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The Authority of the Shaykh al-Haram

During the twelfth/eighteenth century, the Shaykh al-Haram ⁽¹⁾ was the governor of Medina and he came from among the leading black eunuchs of the Sultan’s palace ⁽²⁾. It was recorded that these eunuchs were always in conflict with the citizene of Medina, as for example in the civil strife of 1111/1699-1700 between the Banū CAlī tribe abd the inhabitants, when the shaykh al-Haram disappointed the latter by leaving them to their enemies, who killed large numbers of them and seized their assets in the outskirts of the city ⁽³⁾. Again, in 1134/1721-2, the Shaykh al-Haram with his eunuchs alled themselves with the Bedouin against the civilians of Medina, an action which resulted in the closure of the mosque, the minarets of which were used by this governor and his allies as vantage-points from which to threaten and attack the citizens ⁽⁴⁾. Further, in 1148/1735-6, the new Shaykh invited the Harb tribe ⁽⁵⁾ to form an alliance with himself against the people of Medina and he allowed them to use the mosque as a position from which to shoot against the opposition and silence them ⁽⁶⁾. A similar conflict occurred in 1155/1742-3 and once more the same line was taken by the Shaykh al-Haram at that time ⁽⁷⁾.

The Behaviour of the Mashāyikh al-Hram and their Allies as it appears in the Verse of Medina’s Poets of the Twelfth/Eighteenth Century

Some literary sources relating to the period when the affairs of Medina were administered by the Mashāyikh al-Haram, accused them of being the originators of the corruption ⁽⁸⁾. It seems that their intention was to tighten their grip on the life of Medina by exerting an extremely vigorous policy towards the opposition among the civilians. This was because they were considered the civil governors and they had a good relationship with the military authority of the city which was no longer even chosen by the Sultans or came under their supervision ⁽⁹⁾.

Some poets put the responsibility for the worsening condition of the city, as witnessed in some untoward events, on the civil governor (the Shykh a-Haram). Al-Sayyid al-Baytī said of the disturbance of 1155/1742:

وعَمَّر الحاكمُ المذكورُ يَسْبَحُ في

سَفينةِ الجورِ يُجْريها ويُرْسِيها

جَرَّ البوادِي لَهَا من كُلِّ ناحيةٍ

فاندَكَّ أسفلُها منها وَعالِيها ⁽¹⁰⁾

("The noted governor was seen to float in the ship of tyranny, which was either sailed or anchored by him. He brought the Bedouin to the city from everywhere, so that the upper and the lower parts of the city were devastated").

The poet even found this governor and his behaviour towards the city incomparable to that al-Murrī ⁽¹¹⁾, another leader from the early Islamic history who was well known as a musrif ("immoderate"). When he fought against the inhabitants and destroyed the city, those black memories were again alluded to:

أيامُ بُؤْس حكَتْ أضعافَ ما صنعَتْ

أيامُ "مُشْرفٍ المرِّي" بَاغِيها ⁽¹²⁾

("A day of misery resembled double the oppressions of musrif al-Murrī’s days".

The poet went on to describe the state of the Prophet’s Mosque when this Shaykh al-Haram, CAbd al-Rahmān Āghā al-Kabīr ⁽¹³⁾, invited the Bedouin to enter the Mosque and use it as a fortress from which to fight against the innocent people:

وأصبح الحَرَمُ العالي وروضَتُهُ

كالجَبَّخَانَةِ بالبارُودِ يَحْشِيها

لا جمعةً، لا صلاةً، لا آذانَ بها

إلاّ البنادقُ تَرْمي في نُواحِيها ⁽¹⁴⁾

("The exalted Mosque and its rawda ⁽¹⁵⁾ became like the jabbakhāna ⁽¹⁶⁾, filled with gunpowder, No Friday, no call to prayer, no prayer, only the firing of the guns in its sides").

In the same poem al-Baytī criticised the governors and the difficulties the city suffered as a result of their incapacity to rule on acoount of unfamiliarity with the city and its inhabitants. He called them foreigners (ajānib) ⁽¹⁷⁾, as he asked the Ottoman Sultans to change their way of conducting the affairs of Medina:

سُوسُوا البِلاَدَ بعَيْنٍ من نُفوسِكُمُ

دَعُوا الأجانِبَ، أعطوا القَوْسَ بَارِيها ⁽¹⁸⁾

("manage the city with your own eye. Get rid of the foreigner. Give the bow to him who knows how to handle it.") ⁽¹⁹⁾.

