6

The Caravans of Precious Gifts

Selim I attended the Friday prayer in the Grand Mosque of Aleppo after defeating the Mamluks in 1517. It was after this that his sovereignty over Mecca was openly acknowledged. During the sermon in the presence of al-Mutawakkil III, the last Abbasid caliph, the imam declared that the sultan was now the ‘Ruler of the Two Sanctuaries’ (Mecca and Medina). Recognizing the greater power of the Ottomans, the imam had deliberately avoided mentioning the term ‘Protector of the Two Sanctuaries’, the title adopted by the Mamluks. The sultan, however, was quick with his own correction. I am only the ‘Servant of the Two Sanctuaries’, he said.1 ‘This was more significant than his bearing the title of caliph, a title then in use by every Muslim ruler.’2 But whatever the sultan’s title and its significance, Mecca was now obliged to look towards Constantinople, which later became Istanbul, rather than Cairo or Baghdad, for protection and financial support. No wonder protection was urgently needed. No sooner had Selim I left Aleppo for Cairo than he heard the news that a Portuguese fleet had entered the Red Sea with the intention of attacking Jeddah and Mecca. The citizens of the Holy City were pleading for help.

The Muslim world turns to face Mecca while the fate of those who live in the city is determined by what is happening elsewhere in the wider world. Once again the dynamics of the wider world had changed. For centuries the seat of power had been moving further and further from the city. The legitimacy of claims to power had long ceased to be a matter of ties of lineage and blood to the Holy City; they were expressed in terms of responsibility and power over the Holy City. To effectively rule, protect or serve Mecca it was necessary not merely to support the people of the city but also to secure the routes along which the pilgrims, who were the lifeblood of the city, travelled. As the Mamluks had already learnt to their cost, disrupting the Hajj and threatening Mecca was an objective of the Portuguese because they wanted to monopolize the spice trade of the Indian Ocean.

The arrival of the Portuguese signalled not merely a change in the internal dynamics of the Muslim world, but what in time was to become a profound shift in global power structures. The Red Sea was a major artery of the trading network of the Indian Ocean. Since antiquity, driven by the regular shifting pattern of the monsoon winds, the sea routes of this ocean brought spices, textiles and other products of the Indies to Arabia and Egypt. From there the goods were traded throughout the Middle East and onward to Europe. To ‘secure their trade supremacy, the Portuguese began a campaign to destroy Muslim trade’.3 Along these trade routes Islam spread around the Indian Ocean and its sea lanes brought pilgrims to perform the Hajj. The Portuguese determination to attack Mecca presented the Ottomans with a profound challenge, not because they were unfamiliar with the threat it posed, but because they were strangers to the Indian Ocean world. To effectively serve and protect Mecca, the Ottomans embarked on a journey of nearly half a century of intense military, diplomatic and intellectual endeavour to learn and become involved with parts of the Muslim world about which they knew little. In many ways these Ottoman endeavours mirrored the ‘discoveries’ of the Portuguese interlopers.

The arrival of the Portuguese had been long in the making. Their journey started in 1415 with the capture of Ceuta, a port on the coast of Morocco.4 There they had hoped to lay claim to and siphon off the legendary gold of Mansa Musa. The goldfields, however, were not in Morocco. Undeterred, the Portuguese crown licensed privateering ventures that pillaged and plundered as, year by year, their ships inched their way down the coast of West Africa in search of gold, a sea route to the fabled spice islands of the Indies, and potential allies who could mount a rearguard challenge to Muslim dominance of the European economy and the expansion of Ottoman power.

The Portuguese voyages, like those of their Spanish neighbours, were authorized and legitimized by Papal pronouncements couched in the terms, rhetoric and conventions of the Crusades.5 The trouble was that the navigators of neither nation had any clear idea of how to get to the Indies and precious little information beyond the myths and legends of antiquity about what they would find there. It took nearly a century before Vasco da Gama finally sailed his small fleet into the Indian Ocean in 1498. And what he found, while not exactly a Muslim sea, was a well-ordered trading world with Muslim states, communities and merchants flourishing everywhere from the Indonesian archipelago to the east coast of Africa. The seaborne pilgrim routes that were made for the Red Sea were an integral part of this system. Exactly how many pilgrims came to Mecca by this route as compared with the land-based pilgrim caravans is part of history’s work in progress. The considerable extent and value of the seaborne trade has never been in doubt, while the spread of Islam and the growing size of the Muslim populations aspiring to make the Hajj remains a grey area. What we do know is that with the arrival of the Portuguese the defence of both trade and pilgrim travel became matters of concern.

