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By A. I. Makki
The BackgroundBy the later part of the 19th century, there was considerable interest among the Europeans about the land of Arabia and the Arabs. The plight of Prophet Ibrahim’s wife Hajira and her son Ismael in the wilderness of the desert of Makkah had moved them to pity and had excited their sympathy. They had read “Arabian Nights” and the wonderful stories of the life and times of Caliph Harun al-Rashid and the wonders of Baghdad under his rule. They had followed Sindabad the Sailor on his adventures in the mysterious island of Serendeeb and the Eastern seas and his other adventures in the seas had captured the imagination of the people of those times.
In bits and pieces, the Europeans learnt that they owed the present day knowledge of Modern Arithmetic to Arabic numerals and the Arabs. They learnt Algebra (al-gebr) was developed and gifted by the Arabs to the Western world without which much of the progress made in modern science and the everyday business would have been impossible. The Arabs who were pioneers of Oriental commerce had acquainted the people of Western Asia and Europe with the products of India and the Far East. Arab navigators and merchants had traveled in their commercial carriers between the ports of Arabia and the shores of the Mediterranean carrying with them precious cargo on their ships and stories of the unexplored lands of the East.
Gradually, it came to be known in the Western world that the descendants of Ismael had inherited from Prophet Ibrahim (Abraham) their belief in One God. They had, after Ismael, lapsed into idolatry of another branch of the Arab family who inhabited the southern part of the Arabian Peninsula. According to the Arabs, the people of southern Arabia were not Ismaelities but descendants of Qahtan - the Joktan of the Hebrews - and at the commencement of the Christian era; all the Arabs of the peninsula were worshipping idols. At some point of time during the first century of the Christian era, some of the tribes had embraced the Christian faith and retained it until the arrival of Prophet Muhammad on the scene. In the later part of the Prophet’s life, the entire land of Arabia followed the religion of Islam preached by him and became Muslims.
Prophet Muhammad had lived long enough to bring the entire Arabian Peninsula under the sway of Islam. The rightly guided Caliphs, who came after him, extended their rules beyond the land of Arabia. They had won absolute victories over the Persian and the Roman armies and had subdued the lands of Syria, Egypt, and Persia. The Religion of Islam soon took root among the inhabitants of conquered lands and flourished. It brought with a set of laws framed by the Holy Qur’an and with it a social revolution that scrapped all preexisting civil and criminal laws and heralded for them a dawn of a new way of life.
After consolidating their rule over their territories, the Muslim Caliphs turned their courts and cities into centers of civilization and their benevolence attracted the learned from other countries to seek employment in cities of the Islamic empire. The philosophy of ancient Greece was taught on the banks of the River Tigris at a time when it was still unknown in Western Europe; and under the liberal patronage of the Caliphs the works of Plato, Aristotle, Galen, and Hippocrates along with other Greek authors were translated into Arabic with commentaries.
The governors appointed by the Caliphs to administer different territories under their rule were men of cultivated minds and polished manners. They maintained the state and were as generous as their caliphs in appointing Arabs of all grade in their service who would further the cause of knowledge and learning. As a result, almost the entire Arab population partook in the cultivation, and refinement of the Arab civilization, and the wealth that the service imparted and shared the dignity of the dominant race in the world at that time.
Meanwhile, the Religion of Islam had spread far beyond the limits of Arab rule in Asia. The Turkish tribes had accepted the new faith and carried it into the confines of China, Afghanistan, and to northern India. From Egypt, the Arabs pushed their conquest into Africa to the shores of Atlantic. They crossed into Spain and subdued and colonized the richest portions in the country. From there, they made inroads into the heartland of France and were held back with greatest difficulty by the forces of Charles Martel. Sicily became an Arab possession and Malta was permanently occupied.
The Arabs had also maintained commercial links with islands of the Eastern seas and had maintained agencies in them even before the arrival of Islam. Subsequent migrations, traders and missionaries carried the religion of Islam to remote areas of the principal islands and found ready converts among its people. As a result, the written character of the Malay race contains a large proportion of Arabic and its people accepted the religion of Islam as their way of life. On the other hand, the Arabs settled along the east coast of Africa to the Mozambique Channel also followed the religion of Islam and influenced others in the region to their faith.
