Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 2.djvu/269

Rh SETTLED POPULATION.] ARABIA ever, but to be merely the natural result of condition and circumstances. A nomade population, thinly scattered over a large and open space of meagre pasture-land, will always be unconquerable, because it offers next to nothing A Bedouin to conquer. When in camp, a Bedouin s tent consists of Kim P- a few coverings of the coarsest goat-hair, dyed black, and spread over two or more small poles, in height from 8 to 9 feet, gipsy fashion. If it be the tent of a sheykh or man of consequence, its total length may be from 30 to 40 feet; if of an ordinary person, it will oftener fall short of 20. Sometimes a partition separates the quarters allotted to the women and children; sometimes they are housed under a lower and narrower covering. A piece of rough carpet or an old mat may or may not be spread on the sandy floor; while camel-saddles, ropes, halters, and the like, constitute the entire furniture of the dwelling; orna ment there is none. To the list two or three cauldrons for cooking, one or two platters, and a wooden drinking bowl, must be added ; and with these, including the master s arms in one side of the tent, and his spear stuck in the ground at the door, the household valuables are complete. When the time comes for moving, all these several articles are easily fastened in bundles on the backs of one or more camels; the men mount their saddles, the women their litters; and in an hour the blackened stones that served for a cooking hearth remain as almost the only sign where the encampment has been. When the tribe is once on its way across the desert, pursuit is difficult; and were the fugitives overtaken, they would offer nothing to repay the trouble of their pursuers. It may be worth the while of nomades such as these occasionally to plunder each other, but it can hardly be worth the while of any foreign power to plunder, still less to attempt to subdue them, and in this lies the whole secret of their imagined independence. From the Bedouins, or &quot; Ahl Bedoo,&quot; we now turn to the &quot; Ahl Hadr,&quot; or the dwellers in fixed abodes. These constitute about six-sevenths of the population of Arabia proper, and it is from them alone that a just appreciation of the Arab character and customs can be formed. Though the clan and the family form the basis and are the ultimate expression of the civilised Arab society, they do not, as is the case among the Bedouins, sum it up altogether; local feelings and duties, the consequences of settled life, having deeply modified the character alike of the individuals and the race among all Arabs, town or country. Still, blood is the first thing taken into account; and, indeed, the possession of written records, and habits of order and reflection, enable the settled Arabs to acquire and retain a more accurate knowledge and nicer distinction of pedigree and race than could be expected or found among the unreflecting and half-barbarous Bedouins. Throughout the peninsula, but especially on the western side, the family of Koreysh is even yet regarded as the noblest of Arab races, indeed of the world ; and its members, on the strength of their connection with the Prophet, all bear the title of &quot; Shereef,&quot; sometimes also, as in Yemen, that of &quot; Seyyicl,&quot; or &quot; lord.&quot; Besides the advantages which naturally follow popular respect, they hold in several districts of Arabia in Mecca itself, for example, in Aboo- Areesh, and in some parts of Yemen the positions and emoluments of local hereditary governors. But they do not assume any regular distinctive mark, like the green turban so often worn in Turkey or Persia; nor in private life do they enjoy any immunity, either explicit or pre scriptive, from the ordinary obligations of law. &quot; Sheykh,&quot; or elder, &quot; Erneer,&quot; or ruler, &quot; Imam,&quot; or preceder, and &quot; Sultan,&quot; or monarch, are personal and often, though not necessarily, hereditary titles of rank. &quot; Walee,&quot; or governor, is a word the use of which is limited to Yemen and Oman. &quot; Sheykh,&quot; on the contrary, is universal; every village, however small, every separate quarter of a town, has a &quot; sheykh,&quot; in whom is lodged the executive power of government a power loosely defined, and of more or less extent according to the personal character and means of the individual who wields it. A village &quot;sheykh&quot; is a sort of head magistrate and chief of police, or like a sheriff of old times. His power is, how ever, occasionally limited, particularly in towns, by that of the &quot; kadee,&quot; or &quot;judge,&quot; whose duty consists in the official, though rather arbitrary, interpretation of the law, and whose sentence ought, in theory at least, to pre cede the action of the sheykh. But as the Koran, the sole authentic authority in all matters, legal or civil, throughout Arabia, never accurately distinguished between the two classes, and its phrases, besides, are vague and capable of admitting different and even opposite interpretations, the administration of law and justice has in consequence always remained extremely irregular, and dependent much more on the personal good sense and integrity of the officials, or too often on their want of those desirable qualities, than on any methodised system. The sheykh has no fixed income; he is usually a landed proprietor, sometimes a merchant; many sheykhs, however, abuse their power for their own private advantage. Nor is his office strictly hereditary, though it may become accidentally so. Emeer is a higher title, restricted to a governor of a Eineer. district or province, especially in Shomer, Nejd, and the rest of the central region. An etneer is in most respects nothing but a magnified sheykh; he has, however, the advantage of drawing a considerable portion of his income from the country he administers. Thus in Nejd the emeers receive and retain, partially in Wahhabee governments, wholly in others, the &quot; zekat,&quot; or tithes, varying from one- twentieth up to one-fifth of the value of property, besides other occasional dues, fines, (fee.; in Hasa, Bahreyn, Katar, Mahrah, and Hadramaut the emeer can also claim the fisher} tax and customs. Beyond Wahhabee limits he has the ordinary, within them the extraordinary, power of life and death ; in all cases he can punish by imprisonment and fine. Part of his office is to hold public audiences daily, on which occasions every one who chooses, of what ever rank or condition, has the right of coming forward and of presenting any complaint or petition. Some times the emeer takes the matter thus brought before him into his own hands at once; sometimes he refers it to the radee, or to the elder and more respectable inhabitants, who in these meetings take seat near the emeer, and form a kind of improvised council. The emeer himself wears about him no distinctive badge of office; nor is he approached with any ceremony beyond that of ordinary Arab polite ness. In the Wahhabee provinces, or those where Wahha- beeism, though no longer dominant, has made a permanent impression, as in Shomer for instance, the emeer commonly takes on himself the duties of the Friday &quot;imam,&quot; not unlike those of precentor in Presbyterian worship, in the public mosque; now and then he preaches a sermon. His position is generally hereditary, but not always in direct line. The title of &quot; sultan,&quot; or king, one of doubtful antiquity, Sultan, has been assumed by the hereditary Wahhabee ruler of Riad, the capital of Nejd; it is also often applied to the sovereign of Oman, and to some petty princes in the south of the peninsula. In practice it adds little or nothing to the dignity of emeer, but implies a larger territorial range of authority. Where the Wahhabee doctrines have definitely estab- Religion, lished themselves, as in Nejd, Yemameh, Hareek, Aflaj, and Jebel Aseer, the Mahometan code, as laid down in the Koran, is observed more strictly perhaps than in any other IL ^2