mohammed’s violent deeds towards his
nephews were premeditated, and thought over for many months beforehand.
In their conduct with the Ibn Saouds and the Turkish Sultans, they have
always waited their opportunity, and avoided an open rupture. It is very
remarkable that so many members of this family should be superior men,
for it is difficult to say who has been the ablest man of them, Abdallah,
Obeyd, Tellál, Mohammed, or his cousin Hamúd. Nor is the rising
generation less promising.
Having united into a sort of confederation all the Bedouin tribes of
Northern Nejd, Abdallah became naturally supreme over the towns; but he
was not satisfied merely with power, he aimed at making his rule popular.
It is much to his credit, and to that of his successors, that none of
them seem to have abused their position. Liberality and conciliation,
combined with an occasional display of power, have been no less their
policy with the townsmen than with the Bedouins, and they have thus
placed their rule on its only secure basis, popularity. In early days
the Ibn Rashids had to fight for their position at Haïl, and later in Jôf
and at Meskakeh. But their rule is now acknowledged freely everywhere,
enthusiastically in Jebel Shammar. It strikes a traveller fresh from
Turkey as surpassingly strange to hear the comments passed by the
townspeople of Haïl on their government, for it is impossible to converse
ten minutes with any one of them without being assured that the
government of the Emir is the best government in the world. “El hamdu
lillah, ours is a fortunate country. It is not with us as with the Turks
and Persians, whose government is no government. Here we are happy and
prosperous. El hamdu lillah.” I have often been amused at this
chauvinism.
In the town of Haïl the Emir lives in state, having a body-guard of 800
or 1000 men dressed in a kind of uniform, that is to say, in brown cloaks
and red or blue kefiyehs, and armed with silver-hilted swords. These are
recruited from among the young men of the towns and villages by voluntary
enlistment, those who wish to serve inscribing their names at the castle,
and being called out as occasion requires. Their duties are light, and
they live most of them with their families, receiving neither pay nor
rations, except when employed away from home on garrison duty in outlying
forts and at Jôf. Their expense, therefore, to the Emir is little more
than that of their clothes and arms. To them is entrusted any police
work that may be necessary in the towns, but it is very seldom that the
authority of the Emir requires other support than that of public opinion.
The Arabs of Nejd are a singularly temperate race, and hardly ever
indulge in brawling or breaches of the peace. If disputes arise between
citizens they are almost always settled on the spot by the interference
of neighbours; and the rowdyism and violence of European towns are
unknown at Haïl. Where, however, quarrels are not to be settled by the
intervention of friends, the disputants bring their cases to the Emir,
who settles them in open court, the _mejlis_, and whose word is final.
The law of the Koran, though often referred to, is not, I fancy, the main
rule of the Emir’s decision, but rather Arabian custom, an authority far
older than the Mussulman code. I doubt if it is often necessary for the
soldiers to support such decisions by force. Thieving, I have been
repeatedly assured, is almost unknown at Haïl; but robbers or thieves
taken redhanded, lose for the first offence a hand, for the second their
head.
In the desert, and everywhere outside the precincts of the town, order is
kept by the Bedouins, with whom the Emir lives a portion of each year.
He is then neither more nor less himself than a Bedouin, throws off his
shoes and town finery, arms himself with a lance, and leads a wandering
life in the Nefûd. He commonly does this at the commencement of spring,
and spring is the season of his wars. Then with the extreme heat of
summer he returns to Haïl. The tribute paid by each town and village to
the Emir is assessed according to its wealth in date palms, and the sheep
kept by its citizens with the Bedouins. Four khrush for each tree is, I
believe, the amount, trees under seven years old being exempt. At Haïl
this is levied by the Emir’s officers, but elsewhere by the local
sheykhs, who are responsible for its due collection. At Jôf and
Meskakeh, which are still in the position of territory newly annexed, Ibn
Rashid is represented by a vakil, or lieutenant, who levies the tax in
coin, Turkish money being the recognised medium of exchange everywhere.
Without pretending to anything at all like accuracy we made a calculation
that the Emir’s revenue from all sources of tribute and tax may amount to
£60,000 yearly, and that the annual passage of the pilgrimage through his
dominions may bring £20,000 to £30,000 more to his exchequer.
