Those, Therefore, Only Are
Land-Owners, Who By Trade, Or By Their Income From The Mosque, And From
Hadjys, Have Already Acquired Considerable Wealth.
The chief support of Medina is from the mosque and the hadjys.
I have
already mentioned the Ferrashyn, or servants of the mosque, and their
profits; to them must be added a vast number of people attached to the
temple, whose offices are mere sinecures, and who share in the income of
the Haram; a train of ciceroni or mezowars; and almost every
householder, who lets out apartments to the pilgrims Besides the share
in the income of the mosque, the servants of every class have their
surra or annuity, which is brought from Constantinople and Cairo; and
all the inhabitants besides enjoy similar yearly gifts, which also go by
the name of surra. These stipends, it is true, are not always regularly
distributed, and many of the poorest class, for whom they were
originally destined, are now deprived of them; the sums, however, reach
the town, and are brought into circulation. [Kayd Beg, Sultan of Egypt,
after having, in A.H. 881, rebuilt the mosque, appropriated a yearly
income of seven thousand five hundred erdebs for the inhabitants of the
town, to be sent from Egypt; and Sultan Soleyman ibn Selim allowed five
thousand erdebs for the same purpose. (See Kotobeddyn and Samhoudy.)]
Many
[p.380] families are, in this manner, wholly supported by the surra, and
receive as much as 100l. and 200l sterling per annum, without performing
any duty whatever. The Medinans say, that without these surras the town
would soon be abandoned to the land-owners and cultivators; and this
consideration was certainly the original motive for establishing them,
and the numerous wakfs, or pious foundations, which in all parts of the
Turkish empire are annexed to the towns or mosques. At present the surra
is misapplied, and serves only to feed a swarm of persons in a state of
complete idleness, while the poor are left destitute, and not the
smallest encouragement is given to industry. As to want of industry,
Medina is still more remarkable than Mekka. It wants even the most
indispensable mechanics; and the few that live here are foreigners, and
only settle for a time. There is a single upholsterer, and only one
locksmith in the town; carpenters and masons are so scarce, that to
repair a house, they must be brought from Yembo. Whenever the mosque
requires workmen, they are sent from Cairo, or even from Constantinople,
as was the case during my stay, when a master-mason from the latter
place was occupied in repairing the roof of the building. All the wants
of the town, down to the most trifling articles, are supplied by Egypt.
When I was here, not even earthen water jars were made. Some years ago a
native of Damascus established a manufacture of this most indispensable
article; but he had left the town, and the inhabitants were reduced to
the necessity of drinking out of the half-broken jars yet left, or of
importing others, at a great expense, from Mekka No dying, no woollen
manufactures, no looms, no tanneries nor works in leather, no iron-works
of any kind are seen; even nails and horse-shoes are brought from Egypt
and Yembo. In my account of Mekka, I attributed the general aversion of
the people of the Hedjaz from handicrafts, to their indolence and
dislike of all manual labour. But the same remark is not applicable to
Medina, where the cultivators and gardeners, though not very industrious
in improving their land, are nevertheless a hard-working people, and
[p.381] might apply themselves to occupations in town, without
undergoing greater bodily labour than they endure in their fields. I am
inclined to think that the want of artisans here is to be attributed to
the very low estimation in which they are held by the Arabians, whose
pride often proves stronger than their cupidity, and prevents a father
from educating his sons in any craft. This aversion they probably
inherit from the ancient inhabitants, the Bedouins, who, as I have
remarked, exclude, to this day, all handicraftsmen from their tribes,
and consider those who settle in their encampment as of an inferior
cast, with whom they neither associate nor intermarry. They are
differently esteemed in other parts of the East, in Syria, and in Egypt,
where the corporations of artisans are almost as much respected as they
were in France and Germany during the middle ages. A master craftsman is
fully equal in rank and consideration to a merchant of the second class;
he can intermarry with the respectable families of the town, and is
usually a man of more influence in his quarter, than a merchant who
possesses three times more wealth than himself. The first Turkish
emperors did every thing in their power to favour industry and the arts;
and fifty years ago they still flourished in Syria and Egypt: in the
former country they are now upon the decline, except, perhaps, at
Damascus; in Egypt they are reduced to the lowest state: for, while
Mohammed Aly entices English and Italian workmen into his service, who
labour on his sole account, and none of whom prosper, he oppresses
native industry, by monopolizing its produce, and by employing the
greater part of the workmen himself, at a daily salary thirty per cent
less than they might get, if they were permitted to work on their own
account, or for private individuals.
The only industrious persons found in Medina are the destitute pilgrims,
especially those from Syria, who abound here, and who endeavour by hard
labour, during a few months, to earn money sufficient for the expenses
of their journey homewards. They work only at intervals, and on their
departure the town is often without any artisans for a considerable
time. Whilst I resided in Medina, there was but one man who washed
linen; when he went away, as the Arabian women will rarely condescend to
be so employed, the foreign hadjys
[p.382] were all obliged to wash for themselves.
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