As Selim I laid his plans to protect Mecca, he was well furnished with information about these European ventures. Just weeks after his arrival in Egypt one of his sea captains personally presented the sultan with a copy of a world map full of the details of Portuguese and Spanish ‘discoveries’. Originally drawn in 1513, the map of Piri Reis, or Captain Hajji Ahmed Muhiddin Piri (c. 1465–1554), is remarkable. Probably born in Gallipoli of a family from Anatolia, Piri Reis was the nephew of the noted admiral of the Ottoman fleet Kemal Reis. Like all Ottoman sailors, Kemal and Piri are often described dismissively as ‘corsairs’, with the implication that the Ottoman navy was little more than a collection of pirates. No one gives the lie to that self-serving piece of historical inaccuracy more conclusively than Piri Reis. The Ottomans devoted considerable attention to training their sailors in the latest skills of seamanship and navigation, and under Sultan Mehmet II (1451–81) they began to take a keen interest in maps and map-making. The world map of Piri Reis was lost for centuries in the archives of the Topkapi Palace. Its rediscovery in 1929 caused a sensation. It is one of the earliest known maps anywhere to show the coastline of the newly discovered lands of the Americas.6 According to a margin note this information was copied from the chart of one ‘Colombo’, or Christopher Columbus. Altogether it is evident from the marginal notes that Piri was well versed in the undertakings on behalf of the crowns of Portugal and Spain. He also knew of the Treaty of Tordesillas, brokered by the Pope in 1493, assigning exploration and exploitation of the eastern part of the globe to Portugal and the western part to Spain.

The purpose of Piri Reis’s map was to synthesize all available information and depict the entire world on the same scale. It owed more to the latest conventions of European map-making than to those of Arab geographers. However, perhaps the most remarkable aspect of the map is that most of its information for ‘Hind, Sind and China’, which would mean the Indian Ocean and beyond, came from maps ‘just drawn by four Portuguese’.7 The portion of the map covering the Indian Ocean is lost. Historians speculate that it was cut out by Selim himself to aid in making his planned response to the latest threat to Mecca.

As the career of Piri Reis demonstrates, when the Ottomans assumed responsibility for the defence of Mecca they were a major naval power in the Mediterranean. As it happens, they learnt more about the Indian Ocean from their enemies than from the extensive information on the region, its peoples and navigation which had been an Arab speciality for centuries. With the patronage of the sultans a flurry of translations of the key works of Arab geography and travel literature were added to the Ottoman archives before Piri Reis, who throughout his long life seems to turn up in the thick of events at the most crucial moments, would reappear to confront the Portuguese in the Indian Ocean. When he was not at the centre of the action he retired to Gallipoli, where he wrote his grand opus Kitab i Bahriye or Book of Navigation, the first edition completed in 1521 with a second edition in 1525.8 It presents a comprehensive synthesis of information from Arab, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Indian and older Greek maps. The first section deals with types of storms, techniques of using a compass, methods of determining direction by use of the stars, detailed charts of coastlines, the characteristics of major oceans and the lands around them. It is an immense work of scholarship rather than a pirate’s handbook.

The Portuguese arrived determined to oppose Muslims wherever they encountered them. It quickly became evident this would include trying to attack Mecca and disrupt seaborne pilgrim travel. The Portuguese records are full of mention of the ‘abomination’ of the House of Mecca and their aspiration to capture the tomb of Muhammad which, in keeping with old legend, was still believed to be suspended in air within the city. And Vasco da Gama did make one major discovery that would forward these plans – unlike the Portuguese ships, the trading vessels that plied these waters were unarmed.

Vasco da Gama returned, in command of the third annual Portuguese fleet, in 1502. He levied tribute in gold on the East African coast where he had found the Muslim pilot who had actually guided him on the final leg of his supposed ‘voyage of discovery’ to India. He then sank a pilgrim ship, the Meri, belonging to the Mamluk sultan, with the loss of all 300 passengers. The Mamluk sultan, Al-Asraf Qansuh al-Gawri (r. 1501–17), had to respond, and began to build a fleet at Suez. The trouble was that the Mamluks lacked the necessary resources. To mount an effective naval response they relied mainly on their rivals the Ottomans for military aid and ordnance. As a Mediterranean power the Ottomans were not only practised in gunpowder technology but also leaders in the field. Piri Reis served in the convoys to Egypt transporting the wood and especially the cannons for the construction of this Red Sea fleet.

In 1505, before the fleet could be launched, Francisco de Almeida arrived to take over as viceroy of the Portuguese king, who now described himself as ‘Lord of the Conquest of the Navigation and Commerce of Ethiopia, Arabia, Persia and India’. Almeida was a man shaped by the Reconquista, the rolling back of Muslim rule in Iberia. He participated in the Fall of Grenada in 1492. Piri Reis had been there too, very much a part of the fleet the Ottomans sent to defend the last outpost of the once mighty Umayyad Caliphate of Spain. After the fall of Granada, Piri returned to Spain twice more, helping to evacuate Jews and Muslims expelled by the Spanish Crown and take them to safe haven in Ottoman lands.

With twenty-one ships under his command, Almeida’s mission was to establish fortresses at key locations around the Indian Ocean and above all to deny Muslim shipping access to the Red Sea, the gateway to Mecca.9 He set about his work with gusto, sacking towns on the East African coast, burning Mombasa with the loss of 1,500 lives, attacking Aden, sailing into the Red Sea before attacking other ports along the coast of the Arabian Peninsula, bombarding Calicut in India and preying upon all the shipping that came his way. He captured the ship carrying the gold and silver collected by Indian Muslims which, every seven years, was sent as a gift to the sharif of Mecca. In 1507 he occupied Muscat on the Arabian coast.