With regard to his expenditure, it is perhaps easier to calculate. He
pays a small sum yearly in tribute to the Sherif of Medina, partly as a
religious offering, partly to insure immunity for his outlying
possessions, Kheybar, Kâf and the rest, from Turkish aggression. I
should guess this tribute to be £3,000 to £5,000, but could not ascertain
the amount. The Emir’s expenditure on his army can hardly be more, and
with his civil list and every expense of Government, should be included
within £10,000. On his household he may spend £5,000, and on his stable
£1,000. By far the largest item in his budget must be described as
entertainment. Mohammed ibn Rashid, in imitation of his predecessors,
feeds daily two to three hundred guests at the palace; the poor are there
clothed, and presents of camels and clothes made to richer strangers from
a distance. The meal consists of rice and camel meat, sometimes mutton,
and there is besides a constant “coulage” in dates and coffee, which I
cannot estimate at less than £50 a day, say £20,000 yearly, or with
presents, £25,000. Thus we have our budget made up to about £45,000
expenditure, as against £80,000 to £90,000 revenue—which leaves a
handsome margin for wars and other accidents, and for that amassing of
treasure which is traditional with the Ibn Rashids. I must say, however,
once more, that I am merely guessing my figures, and nobody, perhaps, in
Jebel Shammar, except the Emir himself and Hamúd, could do more.
It will be seen from all this that Jebel Shammar is, financially, in a
very flourishing state. The curse of money-lending has not yet invaded
it, and neither prince nor people are able to spend sixpence more than
they have got. No public works, requiring public expenditure and public
loans, have yet been undertaken, and it is difficult to imagine in what
they would consist. The digging of new wells is indeed the only duty a
“company” could find to execute, for roads are unnecessary in a country
all like a macadamised highway; there are no rivers to make canals with,
or suburban populations to supply with tramways. One might predict with
confidence, that the secret of steam locomotion will have been forgotten
before ever a railway reaches Jebel Shammar.
With regard to the form of government, it is good mainly because it is
effective. It is no doubt discordant to European ideas of political
propriety, that the supreme power in a country should be vested in
Bedouin hands. But in Arabia they are the only hands that can wield it.
The town cannot coerce the desert; therefore, if they are to live at
peace, the desert must coerce the town. The Turks, with all their
machinery of administration, and their power of wealth and military
force, have never been able to secure life and property to travellers in
the desert, and in Arabia have been powerless to hold more than the
towns. Even the pilgrim road from Damascus, though nominally in their
keeping, can only be traversed by them with an army, and at considerable
risk. Ibn Rashid, on the other hand, by the mere effect of his will,
keeps all the desert in an absolute peace. In the whole district of
Jebel Shammar, embracing, as it does, some of the wildest deserts,
inhabited by some of the wildest people in the world, a traveller may go
unarmed and unescorted, without more let or hindrance than if he were
following a highway in England. On every road of Jebel Shammar, townsmen
may be found jogging on donkey-back, alone, or on foot, carrying neither
gun nor lance, and with all their wealth about them. If you ask about
the dangers of the road, they will return the question, “Are we not here
in Ibn Rashid’s country?” No system, however perfect, of patrols and
forts and escorts, could produce a result like this.
In the town, on the other hand, the Bedouin prince, despotic though he
may be, is still under close restraint from public opinion. The citizens
of Jebel Shammar have not what we should call constitutional rights;
there is no machinery among them for the assertion of their power; but
there is probably no community in the old world, where popular feeling
exercises a more powerful influence on government than it does at Haïl.
The Emir, irresponsible as he is in individual acts, knows well that he
cannot transgress the traditional unwritten law of Arabia with impunity.
An unpopular sheykh would cease, _ipso facto_, to be sheykh, for, though
dethroned by no public ceremony, and subjected to no personal
ill-treatment, he would find himself abandoned in favour of a more
acceptable member of his family. The citizen soldiers would not support
a recognised tyrant in the town, nor would the Bedouins outside. Princes
in Arabia have, therefore, to consider public opinion before all else.
The flaw in the system, for in every system there will be found one, lies
in the uncertainty of succession to the Sheykhat or Bedouin throne. On
the death of an Emir, if he have no son of full age and acknowledged
capacity to take up the reins of government, rival claimants, brothers,
uncles, or cousins of the dead man, dispute his succession in arms, and
many and bitter have been the wars in consequence. Such, quite lately,
was the quarrel which convulsed Aared on the death of Feysul ibn Saoud,
and led to the disintegration of the Wahhabi monarchy, and such, one
cannot help fearing, may be the fate of Jebel Shammar, on Mohammed’s. He
has no children, and the sons of Tellál, the next heirs to the throne,
have a formidable rival in Hamúd. The Emir, however, is a young man,
forty-five, and may live long; and if he should do so, seems to have the
succession of the Wahhabi monarchy in his hands. He has effected, he and
his predecessors, the union of all the Bedouin sheykhs, from Meshhed Ali
to Medina, under his leadership, and is in close connection with those of
Kasim and Aared. His authority is established as far north as Kâf, and
he has his eye already on the towns still further north, if ever they
should shake off the Turkish bondage. I look forward to the day when the
Roala too, and the Welled Ali, shall have entered into his alliance,
possibly even the Sebaa and Ibn Haddal; and though it is neither likely
nor desirable that the old Wahhabi Empire should be re-established on its
centralised basis, a confederation of the tribes of the north may
continue its best traditions. Hauran and the Leja, and the Euphrates
towns, were once tributary to the Ibn Saouds, and may be again one day to
the Ibn Rashids. This is looking far afield, but not farther than
Mohammed himself looks. {272}
[Picture: Our house at Haïl]
* * * * *
END OF VOL. I.
