Religion, Economy and State in Ottoman-Arab History 9781463233471

Citation preview

Religion, Economy and State in Ottoman-Arab History

Analecta Isisiana: Ottoman and Turkish Studies

32

A co-publication with The Isis Press, Istanbul, the series consists of collections of thematic essays focused on specific themes of Ottoman and Turkish studies. These scholarly volumes address important issues throughout Turkish history, offering in a single volume the accumulated insights of a single author over a career of research on the subject.

Religion, Economy and State in Ottoman-Arab History

William Ochsenwald

The Isis Press, Istanbul

ptS* 2011

Gorgias Press IXC, 954 River Road, Piscataway, NJ, 08854, USA www.gorgiaspress.com Copyright© 2011 by The Isis Press, Istanbul Originally published in 1998 All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise without the prior written permission of The Isis Press, Istanbul. 2011

ISBN 978-1-61143-728-7

Reprinted from the 1998 Istanbul edition.

Printed in the United States of America

William Ochsenwald obtained degrees in history from Ohio State University (B.A., 1964, M.A., 1966) and from the University of Chicago (Ph.D., 1971). He has been employed at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech) since 1971, where he holds the rank of Professor of History. Professor Ochsenwald has served as President of the Society for Gulf Arab Studies and on various committees of the Middle East Studies Association and the Turkish Studies Association, and has been an Associate Fellow of the Middle East Centre of the University of Cambridge. Ochsenwald is the author, co-author, or co-editor of four books: Nationalism in a Non-National State: The Dissolution of the Ottoman Empire (1977); The Hijaz Railroad (1980); Religion, Society and the State in Arabia: The Hijaz Under Ottoman Control, 1840-1908 (1984); and The Middle East: A History (1990, 1997). He has written articles for the Encyclopaedia Britannicaand the EncyclopediaAmericana.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction

VII

1. Ottoman Sources for the History of the Hijaz. Studies in the History of Arabia, Volume 1, Sources for the History of Arabia, Part II (Riyad: University of Riyad Press, 1979), pp. 163-175

1

2. The Recent Historiography of Western Arabia: A Critical Examination. Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies 22 (1992), pp. 97-103

15

3. The Financial Basis of Ottoman Rule in the Hijaz, 18401877. William W. Haddad and William Ochsenwald (eds.), Nationalism in a Non-National State: The Dissolution of the Ottoman

Empire (Columbus: Ohio State University Press,

1977), pp. 129-149 4. Ottoman Subsidies to the Hijaz, 1877-1886.

23 International

Journal of Middle East Studies 6 (1975), pp. 300-307

43

5. The Commercial History of the Hijaz Vilayet, 1840-1908. Arabian Studies 6 (1982), pp. 57-76

53

6. Muslim-European Conflict in the Hijaz: The Slave Trade Controversy, 1840-1895. Middle Eastern Studies 16 (1980), pp. 115-126

77

7. The Jidda Massacre of 1858. Middle Eastern Studies 13 (1977), pp. 314-326

93

8. Ironic Origins: Arab Nationalism in the Hijaz, 1882-1914. Rashid Khalidi etal. (eds.) The Origins of Arab Nationalism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1991), pp. 189-203

111

VI

OTTOMAN-ARAB

HISTORY

9. The Vilayet of Syria, 1901-1914: A Re-Examination of Diplomatic Documents as Sources. Middle East Journal 22 (1968), pp. 73-87

125

10. The Impact of Ottoman Rule on Yemen, 1849-1914. V. Milletlerarasi Tebligler

Tiirkiye Sosyal ve iktisat (Ankara:

Turk

Tarih

Tarihi Kurumu,

Kongresi 1990),

pp. 255-265

151

11. The Financing of the Hijaz Railroad. Die Welt des Islams 14 (1973), pp. 129-149

163

12. Opposition to Political Centralization in South Jordan and the Hijaz,

1900-1914.

The

Muslim

World 62

(1973),

pp. 297-306

183

13. A Modern Waqf: the Hijaz Railway, 1900-48. Arabian Studies 3 (1976), pp. 1-12

193

14. Islam and the Ottoman Legacy in the Modern Middle East. L. Carl Brown (ed.), Imperial Legacy: The Ottoman Impact on the Balkans and the Middle East (New York: University Press, 1996), pp. 263-283

Columbia 207

INTRODUCTION

I have arranged the chapters in this book by topics and geographical areas rather than by the order in which they were originally published. The first topic, the historiography of the Hijaz in western Arabia during the late Ottoman period, is covered in chapters 1 and 2. Chapter 1, "Ottoman Sources for the History of the Hijaz," presents a survey of printed and archival sources in Ottoman and modern Turkish as well as comments on some materials in Arabic and English. In the time since chapter 1 was written some twenty years ago, opportunities for researchers to work in the Ottoman archives have increased, making the archives even more important as a source of data. I hope that young scholars embarking on the history of Ottoman-Arab provinces will find this essay still to be of some value. In chapter 2, "The Recent Historiography of Western Arabia: A Critical Examination," I analyze six items written by Arabs and dealing with the history of the Hijaz. In this essay I once again argue for an examination of the history of the Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire based on using sources in Ottoman Turkish, Arabic, and other languages, rather than relying on materials drawn from only one language source. Chapter 2 also seeks to encourage closer and more rapid scholarly communication, especially in regard to secondary works. The second topic, the economic history of the Hijaz, is discussed in chapters 3, 4, and 5. Much of the material in these three chapters subsequently appeared in my book Religion, Society and the State in Arabia: The Hijaz Under Ottoman Control, 1840-1908 (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1984). The chief argument of chapters 3 and 4 is that ruling the Hijaz was expensive for the Ottomans, who obtained religious prestige but very few fiscal benefits. Since the original appearance of these chapters, much has been published on other Ottoman provinces. It would now be feasible and useful to undertake a more comparative study of which provinces were profitable and which ones were drains on the imperial treasury in different eras. Provincial budgets also provide a means of examining local elites and the importance attached by the central government to them. Budgets can illustrate a wide range of economic and

VIII

OTTOMAN-ARAB

HISTORY

political issues, even though it is important to note their often provisional and incomplete character. Chapter 5, "The Commercial History of the Hijaz Vilayet, 1840-1908," reflects the need to establish basic data on the topic while also demonstrating the crucial importance of the pilgrimage as the pivotal event of the commercial cycle. I also touched in this chapter on a number of subjects which have subsequently proven of interest to other historians of Ottoman history, including technology, foreign influence, government building of infrastructure, and climate and geography. Chapters 6, 7, and 8 continue the discussion of the Hijaz during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, but they focus more on interaction with Europeans than on economic issues. Chapters 6 and 7 were incorporated into Religion, Society and the State in Arabia. In chapter 6 , 1 discuss the highly controversial issue of slavery as an example of the conflict between western European and Ottoman-Arab values and policies. This conflict and a rivalry for power, influence, and economic advantage helped cause the 1858 Jidda massacre as seen in chapter 7. European-style nationalism eventually became the dominant ideology of the Middle East as I assert in chapter 8, but it was slow to take root in the Hijaz for reasons examined in this essay. In chapters 9 and 10 I turn to two other Ottoman-Arab provinces — Syria and Yemen. Chapter 9 looks at the possibility of using British diplomatic documents for the economic and social history of the Vilayet of Syria, 1901-1914. This chapter reflects the excitement I felt while a graduate student in the 1960s, as research into Ottoman-Arab history opened to new themes. In chapter 10, after twenty years of additional study, I compare some of the same topics — administrative, military, and educational — showing how Ottoman experiences in Yemen and the Hijaz were similar or different. Chapters 11, 12, and 13 concern the Hijaz Railroad, an Ottoman railway line from Damascus to Madina built in the reign of Sultan Abdiilhamid II. Chapters 11 and 12 were later republished in my book The Hijaz Railroad (Charlottesville: Universiy Press of Virginia, 1980). About one-third of the financing of the railroad came from donations which were inspired to some extent by Pan-Islamic sentiment. As the construction of the railroad progressed, opposition to its completion increased, as seen in chapter 12. The story of the railroad as a holy endowment from 1900 to

INTRODUCTION

IX

1948 forms the basis of chapter 13, which traces the consequences of this Ottoman project for later times. Chapter 14, "Islam and the Ottoman Legacy in the Modern Middle East", is not only the most recently written of the chapters in this book, it also can serve as a summary essay touching on many of the themes discussed in earlier chapters. However, the region and time covered are considerably wider, as reflected in the broadening of my interests, a process which eventually resulted in the publication of my fourth and fifth revised editions of Sydney N. Fisher's The Middle East: A History (New York: McGraw Hill, 1990 and 1997). In chapter 14,1 deal with the intersecting subjects of religion and politics, as situated in the historical experience and legacy of the Ottoman Empire. The analysis and data deriving from the first thirteen chapters provide much of the basis for chapter 14. I continue to hope that this chapter will provoke a vigorous dialogue about the intriguing issues connected with the question of the Ottoman legacy for the twentiethcentury world. After much deliberation, I decided to leave the chapters basically as they were written. I have corrected some typographical errors, but I have not revised the texts so as to make spelling uniform. Nor have I changed the bibliography or footnotes to reflect scholarship appearing since the chapters were originally published. As all who are conneced with Ottoman and Arab history will understand, there has been a vast flood of new studies, often based on exciting and informative research, but revising my work so as to include the analyses of these studies seemed to be beyond the purposes of this particular book. However, it might be useful to mention here two recent and very valuable works that deal with the Hijaz: Joshua Teitelbaum, "The Rise and Fall of the Hashimite Kingdom of the Hijaz, 1916-1925: A Failure of State Formation in the Arabian Peninsula," (Ph. D. Dissertation, Tel Aviv University, 1996), and Hasan Kayali, Arabs and Young Turks: Ottomanism, Arabism, and Islamism in the Ottoman Empire, 1908-1918 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997). I wish to thank all those who have helped me in so many ways over the years, including my family and friends, my teachers and colleagues, innumerable librarians and archivists, groups who provided funding for travel and research, and critical readers and reviewers who helped me rethink many of my earlier ideas. I particularly would like to thank Sinan Kuneralp,

X

OTTOMAN-ARAB

whose persistence and determination completion.

HISTORY

have brought this project to

The following publishers or groups kindly granted me permission to reprint materials in this book: Seminar for Arabian Studies, Ohio State University Press, Cambridge University Press, Frank Cass and Co., Columbia University Press, and E. J. Brill. William Ochsenwald Blacksburg, Virginia August, 1997

OTTOMAN SOURCES FOR THE HISTORY OF THE HIJAZ

From the 16th century to the beginning decades of the 20th century the Hijaz was part of the Ottoman Empire. Although the central government's power in the Hijaz was relatively weak compared to areas nearer Istanbul, the Ottoman archives contain records for the Hijaz covering a wide variety of subjects over the long period of Ottoman rule. The Prime Ministry Archives (Bagbakanlik Argivi) in Istanbul are particularly valuable as a source of information for historians interested in Hijazi history. It was estimated in 1960 that only about four million of the total forty million items in the Archives have been catalogued. It is, therefore, impossible fully to describe the nature of all the documents to be found there. However, for the material which is catalogued certain generalizations can be made. Records are relatively scanty before the 1450s; after the 1550s many more categories are preserved. In early classification attempts by Ali Emiri, Ibniilemin Mahmud Kemal, and Muallim Cevdet about 400,000 items were arranged more or less topically. Now documents are categorized according to the issuing agency, and inside these groups by date. 1 In general, most items fall into two divisions: (1) single papers (evrak) and (2) compilations (defters), usually bound together. However, on examination, evrak may turn out to be dossiers with many individual items dealing with the same subject arranged together; defters, on the other hand, may be quite short as well as long. Nearly all documents are written in Ottoman Turkish, not Arabic. The chief exception to this is petitions sent from the Hijaz to Istanbul. Even in this case however, a Turkish translation has been provided and is in the same dossier. Some Persian vocabularly is also used — an example is, guze§te, meaning past due, overdue, or interest on money. The documents are usually quite legible. The greatest problem for a reader of Arabic first encountering the Ottoman archives would be some of the financial documents which are in siyakat script. Also, the Muhimme series and the Stanford Shaw, "Archival sources for Ottoman history: the archives of Turkey," Journal of the American Oriental Society LXXX: 1 (January-March, 1960), pp. 1-12; Bernard Lewis, "Ba§vekalet Ar§ivi," Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed., I, 1089-1091.

