Coll 6/74 'Foreign Office memorandum entitled "The Seven Independent Arabian States." (Yemen, Asir, the Hejaz, Nejd, Kowait, Jebel Shammar, and Jauf.)' [‎5v] (10/28)

4
of Khaibar. This boundary was accepted by the Ottoman Government and
supported by the demands of religious prejudice, which forbade Christians to
use the Heiaz Railway farther south than Medain Saleh, just outside the ower
boundary in question, unless for special official reasons. The Hejaz, so dehned,
had a length from north to south exceeding 600 miles, and a depth inland,
including Khaibar, of about 200 miles. The vilayet was divided into tour kazas :
Yambo, Rabigh, Jedda and Lith. *
Physically, this western littoral of Arabia comprised, m a broad view, a Deit
of coastal lowland, a parallel belt of mountain and highland, and then a parallel
belt of falling country which merges into the interior plateau ot Arabia, ine
principal surface characteristic of the Hejaz is a general barrenness due to lack
of moisture. Oases are few and small; the largest the one in which Medina
stands. The total population in 1916 was estimated as less than 1 million. .Only
one-sixth of the inhabitants are settled in towns and on the land; the remainder
are Bedouins, partly or wholly nomadic. . .
Various circumstances combined to place the Hejaz in a position by itsell
among the autonomous areas of Arabia. It is the Holy Land of Islam, and its two
holy cities of Mecca and Medina, respectively the birthplace and burial place ot
Mahomet, are the chief shrines of pilgrimage for the great Sunni sections of
Prophet’s followers. This accidental endowment has determined the whole
subsequent course of the country’s history. The annual pilgrimage of scores of
thousands directly or indirectly provided the means of existence for a large
proportion of the population^ 1 ) The attraction of the Holy Places for Moslems
led to the construction of the Hejaz Railway to Medina in 1908, and though
nominally an act of piety, this extension from Damascus, as part of the Turkish
railway system, had far-reaching political and military aims, for it made Hejaz
more accessible to Turkish arms than any other portion of Arabia. lurther, the
importance of the Holy Places in the world of Islam conferred upon the holder of
the Emirate and Sherifate of Mecca, which included the Hejaz, a standing and
influence vastly greater than that of a merely local Arabian ruler. The position
of the Emir and Sherif(‘) of Mecca, indeed, combined both temporal and religious
power. For the “ reigning head of the dominant sherifial family is ex officio
Chief of the Prophets’ tribe, the Qoreish, and Hereditary Keeper of the Holy
Places.” It should be noted, however, that the religious bases of sherifial power
lay not in any divine attribution, but in reverence for descent from Mahomet and
respect for the sherif as an individual who had been entrusted with such lofty
duties as were his by right.
The Emirate of Mecca dates from the 10th century and was an outcome ot
disintegration which overtook the early caliphial rule of the Moslem world. From
that period until the close of the 18th century the Emirate was always the
de facto power in the Hejaz. The Ottoman effort to exercise suzerainty, which
began in 1538, was effective only while the high fighting prestige of Turkish arms
continued; with the decline of that prestige at the end of the 17th century Turkish
power in the Hejaz also declined, until, in 1783, it was represented by a single
garrison precariously holding the port of Jedda. But from this time the Emirate
was confronted by dangers more serious than any heretofore. The pilgrims of the
Haj were first attacked by Wahabi raiders from Nejd in 1783, an outrage many
times repeated in subsequent years, despite the Emir of Mecca. In 1803 a
Wahabi expedition took and sacked Mecca itself, and, as an incident of the raid,
beheaded twenty sherifs. In 1804 another expedition assaulted and took Medina.
At this stage the great pilgrim caravans from all parts of the Mahometan
world ceased. In 1810 the Wahabi Emir again entered the Holy Cities, plundered
the Tomb of Mahomet at Medina, which he caused to be opened, and broke the
Kaaba (the Black Stone) at Mecca in pieces. Spoliation of the Faithful on
pilgrimage, complete interruption of the Haj, outrage upon the sacred shrines of
Islam, at last moved the Ottoman Sultan to action. As Protector of all Moslems
he did what in him lay and Turkish forces being unavailable, he sent his
Mahomet Ali from Egypt against the Wahabis, an adventure which the latter,
with an alert eye to his own ambitions for independence, gladly undertook. The
( 3 ) In normal pre-war times the pilgrimage accounted for an annual influx of nearly half
a million persons into Hejaz.
( 4 ) “Grand Sherif of Mecca” was a European form of title. Arabs called the ruler of
Mecca Emir, and addressed him as Seyyidna (our Lord).