Nevertheless, the political and the military power of the Arabs soon decayed and ultimately collapsed. From Central Asia came the merciless Mongolian hordes in the 13th century and wrested from the Caliphs a greater part of their dominions and greatly reduced their empire. The succeeding centuries pressed the Arabs back almost within the limits of the Arabian Peninsula. After having exercised power and a rule of several centuries, enjoying the luxuries of splendid courts and great cities, living in the great centers of Arab civilization and refinement of culture, the Arabs were forced to retire to their desert homes and tents - his dates and his camels - rearing horses and sheep - to resume his pristine life and occupations of the desert dwellers.
Geographically, the term Arabia was not applied exclusively to the Arabian Peninsula, of which three sides are bounded by the Red Sea, the Indian Ocean and the Arabian Gulf and its cape cut across from its narrowest part by a line of eight hundred miles drawn from Yanbu on the Red Sea to Kuwait, which lies in the northwest angle of the Arabian Gulf. But those limits would exclude a large portion of the historical Arabia, which extends beyond the Peninsula and its isthmus, of which the limits are not accurately defined.
Beginning from the northeastern shore of the Red Sea the Arabian Peninsula consists of low lands along its coast of varying breadth called Tihama. Behind the lowlands is a mountain range of a considerable altitude, consisting in some parts of Oman and Yemen of successive groups of mountains that extend deep into the interior. Among its provinces is Hejaz, in which are the cities of Makkah, Madinah and Jeddah-Yanbu and Taif along with other town and villages. Further south is Yemen with cites of Sanaa and Mokha besides other villages along its coast and in its interior. The principality of Oman extends from the Hadramaut region and has its capital in Muscat. On the southern and western shores of the Arabian Gulf beyond the limits of Oman are the kingdoms of Bahrain and Kuwait completing the circuit of the Arabian Peninsula from one end to another.
However, the people of Europe had little information about Arabia was and much of it was shrouded in mystery and was based on hearsay accounts until the beginning of the nineteenth century. From eighteenth century onwards, men of intellect, scientists, adventurers, and explorers visited different parts of Arabia with the intention of unraveling the mysteries of the land and its people. Earliest in date was Castern Niebuhr who contributed a great deal of information on Arabia and the Arabs to the outside world. He gave an accurate account of Yemen, the Arabian land of the ancients. Bruckhardt who came after him left a good description of the Land of Hejaz and its cities, as no other European adventurer had been able to give. His description was such that it left no room for other travelers who followed him to Hejaz to add anything new to it.
During his travels in Oman, Wellsted enjoyed advantages as no other traveler before him had done. He traveled under the protection of the sovereign of Muscat. He kept a scrupulous account of his journey and left behind an accurate account of the topography and conditions of Oman. Najd was the only province of Central Arabia left for the other travelers to be fully explored. It was known to be populous and productive. Bruckhardt in a note added to his published travels had directed special attention at Najd. At that time, Toussoun Pasha at the head of the Egyptian Army in 1814 had penetrated deep into Qasim, one of the districts of Najd. Bruckhardt had laid down with considerable accuracy the stages and distances from Madinah the principal towns of the province of Najd.
In the year 1816-18, the Egyptian army accompanied by European officers of intelligence had overrun Najd and had destroyed its capital Dirayah and occupied the country up to the shores of the Arabian Gulf. Najd ceased to be an unexplored territory. In 1819, Captain Sadlier of the British Army was sent on a mission to Ibrahim Pasha to prevent any misunderstanding about the expedition that had sent from India against the sea-pirates that infested the waters of the Arabian Gulf. Landing at Qatif, he crossed the Arabian Peninsula and traveled to Yanbu and in the process became the first European who had succeeded in making his way across the country from sea to sea. He passed Najd through Dirayah, Shaqra, Unayzah, ar-Rass and Hinaykiah. He traversed the same provinces traveled later by Palgrave (from west to east) with the exception of the province al-Jouf and Jabal Shammar. The value of information obtained by Captain Sadlier was greatly appreciated in France and elsewhere.
Later in 1823, M. Mengin published his elaborate work of the “History of Egypt under Muhammad Ali,” of which Palgrave, from his residence in Egypt and his fondness for all literature connected to Egypt might have expected to know something. His work, which was judged later as accurate and honestly prepared, was a detailed account of the European officers who had accompanied the Egyptian army into Najd. Apart from a detailed narrative of the operations, he gives curious and interesting information about the county of Arabia and its inhabitants. Other details of the country, its towns, inhabitants and its population are also included in his book. He also writes about the laws and the customs of Najd; of its production, animal and vegetable; of its trade; of its agriculture and the manner of conducting it. He also makes a mention about taxes levied on the people of Najd by its rulers, and the history of Najd. The book also carries maps, which illustrates the topography of Najd with considerable care and accuracy.