2

OTTOMAN-ARAB

HISTORY

rough drafts in the Yildiz collection are difficult to read. A firm foundation in Turkish grammar and vocabulary would be necessary even for a person highly proficient in Arabic. Permission to work and to make copies in the Prime Ministry or in any other archives or libraries in Turkey must be secured in advance of arrival by means of an application to the Turkish Embassy in the researcher's country. Once permission is gained, the chief method for finding the right categories of documents for research, and a major help in conducting that research, is the staff of the Archives. In addition, the researcher should be completely familiar with the invaluable guide to the Archives by its former director, Midhat Sertoglu. 1

DOCUMENT CATEGORIES AND THEIR USEFULNESS By far the most useful and accessible category for the history of the Hijaz is the irade collection for the years 1255/1839-40 to 1309/1891-92. There are at least 1,000 entries in this category that deal with the Hijaz out of a total of 100,000 items listed. This category is divided, inside each year's entries, into the following areas: Dahiliye (interior and general), Hariciye (foreign), Meclis-i Vdld (Supreme Council of Judicial Ordinances), §ura-yi Devlet (Council of State), and Meclis-i Mahsus-i Vukela (Special Council of Ministers). A number of subjects recur from year to year in the irades. The most important are the documents dealing with the yearly expenditures, ceremonies and appointments for the pilgrimage to Mecca and Madina. Reports from the Haramayn and Evkaf Treasuries, letters requesting and acknowledging gifts, the accounting for local expenditures, reports on conditions and problems in the Hijaz, descriptions of the repair of religious and charitable buildings — all of these can be found in large quantities in the irade collection. Another frequently appearing source is letters from the members of the Hashimite family other than the ruling Amir. The following Table, which deals with a small sample of five years, indicates the numbers of documents to be found in each of the chief recurring topics inside the irades:

'Midhat Sertoglu, 1955).

Muhteva Bakimindan Ba§vekalet Arj/vi (Ankara: Turk Tarih Kurumu,

OTTOMAN SOURCES FOR THE HISTORY OF THE HIJAZ

3

TABLE 1 Selected topics Appointments, honors, and medals Military and tribes Gifts Expenditures, including salaries Pilgrimage Political Religion, culture, education, health Total as part of all documents on the Hijaz

Hiiri y e w s

1258

1269

1279

1289

1310

8 3 10

10 4 8

4 4 5

9 2 7

6 6 2

14 3 3

9 2 2

10 1 2

6 3

4 0 3

34 of 37

27 of 28

44 of 48

40 of 43

29 of 39

2

Evidently decision making was tightly centralized in Istanbul. There are a number of documents involving perennially recurring issues which might well have been settled in the Hijaz at the local level which are instead referred back to the central government. One example among many is the naming of two Zamzam water carriers, a rather humble case of local patronage, sent to Istanbul for approval. 1 Certain subjects appear rarely or not at all. There are relatively few reports on politics, i.e., the struggle for influence among notables and inside the Amir's household. What political information does occur is sketchy, especially on Madina. Indeed there is little available on Madina for any topic. Topics totally absent include customs' receipts, religious court decisions, and most economic data. 2 Apparently the only document bearing on the whole subject of banking, credit arrangements, and commercial payments is a denunciation of excessive interest being charged in Madina in 1268/1852.3 The registers of the Madina Shar'i court were sent in ten boxes by order of the Ottoman Army to Damascus before the capture of Madina. 4 Although the Qadl of Damascus acknowledged receipt of them, these sijills 1 Basbakanhk Ar§ivi (hereafter B. al-Awwal 1269.

B. A.),

Meclis-i Välä (hereafter M.V.)

Much of the economic data may be in the Maliyeden yet been consulted for the Arabian Peninsula. 5

Miidevvere

9964 for 15

Jumädä

category, which has not

B.B.A„ M.V. 9047, 22 Dhu't Hijja 1268.

^Great Britain. Public Record Office. Foreign Office 686/59, Sadiq Bey Yahyä to the Egyptian Army.

4

OTTOMAN-ARAB

HISTORY

have not subsequently been found in Damascus or Istanbul. Presumably there were also court records for Mecca and Jedda as well, but they do not seem to have been taken to Istanbul or Ankara. Their location remains unknown. In passing it should be noted that there is a great deal of material in the irade category on areas immediately bordering the Hijaz, especially 'Asir and Yemen for the periods after 1282/1865 and 1292/1875-76, respectively. Less appears for Najd, although starting in 1287/1870-71 there are more documents dealing with it.

PROBLEMS IN USING THE

IRADE

COLLECTION

The chief difficulty in making use of the irade collection is undoubtedly the partial historical record contained in the documents in it. The compilers of the irades assumed their readers' knowledge of an on-going governmental process and relationships which now must be reconstructed de novo by the historian. This general problem for all historians dealing with state archives is compounded by an Ottoman tendency to deal with specific problems rather than large issues. The convenient overview provided by British consular reports unfortunately is missing in the Ottoman archives. 1 I am now putting together lists for the following offices: the Walis of the Hijaz, the Qd'im maqams of Jedda, the Qadis of Mecca and Madina, the Shaykh al-Haram al-Nabawl in Madina, the muftis of the two harams, and the notables of the three major towns. Until such lists are complete, however, much of the material in the archival documents will not be particularly meaningful. This problem can be seen in petitions sent to Istanbul bearing the names of various dignitaries. Until each signer can be identified and placed in his socio-economic position, the political importance of the document cannot be fully appreciated. A similar problem awaits the social and economic historian. I am constructing price lists for major commodities — rice, wheat, barley, and ful — and also exchange rate tables for the Ottoman kuru$ and foreign currencies. This elementary task must be accomplished before the economic

*See W. L. Ochsenwald, "The Vilayet of Syria, 1901-1914: a re-examination of diplomatic documents as sources, "The Middle East Journal XXII: 1 (Winter, 1968), pp. 73-87.

OTTOMAN SOURCES FOR THE HISTORY OF THE HIJAZ

5

history of the Hijaz can be understood. Much information for doing this can be gleaned from the Ottoman archival documents. Examples of the importance of this can be seen in the cost of renting houses to pilgrims or in the salaries paid to government officials. Was rent equitable? Could officials live on their salaries without bribes? The answers to these questions and many others can come only after the price structure and cost of living are carefully examined. A prime example of the rewards and ambiguities found in the Archives is in the area of education. The first time that a list of salaries of the teachers at the Madina Haram appears is in 1266/1849.1 This does not necessarily mean that Istanbul had ignored the 'ulama' of the Haram before 1266. This document might more likely be interpreted to mean that until then there was no need for commenting on an existing satisfactory situation, but then an investigation or reform became necessary. Although the head of the Finance Ministry accountants certified the salaries, there is otherwise nothing in the document to indicate why it was written or whether a new or old situation is being described. The value and volume of the irades for the Hijaz starts to decline about 1884-85 as more and more administrative decisions are made directly in the palace by Sultan Abdiilhamid II rather than through the normal administrative machinery. 2 The 1892 arrangement of the irades by government ministries rather than by date also increases the difficulty of locating useful material in the irades.

OTHER CATEGORIES OF DOCUMENTS IN THE PRIME MINISTRY ARCHIVES There are at least five other categories of documents at the Prime Ministry Archives which contain considerable quantities of information on the Hijaz: (1) Bâb-i Âli Evrak Odasi (B.A.E.O.); (2) Yildiz Esas Evraki (Yildiz);

( 3 ) Muhimme-i

i Muhimme. i n t h e Bâb-i

Misir,

( 4 ) Meclis-i

Vttkela

By far the most voluminous are the Âli Evrak

Maxbatalarv, defters,

(5)

Odasi.

^B.B.A., Dahiliye 11840,2 Muharram 1266. A. L. Tibawi, A modern history of Syria, including Lebanon and Palestine Macmillan, 1969). 2

Mesail-

of correspondence

(London:

6

OTTOMAN-ARAB

HISTORY

The records in the B.A.E.O. category are copies of letters to and from the office of the Grand Vezir after 1891. The 1,045 catalogues are for an estimated 352,000 documents. 1 There are eighteen defters which serve as indexes to documents which are directly relevant to the Hijaz in the 19th century. Numbers 716.30.1-2 deal with the Hijaz Railway for 1319-1332 Mali!1902-17. Most of the incoming despatches are presently uncatalogued; however, about 1,700 outgoing items are available. Considerable information on Madina, the tribes of the area around it, and the construction of the Railway are summarized in these defters from the documents. A suggested revision in the administration and organization of the Hijaz Vilayet is outlined in 936/2.59/4 for 1312-1314 Ma/i/1896-1898. Apparently, however, the suggestions for reform were never put into execution in the Hijaz. Incoming and outgoing correspondence from and to the Amir for 1326-1334 Afa/f/1910-18 is contained in 769.40/1-2. Some examples of the wide range of information contained in the incoming despatches follow: (1) No. 280762, 15 RabV al-Awwal 1328, the Amir proposed, and Istanbul approved, the awarding of a medal to the Meccan pharmacist, al-Hajj Ibrahim Husayn Efendi; (2) No. 287545 (No. 286902), the price of camels in Madina was discussed for the Mali year 1326/1910-11; (3) No. 293347, 1327 Mfl/i/1911-12, a telegram from the Amirate to Istanbul informed it that the March payments to the tribes had not been made — the telegram was then forwarded to the Finance Ministry. The Ayniyat class of B.A.E.O. is even richer than the above. The documents cover the period 1812-90 and are listed in about 1,561 registers. 2 Although many of these defters contain documents primarily dealing with Yemen, and some are rough drafts duplicated in finished form later, Ayniyat catalogues numbers 871-877 and 1516-1521 also contain a great deal of original information about the Hijaz for the years 1283-1300/1866-83. All of these catalogues have summaries of letters and orders sent from the Grand Vezir in Istanbul to the Wall and/or the Amir in Mecca. All aspects of Ottoman government are covered. Political information, for example, is contained in No. 871, 22 § (aban) 1283, sent to the Amir and Wall. It conveys the approval of the Meclis-i V&la for the suggested payments of 'Stanford Shaw, "Ottoman archival materials for the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries: the archives of Istanbul", International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies VI: 1 (January, 1975), pp. 94-114, and especially p. 100. 2 Ibid.

OTTOMAN SOURCES FOR THE H I S T O R Y OF THE H I J A Z

7

food to Zayn al-'Abidin Efendi, a member of the majlis of Mecca. Religious . f o r m a t i o n is i n N o . 8 7 1 , 2 3 Muharram

1 2 8 4 , t o the M a d i n a Shaykh

al-

Haram, relaying the petition of some Madinan Malikls for gifts, grants, and salaries. The Grand Vezir wanted to know why the Shaykh al-Haram had not supplied these in the past. Even foreign policy is sometimes touched upon, as can be seen in No. 871, 28 Rajab 1284, to the Amir. The central government requested any information available in the Hijaz on recent events in the Hadramawt and the role of the English there. Military affairs, and especially internal security, were a source of constant concern for I s t a n b u l . In N o .

875,

1 3 Rati'

al-Awwal,

to the A m i r a n d Wall,

the

importation of arms into the Hijaz is absolutely forbidden. Frequently it is possible to deduce what the original incoming message must have been, even though it was apparently not preserved. An announcement of the death of 'Abd Allah Shaybah, the key-keeper of the Ka'ba, presumably preceded the message of the Grand Vezir to the Amir, Wall, and Finance Ministry concerning the disposition of his pension.1 The request of the Wall for more troops and the money to pay them in order to fight the Mutayr tribe east of Madina was acknowledged and approved by Istanbul.2 The Walts original request is not present. The second major non-irade category consists of the Yildiz records from the palace of Sultan Abdiilhamid II. Although there are, in certain parts of this category, quite useful items, the present catr'~3uing of them makes it difficult to locate and date particular documents. Butrus Abu-Manneh 3 and I have located some sections that are valuable for the Hijaz, especially Kisims 13, 18, 30, 31, 33, and 36. One example is Kisim 13.112/3.112.6, the orders sent to the new Hijaz Wall, Osman Pa§a, in 1298/1881. The Muhimme-i Misir, 1119-1318/1707-1901, include not only important orders and state papers dealing with Egypt, but also with the Hijaz. Egypt and the Hijaz were linked, in the Ottoman period as earlier, both politically and economically. Unfortunately for the researcher, mentions of the Hijaz are scattered throughout the series with no index available. One example of an entry on the Hijaz is the telegram to the Khedive, relayed via Muhtar Pa§a, in September 1892. The Ottoman Empire

'B.B.A. Bdb-i Ali Evrak Odasi (B.A.E.O.), Ayniyat No. 1517, 1297/1879-80, p. 238. B.B.A., B.A.R.O., Ayniyat No. 1519, 1298-99, p. 95. 3 Butrus Abu-Manneh, "Sultan Abdiilhamid II and the Sharifs of Mecca (1880-1900)," Asian and'African Studies IX: 1 (1973), pp. 1-21. 2

8

OTTOMAN-ARAB

HISTORY

resumed by virtue of this telegram direct administration over the villages of Wajh, Muwaylih, Daba, and 'Aqaba. They were to become part of the Hijaz Vilayet directly; Egyptian zaptiyes were to be removed. 1 Decisions of the Imperial Cabinet for 1302-1341/1885-1922 are in the Meclis-i Vtikela Mazbatalari. After the restoration of the Constitution and the limitation of the Sultan's power in 1908-09, the Cabinet became even more influential in Ottoman administration than it had previously been. A rapid survey of the mazbatas for 1330-1333/1911-14 indicates that some references to the Hijaz exist there. Since the decisions are extremely numerous and arranged solely by date, rather than subject, a careful, detailed, and lengthy examination will be needed to determine exactly what information on Arabia is in this category. One section of the last category, Mesail-i Muhimme, specifically concerns the Hijaz: Harameyn-iMuhteremeynedair. The chronological range is brief, from 1258 to 1264/1842-48, but a number of important subjects are discussed there which are apparently not available elsewhere. The frequently sensitive nature of these documents can be seen in No. 2441, 11 Rajab 1261, from the Wall of Egypt to the central government. In this letter Muhammad All asks for the dismissal of the Hijaz Wall because of his lack of skill in governing and because of the problems of 'Asir. An equally delicate problem is treated in No. 2447, for 26 Ramadan 1262. A dispute between ishaq Efendi, the "naqib al-ashraf" of Mecca, 2 and the Amir 'Abd al-Muttalib had arisen over certain waqf property. The central government resolved the dispute by paying ishaq compensation for 'Abd alMuttalib's having ignored preceding orders on the subject.