In the events occurring in Medina between 1170 and 1171/1756-7 and 1757-8, al-Sayyid al-Baytī praised Amīr al-Hajj al-Shāmī ⁽²⁰⁾ CAbd Allāh Bāshā al-Jatjī ⁽²¹⁾, who secured the pilgrimage route by his tough policy in dealing with the Bedouin tribes. The poem, which appears to be a sentimental one in the tawīl metre, focused on many problems that the society of Medina suffered, but the main one was the governor, or Shaykh al-Haram, and his careless policy towards the factions of this society. Speaking of the relationship between the Bedouin outside the city and the inhabitants of the city itself, in the first line of this poem the poet caled this governor al-rāCī ("the shepherd") ⁽²²⁾:

حرامٌ عليها أمنها وانتظامها

إذا نَامَ راعيها وغاب إمامُها

حرامٌ عليها برؤها وشفاؤها

إذا كان من سبعين عاماً سقامها ⁽²³⁾

("If the shepherd of the city were asleep and its leader were absent, then its security and its order would have been impossible. If its illness had lasted seventy years, then its recovery and cure would have been impossible").

Impressed by the outcome of the strong action taken by CAbd Allāh Bāshā against the disrupters of Medina’s order, the poet called for the transfer of the affairs of the city from the religious leader to a military one, who would be able to arrest the miserable state of the city as this amīr had done:

إذا كان ولي أمرها شيخ مسجد

فليس يرجَّى يا لقومي قوامها

إذا القوس كانت في يد غير أهلها

تخطت براميها وخطت سهامها

ولكن شيخ المجد والسيف والقنا

حقيق عليها حكمها واحتكامها ⁽²⁴⁾

("Oh my people, the city will not be established if its leader is the head of a mosque. If the bow is not in the hands of the professional people, then it exceeds its thrower and misses its target, but the head of the army, with the sword and the lance, deserves to rule the city and dominate it").

During the disturbances of 1155/1742, the poet M. Safar surprisingly asked how it was possible that any governor would encourage the enemy of his country to strike against his city:

فهلْ سَمِعَتْ أُذُنٌ بحَاكِمِ بَلْدة

يُغِيرُ عليها بالْعَدُوِّ ويُجْلِبُ ⁽²⁵⁾

("Has any ear heard that a governor of a city brings its enemy and launches an attack upon it?").

The poet continued by depicting the whole disastrous state of the city which resulted from this alliance between this governor and the Bedouin tribe of Harb, called by the poet infidels:

وما عَجَبِي من كُفْر "حَرْب" وإنما

من المُرْتَضي أَفعالَهَمُ أَتَعَجَّبُ

ومن قال: هُمْ أهْدَى سَبيلاً، وحَثَّهُم

على هَتْكِ دَارِ المُصْطَفَى فهو أعجبُ ⁽²⁶⁾

("The infidelity of Harb is not a matter of astonishment to me, but he who is satisfied with their action would be really astonishing to me. Even more astonshing is he who said they are better guided and who prompted them to dishonour the Prophet’s house").

This governor made another alliance with the juridical authority (al-qadā') ⁽²⁷⁾ who, in some of these events, took the side of the governor and his party, as for example when they signed as witnesses on the governor’s side in a written document in 1155/1742:

وكتَّبوا حُجَّةً تحوي فَسَادَهُمُ

تَمنَّت كُلَّ زورٍ في مَعَانيها

وأكَّدوها بأمْهَارٍ من الفُقَها

شهود حوءب لا دَرَّت مَسَاعِيها ⁽²⁸⁾

("They wrote a legal instrument containing their corruption and comprising every falseness in its meaning. They assured it with the signet rings of jurisprudents. They are witnesses of misconduct, whose efforts will not succeed").

