During The Whole Of The
Above Period, The Boy Never Visits His Parents, Nor Enters The Town,
Except When In His Sixth Month; His Foster-Mother Then Carries Him On A
Short Visit To His Family, And Immediately Returns With Him To Her
Tribe.
The child is, in no instance, left longer than thirty days after
his birth in the hands of his mother; and his stay among the Bedouins is
sometimes protracted till his thirteenth or fifteenth year.
By this
means, he becomes familiar with all the perils and vicissitudes of a
Bedouin life; his body is inured to fatigue and privation; and he
acquires a knowledge of the pure language of the Bedouins, and an
influence among them that becomes afterwards of much importance to him.
There is no sherif, from the chief down to the poorest among them, who
has not been brought up among the Bedouins; and many of them are also
married to Bedouin girls. The sons of the reigning Sherif family were
usually educated among the tribe of Adouan, celebrated for the prowess
and hospitality of its members; but it has been so much reduced by the
intestine wars of the Sherifs, in which they always took part, and by
the late invasion of Mohammed Aly, that they found it expedient to
abandon the territory of the Hedjaz, and seek refuge in the encampments
of the tribes of the Eastern plain. Othman el Medhayfe, the famous
Wahaby chief, a principal instrument employed by Saoud in the
subjugation of the Hedjaz, was himself a Sheikh of Adouan; and Sherif
Ghaleb had married his sister. The other Sherifs
[p.230] sent their children to the encampments of Hodheyl, Thekyf, Beni
Sad, and others; some few to the Koreysh, or Harb.
The Bedouins in whose tent a Sherif has been educated, were ever after
treated by him with the same respect as his own parents and brethren; he
called them respectively, father, mother, brother; and received from
them corresponding appellations. Whenever they came to Mekka, they
lodged at the house of their pupil, and never left it without receiving
presents. During his pupilage, the Sherif gave the name of Erham to the
more distant relatives of the Bedouin family, who were also entitled to
his friendship and attention; and he considered himself, during his
life, as belonging to the encampment in which he had passed his early
years: he termed its inhabitants "our people," or, "our family;" took
the liveliest interest in their various fortunes; and, when at leisure,
often paid them a visit during the spring months, and sometimes
accompanied them in their wanderings and their wars.
Sherif Ghaleb always showed himself extremely attentive to his Bedouin
foster-parents; whenever they visited him, he used to rise from his
seat, and embrace them, though in no way distinguished from any meanly-
dressed inhabitant of the Desert. Of course, it often happened that
Sherif boys could not easily be induced to acknowledge their real
parents at home; and they sometimes escaped, and rejoined the friends of
their infancy, the Bedouins in the Desert.
The custom which I have just described is very ancient in Arabia.
Mohammed was educated among foreigners, in the tribe of Beni Sad; and
his example is continually quoted by the Mekkawys, when speaking of the
practice still usual among the Sherifs. But they are almost the only
people in Arabia by whom it is now followed. The Bedouins called
Mowalys, [This tribe is originally from the Hedjaz: it lived in the
neighbourhood of Medina, and is often mentioned by the historians of
that town, during the first century after Mohammed.] once a potent
tribe, but now reduced to a small number, and pasturing their flocks in
the vicinity of Aleppo, are the only Arabs among whom I met with any
thing similar. With them it is an established
[p.231] usage, that the son of the chief of that tribe should be
educated in the family of another individual of the same tribe, but
generally of a different encampment, until he is sufficiently old to be
able to shift for himself. The pupil calls his tutor Morabby, and
displays the greatest regard for him during the rest of his life.
The Sherifs derive considerable advantages from their Bedouin education;
acquiring not only strength and activity of body, but some part of that
energy, freedom of manners, and boldness, which characterize the
inhabitant of the Desert; together with a greater regard to the virtues
of good faith and hospitality, than if they had been brought up in
Mekka.
I did not see many Sherifs. Of the small number now remaining, some were
employed, during my residence at Mekka, either as guides with the army
of Mohammed Aly, or were incorporated by him in a small corps of
Bedouins, commanded by Sherif Radjeh, one of their most distinguished
members; or in the service of Sherif Yahya, who sent them on duty to the
advanced posts towards Yemen. Some of them had retired, after Ghaleb was
taken, to the Wahabys, or to Yemen, where a few of them still remained.
Those whom I had an opportunity of seeing, were distinguished by fine
manly countenances, strongly expressive of noble extraction; and they
had all the exterior manners of Bedouins; free, bold, frank, warm
friends; bitter enemies; seeking for popularity, and endowed with an
innate pride, which, in their own estimation, sets them far above the
Sultan of Constantinople. I never beheld a handsomer man than Sherif
Radjeh, whose heroism I have mentioned in my history of Mohammed Aly's
campaign, and the dignity of whose deportment would make him remarked
among thousands; nor can a more spirited and intelligent face be easily
imagined, than was that of Sherif Ghaleb. Yahya, the present Sherif, is
of a very dark complexion, like that of his father; his mother was a
dark brown Abyssinian slave.
The Mekkawys give the Sherifs little credit for honesty, and they have
constantly shown great versatility of character and conduct; but this
could hardly be otherwise, considering the sphere and the times in which
they moved:
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