OTHER OTTOMAN ARCHIVES AND SOURCES In addition to the Prime Ministry Archives, there are several other Ottoman archives which may contain information on the Hijaz and the Arabian Peninsula. As yet, none of them have been fully examined in order to find all such information.

^B.B.A., Muhimme-i Misir XV, page 101,7 September 1892. 2

Did the post of naqib al-ashraf of Mecca actually exist? This is one of several passing references to it, but no detailed description has yet been found.

OTTOMAN SOURCES FOR THE HISTORY OF THE HIJAZ

9

The Hariciye Ar§ivi (Foreign Ministry Archives) in Istanbul contain at least some material on Western Arabia: Yemen ve Hicaz No. 555, 46410/94.1 Since there is almost nothing in the Prime Ministry Archives on such subjects as the consulates, tariffs, treatment of resident aliens, and other subjects involving foreigners, it is to be hoped that the Hariciye records contain even more than is now known to be there. A glance at the Topkapi Palace Archives indicates there are many documents dealing with the Hijaz before the 19th century in its holdings. Most important are the hatt-i hiimayuns, or imperial letters, stored there. Some of the topics discussed in them are as follows: the siirre (No. 868, 1203/1788-89), the Harb tribe (No. 1031, 1201/1786-87), a council in the Hijaz (No. 1826, 1217/1802-03), the customs of Jedda (No. 3508, 1220/1805-06), and the leader of the pilgrimage from Damascus (No. 40199, 1239/1823-24). It has been estimated that there are about 10,000 imperial letters in all including also some petitions and reports from the provinces.2 Other archives which possibly possess holdings on the Hijaz are the Tapu ve Kadastro Umum Müdürlügü Ar§ivi (land registry) in Ankara, the Bab-i Mesihat/Müftiilük Ar§ivi (§eyhiilislam's archives) in Istanbul, and the military archives in Ankara. Ottoman archives were used for the compilation of official and semiofficial publications. Court historians compiled chronicles for the reigns of the sultans. Yearbooks (sainantes) exist for the Empire as a whole and for most of the provinces as well. In the case of the Hijaz there are yearbooks for 1301/1883-84, 1303/1885-86 (also printed in Arabic as well as Turkish), 1305/1887-88, 1306/1888-89, and 1309/1891-92. A complete collection of the sainantes is in the library of the Turkish Historical Society in Ankara. The information in the yearbooks should be used with caution since it is frequently repeated from year to year rather than being revised in accordance with new circumstances. Istanbul newspapers frequently printed government announcements. The most important printed source for governmental decrees

Salih M. al-'Amr, The Hijaz under Ottoman rule: 1869-1914: the Ottoman Vali, the Sharif of Mecca, and the growth of British influence, (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Leeds University, 1974), p. 297. ^Bernard Lewis, "Bajvekalet Ar§ivi," pp. 1089-91.

10

OTTOMAN-ARAB

HISTORY

and new laws is the series called Düstur} For 1863 to 1922 it contains a wealth of information on all parts of the Ottoman Empire and all aspects of Ottoman government.

CONCLUSIONS Ottoman sources are essential for the history of the Hijaz. Several histories have been produced without consulting them; the most notable, those of de Gauiy and Dahlán, 2 provide excellent summaries of the political events of Mecca but only from the local perspective. By making full use of Ottoman sources both sides of the Ottoman-Arab political relationship in the Hijaz can be seen. New types of information also can be added: provincial finances, subsidies from Istanbul and Cairo, the movement of troops, the actions of the town councils, appointments to religious and political positions, etc. Some historians have begun to use the Prime Ministry Archives for the Hijaz. In the works of Abü Manneh, Uzun§ar§ili, al-'Amr, and my own articles new facts and interpretations are beginning to appear. The microfilming project of Dr. 'Adnan Bakhit of Jordan also promises to make known a wider variety of archival information for the Ottoman Arab provinces. Other scholars are currently writing studies of Syria during the 18th century, and Mosul during the 19th century, based on the Ottoman archives. Once these and similar books are available comparisons between various Arab provinces could be written. Based upon a wider variety of sources and including for the first time the Ottoman point of view, a more objective and analytically more sophisticated history will in the future be possible.

'The complex printing history of Diistur is discussed in Shaw, "Ottoman archival materials," pp. 99-100. Ahmad b. Zayni Dahlan, Khuliisat al-kaldm fi bayan umara' al-balad al-haram (Cairo: Matba'a al-Khayriyya, 1305/1887-88).

OTTOMAN SOURCES FOR THE HISTORY OF THE HIJAZ

11

AN ANNOTATED SELECTIVE BIBLIOGRAPHY FOR THE HISTORY OF THE HIJAZ I. Turkish language works: Cevdet Pa§a, Ahmet. Tezäkir, ed. Cavid Baysun (3 vols.; Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 1953-1963). Cevdet drew extensively upon the archives and other government sources for his histories and memoirs. Number 12 of the memoirs deals with Amir 'Abd al-Muttalib. islam Ansiklopedisi (Istanbul: Milli Egitim Basimevi, 1965 ff.). This translated and expanded version of the Encyclopaedia of Islam has presently reached volume XU: Tarikat-Tugräi. For Ottoman subjects it is an invaluable source. Pakalin, Mehmet. Osmanli tarih deyimleri ve terimleri Sözlügü (3 vols.; Istanbul: Milli Egitim Basimevi, 1971). Terms and concepts frequently found in documents and in late Ottoman usage are carefully explained at length. Redhouse, Sir James. Tiirkgeden ingilizceye Lügat Kitabi (Constantinople: Matteosian, 1921). This, the most valuable Turkish-English dictionary alphabetized by the old script, has gone through numerous editions. It was recently reprinted in Beirut by Librairie du Li ban. Sertoglu, Midhat. Muhteva Bakimindan Ba§vekälet Argivi (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 1955). All researchers in the Ottoman archives should carefully read this excellent guide to the contents of the Prime Ministry Archives written by its former director. Unat, Faik Regit. Hicri tarihleri miladi tarihe gevirme kilavuzu (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 1959).

12

OTTOMAN-ARAB

HISTORY

Ottoman sources frequently use the special, governmental, Mali calendar as well as the Hijri and occasionally the Christian. Unat has provided the most easily used tables for conversion of dates for all three calendars. Uzungargili, Ismail Hakki. Mekke-i Mukerreme Emirleri (Ankara: Turk Tarih Kurumu, 1972). Basing his work almost exclusively on archival sources, Uzun§ar§ili here provides a survey of the Amirs of Mecca from the Ottoman conquest to the end of the Empire. See my review in Middle East Journal XXVIII: 2 (Spring, 1974), p. 209.

II. Arabic works on the Ottoman Empire as a whole: Anls, Muhammad. Al-Dawla al-'Uthmaniyya w'al-Sharq al-'Arabi, 15141914 (Cairo: Maktaba al-Anglo al-Misriyya, n.d.). This is one of the first general surveys of the Arab Middle East during the rule of the Ottoman Empire. Harraz, Rajab. Al-Dawla al-'Uthmaniyya wa Shibh Jazlra al-'Arab, 18401909 (Cairo: Matba'a al-'Alamiyya, 1970). See my review in Middle East Journal XXVII: 1 (Winter, 1973), p. 99. Rafiq, 'Abd al-Karim. Al-'Arab w'al-'Uthmaniyyun, 1516-1916 (Damascus: Alif-Ba', 1974). Along with Holt's work cited below, Rafiq provides the best overview of the Arab provinces of the Empire. However, Rafiq, Anis, and Holt do not discuss the Arabian Peninsula in depth and none of them has extensively used Turkish-language sources. See my review of Rafiq in Middle East Journal XXX: 2 (1976), p. 232.

III. Works in English Abu-Manneh, Butrus. "Sultan Abdulhamid II and the Sharifs of Mecca (1880-1900)," Asian and African Studies IX: 1 (1973), pp. 1-21.

OTTOMAN SOURCES FOR THE HISTORY OF THE HIJAZ

13

Al-'Amr, Salih M. The Hijaz under Ottoman Rule, 1869-1914: the Ottoman Vali, the Sharif of Mecca, and the Growth of British Influence (Unpublished Ph. D. dissertation, Leeds University, 1974). Although dealing primarily with English sources because of the nature of the subject, al-'Amr has also consulted and utilized the Ottoman and Egyptian archives. De Gaury, Gerald. Rulers of Mecca (London: Harrap, 1951). This is the standard account for the political history of Mecca. De Gaury apparently did not use the Ottoman archives or other Turkish sources. Lewis, Bernard. "Ba§vekalet Ar§ivi," Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed., I, 1089-1091. A short introduction to the Prime Ministry Archives. —, The Emergence of Modern Turkey (London: Oxford University Press, 1966). This book, and the two volume work of Stanford Shaw soon to appear, are the best general surveys of the whole Ottoman Empire in English. —, "The Ottoman Archives as a Source for the History of the Arab Lands," Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (1951), pp. 139-155. Ochsenwald, William. "The Financial Basis of Ottoman Rule in the Hijaz," in W.W. Haddad and W. Ochsenwald, eds., Nationalism in a nonnational state: the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1977). This article is based primarily on records found in the irade category of the B.B.A. —, The Hijaz Railroad: a Study in Ottoman-Arab Political Capacity and Autonomy. (Unpublished manuscript). — "The Jidda Massacre of 1858," Middle Eastern Studies (to appear in 1977).

14

OTTOMAN-ARAB HISTORY

This article is based on the 1858 files of the B.B.A., the French Foreign Ministry Archives, and the Public Record Office files. —, "Ottoman Subsidies to the Hijaz, 1877-1886," International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies VI: 3 (July, 1975), pp. 300-07. Most of the information for the article came from semi-official Ottoman sources. —, "The Vilayet of Syria, 1901-1914: a Re-examination of Diplomatic Documents as Sources," Middle East Journal XXII: 1 (Winter, 1968), pp. 73-87. This is an exploration of some of the problems associated with reading archival information for purposes other than those originally intended by the authors. Shaw, Stanford. "Archival Sources for Ottoman History: the Archives of Turkey," Journal of the American Oriental Society LXXX: 1 (JanuaryMarch, 1960), pp. 1-12. —, "Ottoman Archival Materials for the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries: the Archives of Istanbul," International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies VI: 1 (January, 1975), pp. 94-114. Shaw's comments on Sertoglu's outline of the Archives are based on extensive, firsthand knowledge. The two together are extremely valuable for the archival researcher. —, "The Yildiz Palace Archives of Abdiilhamit II," Archivum Ottomanicum 111(1971), pp. 211-237.

