They Pay No Taxes, And Reject The Idea Of A
“Miri,” Or Land-Cess, With Extreme Disdain.
“Are we, the children of the
Prophet,” they exclaim, “to support or to be supported?” The Wahhabis, not
understanding the argument, taxed them,
[P.7]as was their wont, in specie and in materials, for which reason
the very name of those Puritans is an abomination. As has before been
shown, all the numerous attendants at the Mosque are paid partly by the
Sultan, partly by Aukaf, the rents of houses and lands bequeathed to
the shrine, and scattered over every part of the Moslem world. When a
Madani is inclined to travel, he applies to the Mudir al-Harim, and
receives from him a paper which entitles him to the receipt of a
considerable sum at Constantinople. “The “Ikram” (honorarium), as it is
called, varies with the rank of the recipient, the citizens being
divided into these four orders, viz.
First and highest, the Sadat (Sayyids),[FN#11] and Ima[m]s, who are
entitled to twelve purses, or about £60. Of these there are said to be
three hundred families.
The Khanahdan, who keep open house and receive poor strangers gratis.
Their Ikram amounts to eight purses, and they number from a hundred to
a hundred and fifty families.
The Ahali[FN#12] (burghers) or Madani properly speaking, who have homes
and families, and were born in Al-Madinah. They claim six purses.
The Mujawirin, strangers, as Egyptians or Indians, settled at, though
not born in, Al-Madinah. Their honorarium is four purses.
The Madani traveller, on arrival at Constantinople, reports his arrival
to his Consul, the Wakil al-Haramayn. This “Agent of the two Holy Places”
applies to the Nazir al-Aukaf, or “Intendant of Bequests”; the latter,
[p.8]after transmitting the demand to the different officers of the
treasury, sends the money to the Wakil, who delivers it to the
applicant. This gift is sometimes squandered in pleasure, more often
profitably invested either in merchandise or in articles of home-use,
presents of dress and jewellery for the women, handsome arms,
especially pistols and Balas[FN#13] (yataghans), silk tassels, amber
pipe-pieces, slippers, and embroidered purses. They are packed up in
one or two large Sahharahs, and then commences the labour of returning
home gratis. Besides the Ikram, most of the Madani, when upon these
begging trips, are received as guests by great men at Constantinople.
The citizens whose turn it is not to travel, await the Aukaf and
Sadakat (bequests and alms),[FN#14] forwarded every year by the
Damascus Caravan; besides which, as has been before explained, the
Harim supplies even those not officially employed in it with many
perquisites.
Without these advantages Al-Madinah would soon be abandoned to
cultivators and Badawin. Though commerce is here honourable, as
everywhere in the East, business is “slack,[FN#15]” because the higher
classes prefer the idleness of administering their landed estates, and
being servants to the Mosque.
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