These Are The First Jews Who Settled
In That Country, And Their Descendants Still Remain At Szanaa.
(See
Samhoudy's History of Medina.)
The small town of Teyme is three days from Khaibar, and as many from
Hedjer, in an eastern direction. It is inhabited by the Aeneze Arabs,
and abounds with dates. It belongs neither to Nedjed nor Kasym, and,
like Kbaibar, was an independent Bedouin settlement before the time of
the Wahabys. Those small towns in the interior of the Arabian Desert,
are like the Oases in the Libyan; and serve as points of intercourse
between the Bedouins and the neighbouring cultivated countries. Their
Bedouin inhabitants are agriculturists, and mostly petty merchants who
sell to their wandering brethren of the Desert the goods which they
purchase at the first cost in the Syrian or Arabian towns. Beginning
northward with the small town of Deir on the Euphrates, we can trace a
line of these oases that form advanced points towards the Desert all the
way south as far as Medina. Deir, Sokhne, Tedmor, Djof, Maan, Ola,
Khaibar, and Teyme, are all inhabited by Bedouins, who cultivate the
soil, and form an intermediate class between Bedouins and peasants.
These positions would be highly important to those who might wish to
subdue, or at least to check the Bedouins; and they might become of
still greater importance, in being rendered the means of inspiring the
whole Bedouin nation with more amicable sentiments towards the Syrian
and Hedjaz inhabitants.
[p.465] No. VII.
Postscript to the Description of the Beitullah or Mosque at Mekka - (See
p. 161.)
THE law forbids that blood should be shed either in the mosque or town
of Mekka, or within a small space around it: neither is it lawful there
to cut down trees, or to kill game. This privilege of the mosque is
generally respected in common cases of delinquency, and many criminals
take refuge in the Beitullah accordingly; but it is also frequently
violated. I have myself seen Mohammed Aly's soldiers pursue a deserter,
seize and carry him off from the covering of the Kaaba to which he had
clung; and the history of Mekka cites numerous examples of men killed in
the mosque, among others the Sherif of Mekka, Djazan Ibn Barakat,
assassinated while he performed the towaf round the Kaaba. Sanguinary
battles (as in A.H. 817.) have even been fought within its sacred
precincts, which afford the most open spot in the town for skirmishing.
Horsemen have often entered and passed a whole night in it. Therefore we
may say that the privilege is generally useless in those cases where it
would be most valuable; such as the protection of fugitives from the
powerful oppressor. As to the sanctity of the territory, it is but a
name, and seems to have been little respected even in the first ages of
Islam. The extent of the sacred territory is variously stated by the
three historians whose works I possess, and who were themselves Mekkans.
The four Imams or founders of the orthodox sects also disagree upon the
subject.
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