THE RECENT HISTORIOGRAPHY OF WESTERN ARABIA: A CRITICALEXAMINATION

The chief theme of my presentation originated after a careful reading of Albert Hourani's recent article on the history of the Middle East (Hourani, 1991: 125-36). This article was in most regards an excellent analysis of the current state of historiography dealing with the Islamic Middle East, but it did not mention any contemporary scholars living in that area who write primarily in Arabic or Turkish. Hourani's article thus illustrated a widespread problem among historians of the Middle East in Europe and North America: scholarly research published in the Middle East is often not read or cited in the West. Speaking more generally, the ideas, analyses, and information contained in secondary literature are only very slowly transmitted among the world-wide community of scholars who specialize in Middle Eastern studies. The benefits that have arisen from the rapid transmission of knowledge and the free flow of ideas across national and cultural barriers are so clear and so widely acknowledged that stressing them may seem to belabour the obvious, but I am convinced that there have been serious deficiencies in this regard. To be more concrete, examples can be cited from the history of the Hijaz when it formed a part of the Ottoman Empire during the sixteenth, seventeenth, eighteenth, nineteenth, and eary twentieth centuries. Given the nature of the Hijaz at that time — an Arabic-speaking region ruled by the Ottoman Turks—there was clearly a profound interaction between the two ethnic groups. There was also an interaction between the local history of the Hijaz, which has been recorded mostly in Arabic sources, and the history of the imperial centre in Istanbul, whose archives were mostly written in Ottoman Turkish. In addition, Mecca, the site of the most important Muslim pilgrimage, was a centre of interest for Muslims throughout the world, and for the governments of the lands from which the pilgrims originated. When European influence and control expanded throughout the Muslim world in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, various non-

16

OTTOMAN-ARAB

HISTORY

Muslim travellers, explorers, and diplomats focused their interests on the Hijaz. One should envisage this situation as a triangle, with the apex occupied by the villagers, townsmen, and nomads of the Hijaz, and the other two points occupied respectively by Ottoman Turks and Europeans. T o understand the history of the Hijaz one should grasp the point of view and the information presented by the peoples present at all three points of the triangle. However, very few scholars have consulted all three of the needed types of soure, i.e., Arab, Ottoman, and European. Almost no Arabs have worked with Ottoman sources on the Hijaz, very few Turks have used Arabic chronicles, and most Western scholars rely chiefly on Western archival or printed documents. In the last decade there has been a partial change in this situation, as more Arab and Turkish scholars have begun to use Western records, especially the British archives. These remarks on the use of primary sources may also be extended to the use of monographs and journal articles. The cultural preeminence of the West in today's world has created a situation where Arabs and Turks often use Western secondary studies, but Turks and Arabs do not usually read each others' secondary works. Unfortunately, many Western scholars, though eager to consult primary sources in Arabic or in Turkish, do not read the secondary literature published in those languages. I am going to examine just the Arab element in this historiographical triangular relationship. By looking at recent secondary works on the history of the Ottoman H i j a z written by Arabs I hope to demonstrate not only my chief theme, but also the importance given by many current Arab historians to political rather than religious, social, and economic history. I will examine six items written by Arab historians: two books published in Arabic in Saudi Arabia and Egypt; two journal articles published in Arabic in Saudi Arabia and Tunisia; and two doctoral dissertations written in English at American universities by Arabs. I shall consider these six, in the order of their historical coverage. The first two are Abdulrahman Alorabi's ('Abd al-Rahman al-'Urabi's) dissertation on Ottoman policy in the Hijaz from 1731 to 1788, which was submitted to the University of Utah in 1988, and Muhammad 'Abd al-

THE RECENT HISTORIOGRAPHY OF WESTERN ARABIA Rahmai Arabic in Tunis in 1985.

17

0, which appeared in

Alorabi reported that he tried to use the Egyptian and Ottoman archives but was not able to do so. While he consulted the most imoortant Turkish-language book on the Hijaz (Uzungar§ili 19 r Turkish or Ottoman sources. Instead, he relied chiefly on Arabic-language chronicles, some of which were available only in manuscript form. Western secondary sources were used, but not Western archives. The first half of Alorabi's dissertation was a lather old-fashioned political narrative, but in the second half he turned to political analysis of offices such as the amir of Mecca, the Ottoman governor, the qadi, the mufti, and the shaykh alharam. There was a short description of the Ottoman and local military forces, and a somewhat longer discussion of the pilgrimage, concentrating especially on the Syrian and Egyptian mahmals. The whole work suffered from a failure to consult the Ottoman archival sources, which have vast amounts of information on all these matters. Alorabi had little discussion " " changes in economic or social institutions or of the results of Ottoman rule on the Hijaz. Instead, he asserted that the Hijaz was unique within the Ottoman Empire because of its local autonomy. A comparison with other Ottoman provinces, such as Lebanon, the Crimea, the Rumanian principalities, or even Egypt in the eighteenth century would have shown that the Hijaz was not unique. The chief strengths of Alorabi's work were his very thorough treatment of political history, and a diligent and conscientious attempt to compare Arabic-language sources with each other and with Western secondary sources. Muhammad 'Abd al-Rahman Buij's article covers the Hijaz from 1750 to 1800. Despite its chronological overlap with Alorabi's dissertation, Burj's article was almost completely different in content. Buij depended on the accounts of Western travellers such as Niebuhr and Burckhardt. Burj said that his purpose in writing the article was to show that such sources could cast light on the history of the Hijaz. Because of this purpose one would not expect the author to use Ottoman or Arabic sources. However, a comparison of the information from Western travellers with the picture of Hijazi history gained from Arab and Ottoman sources would have added immensely to the value of Earj's article. Almost all of the article consisted of economic

18

OTTOMAN-ARAB

HISTORY

information, with very little political data. Causal relationships between economic and political events were not discussed, with the one important exception of the motivation of the Egyptian attack in 1770 on the Hijaz. (Alorabi also mentioned economic motivation as a cause of this attack.) Buij did not analyze his economic data, nor did he use it to examine religious, social, or institutional history. Alorabi did not cite Burj's article, published three years before Alorabi completed his Ph. D. dissertation. The last four of the six works to be discussed chronologically span the period from 1869 to 1925. They are Fa'iq al-Sawwafs book on the relations between the Ottoman state and the Hijaz, published in Cairo in 1978; Nabil Ridwan's monograph on the Ottomans and Western Arabia after the opening of the Suez Canal, issued in Jiddah in 1983; Khalid al-Sa'dun's article dealing with the resistance of the tribes to the Hijaz Railway, which appeared in Riyacl. in 1988-89; and lastly, Abdlaziz Shebl's ('Abd al-'Aziz Shibl's) dissertation that discusses the emergence and demise of the kingdom of the Hijaz, 1916-1925, completed at the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1988. Al-Sawwaf in 1978 was assistant professor of modern history and head ot ihe Islamic History Department at King 'Abd al-'Aziz University in Mecca. He wrote that he went to Istanbul, London, Cairo, Beirut, and Medina to undertake research for his book. He consulted private libraries including unpublished family documents. He did not use the crucial Ottoman archives, nor the British or French archives. Al-Sawwaf read some Western secondary books, but he did not cite such important works as those of Gerald de Gaury (1951). While al- Sawwaf consulted Ottoman yearbooks for the Hijaz, they were not extensively used in his book. Instead, the work was based chiefly on printed Arabic works, some primary, and on newspapers, including al-Qiblah of Mecca. Ai-Sawwaf adopted a favorable view of Ottoman Sultan Abdulhamid II's pan-Islamic policy — in the context of Saudi history, this opinion of al-Sawwaf was remarkable. The author especially valued Abdiilhamid's building of the I.Jijaz Railway. Al-Sawwaf denigrated the non-religious motives for the Railway advanced by Western historians; indeed, he implied that British, French, and Zionist attacks on the Railway project were a way of undermining Abdiilhamid's pan-Islamic policy and thereby advancing imperialistic interests. Such a view of the Ottoman sultan and his policies should naturally be based on Ottoman sources, especially the Yildiz Palace

THE RECENT HISTORIOGRAPHY OF WESTERN A R A B I A

19

archives in Istanbul, which unfortunately the author did not use. While a few of the economic consequences of the Hijaz Railway appeared in this book, there was little socio-economic analysis of the Railway. The value of al-Sawwaf s book was in its summary of printed Arabic sources in one convenient location, and in its reinterpretation of Abdiilhamid II from a new Saudi religious perspective. Nabil Ridwan's book covered the whole of Western Arabia after 1869, and was clearly designed to be an analytical work, rather than a monograph. His sources for the sections of the book on the Hijaz were printed Arabic-language works by such authors as al-Sawwaf and others. Very few Western authors were mentioned, and almost no Ottoman or Turkish sources were cited. In his introduction, Ridwan stated that his motives for writing the book included a desire to see the history of Western Arabia as a whole rather than as segments, and also to see the region on its own terms rather than as part of larger empires. He succeeded admirably in these purposes by using a geographical-historical approach centered on the effects of the Suez Canal and the Hijaz Railway. There was little discussion in Ridwan's book on religious history, though some space was devoted to economic matters. Ridwan's fine analysis of Ottoman policy would have benefitted from reading earlier books (Ochsenwald 1980; 1984). Still, Ridwp-'s book has become the single best work on the political effects of the 2~ez Canal on Western Arabia up to World War I. Khalid al-Sa'dun's article on the nomadic opposition to the Hijaz Railway in 1908-1909 was based almost entirely on the British and American diplomatic archives. He also read some Arabic-language sources, including Ridwan, but he did not cite the usual printed Arabic works. There were no Ottoman or Turkish sources listed, and he did not cite Ochsenwald's 1973 article on precisely this topic. Al-Sa'dun analyzed the information coming from his British and American sources in a rather sophisticated way and he found a good deal of new and detailed data on the events of those two years. His article should certainly be read by all those interested in the topic. He would, however, have benefitted enormously from consulting the Ottoman archives in Istanbul.

20

OTTOMAN-ARAB

HISTORY

The sixth and last work to be considered is Abdlaziz Shebl's 1988 dissertation on the kingdom of the Hijaz. According to the author this was written to explain the collapse of the first Arab state to gain its independence from the Ottoman Empire. He aimed his work at internal history, thereby to a large extent avoiding a thicket of intensely controversial events in diplomatic history. The domestic history of the kingdom of the Hijaz by definition excluded a reliance on Ottoman sources, although Shebl's introductory sections would have profited from examining Turkish works on the Committee of Union and Progress. Shebl's chief sources were books by Westerners. He also used works by Arabs, and he read in the Britisn Foreign Office records, but not in the French archives. Unfortunately, he used only a few issues of the newspaper al-Qiblah, a key source for his topic. The history of the Hijaz from 1916 to 1925 would be clearer for Shebl and other scholars as well if historical papers compiled by the Hashemite family could be found. According to the Jordanian scholar Sulayman Mousa, who has published key documents belonging to Amir Zayd ibn Husayn, whatever iccords existed in Mecca during that time have been lost. Similarly, the judicial registers of Mecca, Medina, and Jiddah have not as yet been located. Until such items are uncovered, all researchers, including Dr. Shebl, suffer from considerable handicaps in dealing with this aspect of Hijazi history. Shebl did not discuss at any length the economic circumstances of 1916 up to 1925. Especially noteworthy was his omission of the pilgrimages, except in regard to King Husayn's exactions from the pilgrims. This gap demonstrated the dangers of writing history "from the top" and thereby neglecting the history of the rest of society. Shebl acknowledged, however, the basic continuity of Husayn's regime with the earlier Ottoman economic system — a vital element i.. analysis. For the pre-1914 period Shebl discussed at length aspects of social history, but surprisingly his analysis of these subjects was drastically curtailed for events after 1914. Shebl's dissertation supplements Baker's 1979 book on the kingdom of the Hijaz, but by no means replaces it. From my reading of these works, I have drawn three conclusions. First, all the parties who are the heirs of the earlier historical triangle — Arabs, Turks, and Westerners — need to increase their reading of each

THE RECENT HISTORIOGRAPHY OF WESTERN A R A B I A

21

others' primary sources and secondary literature. Serious difficulties arise when scholars remain ignorant of the work of colleagues in other countries. To keep up with the massive flood of secondary literature, including works published in a variety of languages, is a difficult but essential task. Making use of the crucial Ottoman archives for primary materials is now easier, following the Turkish government's decision to grant access in a rapid fashion to any qualified applicant. Second, in regard to the Arab "point" of the triangle, the analytical sophistication of books and articles would b by taking more fully into account social, economic, and cultural history. Vast strides have been made in the last few years in the study of the social and economic history of Syria, Palestine, Egypt, and Iraq, as written by Arabs, Westerners, and Turks. Recent examples of new approaches include research undertaken by 'Abd al-Karlm Rafiq of Damascus and the collection of Ottoman sijills in Amman. Such approaches should be pursued in the writing of the history of the Hijaz. Only when this is done can we properly discuss the interrelationship of socio-economic and political events in that significant region of the Middle East. Third, the most important aspect of Ottoman-HijazI history for the world as a whole — the history of theology - ' , ' 1 ", ' touched upon by any contemporary historians, whether Arabs, Turks, or Westerners. New developments in Mecca and Medina during the Ottoman period relating to religion might well have been influential and important — but we can not say as yet whether this was the case or whether the Holy Cities were a bastion of conservative religious views. John Voll's exciting article published in 1980 on the impact of eighteenth century Medina scholars shows the rich possibilities that might result from such research.

REFERENCES Alorabi, Abdulrahman. 1988. "The Ottoman Policy in the Hejaz in the Eighteenth Century: A Study of Political and Administrative Developments, 1143-1202 A.H./1731-1788 A.D." Ph. D. Dissertation, University of Utah. Baker, Randall. 1979. King Husain and the Kingdom of Hejaz. Cambridge. Buij, Muhammad 'Abd al-Rahmän. 1985. "Al-Hijäz fï al-'a§r al-'uthmânï... 1750-1800". Revue d'Histoire Maghrébine 12:473-81.