During the same year, the Suez fleet was finally ready to sail. It was less a Mamluk response than a coalition effort of the mutually concerned. An envoy from Diu, an island off the coast of Gujarat, had already come to Egypt proposing an alliance against the interlopers. Venice, whose dominance of European trade with the Middle East was threatened, took part in the alliance, as did an important contingent of Ottoman sailors. Stopping first to fortify Jeddah, the fleet launched a surprise attack on the Portuguese off the port of Chaul on the west coast of India. During the attack Almeida’s son was killed. Almeida had his revenge in 1509 when he defeated the Mamluk fleet in the waters off Diu. The costs of mounting this unsuccessful challenge to the Portuguese further weakened the Mamluks. Riven by internal dissension, they were clearly reliant on the help of other powers to fulfil their responsibility to protect the Holy Places, and their supremacy was in terminal decline.

Almeida was succeeded by Alfonso de Albuquerque, the real architect of the implementation of Portugal’s grand strategy to monopolize the Indian Ocean. The first priority was a permanent base for their fleet. This was established in 1510 in Goa on the Malabar Coast of India. It was to remain a Portuguese enclave until the 1960s. From this headquarters of their Estado de India the Portuguese calculated that they needed just three other key possessions to secure dominance over the Ocean: Malacca on the Malay Peninsula, Hormuz at the mouth of the Persian Gulf and Aden at the mouth of the Red Sea. Albuquerque began with Malacca in 1511. In 1513 he laid siege to Aden. If this became a secure Portuguese possession the way to Mecca would be blocked. The Mamluk alliance fleet engaged the Portuguese in a day-long battle. They only managed to dislodge the siege, the Portuguese ships taking refuge on the Kamaran Islands inside the Bab al-Mandab, from where they harried Red Sea shipping before they withdrew. The following year Albuquerque succeeded in capturing not only the city of Hormuz but the small desolate Hormuz Island that was to become their richest trading post in the Indian Ocean. Only the subjugation of Aden remained one of their prime targets. The Portuguese sent annual fleets to blockade the Bab al-Mandab, and while they never succeeded in choking off all traffic through this strait at the mouth of the Red Sea, Mecca had good cause for concern when it turned to its new Ottoman masters.

The Ottomans had to construct their own Red Sea shipping to send annual fleets to counter the Portuguese threat, and they had to build up their knowledge of the region. By 1538 they were ready to launch a major offensive. They sent 100 ships and 20,000 men down the Red Sea into the Indian Ocean. The plan was for a major assault on Goa in conjunction with Bandar Shah, the ruler of Gujarat. When the Ottoman fleet arrived Bandar Shah had already been killed by the Portuguese, prompting his heir to concede an alliance with the Europeans. After an unsuccessful siege of Diu the Ottoman fleet turned back. On the voyage home they conquered most of Yemen and took Aden. The Portuguese responded to this attack by laying siege to Jeddah, harrying Red Sea shipping and once more establishing their position in Aden.

Ten years later the Ottomans mounted a second major expedition under the command of the new admiral of the Indian Ocean fleet, Piri Reis. He succeeded in recapturing Aden, then moved on to liberate Muscat from the Portuguese before sailing for the Persian Gulf with the intention of taking Hormuz Island. He gained possession of the town but was unable to subdue the citadel. Turning aside, Piri Reis captured the Qatar peninsula and Bahrain. At this point Piri took his fleet to Basra in Iraq, a country the Ottomans had annexed in 1534. Leaving the fleet for reasons that are entirely unclear, he then returned to Suez. The vizier of Egypt was not amused. Now aged ninety, Piri Reis, one of the most extraordinary men of an extraordinary era, and ‘arguably the Ottomans’ most distinguished cartographer’, was publicly beheaded because he ‘had lost ships to the Portuguese in the Persian Gulf’.10 The story is so reminiscent of what happened in later times to the British Admiral Byng,11 who declined to take his ships into a hopeless encounter with the French and was executed ‘pour encourager les autres’, that one can only presume there is some common irrational logic that haunts the exercise of empire.

The saddest reflection is that Piri Reis’s expedition of 1548–52 was in many respects a success. It marks the turning point, the time when the Portuguese implicitly relinquished the struggle to monopolize all trade in the Indian Ocean and settled for becoming domesticated as part of that network. They also continued what has been called their ‘simple protection racket’ of insisting vessels pay for a cartaz, a licence available only from the Portuguese, to trade and travel or risk being blown out of the water. It was an inconvenience the Indian Ocean could live with, and maintaining the flow of trade and travel was in everyone’s interest. It did not mean an end to bloodcurdling calls for the capture of Mecca or regulations from Portuguese legislative and religious councils demanding a halt to all Muslim pilgrim travel. In practice, however, there is a wonderful phrase Spanish officials in the New World developed to cover such situations: obedezco pero no cumplo – I obey but I do not comply. There was still conflict in the Indian Ocean, as well as further incursions by other European powers in the future, but for the remainder of the sixteenth century a certain kind of stability ensued which secured both Mecca and the seaborne pilgrim traffic.

Thanks to their navy the Ottomans fulfilled their obligation to protect and serve the Holy City. In the process they had mastered and integrated a huge body of new knowledge of both East and West. They were truly a world power now: established in the Indian Ocean, they had opened relations with various rulers in India including the new rising power, the Mughals, conquered virtually the whole of North Africa, the Levant, Iraq and Arabia, and had stood at the gates of Vienna spreading terror across Europe. There was no better place to exhibit and display their power than in the Holy City whose security, and that of its pilgrim traffic, they had assured. In the time of their glory the Ottomans lavished largesse and put their distinctive imprint on Mecca. The city, perhaps as it always had, served as a stage where the condition of the Muslim world or, more precisely, the condition of the dominant Muslim power, could be seen enacted.