NOTES.
{xiii} Such at least is the family tradition of the Ibn Arûks. Niebuhr
writing in 1765 gives Arär as the name of the Beni Khaled Sheykhs.
{3} A truce only, I fear.
{11} One of the noblest of the Roala families.
{18} Midhat’s reign at Damascus lasted for twenty months, and is
remarkable only for the intrigues in which it was spent. It began with
an _action d’éclat_, the subjugation of the independent Druses of the
Hauran, a prosperous and unoffending community whom Midhat with the help
of the Welled Ali reduced to ruin. The rest of his time and resources
were spent in an attempt to gain for himself the rank and title of
khedive, a scheme which ended in his recall. Of improvements, material
or administrative, nothing at all has been heard, but it is worth
recording that a series of fires during his term of office burnt down
great part of the bazaars at Damascus, causing much loss of property, and
that their place has been taken by a boulevard. Midhat has been now
removed to Smyrna, where it is amusing to read the following account of
him:—
MIDHAT PASHA—September 28:—‘A private correspondent of the _Journal de
Genève_, writing ten days ago from Smyrna, says that Midhat Pasha, being
convinced that he possessed the sympathy of the inhabitants and could
count on their active co-operation, conceived a short time since vast
schemes of improvement and reform for the benefit of the province which
he has been called upon to administer. The first works he proposed to
take in hand were the drainage of the great marshes of Halka-Bournar (the
Baths of Diana of the ancients), the cleansing of the sewers of Smyrna,
and the removal of the filth which cumbers the streets, pollutes the air,
and, as an eminent physician has told him, impairs the health of the city
and threatens at no distant date to breed a pestilence. He next
proposed, at the instance of a clever engineer Effendi, to repress the
ravages of the river Hermus, which in winter overflows its banks and does
immense damage in the plain of Menemen. Orders were given for the
execution of engineering works on a great scale which, it was thought,
would correct this evil and restore to agriculture a vast extent of
fertile, albeit at present unproductive, land. Administrative reform was
to be also seriously undertaken. The police were to be re-organized, and
order and honesty enforced in the courts of justice. The scandal of
gendarmes being constrained, owing to the insufficiency of their pay, to
enter into an alliance, offensive and defensive, with all the thieves and
cut-throats of the city—the disgrace of judges receiving bribes from
rogues and other evil-doers—were to be promptly put down. It was ordered
that every caïmacan, mudir, chief of police, and president of tribunal,
guilty either of malfeasance or robbery, should be arrested and
imprisoned. The municipalities were to cease being the mere mouthpieces
of the valis, and consider solely the interests of their constituencies.
The accounts of functionaries who, with nominal salaries of 800 francs a
year, spend 10,000, were to be strictly investigated and their
malversations severely punished; and many other measures, equally
praiseworthy and desirable, were either projected or begun. But energy
and goodwill in a reformer—whether he be a Midhat or a Hamid—are,
unfortunately, not alone sufficient to accomplish reforms. To drain
marshes, embank rivers, cleanse sewers, remove filth, pay magistrates and
policemen, procure honest collectors of revenue, much money is necessary.
How was it to be obtained? Not from the revenues of the port or the
province; these are sent regularly, to the last centime, to
Constantinople, for the needs of the Government are urgent and admit of
no delay. Midhat Pasha, not knowing which way to turn, called a
_medjeless_ (council), but the members were able neither to suggest a
solution of the difficulty nor to find any money. In this emergency it
occurred to the Governor that there existed at Smyrna a branch of the
Ottoman Bank, at the door of which are always stationed two superb nizams
in gorgeous uniforms, who give it the appearance of a Government
establishment. Why should not the bank provide the needful? The idea
commended itself to the Pasha, and the manager was requested to call
forthwith at the Konak on urgent public business. When he arrived there
Midhat unfolded to him his plans of reform, and proved, with the
eloquence of a new convert, that the public works he had in view could
not fail to be an unspeakable benefit to the province and restore its
waning prosperity. Never, he assured the wondering manager, could the
bank have a finer opportunity of making a splendid investment than this
of lending the Government a few million francs, to be strictly devoted to
the purposes he had explained. The projected schemes, moreover, were to
be so immediately profitable that the bank might reckon with the most
implicit confidence on receiving back, in the course of a few years, both
interest and principal. Unfortunately, however, all these arguments were
lost on M. Heintze, the manager; and he had to explain to the Pasha that,
although he, personally, would have been delighted to advance him the
millions he required, his instructions allowed him no discretion. He was
there to do ordinary banking business, and collect certain revenues which
had been assigned to the bank by way of security; but he had been
strictly enjoined to make no loans whatever, however promising and
profitable they might appear. And this was the end of Midhat Pasha’s
great schemes of public improvement and administrative reform. In these
circumstances it would be the height of injustice to accuse him of not
having kept the promises which he made on entering office; for nobody,
not even a Turkish Governor-General, can be expected to achieve
impossibilities.