22

OTTOMAN-ARAB

HISTORY

De Gaury, Gerald. 1951. Rulers of Mecca. London. Hourani, Albert. 1991. "How Should We Write the History of the Middle East?". International Journal of Middle East Studies 23: 125-36. Ochsenwald, William. 1973. "Opposition to Political Centralization in South Jordan and the Hijaz, 1900-1914". Muslim World 62: 297-306. —. 1980. The Hijaz Railroad. Charlottesville, Virginia. —. 1984. Religion, Society, and the State in Arabia: The Hijaz under Ottoman Control, 1840-1908. Columbus, Ohio. Ridwan, Nabil. 1983. Al-Dawlat al-'uthmaniyyah wa gharbi al-jazlrat al'arabiyyah ba 'da iftitah qanat al-Suways (1286-1326/1869-1908). Jiddah. al-Sa'dun, Khalid. 1988-89. "Muqawamat al-qaba'il li sikkat hadid al-Hijaz ... 1908-1909 m." Al-Darah 14: 46-60. al-Sawwaf, Fa'iq. 1978. Al-Alaqat bayna al-dawlat al-'uthmaniyyah wa iqlim al-Hijaz jifatrat ma bayna 1293-1334 H. (1876-1916 M). Cairo. Shebl, Abdlaziz. 1988. "The Emergence and Demise of an Independent Arab State: the Kingdom of the Hejaz, 1916-1925". Ph. D. Dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles. Uzun§ar§ili, Ismail. 1972. Mekke-i mukerreme emirleri. Ankara. Voll, John. 1980. "Hadith Scholars and Tariqahs: An Ulama Group in the 18th Century Haramayn and Their Impact in the Islamic World." Journal of Asian and African Studies 15:264-73.

THE FINANCIAL BASIS OF OTTOMAN RULE IN THE HIJAZ, 1840-1877

If nineteenth-century Middle Eastern history is seen solely as a prelude to the growth of twentieth-century nationalisms, the positive aspects of the Ottoman Empire may be ignored. In the central Arab lands, Ottoman provincial administration endured for four centuries despite decentralization, depopulation, and economic decay. Despite the attacks by nationalists and Western critics, Ottoman rule must have had supporters and provided some benefits. The other side of the coin of modern nationalism is the history of the successful functioning of Ottoman institutions. To understand either the final collapse of the empire or its long existence necessitates analyses of each of the areas of the empire with attention both to the failings and successes of Ottoman rule. Although the Hijaz was both the birthplace of Arab political independence and the religious center of the Muslim world and the Ottoman Empire, its political history in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries is nearly unknown. Trying to reconstruct the history of the Hijaz brings to mind the fable of the blind seers and the elephant: each perceives a different kind of being depending on the source of information. The rare Christian traveler who managed to evade local authorities saw the Holy Cities during the pilgrimage as religious centers; European consuls, restricted to Jidda, knew that part of the merchant community which was engaged in international trade; chroniclers, later Arab nationalists, and the only fullscale history now available 1 all concentrated on the amirs of Mecca and their internal struggles and eventual leadership of the Arab revolt. If the role of the Hijaz in the modern period and its relationship to Arab nationalism are to be properly understood, these facets should be combined and one key missing ingredient added: the Ottoman part in Hijazi history. It is, however, easier to prescribe such an approach than to follow it. Ottoman records were not compiled with the purposes of the historian in mind. However, the slow piecing together of information from Ottoman sources, even when tentative

^Gerald de Gaury, Rulers of Mecca (London, 1951).

24

OTTOMAN-ARAB

HISTORY

and incomplete can add new clues toward the solution c modern Hijazi history. Money, as always, was a major concern of the government. The financial relations of the Ottomans with the Hijaz were central to the actual existence of the people of the area as well as their attitude toward their rulers. Subsidies from the central government to Mecca and Madina provided the chief rationale for the presence of the Ottomans in the Hijaz. The Ottoman Empire was the defender and economic support of the chief religious sites of Islam for the four centuries following the conquest of the Arab lands in the beginning of the sixteenth century. The Ottomans sent food for the subsistence of the Hijazis and the thousands of pilgrims who came to the Hijaz every year. In return the Ottoman sultan gained religious prestige. Mehmed Ali of Egypt had threatened the sultan's claim to be the protector of the Holy Places. Egypt administered the Hijaz for almost thirty years until 1840, when Ottoman administration directly linked to Istanbul was restored. The middle of the nineteenth century from 1840 to 1877 constituted a discrete block of time in the Hijaz ending with the accession of Sultan Abdiilhamid II in Istanbul and the death of Amir 'Abd Allah in the Hijaz. The period 1840 to 1877 falls into three politically defined sections in the Hijaz: (1) 1840-51, the continuation of the reign of the Amir Muhammad b.'Awn; (2) 1852-58, political turbulence with riots and massacres, first under 'Abd al-Muttalib and then the restored Muhammad b. 'Awn as amirs; (3) 1859-1877, political stability under Amir 'Abd Allah. There were then only three amirs from the family of the Prophet Muhammad who governed in Mecca beside the Ottoman governor and administration during the thirty-seven years under discussion. In the same time there were nineteen Ottoman valis, or provincial governors. Before we turn to any one particular aspect of the financial relations between the central government and the province, it will be useful to establish a picture of the total cash budget and the changes in it from 1257/1840-41 to 1294/1877-78. Each category of revenue and expenditure may then be compared with the totals in a more meaningful way. There are three especially important aspects of Ottoman-Hijazi relations that may be deduced from the cash totals (see table 1). First, there were the perpetual deficits. The average of the twelve available deficits is

THE F I N A N C I A L B A S I S OF O T T O M A N R U L E IN THE HIJAZ

25

about 30,000 purses. 1 Local revenues were always inadequate to cover local expenditures. Usually the deficits were two-thirds of the total expenditures of the province. Even with the strictest economies, the Hijaz was necessarily dependent upon external subsidies to maintain its government. Second, the total sums involved were relatively small. In the year of greatest expenditure, 1279/1862-63, only about 47,300 purses, or keses, were spent on all aspects of government excluding the pilgrimage but including the military and gifts to local Bedouin leaders. Local revenue averaged around 11,000 purses. By comparison, Egypt's tribute payment to the Ottoman central government in Istanbul up to 1866 was 80,000 purses; after that it was 150,000. The revenue of Cyprus, perhaps more comparable in number of inhabitants, was 42,274 purses in 1868-69. 2 Finally the fluctuations in all categories show no over-all patterns or are inconclusive. Changes are usually explainable in terms of short-term accounting decisions made within the provincial administration rather than a long-range plan to alter the amounts of revenues or expenditures. An example is the income from the customs collected at the Red Sea ports. Major changes in total customs revenues resulted from the inclusion or exclusion of the Red Sea ports of Ottoman Yemen and the cession of Suakin and Massawa on the African coast of the Red Sea to the administration of Egypt. TABLE 1 TOTAL R E V E N U E A N D E X P E N D I T U R E FOR THE HIJAZ Year

Local Revenue

Expenditure

Deficit

1257/1841-42 1261/1845 1263/1846-47 1267/1850-51 1268/1851-52 1269/1852-53 1270/1853-54 1276/1859-60 1278/1861-62 1279/1862-63 1280/1863-64

10,743 12,991 (7,000) 13,418 6,669 7,389 (6,263) 17,203 (8,513) 13,607 14,346

34,361 (28,190) (37,926) 45,509 45,629 41,880 (36,506)

-23,618 -15,199 -30,926 -32,091 -38,960 -34,491 -30,243

(38,490) 47,306 (47,306)

-29,977 -33,699 -32,960

A purse, or kese, is equal to 500 Ottoman kurush. All Ottoman money as well as foreign currency has been converted to purses, which have been rounded to the nearest whole number. 2 Harry Luke, Cyprus under the Turks, 1571-1878 (London, 1969), pp. 239^7.

26 1281/1864-65 1282/1865-66 1289/1872-73

OTTOMAN-ARAB HISTORY (14,346) (16,646)

(42,420) (41,772) (41,140)

-28,074 -25,126

Note: All figures have been rounded to the nearest purse of 500 Ottoman kurush. Parentheses indicate estimates by the sources; audited amounts have no parentheses. Sources are as follows: Turkey, Ba§bakanlik Ar§ivi (B.B.A.) Meclis-i Vala (M.V.) 504 and Dahiliye (D.) 3548; M.V. 4889; M.V. 2948; M.V. 6334; D. 17876; Meclis-i Mahsus (M.M.) 1; Misir Defteri 592 Enclosure 26; M.V. 18661; M.M. 1120 and M.V. 24702; M.V. 22429 Enclosure 22; D. 37893; D. 45412. The figures for 1278, which originally covered a twenty-one month period, have been prorated for the year.

REVENUES The sources of revenue available to the Ottoman government of the Hijaz were limited by the peculiar religious, political, and economic position the province occupied in the empire. Because of its religious role, it was the recipient of gifts from the central government rather than a source of revenue for Istanbul. But even if the central government had wanted to collect large amounts of taxes, it would have been difficult to do so. The Hijaz was too poor, too distant, and too accustomed to near-autonomy to submit to taxation. Hijazis basically did not pay taxes except in the disguised form of higher prices for goods taxed on entry to the Hijaz by sea. These customs revenues were outweighed by external sources of money: direct subsidies to the local government from Istanbul, gifts to individuals and religious groups (the surra), and food sent by Cairo and Istanbul. Despite these sources, money frequently had to be borrowed locally to tide the government over until the annual subsidies actually arrived in Mecca. Every year the vali faced the problem of securing the money needed to balance his expenditures. When the changeover to Ottoman administration occurred in 1257/1841^12, the financial and grain contributions of Egypt to the Hijaz once again became an issue. Mehmed Ali of Egypt had annually sent 10,000 purses or their equivalent in grain as a gift in addition to his expenditures for military expenses in the Hijaz. He had, however, suppressed at least some of the waqf income from Egypt for the Holy Cities. In 1257/1841-42 he withheld a small part of the 10,000 purses despite protests from Vali Osman Pasha. Osman estimated that the

THE F I N A N C I A L B A S I S OF O T T O M A N R U L E IN THE H I J A Z

27

Jidda customs would yield under 9,000 purses; 1 he thought he should receive another 8,000 from urban rents and agricultural property income from Egyptian waqfs. If Egypt provided its full 10,000 purses in gifts, the deficit would then be only about 3,000 purses. 2 Osman's estimates were over optimistic: he drastically underestimated expenditures. A complete list of revenues sent by the chief clerk of the Jidda local treasury to Istanbul showed actual receipts for 1257 as the following: (1) Jidda customs, 10,496 purses; (2) other local sources, 247; (3) Istanbul Treasury, 4,510; (4) Egypt had promised 8,000 in grain and cash but had delivered only 5,693; (5) grain already on hand in the Hijaz from Egypt, 2,856. The total of 23,802 purses, even if Egypt's missing contribution could be expected soon, was still far short of total expenditures. Short-term one-time measures were taken to raise about 7,000 purses. The remaining 3,500 purses of the deficit had to be sent from Istanbul. When 2,000 purses finally arrived, they were used to pay the troops in Madina and merchants in Jidda who were owed money by the local government. 3 The burden of the deficit fell on those groups, who frequently had to wait years to receive the money that was due them. The next year that provides sufficient information for analysis of revenues was 1261/1845. The tangled web of the financial records of the Hijaz for this year was not finally settled by the Ottoman accountants until five years after the completion of the year itself. In April 1849 a detailed examination of the books of the province showed that 13,326 purses had come from Istanbul directly or by drafts on Egypt. The proportion of the money from Egypt is not known, although three years before in 1258/184243 Egypt had been expected to pay 13,000 purses. Local revenues accounted for almost as much as the subsidies from Cairo and Istanbul in 1845. After a long dispute between two valis was adjudicated by the Istanbul treasury auditors, a relatively small deficit of about 1,800 purses remained to be paid for 1261. This money and 5,000 purses that had been borrowed from Jidda merchants to help cover the expenses of 1261 and 1262 were paid through Egypt. The banker of the vali of Egypt paid the vali of Jidda, and then Egypt was reimbursed by Istanbul. The Jidda customs in 1814 during the first years of Mehmed Ali's administration were estimated at 8,000 purses (J. L. Burckhardt, Travels in Arabia [London, 1829], p. 49). In 1829 it was said to be about 6,000 purses (Boislecomte [Alexandria] to French Foreign Minister, 3 July 1833, printed in Georges Douin, ed.. La Mission du Baron de Boislecomte [Cairo, 1927], p. 126). ^Turkey. Ba§bakanhk Argivi (B.B.A.). Meclis-i Vàia (M.V.) 504. 3 B.B.A. Dahiliye (D.) 3548.