With the arrival of the Ottomans, Mecca entered a century of peace and prosperity. For almost the first time since the death of the Prophet Muhammad, the city seemed to be at ease with itself. The young Abu Nomay, who regaled Selim I with stories of Mecca, succeeded his father Barakat II at the age of nineteen and came to be known as Abu Nomay II (r. 1524–84). Under Ottoman protection the territory ruled by the sharifs was greatly extended. It reached as far as Khaybar in the north and Hali in the south, and east into the region of Najd. ‘The Ottoman administration’ plied the city with largesse and ‘paid out between 15,000 and 17,000 gold pieces to the Bedouins residing in the vicinity of the caravan routes; a sizable share, however, was handed over in the shape of silver coins. Thus the Bedouins were able to purchase certain goods in urban markets, such as arms and textiles.’12 The young sharif devoted himself to improving the condition of Mecca and its citizens: he built numerous schools, courts, almshouses and residences for pilgrims, and repaired the Sanctuary. The Ottoman sultans, members of the royal family, viziers, statesmen, wealthy merchants and popular foundations competed with each other to build mosques, fountains, schools, public baths, libraries and hospitals in the Holy City. Mecca was at last beginning to catch up with the kind of infrastructure that had been commonplace in Muslim cities for centuries. Gulnus Sultan, wife of Sultan Muhammad IV (1648–87), established a health clinic in the city, followed by two hospitals. Historic and cultural property, such as the house where Prophet Muhammad was born, was repaired and renovated and brought under the protection of the sultan. The old city walls were repaired and the Ottomans built a series of forts along the caravan routes to provide protection for the pilgrims.

Mecca was transformed. It is rightly said that the city was never happier than in the time of Sharif Abu Nomay II, who ruled for sixty years until the ripe old age of eighty. Its architecture acquired a distinctive flavour: Mecca began to take on the appearance of an Ottoman city. Town houses gained verandas for family living projected over the street and courtyards to achieve rooms as rectangular as possible. This resulted in vistas of cantilevered rooms jostling down the streets. Foundations were normally built of brick and stone; upper floors were of timber with brick and wattle and daub infill in the interstices. It was not unusual for many of the houses in the city to have gardens. Wooden lattices, classical façades, cupolas and tall, delicate minarets were scattered throughout the Holy City. Egyptian marble was now replaced with flower-patterned Turkish ceramics. The fashions of Istanbul found a strong echo in Mecca, which was now anything but a ‘barren valley’.

The rapid physical development of Mecca was made possible not just by the largesse of the Ottoman administration but also by the creation of a special institution: the surre of the Holy Cities. The Turkish word surre means precious gifts. These were gifts of money and goods collected with a single aim: to be distributed to citizens and visiting pilgrims in Mecca and Medina. They were donated not just by the sultan and the dignitaries of the state but by all the citizens of the Ottoman Empire, every year, and sent to Mecca during the Hajj season. Many foundations – known as Awqaf al-Haramain (Pious Foundations for the Holy Cities) – were established in Anatolia and other regions to fund projects and institutions in Mecca. These foundations had specific purposes: some raised money solely for the poor of Mecca, others for restoration of religious sites, still others for the salaries of librarians, teachers, technicians, doctors, nurses and cleaners. Guilds of artisans devoted some of their time during the year to making specific products for the Holy City; Orders of Chivalrous Young Men who had sworn to protect the poor spent much of their free time collecting money for the needy of Mecca; Turkish ladies made special crochet coverings for the shrines in the Sanctuary. At an allotted time during the year, all these gifts from the Empire were collected. Appointed officials visited every neighbourhood in all the major cities to collect the gifts from the public – the details of each gift and its donor were recorded in a special register in the presence of witnesses. On the twelfth day of the Islamic month of Rajab, three months before the Hajj, the surre caravan left Istanbul on its long journey to Mecca.

The whole of Istanbul would turn up to bid farewell to the caravan, witness the spectacular ceremonies that were staged before its departure, and partake in the lavish feast that accompanied the occasion. Each ceremony was performed according to an elaborate plan, guided by protocol officers. The Ottomans were nothing if not sticklers for proper etiquette and protocol. The Chief of Protocol would describe the gifts, products and money donated. The donations would then be counted in the presence of the sultan; and the surre purses and records of donations would be secured with the sultan’s seal and handed over to the surre officer, along with a letter to the sharif of Mecca. The gifts would then be loaded on the surre camels and, accompanied by recitation of the Qur’an as well as songs and poems in praise of the Prophet, the caravan would leave the Topkapi Palace for its destination. The caravan called at sixty different locations en route to Mecca. It spent the fasting month of Ramadan, which follows Rajab, in Damascus. Each stop along the way was well maintained and well guarded. On its arrival in Mecca, the surre purses would be handed over to the sharif in another elaborate ceremony.

