The Most Numerous Are
Those Whose Fathers Came From Yemen And Hadramaut; Next To Them In
Numbers Are The Descendants Of Indians, Egyptians, Syrians, Mogrebyns,
And Turks.
There are also Mekkawys of Persian origin; Tatars, Bokhars,
Kurds, Afghans; in short, of almost every Mohammedan country in the
world.
The Mekkawy is careful in preserving, by tradition, the knowledge
of his original country. My metowaf or guide traced his descent to an
Usbek Tatar, from the neighbourhood of Bokhara, and whenever any hadjys
arrived from that quarter, he never failed to recommend himself as their
guide, though entirely ignorant of their language.
There is, however, one branch of the ancient Arabians remaining in
Mekka; these are the native Sherifs, (as distinguished from the
descendants of foreign Sherifs who have settled here:) they derive their
pedigree from Hassan and Hosseyn, the sons of Fatme, the daughter of
Mohammed; a descent claimed equally by the other Sherifs, but whose
genealogies are supposed to be less authentic. The Mekka Sherifs form a
large class, into which no foreigners are admitted, and it is spreading
over many other parts of Arabia. I am not thoroughly acquainted with
their history, or the period at which they began to branch out into
particular tribes; and I can only state that they acknowledge many, but
not all Sherifs of Yemen, and other parts of the Hedjaz, as their
distant relations: at present they are divided into several tribes, out
of one of which the reigning Sherif must be chosen, as I shall mention
below.
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