28

OTTOMAN-ARAB

HISTORY

In the period of unstable Hijazi political history from 1268/1851-52 to 1275/1858-59, detailed information on finances is possible only for the years 1268 to 1270/1853-54. In 1268 Egypt paid the Hijaz on behalf of the Ottomans 19,623 purses for basic civilian expenditures. In addition to this there was a special 9,107-purse gift. Local revenues of almost 6,700 purses were a second source. The balance of the 45,000 purses — about 10,000 — came from the central treasury to the Hijaz in cash. It was planned that nearly the same allocation would take place in 1269/1852-53. However, in both years actual payments ran behind the promised amounts. Egypt paid for the Ottomans less than the customary 20,000 purses: only 16,859 in 1268 and 9,437 in 1269. On the other hand, audited accounts of expenditures showed that they also were lower than official estimates. 1 In 1270/1853-54 Egypt once again sent at least 20,000 purses from its total tribute owed to the imperial government. The complete records of the local revenues for 1269/1852-53 show the results of separating the Yemen ports' customs from Hijazi administration. This year, as in 1263/1845-46 and 1268/1851-52, a severe drop in revenue naturally resulted. Of the 7,389 purses left, over fivesevenths came from the customs of Jidda (2,919) and Suakin and Massawa (2,344). Another important source of local revenue was the tribute of 460 purses paid by Najd to the Hijaz in recognition of nominal Ottoman sovereignty. 2 Zakat (taxes for alms) receipts were only 206 purses. Initially, the projected deficit, based on 1268 figures, was 27,532. Another 7,000 purses had to come from Istanbul after the separation of the Yemen customs. 3 The Istanbul treasury also paid Egypt for the shipment in 1268 of 4,144 tons of wheat, 9,279 of barley, and 2,089 of ful (Egyptian beans) to the Hijaz. In the two years 1269 and 1270/1853-54 the Nizamiye treasury supplied 20,140 purses, Egypt 20,000, and the imperial treasury 3,276 for grain to the Hijaz. 4

^B.B.A. D. 17876 Enclosure 8. R. B. Winder, Saudi Arabia in the Nineteenth Century (New York, 1965), pp. 179-82, says that the payment of Maria Theresa $10,000 (about 460 purses) by the Saudis to the Hijaz was not made in 1846, leading to the campaign of the Amir in Najd that year. Muhammed b. 'Awn then secured the money, but there were again at least partial defaults in 1850 and 1854-55. 3 B.B.A. Meclis-i Mahsus (MM.) I Enclosure 28. 4 B.B.A. D. 14696; D. 24863. 2

THE F I N A N C I A L B A S I S OF OTTOMAN RULE IN THE HIJAZ

29

The need for cash led the valis to borrow money from local merchants. Even when the income from Istanbul permitted them to pay for expenditures, it was difficult to transfer the allotted funds from Istanbul to Mecca. Payments were months and sometimes years in arrears, with the threat of an audit awaiting the vali who manipulated his accounts. The defterdar, or treasurer, of the provincial administration seems, at least in some instances, to have possessed independence of action and a separate channel of communication with Istanbul. The risky business of providing credit could be undertaken only by the largest of merchants with a capital such that delays in payment would not ruin his other businesses. Even more preferable was a consortium of lenders who could share the risks and also apply more pressure on the vali in the event of a dispute than could one man. Faraj Yusr, an Indian Muslim, was the chief merchant of Jidda in the 1850s. His capital was estimated at between 24,000 and 30,000 purses. 1 He became the chief banker for the Hijaz. Yusr and another local merchant, Salim Sultan, lent the provincial government 1,600 purses in 1270. In 1271 Yusr advanced 4,300 purses to the Hijaz for the payment of soldiers and military expenses. He was to be repayed by drafts on Istanbul. The imperial treasury was ordered to pay Yusr's agent in Istanbul the total of both debts. 2 These loans plus others, unrecorded in their details, totalled 9,900 purses for 1270 and 1271. In 1272/1855-56 Faraj Yusr was asked for the large sum of 14,501 purses. Since payments in Jidda were actually made in riyals (Maria Theresa dollars), the rate of exchange between the kurush, treasury sight drafts, and the silver dollar was crucial to his undertaking such a large transaction. His agent at Istanbul demanded that the rate of exchange be fixed at thirty kurush per riyal rather than twenty-three; this would also make a difference of 2,000 purses in the payment of past debts that were due him. In 1273/1856-57 once again, Yusr paid for a large proportion of the grain imported into the Hijaz. In order to share the risk of these large sums, he formed syndicates. 3 Yusuf Banaja was one of those who also lent the Ottomans money. Banaja provided 2,982 purses in 1268 and 1269. His loan illustrated the

Richard Burton, Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to El-Medinah and Meccah (London, 1855-56), 1:47; Great Britain. Foreign Office (F.O.) 195/375 Qaimmaqam of Jidda to Page, 4 November 1856; Charles Didier, Séjour chez le Grand-Chérif de la Mekke (Paris, 1857) DP 160-161. 2 3

B.B.A. M. V. 12723; M.V. 13320; D. 20141. B.B.A. M.V. 15507; M.V. 15511; M.V. 16307; M.V. 19627.

30

OTTOMAN-ARAB

HISTORY

slowness of the Ottoman bureaucracy. Although he was supposed to be reimbursed shortly after making the loan, his agents in Cairo and Istanbul did not receive the money; and in 1272 the case still had not been settled. 1 When Faraj Yusr was discharged as the treasury's chief agent in Jidda in 1276/1860, Ahmad Mashat and Salim Sultan became the province's chief bankers. The stated reasons for the change were the excessive profits Yusr was thought to be receiving, his slowness in supplying the money, and the rate of thirty-two kurush per riyal he wanted to use while the current rate was twenty-nine or twenty-nine and one-half. 2 Yusr's profit on exchange was estimated at eighteen percent. On the loan of 4,000 purses to the amir for military operations, which caused lively discussion in Istanbul, Yusr wanted a two percent commission plus the rate of thirty-two kurush per riyal. A competitor offered to make the same loan for the same commission but at twenty-nine per riyal. This would have given the amir more than 6,000 extra riyals, but the proposal was turned down in Istanbul. Yusr's agent there allegedly bribed the minister of the treasury to achieve this. Unfortunately there is insufficient evidence now available to determine whether the reasons for Yusr's eventual downfall were valid or a mere pretext for political or personal motives. Similarly, the profitability of most of the loans is not yet known; a five percent profit seems to have been the minimum expected. 3 The reign of the amir 'Abd Allah, which constituted the third period for analysis, witnessed no major changes from the preceding two segments. The year 1279/1862-63 may be taken as an example. Local revenue came chiefly from the Jidda customs, which yielded a profit of 6,000 purses, and those of Yemen, which also provided 6,000. The customs of Massawa and Suakin declined to only 133 purses. Although the Najd's tribute of 600 purses was listed as a source of money, it was not paid that year. 4 Egypt continued to be the chief source of payments. Every year, 20,000 purses from the Egyptian tribute to Istanbul had been used at the direction of the central government for the purchase of grain. When the decision was taken to send grain from Iraq rather than Egypt, part of the iB.B.A. M.V. 15540. B.B.A. M.M. 736. 3 Ahmed Cevdet Pasha, Tezdkir (Nos. 13-20, edited by Cavid Baysun; Ankara, 1960), 2: 9395. ^B.B.A. M.V. 22429 Enclosure 22. 2

THE F I N A N C I A L B A S I S OF O T T O M A N R U L E I N THE HIJAZ

31

now-freed money was sent to Jidda for the operating expenses of the Hijaz and part was used to repay Ottoman debts to the Egyptian treasury for preceding years' expenditures in the Hijaz. 1 Local merchants continued to provide money pending payments from Istanbul. Mashat had provided over 27,000 purses in 1277-78, and he remained a large lender in 1279 with almost 8,000 purses. Yet Mashat's own capital was reported to be insufficient to cover payments if Istanbul was late in reimbursing him. 2 Surprisingly enough, Faraj Yusr is also mentioned as providing 8,000 and being paid back by drafts on the treasury. Other merchants loaned 6,800. They and Mashat were repaid when Egypt sent 15,000 purses to Jidda for the account of the imperial treasury. There remained, however, debts of 36,000 purses from 1277-78 still unpaid. The imperial treasury sent 10,000 purses in cash to the Hijaz, so that 1279 expenditures were balanced even though the backlog from previous years remained. The surra in 1279 amounted to 6,179 purses and stayed at about the same amount in the following years.

EXPENDITURES In the initial period of the restoration of Ottoman control, detailed information on expenditures is available only for the year 1257/1841-42. There were three major categories into which the local government's spending was divided. The largest was food. Grain and other items in storehouses cost 10,404 purses. This plus food for the military and the cost of transport of the grain was an additional 7,265 purses. Together they accounted for one-half of total expenditures. Most of the food went to recipients of pensions, government employees, the military, and the Bedouin. The second area of government spending was cash salaries to government employees, pensions to religious people, and money for the amir and the Bedouin. The bureaucracy took 4,075 purses and the other groups 3,853. Bashibozuks, or the irregular army, were paid 8,767 purses, or about one-quarter of the budget. 3

*B.B.A. M.V. 22429, Enclosures 52 and 29. F.O. 195/681 Stanley (Jidda) to Bulwer, 22 Februaiy 1861. 3 B.B.A. D. 3548.

2

32

OTTOMAN-ARAB

HISTORY

In the second period of political instability, different categories were used in financial accounts. Allocations for the military in 1268/1851-52 included the cost of food. Total military costs rose to 26,588 purses, or well over one-half of all spending. Second that year were the salaries paid to government workers and the pensions to sharifs, the Bedouin, and those who prayed in the Holy Cities. The final fifth of the budget was used for imperial gifts and miscellaneous categories. 1 Cash expenditures for 1269/1852-53 show the same preponderance of military spending as in 1268 but also demonstrate the duality of the Ottoman army in the Hijaz. Civil salaries and purchase of grain for civilians cost only 16,853 purses; the army consumed 25,027. However, this 25,000 was divided into two parts: the regular cavalry and infantry on the one hand and the Nizamiye infantry and artillery on the other. Judging by the total amounts spent, the regulars were more numerous, or at least more expensive, than the Nizamiye. The regulars' provisions were presumably paid for by the central government directly, whereas the cost of supplying the Nizamiye came from the Hijaz budget. In itself the cost for the Nizamiye that year and in others was deceptive because the first regiment of the Hijaz Division was permanently stationed in Istanbul. The 4,000 purses this regiment cost should be deducted every year from the formal expenditures of the Hijaz in order to ascertain the actual cost to the empire of militarily defending the province. 2 The amount of grain sent by the Istanbul government to the Hijaz was substantial given the expense and distances involved. In the early and middle periods, it seems to have been sent from Egypt alone, although later it came from Iraq. Over 14,000 tons were sent to the Hijaz in 1269/185253. To take only barley as an example, the 9,125 tons of it that were sent to the Hijaz were divided as follows: 4,867 tons went to the military; 473 to the civil government; and 3,785 were presumably reserved for civilian and pilgrim use. 3 The next year the commanding proportion of the army was increased. Although the actual amount spent decreased to 24,283 purses, other nonmilitary spending declined even more. About two-thirds of all expenditures

^B.B.A. D. 17876 Enclosure 8. B.B.A. M.M. I Enclosure 28. B.B.A. M.M. I Enclosure 28.