Apart from money and gifts, the surre caravans brought another invaluable resource: scholars, intellectuals, mystics, architects and artisans. They came to Mecca not to make a living but to serve the city. Many came with stipends from pious foundations, and offered their services to the citizens, pilgrims and city authorities for next to nothing. Indeed, some scholars came with large sums of surre money to be distributed among their students. Not surprisingly, many scholars, particularly jurists, had huge numbers of students who came to the Holy City from all over the Muslim world knowing that it was a place generous to young men seeking knowledge. The Sacred Mosque now functioned as much as a university as a site of pilgrimage and prayer. It had residences for visiting scholars as well as students, and a magnificent library, which received new acquisitions year after year; books were among the gifts brought by the surre caravan.

The city itself had many madrassas, which functioned as institutions of higher learning with primary and secondary schools attached, and libraries. The oldest madrassa in the city was designed by the great Turkish architect Mi’mâr Sinân Âğâ (1489/90–17 July 1588), the Michelangelo of Islam, known simply as Sinan, at the beginning of the sixteenth century, during the reign of Sultan Suleiman ‘the Magnificent’ (r. 1520–66). It was not one but in fact four madrassas, as there were four buildings, each catering for one of the four schools of Islamic thought. Other madrassas carried the name of those who built them, such as the madrassas of Murut II and Dawud Pasha, or of the group or movement that helped finance them, such as the Mahmudiya. The curriculum at these institutions included the study of the Qur’an, the life of the Prophet Muhammad, logic, mathematics, medicine, metaphysics and natural sciences. Mecca was indeed coming into line with the intellectual culture of the Muslim world.

The professors of the madrassas, who often led the congregation at the local mosques, were held in high esteem – so much so, indeed, that they had to fight to maintain their reputations: there were public disputations where professors from different madrassas argued and debated with each other. A visiting professor had to establish his credentials by giving an inaugural lecture before he could acquire students and debate with other professors. Classes were usually held in mosques where the professor sat on a small stool (the professorial chair), while students sat cross-legged on the floor, forming a small arc around him.13 The city’s noted jurists and professors of law, who included many women, held their own halqa (a circle of listeners sitting in a mosque around a teacher) in specific parts of the town where they issued juristic rulings and fatwas, the considered legal opinion of an individual scholar on a specific topic.

The ‘guests of God’, as the community of learning was known, included many mystics who came to hide from the harsh realities of the world. They hid in the cloisters, hospices and shrines of the city, preferring their own company. Some Sufis favoured meditating in absolute darkness, secluded in a shrine or underneath a black mantle. Both mystics and the mausoleums where they were usually to be found were highly revered. Special care and attention was given to the repair and maintenance of mausoleums, which were extensively decorated and furnished with lavish carpets. The surre caravans always brought specific gifts and items for the decoration of the shrines and earmarked funds for the upkeep of the mausoleums and looking after the mystics.

Many Turkish mystics followed in the footsteps of the poet and Sufi Yunus Emre,14 a grandee of Turkish literature, who came to Mecca at the beginning of the fourteenth century, long before Ottoman control of the city. He is said to have walked to Mecca along the caravan route with his head bowed, arms crossed on his breast as a token of humility. On reaching Mecca, Yunus wrote a poem that is still sung in Turkey as a hymn:

 

I left the Roman land apace,

A candle I became that melted.

Blessed be God that I could there bow my head,

Lord Apostle, how fair were the ways of the Kaabah.

The moon rose as I started on the road,

I chanted benedictions.

Oh come with me, let us wander together,

Lord Apostle, how fair were the ways of the Kaabah.

The peaks come close;

Fain would one drink a drop, for it is hot.

The man who dies on the wayside has no mourner,

Lord Apostle, how fair were the ways of the Kaabah.

The mountains tower over the Kaabah,

The spring that saw the Epiphany ever flows.

Yunus the loving remembers and weeps,

Lord Apostle, how fair were the ways of the Kaabah.15

 

The Ottomans transformed Mecca into a lively and thriving cosmopolitan centre. Although the city was still dependent on Cairo for grain, the markets were overflowing with goods and the citizens were prosperous. The sharif and his family received half of the taxes collected in Jeddah as well as a generous stipend and pensions from the sultan. There was no need to inflict burdensome tax on the citizens, who were seriously outnumbered by ‘guests’ and foreign professionals and scholars. We have a good idea of the population of the city during the later sixteenth century, as both the Ottoman bureaucrats, who had to make payments to individual households, and the nobles of the city made a list of its total inhabitants. This included ‘all occupied houses and all inhabitants of the city apart from merchants and soldiers – that is, women, children and servants in addition to the adult male population, a total of 12,000 persons’.16 Pilgrim numbers also rose substantially – from around 80,000 in the middle of the thirteenth century to 150,000 by the beginning of the sixteenth century. And there was a constant stream of visits by Turkish princes and princesses who, naturally, insisted on full pomp and ceremony. One princess arrived with a caravan of 400 camels, each bearing identical palanquins so no one could tell in which one she was riding. Later, it is said, she committed suicide because she could not throw off legions of unwanted and persistent suitors. Different races, classes and sects, including men and women, all mingled to create a vibrant multicultural and intellectually engaged society.

