Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Al-Madinah and Meccah, vol 2 | Page 3

visit Al-Madinah, and have settled in force at Meccah, and some declare that the Bayazi sect[FN#10] also exists.
The citizens of Al-Madinah are a favoured race, although the city is not, like Meccah, the grand mart of the Moslem world or the meeting-place of nations. 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. I heard of only four respectable houses, Al-Isawi, Al-Sha’ab, Abd al-Jawwad, and a family from Al-Shark (the Eastern Region).[FN#16] They all deal in grain, cloth, and provisions, and perhaps the richest have a capital of twenty thousand dollars. Caravans in
[p.9]the cold weather are constantly passing between Al-Madinah and Egypt, but they are rather bodies of visitors to Constantinople than traders travelling for gain. Corn is brought from Jeddah by land, and imported into Yambu’ or via Al-Rais, a port on the Red Sea, one day and a half’s journey from Safra. There is an active provision trade with the neighbouring Badawin, and the Syrian Hajj supplies the citizens with apparel and articles of luxury—tobacco, dried fruits, sweetmeats, knives, and all that is included under the word “notions.” There are few store-keepers, and their dealings are petty, because articles of every kind are brought from Egypt, Syria, and Constantinople. As a general rule, labour is exceedingly expensive,[FN#17] and at the Visitation time a man will demand fifteen or twenty piastres from a stranger for such a trifling job as mending an umbrella. Handicraftsmen and artisans—carpenters, masons, locksmiths, potters, and others—are either slaves or foreigners, mostly Egyptians.[FN#18] This proceeds partly from the pride of the people. They are taught from their childhood that the Madani is a favoured being, to be respected however vile or schismatic; and that the vengeance of Allah will fall upon any one who ventures to abuse, much more to strike him.[FN#19] They receive a stranger at the shop window with the haughtiness of Pashas, and take pains to show him, by words as well as by looks, that they consider themselves as
[p.10]“good gentlemen as the king, only not so rich.” Added to this pride are