Very Few Of Them
Are Beggars; Of Forty Or Fifty Whom I Saw Here, Only Two Or Three
Resorted To Mendicity, Being Unfit For Any Other Vocation.
In general
beggars are much less numerous at Medina than at Mekka; and most of the
foreign beggars, as at Mekka, are Indians.
Few hadjys come here without
either bringing the necessary funds, or being certain of gaining their
livelihood by labour, the distance of Medina from the sea being much
[p.383] greater than that of Mekka, and the road through the Desert
being dreaded by absolute paupers. It may be calculated that only one-
third of the pilgrims who visit Mekka go also to Medina. The Egyptian
caravan of pilgrims seldom passes by the town. [Whenever the Egyptian
caravan passes by Medina, it is always on its return from Mekka, and
then remains, like the Syrian, for three days only. In going from Cairo
to Mekka, this caravan never visits Medina.] Medina has pilgrims during
the whole year, there being no prescribed season for visiting the tomb;
and they usually stay here about a fortnight or a month. They are in the
greatest number during the months following the pilgrimage to Arafat,
and likewise during the month of Rabya el Thany, on the 12th of which,
the birth-day of Mohammed, or Mouled el Naby, is celebrated.
The Medinans make up for the paucity of beggars in their own town by
going elsewhere to beg. It is a custom with those inhabitants of the
town who have received some education, and can read and write, to make a
mendicant journey in Turkey once or twice in their lives. They generally
repair to Constantinople, where, by means of Turkish hadjys, whom they
have known in their own town, they introduce themselves among the
grandees, plead poverty, and receive considerable presents in clothes
and money, being held in esteem as natives of Medina, and neighbours of
the Prophet's tomb. Some of these mendicants serve as Imams in the
houses of the great. After a residence of a couple of years, they invest
the alms they have collected in merchandize, and thus return with a
considerable capital. There are very few individuals of the above
description at Medina, who have not once made the grand tour of Turkey:
I have seen several of them at Cairo, where they quartered themselves
upon people with whom their acquaintance at Medina had been very slight,
and became extremely disagreeable by their incessant craving and
impudence. There are few large cities in Syria, Anatolia, and European
Turkey, where some of these people are not to be found. For their
travelling purposes, and for the duties incumbent upon them as ciceroni
in their own town, many individuals learn a little Turkish; and it is
their pride to
[p.384] persuade the Turkish pilgrims, that they are Turks, and not
Arabians, however little they may like the former.
The Medinans generally are of a less cheerful and lively disposition
than the Mekkans.
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