2 3

THE FINANCIAL B A S I S OF OTTOMAN RULE IN THE HIJAZ

33

went to the military. Government salaries were only 6,446 purses, and pensions were an almost insignificant 2,81s. 1 A closer look at the kinds of expenditures in 1270 reveals the diverse types of activities that involved the Hijaz provincial government. The safeguarding of the pilgrimage and the carrying out of its ritual requirements were among the major undertakings of the vali. Moving grain to Mecca and Madina for the pilgrims and their military escorts cost 400 purses. The troops stationed in the Hijaz who were used to help protect the pilgrimage themselves cost the government about 2,300 purses. Amir 'Abd al-Muttalib received 540 purses just for his expenses relating to the pilgrimage. 2 Some money allocated specifically for the reconstruction of holy buildings in Madina was diverted to other purposes. It was used for salaries of the vali, the amir, the defterdar, the keeper of the keys to the Ka'ba, and for a number of other religious and political officials. None of the money seems to have been spent on buildings in Madina. 3 A long-standing system used in paying government employees, and probably soldiers as well, permitted some high officials of the Ottoman government to make money at the expense of their poorer colleagues. Pay warrants were issued instead of cash. These warrants were always subject to discount because it was only rarely that the recipient himself could go directly to the treasury that had issued them in order to cash them. Even when he could do so, the treasury might refuse payment, at least temporarily, pending bribes. Up to 1857, pay warrants in the Hijaz had been worth only 50-70 percent of their face value. Starting that year, it became harder to cash the warrants with the vilayet treasurer for cash; only too frequently the bearer had to settle for 40 percent of the real value. 4 Ten years later, in 1279/1862-63, there is the only complete account of the provincial budget by cities (see table 2). The Ottomans clearly attached greater importance to Mecca, for they spent twice as much there as in Madina. Mecca was larger, the seat of the amirate, and the more important of the two in religious terms. In the only two categories where spending in Madina was considerably greater than that in Mecca, the transport of grain and payments to Bedouins, special circumstances were 'b.B-A. Misir Defteri 592 Enclosure 26. B.B.A. Misir Defteri 592. 3 B.B.A. Misir Defteri 592. 4 F.O. 195/375 S. Page (Jidda) to Stratford de Redcliffe, 20 October 1857. 2

34

OTTOMAN-ARAB

HISTORY

present. Madina was physically farther from the Red Sea coast, and the camel caravans carrying grain had to traverse land in the hands of nearly independent Bedouin tribes. Particularly in administration Mecca was more important as the residence, de facto, of the vali, although he nominally was based in Jidda. TABLE 2 EXPENDITURES OF THE JIDDA EYALET IN 1 2 7 9 / 1 8 6 2 - 6 3 Category The amir, the sharifs, and others Servants of the haram Neighbors of God and the Prophet Civil servants Nizamiye Regular army Military supplies Navy Grain and transport* Living expenses Travel expenses, mail, etc. Bedouin Subtotal Miscellaneous Total Grand total

In Madina

In Mecca

16

5,376 78 617 4,208 9,774 6,404 594 190 260 1,216 799

782 506 4,437 5,411 268 2,426 507 276 152 14,781 400 15,181

29,516 2,600 32,116 47,297

Note: All figures have been rounded to the nearest purse of 500 Ottoman kurush. Source: B.B.A. M.V. 22429 Enclosure 14. * Also see table 3.

Well over half of the money in 1279 was spent on the armed forces. Food consumption from officially provided storehouses reflected the same financial priority (see table 3). Of 3,683 tons of barley, 1,527 went to cavalry based in Madina and 1,326 to military forces in Mecca. Civil servants were paid both in cash and in food. Grain was also given to religious persons in Mecca ("neighbors of God") and Madina ("neighbors of the Prophet"). Because of existing stores in warehouses in Yanbu', Rabigh and Jidda, the actual amount of grain to be purchased and laboriously transported to the Holy Cities was only 3,650 tons that year.

THE FINANCIAL B A S I S OF OTTOMAN RULE IN THE HIJAZ

35

A list of the individuals who received money and food in Madina and Yanbu1 in 1280/1863-64 provides the first opportunity to see the reality of individuals behind the collective terms used in most records. The importance of this may be illustrated in the first category of table 4, sharifs and sayyids. The gross figures are, in themselves, only of importance when seen in comparison with other categories, i.e., a good deal more was spent on these descendants of the Prophet than on the servants of the Madina haram, who numbered at least twenty. If, however, the total money given the sharifs and sayyids is divided by thirty-eight, the number of recipients, they become more meaningful. On the average each sharif or sayyid received about 3,080 pounds of wheat, 1,805 TABLE3 FOOD TO BE PURCHASED BY THE JIDDA EYALET IN 1279/1862-63 Category In Mecca The amir, other sharifs, and sayyids Servants of the haram and neighbors of God Civil servants Military Total In Madina Sharifs Servants of the haram Neighbors of the Prophet Bedouin Civil servants Syrian pilgrim Military Total Grand total

Ful

Barley

Wheat

103

282

137

1 4 503 611

26 53 1,326 1,687

120 6 1,060 1,323

53 2 5 4«

35 42 11 27 41 32 1,593 1,781 3,468

58 27 16 426 13 20 601 1,161 2,484

66 109 283 894

Note: All figures have been converted to tons. Minor categories have been omitted, as have i" unts of coffee, sugar, etc. Totals, therefore, are larger than the sums hsicu nere would indicate. Source: B.B.A. M.M. 1120 Enclosure 35.

pounds of barley, and 1,590 pounds of ful. The head of the Madina haram received 21,600 pounds per year of wheat. Presumably he maintained a large household and entertained many guests, so that much of the grain was used;

36

OTTOMAN-ARAB

HISTORY

but he might also have been able to sell a good part of it. An official might get most of his pay in cash and some in grain. Pensions were given not only to retired civil servants but also to their children. In addition, payments of other sorts were also inheritable. The money originally given to the leader of a Bedouin tribe might be divided and redivided over the years. By 1280, for example, thirteen people were dividing 1,400 pounds of wheat and two hundred pounds of barley originally given to one person. Even spies were listed on the roster, though not by name. The pilgrimage from Syria, which brought part of the yearly influx of money needed so desperately in the Hijaz, also entailed expenditures by the provincial government. Official receptions and ceremonies in and near Madina marked the arrival and departure of the caravans; they cost 161 purses. Ottoman troops and officials rented camels from the Bedouins for 428 purses. The Bedouins who lived in the vicinity of the hajj route received 14,000 pounds of wheat, 424,000 of barley, and 280,000 of ful. Ottoman official hospitality to their Bedouin guests extended to 1,320 pounds of sugar to sweeten the coffee of their guests. Grain that was transported to Madina and Yanbu' for the pilgrims and their protectors was perhaps partially paid for by money from the surra. TABLE 4 CONDENSED STATEMENT OF THE 1 2 8 0 / 1 8 6 3 - 6 4 EXPENDITURES FOR M A D I N A A N D Y A N B U '

-

-

Sharifs and sayyids Servants of the Madina haram Neighbors of the Prophet Civil servants, servants, etc. Storehouses of Madina, special occasions, some Bedouin Nizamiye army and artillery Salary Supplies

Money

Ful

Barley

Wheat

17

30

34

59

53

1 3

39 16

27 23

521

1

3

1

4

154 2,756 4,487

178

105

447

THE FINANCIAL BASIS OF OTTOMAN RULE IN THE HIJAZ 37 Cavalry and guards for roads Bedouin Pilgrimage, including grain bought for pilgrims Administration of Yanbu' Total

8,060 5,676

226 21,950

1,892 63

62

526 522

196

175

171

472

2,326

1,780

Note: All figures have been rounded to the nearest purse and the nearest ton. Some minor categories have been omitted. Totals, therefore, are larger than the sums listed here would indicate. Source: B.B.A. M.M. 1223 Enclosure 32.

Yanbu', the port of Madina, was a qaimmaqamate under the jurisdiction of Madina. With probably fewer than 5,000 people, Yanbu' nevertheless had a harbor that was filled with ships from Qussayr and Suez on the Egyptian coast and, during the pilgrimage season, was frequented also by ships from all the Muslim world. Its administration in 1280 cost 226 purses. Half of this consisted of the salary of the qaimmaqam, Khalil Pasha. Ten soldiers in the local garrison were paid three purses each per year. Payments to the Bedouin were divided into two sections corresponding to the tribal confederations of the Harb and the Juhayna. The Harb controlled the crucial passes from the Red Sea coast to Madina and some of the routes between Mecca and Madina. They received ten times more food than did the Juhayna. 1 Differences in the categories used make it difficult to compare with precision Madina's expenditures in 1280 with those of 1279. Two major changes seem to have taken place: (1) the pilgrimage is included in 1280 but not in 1279; (2) the expenses of all branches of the military went up by about 5,000 purses in 1280. The increase in military spending may have been caused by disputes with the Bedouin of Rabigh and Yanbu'. A few months after the report on 1280/1863-64 was written, the Yanbu'-Madina and Madina-Mecca roads were cut by the Harb Bedouin. 2 In the years following 1280, only scattered information on expenditures is available, with the exception of the salary schedule of Iß.B.A. M.M. 1223 Enclosure 32. y •'French consul at Jidda to Ministry, 5 February 1864, and 10 August 1864, in René Tresse, Le Pèlerinage syrien aux villes saintes de l'Islam (Paris, 1937), p. 54; Adolphe d'Avril, L'Arabie contemporaine avec la description du pèlerinage de la Mecque (Paris, 1868), ] " '-85.

38

OTTOMAN-ARAB

HISTORY

1288/1871-72. Most documents deal with grain shipments to the Hijaz. From the taxes of Varna in the European section of the empire came 12,322 purses used for the purchase and shipment of food to the Hijaz in 1287/1870-71. In 1288/1871-72 Varna and other sancaks contributed 5,380 purses for grain and 2,130 for transportation. At least 4,474 purses were spent on the same items in 1291/1874-75.1 The Ottoman central government went bankrupt in the 1870s because of excessive borrowing from Europe, the disastrous wars of that period, and the inability of the state to raise the level of the economy. In an initial attempt to cut expenditures, a careful investigation was made of the civil employees of the Hijaz in order to reduce their number and expense. In 1288/1871-72 total salaries were 15,737 purses. By eliminating some posts entirely, combining others, and cutting the salaries of some of those remaining, it was proposed to save 1,536 purses. The chief victims of the cuts were to be the vali, who would lose two-thirds of his 1,440-purses salary; the chief clerk, whose salary was cut by one-half and whose assistant was dismissed; and the Jidda qaimmaqam, whose post was to be abolished. It was suggested that the salary of the qaimmaqam of Mecca be raised from 120 to 180 purses per year and that he be responsible for the administration of Jidda rather than simply act as an aide to the vali. The reforms may have been implemented in part, but the Jidda qaimmaqamate was retained. The total number of employees of the Hijaz Ottoman government, from the vali to the coffee-maker in Madina (but excluding the police), was about 170. They shared 7,828 purses in 1288 but with a wide gap between the amir, with 2,160, and a water-carrier, who was paid under 2 purses annually. Intermediate ranks included clerks who received between 10 and 20 purses, a translator with 12, and teachers in Mecca who were paid 30 purses each. Religious-legal figures such as the deputy judges of Mecca and Madina had only 30 purses per year in salary. The Hanafi mufti of Mecca was paid the surprisingly low sum of 6 purses. Health officials got more: doctors in Jidda and Madina were paid 36 and 130 respectively, though quarantine officials received far less.

*B.B.A. D. 45149; D. 50455; D. 49474.

THE FINANCIAL BASIS OF OTTOMAN RULE IN THE HIJAZ

39

TABLE 5 CONDENSED STATEMENT OF THE SALARIES OF THE HIJAZ VILAYET IN 1 2 8 8 / 1 8 7 1 - 7 2 Hijaz Mutasarriflik Interior Amir of Mecca Vali Qaimmaqam of Mecca Chief clerk Zaptiye police Subtotal Treasury Defterdar Assistant Subtotal Total

Mecca Sancak

2,160 1,440 120 120 7,909 12,076

Interior Treasury Legal Education Commerce Public utilities Total

216 144 746 12822

Jidda Sancak Interior Qaimmaqam of Jidda Governor of Taif Governor of Rabigh Shaykh of Rabigh Muhafiz of Qunfuda Subtotal Treasury Commerce Subtotal Total Grand total

285 47 103 216 120 li 782

Madina Sancak 200 12 19 6 18 490 120 403 523 1,013

Interior Shaykh al-Haram Muhafiz of Madina Qaimmaqam of Yanbu' Subtotal Treasury Legal Commerce Subtotal Total

336 200 88 713 155 112 140 407 1,120

15,737

Note: All figures have been rounded to the nearest purse of 500 Ottoman kurush. Some categories have been omitted. Totals, therefore, are larger than the sums listed here would indicate. Source: B.B.A. D. 44765. The sole public utility in all the Hijaz that received government support was the spring that supplied water for Mecca. 1

'B.B.A. D. 44765.

40

OTTOMAN-ARAB

HISTORY

CONCLUSION To obtain a complete idea of the scope and cost of government in the Ottoman Hijaz it would be necessary to obtain information on all the thirtyseven years involved rather than the fragmentary data now available. It would also be advisable to complete the survey of the history of the Hijaz to the end of the empire there in 1919, as well as obtaining comparable data on the other provinces of the region, before drawing definitive conclusions about the nature of Ottoman-Arab relations. The amirs of Mecca, who played such an important part in the Arab rebellion and subsequent Arab nationalism, enjoyed authority and power under the Ottomans. Their own financial history is nearly unknown, although it seems that the money they received from Istanbul remained stable throughout the nineteenth century at about 2,000 purses. 1 This was, however, by no means the only source of revenue available to them. Granting that the financial evidence is both incomplete and perhaps in part misleading, it does help establish the major concerns of the Ottoman government in the Hijaz and the dependence of the area upon external sources of money and food. Most importantly, the primary role of the military is made clear. Although consuming the largest part of most years' budgets, the army managed to maintain order only in the main towns; the countryside, mostly desert, was outside its control. Because of the danger of first Egyptian and then European expansionism, the riots and rebellions of 'Abd al-Muttalib, and the continual menace of the Bedouin, it was impossible to reduce the level of spending for the military. In the central lands of the empire, 1840-77 was the period of the Tanzimat, the Crimean War, and military and administrative reform. These changes were apparently not felt in the Hijaz. Civil government was limited to record-keeping, the courts, minimal health precautions, and, most important, the buying, storage, and distribution of food purchased by Istanbul for the people and the pilgrims. The people of the Hijaz lived by means of religion. Pilgrims to Mecca and Madina provided probably the greatest source of income, but the 1'fhe subsidy to the sharifs was said to be 1,920 purses in the 1810s; see Burckhardt, op. cit., p. 225. By 1267/1850-51 it was about 2,160 purses with 228 tons of barley and other goods whose value was estimated for 1271/1854-55 at 285 purses per year; see B.B.A. D. 14524 and D. 21257.

