Besides Which, There Is A Large Wakf Or Bequest Of
Books, Presented To The Mosque Or Entailed Upon Particular
Families.[FN#40] The Celebrated Mohammed Ibn Abdillah Al-Sannusi[FN#41]
Has Removed
[P.25] his collection, amounting, it is said, to eight thousand
volumes, from Al-Madinah to his house in Jabal Kubays at Meccah.
The
burial-place of the Prophet, therefore, no longer lies open to the
charge of utter ignorance brought against it by my predecessor.[FN#42]
The people now praise their Olema for learning, and boast a superiority
in respect of science over Meccah. Yet many students leave the place
for Damascus and Cairo, where the Riwak al-Haramayn (College of the Two
Shrines) in the Azhar Mosque University, is always crowded; and though
Omar Effendi boasted to me that his city was full of lore, he did not
appear the less anxious to attend the lectures of Egyptian professors.
But none of my informants claimed for Al-Madinah any facilities of
studying other than the purely religious sciences.[FN#43] Philosophy,
medicine, arithmetic, mathematics, and algebra cannot be learnt here. I
was careful to inquire about the occult sciences, remembering that
Paracelsus had travelled in Arabia, and that the Count Cagliostro
(Giuseppe Balsamo), who claimed the Meccan Sharif as his father,
asserted that about A.D. 1765 he had studied alchemy at Al-Madinah. The
only trace I could find was a superficial knowledge of the Magic
Mirror. But after denying the Madani the praise of varied learning, it
must be owned that their quick observation and retentive memories have
stored up for
[p.26]them an abundance of superficial knowledge, culled from
conversations in the market and in the camp. I found it impossible here
to display those feats which in Sind, Southern Persia, Eastern Arabia,
and many parts of India, would be looked upon as miraculous. Most
probably one of the company had witnessed the performance of some
Italian conjuror at Constantinople or Alexandria, and retained a lively
recollection of every manœuvre. As linguists they are not equal to the
Meccans, who surpass all Orientals excepting only the Armenians; the
Madani seldom know Turkish, and more rarely still Persian and Indian.
Those only who have studied in Egypt chaunt the Koran well. The
citizens speak and pronounce[FN#44] their language purely; they are not
equal to the people of the southern Hijaz, still their Arabic is
refreshing after the horrors of Cairo and Maskat.
The classical Arabic, be it observed, in consequence of an extended
empire, soon split up into various dialects, as the Latin under similar
circumstances separated into the Neo-Roman patois of Italy, Sicily,
Provence, and Languedoc. And though Niebuhr has been deservedly
[p.27]censured for comparing the Koranic language to Latin and the
vulgar tongue to Italian, still there is a great difference between
them, almost every word having undergone some alteration in addition to
the manifold changes and simplifications of grammar and syntax. The
traveller will hear in every part of Arabia that some distant tribe
preserves the linguistic purity of its ancestors, uses final vowels
with the noun, and rejects the addition of the pronoun which apocope in
the verb now renders necessary.[FN#45] But I greatly doubt the
existence of such a race of philologists. In Al-Hijaz, however, it is
considered graceful in an old man, especially when conversing publicly,
to lean towards classical Arabic. On the contrary, in a youth this
would be treated as pedantic affectation, and condemned in some such
satiric quotation as
“There are two things colder than ice,
A young old man, and an old young man.”
[FN#1] Ibn Jubayr relates that in his day a descendant of Belal, the
original Mu’ezzin of the Prophet, practised his ancestral profession at
Al-Madinah.
[FN#2] This word is said to be the plural of Nakhwali,—one who cultivates
the date tree, a gardener or farmer. No one could tell me whether these
heretics had not a peculiar name for themselves. I hazard a conjecture
that they may be identical with the Mutawalli (also written Mutawilah,
Mutaalis, Metoualis, &c., &c.), the hardy, courageous, and hospitable
mountaineers of Syria, and Cœlesyria Proper. This race of sectarians,
about 35,000 in number, holds to the Imamship or supreme pontificate of
Ali and his descendants. They differ, however, in doctrine from the
Persians, believing in a transmigration of the soul, which, gradually
purified, is at last “orbed into a perfect star.” They are scrupulous of
caste, and will not allow a Jew or a Frank to touch a piece of their
furniture: yet they erect guest-houses for Infidels. In this they
resemble the Shi’ahs, who are far more particular about ceremonial purity
than the Sunnis. They use ablutions before each meal, and herein remind
us of the Hindus.
[FN#3] The communist principles of Mazdak the Persian (sixth century)
have given his nation a permanent bad fame in this particular among the
Arabs.
[FN#4] In Arabia the Sharif is the descendant of Hasan through his two
sons, Zaid and Hasan al-Musanna: the Sayyid is the descendant of Hosayn
through Zayn al-Abidin, the sole of twelve children who survived the
fatal field of Kerbela. The former devotes himself to government and
war; the latter, to learning and religion. In Persia and India, the
Sharif is the son of a Sayyid woman and a common Moslem. The Sayyid
“Nejib al-Taraf” (noble on one side) is the son of a Sayyid father and a
common Moslemah. The Sayyid “Nejib al-Tarafayn” (noble on both sides) is
one whose parents are both Sayyids.
[FN#5] Burckhardt alludes to this settlement when he says, “In the
Eastern Desert, at three or four days’ journey from Medinah, lives a
whole Bedouin tribe, called Beni Aly, who are all of this Persian creed.”
I travelled to Suwayrkiyah, and found it inhabited by Benu Hosayn. The
Benu Ali are Badawin settled at the Awali, near the Kuba Mosque:
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