The Rigid Ceremonial
Of A Turkish Court Was Not Adapted To The Character And Established
Notions Of Mohammed Aly's New Subjects.
The sherif, in the height of his
power, resembled a great Bedouin Sheikh, who submits to be boldly and
often harshly addressed.
A Turkish Pasha is approached with the most
abject forms of servitude. "Whenever the Sherif Ghaleb wanted a loan of
money," observed one of the first merchants of the Hedjaz to me, "he
sent for three or four of us; we sat in close discourse with him for a
couple of hours, often quarrelling loudly, and we always reduced the sum
to something much less than was at first demanded. When we went to him
on ordinary business, we spoke to him as I now speak to you; but the
Pasha keeps us standing before him in an humble attitude, like so many
Habesh (Abyssinian) slaves, and looks down upon us as if we were beings
of an inferior creation. I would rather," he concluded, "pay a fine to
the sherif than receive a favour from the Pasha."
The little knowledge which the Turks possess of the Arabic language,
their bad pronunciation of it even in reciting prayers from the Koran,
the ignorance of Arabia and its peculiarities which they betray in every
act, are so many additional causes to render them hateful or despicable
in the eyes of the Arabs. The Turks return an equal share of contempt
and dislike. Whoever does not speak the language of the Turkish soldier,
or does not dress like one, is considered as a fellah, or boor, a term
which they have been in the habit of applying to the Egyptian peasants,
as beings in the lowest
[p.52] state of servitude and oppression. Their hatred of the Arabian
race is greater, because they cannot indulge their tyrannical
disposition with impunity, as they are accustomed to do in Egypt, being
convinced by experience that an Arabian, when struck, will strike again.
The Arabians particularly accuse the Turks of treachery, in seizing the
sherif and sending him to Turkey after he had declared for the Pasha,
and permitted Djidda and Mekka to be occupied by the Turkish troops,
who, they assert, would never, without the assistance of the sherif,
have been able to make any progress in Arabia, much less to acquire a
firm footing therein.
The term khayn, "treacherous," is universally applied to every Turk in
Arabia, with that proud self-confidence of superiority, in this respect,
for which the Arabs are deservedly renowned. The lower classes of the
Arabs have discovered a fanciful confirmation of their charge against
the Turks in one of the Grand Signor's titles, Khan, an ancient Tatar
word, which in Arabic signifies "he betrayed," being the preterite of
the verb ykhoun, "to betray." They pretend that an ancestor of the
Sultan having betrayed a fugitive, received the opprobrious appellation
of "el Sultan Khan," ("the Sultan has been treacherous;") and that the
title is merely retained by his successors from their ignorance of the
Arabic language.
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