Dr. Wallin a native of Finland traveled in Northern Arabia in 1845-48 and visited both Jouf and Jabal Shammar. The notes of his journey, with a sketch map showing the principal towns and villages of Najd first appeared in 1851 in the “Transactions of the Royal Geographical Society, volume 20. During his journey, he encountered the Bani Shammar, as far as the west of Tihama, which belonged to them, and writes about the various tribes that populated the Great Nafud Desert and their hold over eastern Iraq. He writes, “The Bani Shammar were under the authority of al-Rashid, the chief Sheikh of all the Shammar in Najd.”
Layard in his book “Nineveh and Babylon,” gives an account of Jabal Shammar, which contains the substance of all that has been narrated by Palgrave in his book. He writes, “Of late…Ibn Rashid…chief of…Jabal Shammar, has by his courage and abilities acquired the whole of that district…. Pilgrims under his protection could…again venture to take the shortest road to Makkah…The chief punctually fulfilled his engagements and the caravan I have described was the first that had crosses the desert for many years without accident or molestation…. Ibn Rashid was described to me as a powerful and…an enlightened chief, who had restored security to the country, and who desired to encourage trade and the passage of caravans through his territory.”
Such were the accounts of Najd that were laid before the European public before 1860. Before Palgrave’s visit to Arabia, Najd had been explored thoroughly and extensive and minute information about the people and the country existed in the records of Europeans. But, Palgrave represents the country in his book as unexplored before he penetrated into it. According to him it was a blank in the map of Asia, an unknown virgin soil.
THE JOURNEY At the outset of his journey in 1862, Palgrave details to his readers the reasons for his journey into Arabia. He writes, “Once for all let us attempt to acquire a fairly correct and comprehensive knowledge of the Arabia Peninsula. With its coasts…we are already acquainted; several of its maritime provinces have been…sufficiently explored; Yemen, Hejaz, Makkah and Madinah are no longer mysteries to us nor are we wholly about information on the districts of Hadramaut and Oman. But of the interior of the vast region, of its plains and mountains, its tribes and cities, of its governments and institutions, of its inhabitants, their ways and customs, of their social condition(s)…. It is time to fill up this blank in the map of Asia, and this, at whatever risks, we will now endeavor; either the land before us shall be our tomb, or we shall travel it at its fullest breadth, and know what it contains from shore to shore.”
“The men of the land,” he tells us, “rather the land of the men, were my main object of research and principal study. My attention was directed to the moral, intellectual, and political conditions of living Arabia rather than to the physical phenomena of the country-of great indeed, but to me of inferior interest….”
Palgrave was commissioned to start his journey by the Order of Jesuits for which the Emperor of France supplied the necessary funds. He tells us of his noble intentions at the start of his journey of the “hope of doing something towards the permanent social good of those wide regions; the desire of bringing the…Eastern life into contact with the quickening stream of European progress; perhaps a curiosity to know the yet unknown, and the restlessness of enterprise not rare in Englishmen.”
He prepared himself for the journey by first studying the Arabic language until it became to him almost like a mother tongue. After a careful study of the best Arabic authorities on the history along with the ways and manners of the Semitic nations-with mote than ordinary capacity, presence of mind and address-and imbibing many of the prejudices and views of the other Europeans and his associates he sets out on his journey. Like many of the other Europeans who traveled before him to Arabia, he failed to understand or appreciate any other mode of life other than that of cities and towns visited by him.
He speaks about the Bedouins of Arabia in his book with detestation and his long digressions into theological subjects often present an unpleasant reading to the readers. Nevertheless, the account of his journey in Arabia is a pleasant and entertaining book of travel. There is no doubt that the broad outlines of the scenes he depicts are from personal observation and generally faithful. Having resolved to go to Najd, Palgrave selected a direct route from Gaza, which was difficult to travel and less frequented. Crossing the caravan road from Damascus to Madinah at Ma’an, he remains there for some days to collect camels and guides for his onward journey. From there, he strikes into the desert, on the route to al-Jouf. Traveling in disguise as a Syrian physician, he had taken care to supply himself with the requisite drugs and Arabic Medical books.