THE FINANCIAL B A S I S OF OTTOMAN RULE IN THE HIJAZ

41

gifts and subventions from the central Ottoman Empire and Egypt were certainly next in importance. Other than customs fees there were practically no taxable resources; the area was too poor to pay its own way. Yet at the same time there was a strong tradition of autonomy among the tribes and near-autonomy among the amirs of Mecca. There were, therefore, strong reasons both for loyalty to the Ottoman sultan and suspicion of any centralizing measures adopted by Istanbul. On balance Ottoman sovereignty in the Hijaz provided financial benefits for all groups that outweighed resentment caused by the limited degree of political interference. Arab nationalism did not exist in the Hijaz of 1840-77 but neither did strong Ottoman loyalty.

OTTOMAN SUBSIDIES TO THE HIJAZ 1877-18861

Students of nineteenth-century Ottoman political history have concentrated on the central provinces of the Empire. Students of Arab political history of the same period have concentrated on anti-Ottoman nationalism centered in Cairo and Beirut. Relatively little work has yet been done to illuminate the nature of Ottoman government in the Arab provinces. The picture that is presented by Western travelers, Arab nationalists reminiscing about their youth, and diplomatic reports has been incomplete, biased against the Imperial government, and sometimes factuallyinaccurate. Perhaps the Arab province most valuable to the Ottoman Sultan was the Hijaz Vilayet. The Hijaz had only a small amount of agricultural land, was peripheral to major world commerce, and provided almost no income from taxation. Its value lay in the prestige conferred on the Sultanate by protection of the two major Hijazi cities, Mecca and Medina, the most important centers of pilgrimage for the world's Muslims. The religious importance of the Hijaz was reflected in the nature of Ottoman administration in the province. Political control was shared between the Ottoman vali or governor and the emir, who was a gerif and chief among the descendants of the Prophet Muhammad. The uneasy balance between the emir and the vali was frequently upset. It was dependent upon such factors as the influence of both with the sultan, the personal abilities of the two men, and the relations of the emir with the major Bedouin tribes. Even longevity could play a part in determining the relative position of the two. When the long tenure of the Emir 'Abd Allah Pa§a b. Muhammad b. 'Awn (1857-77) ended there ensued a period of rapid political maneuvering. Within five years three new emirs had been appointed: HUsayn b. Muhammad b. 'Awn (1877-80), 'Abd al-Muttalib b. Ghalib (1880-2), and 'Awn al-Rafiq b. Muhammad b. 'Awn (1882-1905). The vali's I wish to acknowledge the help of Sandra Danforth of the University of Chicago and Hamid Algar of the University of California, Berkeley, in obtaining some of the materials used in this article. An earlier version of this article was read at the 183d Meeting of the American Oriental Society,Washington, D.C., 1973.

44

OTTOMAN-ARAB

HISTORY

term of office tended to be even shorter than that of the emir. From 1857 to 1881 there were fifteen valis or an average of only 1.6 years per governor. On the basis of the fragmentary evidence now available, however, neither the instability of the period from 1877 to 1882 nor the ensuing battle for superiority between Emir 'Awn al-Rafiq and Vali Osman Nuri Paga, which lasted to 1886, influenced the economic relations between the Ottoman Empire and the Hijaz Vilayet. Ottoman subsidies to the Hijaz seem to have been made independently of the political conditions existing in the province. The religious importance of the Hijaz to the Empire is probably the reason for the relative lack of economic pressure used for political effect. The Ottomans had 'made of the Hijaz the most privileged province in the Empire'. 1 It enjoyed internal autonomy and a low rate of taxation. The Hijaz was the recipient of subsidies not only from the Ottoman government but also from Egypt, Indian Muslim states, and Muslim private citizens throughout the world. 2 The nature of the economic relationship between the Ottoman central government and the Hijaz can be investigated through an examination of Ottoman records concerning the province. The Vilayet and Mecca budgets, expenditures for the siirre (annual gift of the sultan) and for the ¡¡ehadetname (testimonial payment), and the reconstruction of the water system of Mecca show some of the economic interests of the Empire in the Hijaz. It should be noted, however, that these official statements of financial subsidies were frequently incomplete because of supplements to Hijazi officials from other sources of income such as special service fees, extortion, and unofficial taxes on camel rentals. 3

THE VILAYET AND I

A BUDGETS OF 1300 MALIYE

The most noticeable fact that emerges from the budgets of the Hijaz Vilayet and Mecca is the dependence of both upon the central Ottoman government. In 1300 Maliye, 1884-5, total income in the Hijaz Province 1 France. Ministère des Affaires Étrangères. Turquie, Politique intérieure: Arabie, Yemen — Pèlerinage de la Mecque I, L. Querry (Jidda) to Hanotaux, 10 August 1896. 2A detailed discussion of donations by Egypt falls outside the scope of this article, but it should be noted that they were substantial. In this context see Ibrahim Rifat Pa§a, Mirât alHaramayn, 2 vols. (Cairo: Matba'a Dâr al-Kutub al-Misriyya, 1344/1925). ^Sources of unofficial income are discussed in C. Snouck Hurgronje, Mekka (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1888), I, 164-5.

OTTOMAN

SUBSIDIES

TO THE HIJAZ

1877- 1886

45

was 25,518,905 kuru§ (k.) but only 1,533,934 came from locally raised revenue. The balance of 23,984,971 k. was from the Ottoman Treasury. Local taxes, excluding customs, were completely insufficient to even begin to pay for the Vilayet's expenditures.1 The local income of 64,241 k. in Mecca was even less than that of the province, when compared with Meccan revenue of 5,392,278 k. Meccan local income was derived from waqf rentals, not from taxation of either land or persons. Another noncentral government source of income was Egypt. The Egyptian government provided over 12,000 erdebs of wheat which cost 1,202,500 k. Most of Mecca's funds originated, however, from the Ottoman central government. About one-third of the Ottoman subsidies to Mecca came from the Evkaf Treasury and the rest was supplied by the central Treasury. 2 Expenditures for the Vilayet emphasized the central government's chief concern of internal security. In border areas such as the Hijaz the security of the Empire depended primarily upon maintaining military supremacy over rival centers of power whether they were foreign states or nomadic tribes. The unwavering loyalty of Ottoman Muslims, however, also contributed to internal security. This loyalty was reinforced by pious donations to the Holy Cities and the ulema who resided in them. Expenditures of the Hijaz Vilayet indicated these concerns. The largest group of expenditures was 14,471,634 k. for the army, navy, and police. 3 Next in size were some of the expenses of the pilgrimage. Part of these expenses should be included in military costs because they involved the protection of the pilgrims from Bedouin raids. Money paid to Bedouins not only bought security for the pilgrims but also gave the Bedouins enough income to decrease their raids of the areas which were under central government protection in the Hijaz. Almost 5,000,000 k. was spent for the sultan's yearly offering for sacred uses, the mahmil, and Bedouin payments. 4 Donations, gifts, and pensions to egraf, seyyids, and the ulema in monetary form were 1,776,688 k. There was also an estimated 2,555,891 k. given in the form of food such as wheat, barley beans, and lentils distributed at

l Hicaz Vilayeti Salnamesi 1301 (Mecca: Hicaz Vilayeti Matbaasi, 1301/1885-1886) (hereafter HVS-I), pp. 168, 174. *HVS-I, pp. 178-180. Q HVS-I, P. 175; a similar concern with internal security at the expense of other types of expenditures can be seen in the Vilayet of Syria budgets, Najib E. Saliba, "Wilayat Sflriyyä, 1876-1909' (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Michigan, 1971), pp. 355-67. 4 HVS-I, p. 173.

46

OTTOMAN-ARAB

HISTORY

Mecca, Medina, and Jidda. 1 Less than 1,730,000 k., a relatively small part of the total budget, went for civil governmental salaries. 2 Ottoman expenditures in the Hijaz were mostly in the form of cash or drafts but nearly one-fourth of total spending of 25.5 million kurug consisted of food given to individuals as part of their subsidy. The three largest items of the Mecca expenditures show an expectably greater proportion of the total budget spent on charity to the people of the city than in the Vilayet's budget. Payments to the egraf and seyyids (1,544,064 k.), wheat purchased in Egypt (1,202,500 k.), and salaries for the officials of the Ka'ba (834,609 k.) composed about twothirds of all expenditures.

THE SURRE EXPENDITURES AND THEIR REFORM In the middle 1880s 3 Ottoman funds sent to the Hijaz were 26,538,692 k. of which 8,039,889 k. was allocated to the surre and 18,498,803 k. to the Vilayet. A more detailed picture of the nature of Ottoman subsidies to the Hijaz is available in the surre Figures than in the vilayet budgets for 1300 Maliye. About 2,900,000 k. of the 8,000,000 k. allocated to the surre were spent in the Holy Cities. Mecca received 984,908 k. and Medina 1,922,373 k. Both figures represent a trebling of amounts given earlier. 4 If the categories of payment in both cities are reordered according to those groups which received funds, the importance of the officials who were associated with the Ka'ba in Mecca and the Prophet's tomb in Medina can be seen. Religious aid to the Hijaz was given primarily for the purpose of aiding this

1

HVS-I, p. 169. HVS-I, p. 171. 3 T h e financial data provided by Eyyub Sabri Pa§a, Mir'at-ul Haremeyn, I, Part B, Mirat-i Mekke (Istanbul: Bahriye Matbaasi, 1306/1888-9) (hereafter Sabri), pp. 685-717, are not dated in the text. On the basis of internal evidence, however, Sabri is probably referring to the period 1297 Maliye/1881-2 to 1306 H./1888-9 and most likely the same period as the information in HVS-I. 4 Sabri, p. 691. Sabri seems to be confused about the gifts to Mecca and Medina. The surre figures provided on page 694 total about 2.9 million k. while on page 691 Sabri indicated Mecca and Medina received 1,074,865 and 2,416,701 k., respectively. Presumably the difference between the total of the latter numbers and the former represents a supplemental payment from outside the siirre budget itself, but this is unclear in the text. 2

OTTOMAN

SUBSIDIES

TO THE HIJAZ

1877- 1886

45

was 25,518,905 kuriq (k.) but only 1,533,934 came from locally raised revenue. The balance of 23,984,971 k. was from the Ottoman Treasury. Local taxes, excluding customs, were completely insufficient to even begin to pay for the Vilayet's expenditures.1 The local income of 64,241 k. in Mecca was even less than that of the province, when compared with Meccan revenue of 5,392,278 k. Meccan local income was derived from waqf rentals, not from taxation of either land or persons. Another noncentral government source of income was Egypt. The Egyptian government provided over 12,000 erdebs of wheat which cost 1,202,500 k. Most of Mecca's funds originated, however, from the Ottoman central government. About one-third of the Ottoman subsidies to Mecca came from the Evkaf Treasury and the rest was supplied by the central Treasury. 2 Expenditures for the Vilayet emphasized the central government's chief concern of internal security. In border areas such as the Hijaz the security of the Empire depended primarily upon maintaining military supremacy over rival centers of power whether they were foreign states or nomadic tribes. The unwavering loyalty of Ottoman Muslims, however, also contributed to internal security. This loyalty was reinforced by pious donations to the Holy Cities and the ulema who resided in them. Expenditures of the Hijaz Vilayet indicated these concerns. The largest group of expenditures was 14,471,634 k. for the army, navy, and police. 3 Next in size were some of the expenses of the pilgrimage. Part of these expenses should be included in military costs because they involved the protection of the pilgrims from Bedouin raids. Money paid to Bedouins not only bought security for the pilgrims but also gave the Bedouins enough income to decrease their raids of the areas which were under central government protection in the Hijaz. Almost 5,000,000 k. was spent for the sultan's yearly offering for sacred uses, the mahmil, and Bedouin payments. 4 Donations, gifts, and pensions to e§raf, seyyids, and the ulema in monetary form were 1,776,688 k. There was also an estimated 2,555,891 k. given in the form of food such as wheat, barley beans, and lentils distributed at

' Hicaz Vilayeti Salnamesi 1301 (Mecca: Hicaz Vilayeti Matbaasi, 1301/1885-1886) (hereafter HVS-I), pp. 168, 174. *HVS-I, pp. 178-180.