'Gazetteer of Arabia Vol. I' [‎809] (864/1050)

HEJAZ
Gold.
809
The exchange for British gold has been already given : the following table gives that
for the Turkish lira, the Napoleon, and the Russian 10-rouble piece:
Turkish lira = 290 to 294 bad piastres.
Napoleon = 250 to 255^ bad piastres.
Russian 10-rouble piece = 329 to 330 bad piastres.
In the oases and the inland district of Hejaz the riyal, or Maria Theresa dollar, is the
common standard of value for houses, land, produce, camels, and live-stock generally ;
but little silver is in actual circulation. At Teima the silver riyals received by the village
dealers from the sale of dates or grain to nomads (who in their turn had parted with camels
to brokers), is nearly all exhausted for the'annual tribute, certain sheikhs riding with it to
Ha'il after the date harvest, to pay it into the treasury of the Emir, Elsewhere the
stock of silver does not accumulate, but soon finds its way to the coast, to Nejd, or to
Syria, in payment for goods imported. Consequently for the traffic of daily life very
little money passes, though values and payments are generally reckoned on a silver
basis. But this causes little inconvenience, for much of Arabian traffic is traditionally
barter.
When land is sold, for example, a part payment is made of such scanty silver as the
purchaser possesses, and the rest is delivered in the form of dates, and in household gear,
such as brass pots and vessels, which, with the exception of the rare sitting carpet, are
nearly the only movables in their simple dwellings. Doughty reports a sale of an out-
lying plot of land at Kheibar, for which the principle article was an old cutlass and its
scabbard. The hire for camels is paid in dates ; at Teima, for example, a month's hire
of a good camel is a hundred measures of dates, the equivalent of five riyals. Dates,
in fact, form the commonest and most convenient medium of exchange in the oases.
W eights and M easures.
In Mecca, Medina, and their ports, Turkish weights and measures are largely employed
but not to the exclusion of native standards. At Medina and in all the oases of He jar.
the measure most commonly employed is the sah, which varies considerably in content
in diffrent places. According to Doughty the sah is the equivalent of nearly two pints
at Teima, nearly tree pints at El-'Ala, and five pints at Kheibar ; at Ha il he reports
it is two pints and a half. The other measures in use, as given by Doughty, are the
following:
A medega (a small palm-basket), the equivalent of twelve sahs ; and a mejellad, the
equivalent of five medegas.
At Medina and elsewhere in Hejaz a skin of dates is called hasJiiyeh. Great bargains
In dates are reckoned in camel-loads.
The measure of length in Hejaz, as in other parts of Arabia appears to be the actual
cubit, the distance from a man's elbow to the point of his middle finger. According
to Doughty a 'palm-rod ' (length not stated) is employed at Kheibar as a larger lineal
measure, the repair of an orchard wall being reckoned and paid for by the palm-rod.
Government. —Under the Ottomon arrangement Hejaz became a vilayet, whose vali
was resident at Mecca in winter and Ta'if in summer (except when the pilgrimage falls
in the summer months). His Governorate included all the area from the border of
the vilayet of Sham (Damascus), south of Ma'an, down to the northern limit of the
vilayet of Yemen, south of Lith. Under him were four kazas. Yam bo', Rabigh, Jiddeh
and Lith. But the Grand Sherif (see p. ), who was principal executive officer in
Mecca, not only held a sort of extra-territorial position there, and at Taif, but exercised
the only paramount authority recognised by seven-eighths of the population of Hejaz
proper, as well as by that of north-eastern Asia and parts of western Nejd.
The towns of Mecca and Medina have been not only tax-free so far as the Ottoman
Government was concerned, but in receipt of subsidies from the Treasury {svrra) ;
and so also were many nomad chiefs, notably certain Harb sheikhs, capable of inter
fering with the passage of pilgrims or with the railway track. The whole province
was exempt from military service, and an attempt to prevail on the Hejazis to accept
conscription in 1914 was resisted successfully by the Sherif.
The normal Turkish garrison, including the Sherif's own guard, was about 7,000
with 3 batteries, of which force a large part was usually cantoned along the Hejaz
railway line, the proper garrisons of Mecca, Medinah, Jiddeh, Yambo', and Ta'lf being
kept much below strength. The result was that only the centres of settled population,
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