Fearing that his services as a physician would not be very much in demand, Palgrave also carried a ready stock of other merchandise of those articles for which he hoped to find a ready sale. On this he remarks, “Could we have foreseen the real nature of the countries before us, we might have dispensed a good part of our mercantile provisions, designed mainly for Bedouin purchasers and augmented on the other hand our medical supplies, more adapted to townsmen and villagers. But supposing like most people that Arabia was almost exclusively a territory of nomads and that the fixed population of the towns and cities was relatively small and unimportant, we considered the former class of articles at least as available as the latter; a grievous mistake for which we became soon aware.”
Palgrave soon learnt on the first stage of his journey, and through the rest of his way traveling across inner provinces of Najd that the needs of the Bedouins were small and they cared little for the things he carried but more for his services as a physician, whereas, trading was done by the people of the city of the towns and villages. But, Palgrave would learn about that later in his travels in Arabia. After traveling for several days, in the course of which the travelers narrowly escaped destruction by the simoom, the poison breath of the desert, they arrived at the district of Wadi Sirhan in which they found water and encampment of the Sherarat Arabs. The travelers were hospitably received a sheep was killed to welcome their guests.
At length they approached Jouf. It was an isolated valley, which was about seventy miles long and twelve broad with an estimated population of over 30,000 people, and was well watered and a productive land. There were palm grove and clustering fruit tree patches found in dark-green patches on the way to the city and flat-house tops half buried under the garden foliage as they approached it from the west. It offered a lovely scene to the weary travelers who were weary after traveling through the long march across the desert from Gaza in Palestine up to the first entrance on inhabited Arabia. There was a brown mass of irregular masonry crowning a central hill beyond a tall solitary tower that overlooked the opposite side of the hill.
Filled with renewed vigor and enthusiasm by the view before them, the travelers pushed their tired beasts forward and were descending the craggy slope of the first valley, when two horsemen fully dressed and armed in the fashion of the Arabs of those parts came up towards them from the town and saluted them with a loud and hearty “Marhaba” or “welcome” and without any introduction they asked the travelers to “alight and eat,” and descending briskly from their light-limbed horses and untying a large leather bag filled with excellent dates and a water-skin, filled with sweet water from a running spring they spread out these refreshments on a flat rock adding “We were sure that you must be hungry and thirsty, and so we have come ready and provided,” and after inviting them once more to sit down and begin.
The travelers were indeed hungry and thirsty. The dates that had been laid out before them were those of Jouf, the choicest of their kind that were grown in northern Arabia. The water that was freshly drawn felt cool and refreshing on their tongues compared to what they had drunk from the wells along the way. Without much delay they set down to enjoy the feast that was laid presently before them, leaving the future with all its cares to providence and the course of events. As they sat there eating, Palgrave took the occasion to study minutely the outward appearances of his benefactors.
The eldest among the Arabs was apparently a man of about forty years in age, tall, dark-complexioned, with well-proportioned facial features and body. He had an intelligent face and handsomely dressed for an Arab, wearing a red cloth vest with large hanging sleeves, over his long white shirt, and with a silver-hilted sword hanging by his side. Everything about the Arab indicated that he was a person with some wealth and importance. He was Ghafil al-Haboob, the chief of the most important family of Bait al-Haboob who had been once the rulers of the town. But now, like the rest of their countrymen, subjects of Prince Talal of Jabal Shammar, and ruled by his governor Hamud.
His companion Dafee, by name, was younger in years and of slender build. He was richly dressed and carried like Ghafil, the silver-hilted sword common in Arabia to all men of good birth and circumstances. His family name was Haboob, and his features spoke of a man of a milder and open character. He was one of the many cousins of Ghafil.
The travelers became the guests of Ghafil-not without some protests from Dafee, who wanted to have the honor of entertaining them. But finding the residence of the chief of the Haboob inadequate to practice medicine and gathering information about the Arabs, Palgrave insisted on moving to other quarters in the town along with the men in his company.
After a time, they visited Governor Hamud, and there they encountered the more polished inhabitants of Jabal Shammar. They were, in fact, members of the Privy Council of Talal ibn Rasheed the ruler of the country, who had annexed Jouf to his possessions. With much ease the travelers were drawn into conversation. The Arabs showed great interest in their welfare and united in encouraging them to travel to Hail, where they assured them of an excellent welcome from Prince Talal.
