Armies In The Sand: The Struggle For Mecca And Medina

223 Pages·1981·6.775 MB·English

by  John Sabini

JOHN SABINI
Armies in the Sand
The Struggle for Mecca and Medina
with 40 illustrations
THAMES AND HUDSON

For Jemima, a good travelling companion
Any copy of this book issued by the publisher as a paperback is sold subject
to the condition that it shall not by way of trade or otherwise be lent,
re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated, without the publisher’s prior
consent, in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is
published and without a similar condition including these words being
imposed on a subsequent purchaser.
©1981 Thames and Hudson Ltd, London
First published in the USA in 1981 by Thames and Hudson. Inc.,
500 Fifth Avenue, New York. New York 10110
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval
system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 80-52095
Filmset by August Filmsetting, Reddish, Stockport.
Printed and Bound in Great Britain by the
Fakenham Press Ltd, Norfolk.

Contents
Acknowledgments 7
Note on the Transliteration of Arabic 8
Note on Currency 9
Part One : Prelude i i
1 A Terrible Land 12
2 Western Intrusions 30
3 Enlightenment 51
4 The Cleansing of the Ka‘ba 65
Part Two : Catastrophe 85
5 Men of Blood 86
6 The Passion of Shaikh Ibrahim 132
7 Viceregent of Asrail 162
Part Three: Aftermath 179
8 Jets of Flame Against the Night 180
Epilogue 207
Map of the Middle East 212
Note on Sources 213
List of Illustrations 216
Index 218
Acknowledgments
First I wish to thank Miss Elizabeth Monroe, for her encouragement,
guidance, and support throughout the writing of this book. Any errors
of fact or interpretation that remain should be attributed not to her but
to the author. My thanks are also due to Mr and Mrs John Brinton for
their hospitality during the early stages of writing and for the use of their
fine library on the Middle East. Mr Rodney Searight has been most
generous in opening his collection of pictures on Arab and Turkish
subjects for use as illustrations. Gratitude is also extended to the following
for their help, advice, and encouragement: Mr William Mulligan,
formerly of the Arabian American Oil Company ; Mr Ritchy Thomas,
former librarian of the American University of Beirut; Miss Nawal
Na‘oum, Mr and Mrs John Fistere, and Mr William Tracy. No writer
on the Arabian peninsula in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries can
fail to acknowledge a great debt to the late D. G. Hogarth for his seminal
work The Penetration of Arabia.
Dhahran - Shemlan - London
1973-1979
7
Note on the Transliteration of Arabic
The rendering of Arabic words into English letters is an unsatisfactory
business. There is no English equivalent for some Arabic sounds, and
Arabs make distinctions between letters that sound alike to our ears.
There are also variations between spoken and written Arabic and bet­
ween different dialects. Each of the writers and travellers treated here
used his own method, often inconsistently, and I have retained his form
in direct quotation. For the rest I have used a system which I hope is at
least consistent, if perhaps no more rational than another. Well-known
names and words, such as Mecca and Bedouin, are given in their familiar
form. The 4 or inverted apostrophe represents the letter 4ain, an essential
ingredient of some Arabic words Eke 4ulama, Sa4ud, or Yanbu4; it
approximates to a deep growl and often makes a friendly conversation
between Arabs sound like a quarrel. Some names, such as Mehmet Ali
and Omar, are given in Turkish form where appropriate, to distinguish
them from their Arab equivalents. If a name or a word looks unfamiliar
on the page, the reader is advised to try saying it aloud - he will probably
find he has heard it before.
8
Note on Currency
During the period covered by this book money from all over the world
circulated freely in Arabia and other parts of the Ottoman empire.
Piastres, liras, francs, louis d’or, pounds sterling, sovereigns, guineas,
dollars, sequins, rupees, riyals, pagodas changed hands or were men­
tioned in documents, and presumably the people involved at any one
time could make quick calculations of their relative values. It is almost
impossible to do so today, at least in any consistent and universal way,
because the value of each currency kept changing in purchasing power
and in the gold and silver content of the coinage. Even if the effort were
made to determine par value in terms of pounds sterling or US dollars
today, with present rates of inflation the figures would be out of date
within a few months. The reader is advised to think of any given amount
impressionistically, either as reasonable, extortionate, or a bargain,
depending on the context. The Turkish lira contained ioo piastres; in
Jiddah in 1814, according to Burckhardt, fifty piastres were worth one
pound sterling. The dollar so frequently mentioned was the Maria
Theresa thaler, not the U S silver dollar.
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