There were, however, tensions. The Ottomans insisted on intervening in the administration of justice. Traditionally, the chief judge of the city was a qadi belonging to the Shafi school of thought, which had become dominant in Mecca. The office had remained in one family for centuries. Now the chief qadi was appointed and sent from Istanbul, much to the displeasure of most of the Meccans. The Ottomans, who were strictly Sunni, did not look with favour on the Shia. In 1501, the newly crowned Safavid Shah Ismail I (r. 1501–24) had proclaimed himself Shahanshah of Iran and declared Shi’ism to be the religion of his state. A protracted power struggle ensued between the Ottomans and the Safavids, periods of open warfare interspersed with constant tensions that defined the eastern limits of Ottoman territorial expansion. The tensions of the wider world were reflected in serious disputes between Sunni and Shia scholars and jurists in Mecca, each accusing the other of heresy.

Later, the Ottomans would have an opportunity to bring the two main branches of Islam, the orthodox Sunni and the Shia, together and settle the disputes. Nadir Shah, king of Persia (r. 1736–47), successor to the now defunct Safavids, approached the Ottoman sultan with a rather enlightened proposal. Known as much for his military brilliance as his ‘love of women’ and ‘drinking parties’,17 Nadir was of Turkish origin and held the Ottomans in high regard. Although a Shia, he systematically ‘weakened the Shia ulama [scholars] by confiscating properties, abolishing clerical positions in the government, and cancelling the jurisdiction of religious courts’.18 He would recognize the sultan in Istanbul as caliph, Nadir Shah said, if the sultan would grant the Shia equal standing with other sects in Mecca, and accept it as the fifth school of Islamic thought. Then, in effect, the sultan would be caliph of both Sunni and Shia communities. Regrettably, the Ottomans declined the offer, fearing that their own population would convert to Shi’ism. Thus a great opportunity to unite Islam and end centuries of enmity and tragic feuding was lost.

While resolving the dispute between Sunnis and Shias was of little concern to the Ottoman sultans, they were unconditionally devoted to improving the holiest city of Islam. This was seen as an act of charity, perhaps a substitute for the fact that none of them ever visited Mecca and performed the Hajj. Many major projects were undertaken; in keeping with earlier works the Ottomans tried to keep the Sanctuary in the centre of the city. Before embarking on any project, great care was taken to consult the local scholars, jurists and prominent figures. When it came to Mecca, no expense was spared, and a great deal of effort was spent on public relations to improve the standing of the Caliphate and to gain the confidence and praises of the Meccans as well as the pilgrims. Clearly, in the era before mass communications, Mecca was unchallenged as the place to establish and publish one’s credentials before the entire Muslim world. The long distance and travel time between Mecca and Istanbul, the lack of engineers and skilled workers, the difficulty of finding and shipping construction material best suited for the Sanctuary, the time involved in effecting intricate ornamental work with gold and silver, as well as the harsh climate of Mecca, meant, however, that realizing grand projects often took decades.

The fact that development work in Mecca would be arduous became evident in 1557 when Mecca once again suffered from a serious lack of water. Zubaidah’s gift to the Holy City in 810, the elaborate network of aqueducts, had dried up. The sharif sent a request for urgent help to Sultan Suleiman (r. 1520–66), who apart from being ‘the Magnificent’ was also ‘the Lawgiver’, and son and successor of Selim I. The cost of the work was estimated to be 35,000 dinars; the sultan’s sister insisted that she would fund the project. An Egyptian treasurer in the sultan’s office, Ibrahim Bey, was appointed to supervise the work. Within a few months he was in Mecca with over 400 Mamluk soldiers and a band of engineers from Anatolia, Damascus and Aleppo, and most important of all a purse filled with 50,000 dinars sent by the sultan’s sister. The engineers decided to dig a canal as far as Zubaidah’s well. No sooner had they started than they came upon a rock that proved almost impossible to cut. Attempts were made to dissolve the rock by burning huge quantities of fuel. Ten years later, little progress had been made despite exhausting work and the consumption of all the firewood in Mecca and the surrounding areas. The engineers were worn out; a number of workers had died of heat and exhaustion. The people of Mecca were disappointed.

The sultan appointed a new supervisor, Muhammad Bey Akmal Zadi. He received an even bigger purse from the sultan’s sister, yet he too failed, dying in the attempt. There was still not much water in the Holy City and the citizens were beginning to show their frustration. The sultan placed the task on the joint shoulders of Qasim Bey, the governor of Jeddah, and a Meccan judge belonging to the Maliki School of Thought, called Hussain. It was Hussain who finally managed to complete the project, just months after the death of Qasim Bey in 1571. Water in abundance had finally arrived in Mecca; the whole city had a massive party. The final cost of the project was estimated to be 500,700 dinars – all of which came from the sultan’s sister, who went on to finance the construction of a string of fountains in the city.

Sultan Suleiman himself was more concerned with extending the Sanctuary to accommodate the rising number of pilgrims. Orders were given for Sinan, who, at that time was working on Istanbul’s magnificent Suleymniye Mosque, to go to Mecca and produce a plan for extending the Sacred Mosque. The sultan was particularly keen to see the roofs of the arcades replaced with domes. Sinan finished the Suleymniye Mosque in 1558, and arrived in Mecca a year later. We don’t know how much time he spent in the city, but it was long enough for him to do some remedial work, restore a few aqueducts to improve the water supply while the canal was being built, and produce a detailed plan for the restoration and expansion of the Haram. But he had too many projects to finish in Anatolia, particularly the Selimiye Mosque in Edirne, widely considered to be his masterpiece, to undertake active work in Mecca. His plans for the city would not come to fruition during his lifetime. However, during the reign of Sultan Suleiman, the ceiling of the Kaaba was altered, the paving within the Sanctuary (an area known as al-Mataf) relaid, and a new high minaret was constructed. The sultan also sent an inlaid marble pulpit (minbar) to the Sacred Mosque.

