It Is Common To Hear Natives Talk, Or At Least Utter A Few
Words Of Turkish.
The gardeners and husbandmen in the neighbourhood have
a dialect and certain phrases of their own, which often afford subject
for ridicule to the inhabitants of the town.
[P.391]ON THE GOVERNMENT OF MEDINA.
MEDINA, since the commencement of Islam, has always been considered as a
separate principality. When the Hedjaz came under subjection to the
Khalifes, Medina was governed by persons appointed by them, and
independent of the governors of Mekka. When the power of the Khalifes
declined, the chiefs of Medina made themselves independent, and
exercised the same influence in the northern Hedjaz that those of Mekka
did in the southern. Sometimes the chiefs of Mekka succeeded in
extending a temporary authority over Medina; and in the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries this power seems to have been well established; but
it often became dependent on the mighty Sultans of Egypt, whenever they
assumed the sovereignty over Mekka. When the family of Othman mounted
the Turkish throne, the Emperor Selym I., and his son Soleyman, (who
paid, in general, more attention to the welfare of the Hedjaz than any
of their predecessors,) thought it necessary to acquire a firmer footing
in this town, which is the key of the Hedjaz, and became of so much
importance to the great pilgrim caravans. They sent hither a garrison of
Turkish soldiers, composed of Janissaries and Spahies, under the command
of an Aga, who was to be the military commander of the town; while the
civil government was placed in the hands of the Sheikh el Haram, or Aga
el Haram, the prefect of the temple, who was to correspond regularly
[p.392] with the capital, and to have the same rank as Pashas in other
towns. With the exception of a short period towards the end of the
seventeenth century, when the Sheikh el Haram and the whole town fell
under the jurisdiction of the Sherif of Mekka, this mode of government
continued until the period of the Wahaby invasion. An Aga was at the
head of a few soldiers, some of whom were in possession of the castle;
and the Aga el Haram, who also had a small train of soldiers, was the
nominal chief of the town. But great abuses had prevailed for the last
century: the military commander was no longer chosen by the Sultans, but
by his own people, and there were no longer any Turkish soldiers, but
only the descendants of those originally sent hither, who had
intermarried with the natives. This Aga had become the real master of
the town, and his party was spread over all the first families. He had
no other soldiers than the rabble of the town itself, and was chosen by
the first officers of the garrison, whose employments were still kept up
by their descendants, as they had been settled in former times, although
the greater part of them had renounced the military profession.
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