{26} Daughter of Faria-el-Meziad, Sheykh of the Mesenneh.
{41} Sakhr, a stone—the real origin of their name.
{51} This is a mistake, as the battle was fought on the banks of the
Orontes.
{56} The Hauran was among the first districts conquered by the Caliph
Omar. It shared for some centuries the prosperity of the Arabian Empire,
but suffered severely during the Crusades. There is no reason, however,
to doubt that it continued to be well inhabited until the conquest of
Tamerlane in 1400, when all the lands on the desert frontier were
depopulated.
{84} The _Ithel_, a tree grown in every village of Central Arabia, but
not, as far as I know, found there wild.
{85} A kind of tamarisk.
{89} We were told that this inscription related to hidden treasure, a
common fancy among the Arabs who cannot read.
{110} Jebel el Tawîl.
{162} A diagram, showing what a section of the Nefûd would be like, is
given in the geographical notes, Vol. ii., page 248.
{174} These were no doubt the Egyptians of Ibrahim Pasha’s army, left
behind at Aneyzeh.
{203a} Query.—May not these be the spiral markings noticed by Mr.
Palgrave, and attributed by him to the wind, in his description of a
certain maelstrom in the Nefûd?
{210} More probably a fanner.
{218} The danger to Mohammed is a personal one on account of the blood
he has shed, not an official one, for, as Emir, he is adored by his
subjects.
{221} The Nawab was in fact detained a prisoner at Haïl for about two
months. But this we did not at the time know; nor was any allusion made
by Ibn Rashid to the circumstance.
{223} To travel with a hawk is a sign of nobility.
{224} Oryx boatrix.
{233} I heard nothing of the fate of Obeyd’s widow, and could not
inquire.
{251} The Ibn Alis were formerly Sheykhs of the Shammar, but were
displaced by the Ibn Rashids fifty years ago.
{272} That Mohammed ibn Rashid does not limit his ambition to Nejd has
been very recently proved. In the month of April last, 1880, he marched
with an army of 5000 men from Haïl, passed up the Wady Sirhán, surprised
Mohammed Dukhi ibn Smeyr in the Harra and sacked his camp, and then went
on to the Hauran. The citizens of Damascus were not a little startled at
learning one morning that the Emir was at Bozra not 60 miles from the
capital of Syria, and there was much speculation as to his object in
coming so far northwards, no army from Nejd having been seen in the
Paahalik since the days of the Wahhabi Empire. Then it was whispered
that he had made friends with Ibn Smeyr, that the quarrel between them
had been a mistake, and that a Sherari guide, held responsible for the
blunder, had been beheaded; lastly, that an enormous feast of
reconciliation had been given by Ibn Rashid to the Northern tribes, at
which 75 camels and 600 sheep had been slaughtered, and that after a stay
of some weeks at Melakh the Emir had returned to Nejd.
Without pretending to know precisely what was in Mohammed’s mind in
making this ghazú, or all that really happened, it seems to me not
difficult to guess its main object. Ibn Smeyr’s success over Ibn
Shaalan, already alluded to, had placed him in a leading position with
the tribes of the North; and his raid against the Druses of the Hauran, a
district once tributary to the Emirs of Nejd, pointed him out for
Mohammed’s resentment. It is part of the Ibn Rashid policy to strike a
blow and then make peace; and by thus humbling their most successful
chief, and becoming afterwards his host, Mohammed achieved exactly that
sort of reputation he most valued with the Northern tribes. He has
asserted himself as supreme, where he chooses to be so, in the desert,
and has moreover reminded the frontier population in Syria of the old
Wahhabi pretensions to Eastern Syria. It is conceivable that having
coerced or persuaded the Ánazeh to join his league, he may, in the coming
break-up of the Ottoman Empire, succeed to that part of its inheritance,
and be recognised as sovereign in all the lands beyond Jordan.