It was left to Sedefhar Mehmed Aga (1540–1617), Sinan’s student, to translate his teacher’s plan into reality. Aga, as accomplished and renowned as his teacher, was highly skilled in a variety of art forms, as well as being an accomplished musician. Apart from the Blue Mosque in Istanbul, he also built the Mosque of Murad III in Manisa in the Aegean region of Turkey, a splendid walnut throne encrusted with mother-of-pearl and tortoiseshell, and a bridge over the Tunca river in Edirne. The Sedefhar (‘worker in mother-of-pearl’) element in his name was a title he acquired because he originally trained as an inlayer. Aga, who became the chief imperial architect in October 1606 and was ‘one of the few Ottoman artists to be honoured by a full-scale biography during his lifetime’,19 was dispatched to Mecca by Sultan Selim II (r. 1566–74). He used Sinan’s plan to renovate and extend the courtyard of the Kaaba, with the help of highly skilled Egyptian builders specially sent by the sultan. The nineteen gates of the Sanctuary were renewed but kept in the same place. New ones were added – now there were a total of twenty-six doorways to the Mosque: five on the eastern side, six on the western, seven on the southern, and eight on the northern. The existing columns at the entrance were replaced with marble, and yellow stone columns were set between them to help support the stuccoed stone arches and cupolas that had been substituted for the old wooden ones. A total of 881 arches supported the arcades that surrounded the Mosque, in addition to the smaller arches at the back. The flat roof of the Sanctuary was now replaced with 152 small domes on the four sides of the court. Sinan must have seen and approved some of this work, as in 1583, at the age of ninety-four, he came to Mecca for the second time to perform the Hajj.

When Mehmed Aga had completed his work, Selim II commissioned an accomplished artist to work on the interior of the Sanctuary. He decorated the interiors of the cupolas with calligraphic compositions and gold motifs. The artist was Abdullah Lutfi. We know that he stayed in Mecca after finishing his work on the Haram to make sketches of the Holy Land, during which beautifully designed lamps were hung on the columns within the Sanctuary and candle-holders in the shape of date palms were placed in the courtyard. The seats of the teachers of the four schools of thought were replaced with new ones in the stylish shape of Turkish kiosks. The call to prayer now began at the ‘Caliph’s minaret’ – the tallest and slimmest of the seven minarets, which was constructed with three balconies in the distinctive Ottoman style – and was echoed by the muezzins in the other six minarets. The Sacred Mosque now had a strong imprint of distinctive Ottoman architecture and style.

By the time Abdullah Lutfi returned to Istanbul, Selim II had been replaced by Murad III (r. 1574–95). At the behest of the new sultan, Lutfi began turning his sketches into stunning miniatures. The paintings were in fact done to illustrate The Life of the Prophet Muhammad by Mustafa Dariri Erzeni, a blind scholar and Sufi who came to Mecca around 1370.20 Known amongst the Meccans as ‘the blind man of Erzerum’, he had a substantial following in the city. His biography of the Prophet was widely known and read there, and Lutfi, who was mystically inclined, was no doubt influenced by Erzeni.

It took Lutfi almost two decades, and the assistance of scores of other artists, to complete the work: 814 miniatures in six volumes, one of the first and complete visual portraits of the life of Prophet Muhammad. The paintings are highly stylized, rather bold yet elusive in character. The landscapes are bare, the figures drawn sharply, and the details are always scanty. One shows Mecca with the Kaaba on Abu Qubays mountain, with a rectangular building in front, and angels on horseback and in the air. There are only five figures in the painting illustrating the birth of the Prophet: the infant Prophet is enveloped in a golden cloud; his veiled mother sits to the right, with three angels in attendance. Another painting has the young Prophet being breast-fed by his wet nurse (nipple quite visible), with his mother and eight other women sitting observing the proceedings. The Prophet always appears with a veil on his face; but his companions are drawn with full faces.

Lutfi’s style differs sharply from earlier Persian miniatures of the Indian painter Muhi Al-Din Lari (d. 1526), about whom we know even less than about Lutfi. Lari’s paintings illustrate his book Conquests of the Two Sanctuaries (Futuh al-haramayn),21 which is a guide to performing the Hajj. In sharp contrast to Lutfi’s painting, Lari provides much more detail, giving us ‘schematic representations’ of the Sanctuary.22 For example, his widely reproduced painting of the Sacred Mosque, in gouache heightened with gold, which shows the Kaaba in the middle enclosed by a circular arcade, indicates the places of worship assigned to different sects, as well as the location of the well of Zamzam. The doors surrounding the Kaaba have their names inscribed on them. Four minarets appear at the corner of the courtyard, with several small structures and minbars. There is an entrance gate to the compound leading to a large courtyard surrounded by two rows of colonnades with oil lamps hanging between the columns. Lari clearly used his personal experience of Mecca, ‘executing architectural details with care and using brilliant colours to enliven the scene’.23

Both Lari and Abdullah Lutfi would go on to influence generations of artists after them; their paintings were copied by contem­porary and later artists, right down to the nineteenth century. Almost all the classic illustrations we see in books on Islamic art and Hajj are either their paintings or inspired by them. Yet nothing has been written about these two pioneering artists.