The poem further did not hesitate to warn the people against this group of fuqahā' and to expose their real character:

أهلُ الطَّيالِس، إيَّاكم، خُذُوا حَذَراً

منها جَمِيعاً، فإنِّي لا أُسَمِّيها

إيَّاكُمُ هذه الأفْخَاخَ إِنِّي لا

آلوكُمُ النُّصحَ جُهْداً في تَوَقِّيها

عَصَابَةٌ خُلِقَتْ لِلْغِشِّ والتّزَمَتْ

بَابَ الوُلاَةِ بِظُلْم النَّاس تُفْتِيها ⁽²⁹⁾

("Beware of all the possessors of tayālisa (academic scarves) ⁽³⁰⁾ whom I do not name. Beware of the traps which I spare no effort to advise you of. A gang was created for a cheat and it attached itself to the side of the leaders to support them by legal precepts in their course of public oppression").

On the post of the Shaykh al-Haram, see p. 2, 1.3f.	[1]
I.S.A. the West, vol. I, pt. 1, p. 25.	[2]
Al-Akhbar, p. 2.	[3]
Ibid., p. 11-14.	[4]
See p. 12, 1.6.	[5]
Al-Akhbār, p. 20.	[6]
Ibid., p. 25-7.	[7]
See ibid., p. 2.	[8]
Burckhardt, who discussed the government of Medina in the early part of the nineteenth century, referred to the government of the city in the previous century: "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 with the capital, and to have the same rank as Pashas in other towns… 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 hithers, who had inter-married 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". (Op.cit., p. 391f).	[9]
Al-Akhbār, p. 32.	[10]
See p. 33, 1.72.	[11]
Al-Akhbār, p. 33, 1.72.	[12]
See p. 25, 1.2.	[13]
See al-Akhbār, p. 34, 1.87f.	[14]
See p. 34, 1.87.	[15]
I.e. military supplies. See Ibid.	[16]
When Burckhardt defined the role of the Shaykh al-Haram, he informed his reader that the Shaykh al-Haram "was usually a eunuch, who knew nothing of Arabic, and who received the appointment rather in the way of exile, than as a preferment". (Op.cit., p. 392).	[17]
Al-Akhbar, p. 36, 1.133.	[18]
See p. 36, 1.113.	[19]
See p. 60, 1.18.	[20]
Al-Muradī recorded that CAbd Allāh Bāshā ibn Ibrāhīm, known as al-Jatjī al-Husaynī, was born in 1115/1703 and was appointed to office (mansiba) in Tripoli (Sham) in 1170/1756-7, and then Aleppo in 1172/1758-9. Then he was removed to Damascus because he had apparently overstepped himself by dismissing the Sharīf Makkah MusāCad b. SaCīd. He was then appointed for Diyar Bani Bakr, where he died in Jumādā, 1174/1760-1. In the troop of the Harb tribe, an event which was recorded by al-Sayyid JaCfar al-Barzanjī in al-Nafh al-Farjī fī’l-Fath al-Jatjī. (Op.cit., vol. III, p. 81f). Al-Madani mentioned al-Barzanji’s book noting that it was still unpublished, and he gave the date of the conflict between al-Jatjī and Harb as 1171/1757-8. See al-ShiCr al-Malhamī, p. 724. Sir R. Burton recorded this event also: "This Abdullah, Pasha of Damascus, 1ed the caravan in A.D. 1756. When the Shaykhs of the Harb tribe came to receive their blackmail he cut off their heads, and sent the trophies to Stambul".(Op.cit., Vol. I, p. 263).	[21]
Al-Ansārī mentioned that CUmar Āghā Abū Sinn was appointed as Shaykh al-Haram in 1170/1756-7, but was removed from his post in 1175/1761-2. See Tuhfat al-Muhibbīn, P. 65.	[22]
See D. al-Baytī, p. 142.	[23]
Ibid.	[24]
Al-Akhbār, p. 43, 1.79.	[25]
Ibid., p. 43, 1.98f.	[26]
Burckhardt mentioned the qādī during this period, who was sent from Constantinople: "The Aga el Haram, together with the Kadhy… Was sent hither annually from Constantinople". (Op.cit., p. 392). Al-SibāCī recorded that the Turkish authority began to send a Turkish qādī to Mecca in 943/1536-7 and that this system endured until Sharīf Husayn b. CAlī claimed the independence of Hejaz in the close of the year 1134/1915-6. See T. Makkah, vol. II, p. 211.	[27]
See al-Akhbār, p. 31, 1.42f.	[28]
See Ibid., p. 31f., 1.53-5.	[29]
See p. 31, 1.53.	[30]

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