Thus encouraged, Palgrave camped for eighteen days in al-Jouf, where they were hospitably treated. He had an opportunity to practice medicine with much success. Later they set out on the route to Hail, the capital of Price Talal, who governed the region on behalf of King Faysal of Arabia and appeared to exercise an independent authority over his subjects. He was famous among the Arabs of the region as a remarkable man in his country and generation: prudent, but full of courage, farseeing in his policy, and formidable in war.
Prince Talal was the chief of the numerous and powerful al-Shammar tribe. Besides those settled in towns and villages, a large part of the tribe were Bedouins who were always on the move between Jabal Shammar and the River Euphrates, while another division pitched its tents on the eastern bank of the River Tigris.
At the city of Hail the travelers remained for some time, objects of suspicion to some, and of curiosity to all, but on the whole treated with courtesy and hospitality. In order to arrive at the city Palgrave had to pass over a portion of the Great Nafud Desert. Everyone will recognize the accuracy with which he describes the journey across the desert:
“We are now traversing an immense ocean of loose reddish sand, unlimited to the eye, heaped up in enormous ridges running parallel to each other from north to south, undulation after undulation each swelling to a great height, with slant sides and rounded crests furrowed in every direction by the… gales of the desert. In the depths between the traveler finds himself as it were imprisoned in a suffocating sandpit, hemmed in by burning walls on every side; while at other times, while laboring up on the slope, he overlooks what seems a vast sea of fire, swelling under a heavy monsoon wind, and ruffled by a cross-blast into little red-hot waves. Neither shelter nor rest for eye and limb amid torrents of light and heat poured from above on an answering glare reflected below.”
From Hail the travelers proceeded through the district of Qassim to Riyadh, the capital of King Faysal. The city of Riyadh was the seat of his government and king along with his subjects were the followers of the reformist movement of Iman Muhammad ibn Abdul Wahab, who had returned to Areedh after an absence of several years, studying Islamic theology under renowned teachers at Basrah and Damascus. He attached himself to the petty court of a chief Ibn Ma’amer of Ayanah, an ancient and a considerable town, which was now in ruins not far from Dirayah and Riyadh. But after unsuccessfully preaching to the people to return to the original text and teaching of the Holy Qur’an, which was not acceptable to the authorities, he sought refuge with Saud ibn Abdul Aziz, of the Unayzah tribe, and the hereditary chief of Dirayah, who gave him the authority to openly preach to his people. The power of Saud was considerable and the movement of ibn Wahab had gained many followers.
At the market place of Riyadh, Palgrave found it full of people selling meat, firewood and milk. Half of the shops contained grocery and household articles of use. The stalls of the shoemakers and iron-smiths were open and busily thronged. Riyadh was full of strangers who were foreigners. Some of them had come from Oman and others from Bahrain attending to their businesses in the city. There were camel-drivers from Zulfi, who frequented the roads between Basrah and Zubayr. There were Yemeni peddlers who had come from the way of Wadi Najran and Wadi Dawassir went about its streets selling their wares. Afghanis from Baluchistan and Qandahar waited for companions to cross the eastern part of the desert on their way to the Arabian Gulf. And, there were young students who had come to study at Riyadh who moved about the market place shopping for food.
The scholars read Palgrave account of his journey through the provinces of Najd in 1862 with skepticism when it was first published in France and then in England, and with a feeling of distrust. Palgrave had deliberately perverted facts, and historical incidents and colored his entire narrative with his own personal prejudices and distrust of Arabs although the outlines of what he depicts from his personal observation are for the most part faithfully drawn. In his historical accounts he gives general information as they were told to him by his Arab sources, and says that he is not responsible for their accuracy; but having done this he proceeds to illustrate it with his own narrative, to comment upon them and use these incidents as if their accuracy was undoubted. He makes no attempt to correct the errors to which he had given authenticity, which prevented his book from being regarded as an authority on the subject. Nonetheless, his account is uneventful, but it offers the readers of his book an interesting glimpse about the people of Arabia and a sketch of the way of life of the Arabs of the 19th Century.
(A narrative of a years journey through Central and Eastern Arabia, 1862-3 By William Gifford Palgrave, Late of the 8th Regiment, Bombay N.I. London 1865)
Last update : 20-03-2004 23:16
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