The Latter,
Called Nowakhele, (A Name Implying That They Live Among Date-Trees,) Are
Numerous, And Very Warlike.
They had offered determined resistance to
the Wahabys, and in civil contests have proved always superior to the
town's-people.
They are said to be descendants of the partisans of
Yezid, the son of Mawya, who took and sacked the town sixty years after
the Hedjra. They marry only among themselves; and exhibit on all
occasions a great esprit de corps. Many of them publicly profess the
creed of Aly when in their date-groves, but are Sunnys whenever they
come to town. Some of them are established in the suburbs, and they have
monopolised the occupation of butchers. In quarrels I have heard
individuals among them publicly called sectaries and rowafedh, without
their ever denying it. In the Eastern Desert, at three or four days'
journey from Medina, lives a whole Bedouin tribe, called Beni Aly, who
are all of this Persian creed; and it is matter of astonishment to find
the two most holy spots of the orthodox Muselman religion surrounded,
one by the sectaries of Zeyd, and the other by those of Aly, without an
attempt having been made to dislodge them.
Among the ancient families of Medina are likewise reckoned a few
descendants of the Abassides, now reduced to great poverty: they
[p.372] go by the name of Khalifye, implying that they are descended
from the Khalifes.
Most of the inhabitants are of foreign origin, and present as motley a
race as those of Mekka. No year passes without some new settlers being
added to their number; and no pilgrim caravan crosses the town without
leaving here a few of its travellers, who stop at first with the
intention of remaining for a year or two only, but generally continue to
reside here permanently. Descendants of people from northern Turkey are
very numerous; but the greater part trace their origin to settlers of
the southern countries of Arabia, Yemen and Hadramaut, and from Syria,
and Egypt, and many also from Barbary. My cicerone was called Sheikh
Sad-eddyn el Kurdy, because his grandfather was a Kurd who had settled
here: the proprietor of the house in which I lived was Seyd Omar, a
Sherif of the Yafay tribe of Yemen, whose ancestors had come hither
several hundred years since. Indians are likewise found, but in less
number than at Mekka. As there, they are druggists, and petty
shopkeepers; but I believe that no Indian wholesale dealers in their
native products are to be found at Medina. They adhere to their national
dress and manners, forming a small colony, and rarely intermarry or mix
with the other inhabitants.
The individuals of different nations settled here have in their second
and third generations all become Arabs as to features and character; but
are, nevertheless, distinguishable from the Mekkans; they are not nearly
so brown as the latter, thus forming an intermediate link between the
Hedjaz people and the northern Syrians.
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