Murad III did not live to see the final product of Abdullah Lutfi’s monumental efforts: the work was finished on 16 January 1595, a few days after the death of the sultan. Sharif Abu Nomay II did not live to see the new extensions to the Sanctuary either. He died in 1584, while on business in Nadj, around ten days’ march from the city. As the city had been transformed under Abu Nomay’s rule, it was little wonder that Meccans had come to adore him. His body was brought from Nadj and the entire city joined his funeral procession. The valley was filled with the sound of women weeping as the procession entered the city from one side, while the new sharif, who had been working in Yemen, approached from the other side.

Abu Nomay II was succeeded by his son, Hassan ibn Abi Nomay, who was fifty-nine when he acquired power. He continued in the style of his father but also devoted considerable time to his great passion for poetry. Poets flourished under his reign, and the Holy City was immersed in music and culture. He built a special palace, known as the ‘House of Happiness’, where poets, musicians and other artists gathered to display their skills. He seemed to associate culture with urbanism and considered nomads and desert-dwellers uncouth. Consequently, he is said to have been rather severe, even despotic, in his relations with the Bedouin. Later, the Meccans would regard him as the last of their talented and skilful rulers and his reign as the ‘golden age’ of Mecca. Certainly, Mecca continued to be happy and prosperous for the next four decades. When Sharif Hassan died in 1602, his son Idris, known as Abu Aun, was unanimously chosen as his successor. Abu Aun decided to rule in partnership with his brother and nephew. Even though Mecca now had a triumvirate of rulers, it was still a politically stable city. The situation changed rapidly a few years after the death of Abu Aun in 1624.

The chain of events started rather innocuously. The sultan had appointed a new governor, Ahmad Pasha, to Yemen. He arrived in Jeddah with the usual pomp and ceremony. Unfortunately for Mecca, one of the pasha’s ships, carrying most of his personal belongings, sank near the port in relatively deep waters. In Mecca, Sharif Mohsin, Abu Aun’s nephew, had now taken over. The pasha sent a message to Sharif Mohsin asking for two divers to help retrieve his luggage. The divers duly arrived, but after repeated attempts over many days found nothing. The pasha grew suspicious. He came to the conclusion that Sharif Mohsin, who had not come to Jeddah to greet him, must have instructed his divers not to try too hard. The pasha’s opinion was influenced by Ahmad ibn Talib, a scheming and ambitious relative of Sharif Mohsin. Ahmad Pasha arrested and executed Sharif Mohsin’s messenger, provided money and troops to Ahmad ibn Talib and instructed him to take over the reins of power in Mecca. But before Ahmad could march on Mecca the pasha died, probably poisoned by the relatives of the messenger he had executed. Ahmad took the opportunity this afforded him to commandeer all the Turkish troops garrisoned in Jeddah to accompany him to Mecca. As Ahmad and his army approached Mecca, Sharif Mohsin prepared to engage in battle. However, the Meccans, now rather used to prosperity, persuaded him to avoid bloodshed. Sharif Mohsin had no option but to abdicate. Ahmad ibn Talib marched triumphantly into the city.24

Sharif Ahmad ibn Talib’s rule lasted only two years. His first act on entering the Holy City was to arrest and execute the mufti of Mecca, with whom he had a long-standing grievance. He accused the mufti of preventing his marriage to a princess, and during her marriage to another man, making disparaging comments about him – indeed, describing him as the Devil incarnate. Furthermore, when Ahmad’s brother died, the mufti had come dressed in white, rather than black, to give his condolences. If that was not enough, the mufti had issued a fatwa against him, a written copy of which had been discovered underneath a cushion in Sharif Mohsin’s palace.

The mufti probably had a point. The Meccans, who loved their jurists, were horrified at his execution. They despised the new sharif, quite ready to see him as the Devil himself. Secret messages were sent to the sultan in Istanbul, and the citizens began to gather around potential successors. Soon a new governor, Qunsowa Pasha, was on his way to Yemen. He arrived in Jeddah in 1630 and announced his intention of visiting the Sacred Mosque. When Qunsowa Pasha and his large army neared Mecca, Sharif Ahmad went out to meet him. The sharif was enthusiastically greeted along with his entourage and asked to inspect the soldiers and the marines who accompanied the pasha. The military band played as the sharif inspected the troops, all lined up in front of their tents. Afterwards, Qunsowa Pasha invited Sharif Ahmad to his tent for a game of chess. The game lasted till sunset. When it was finished, Qunsowa Pasha excused himself. A group of Turkish marines entered the tent, and quietly throttled the sharif. The rest of his party were told to return to Mecca and spread the news.25

For the next few years, Mecca witnessed a rather monotonous struggle for supremacy between various members of the sharif family. One ruler followed another. No one lasted more than a year, even with the support of Turkish officials. Meanwhile, the city was facing an urgent problem. While the Sanctuary was being redesigned, renovated, extended and beautified, the most important object within its compound remained largely untouched: the Kaaba. It had become obvious since the time of Sultan Selim, at the beginning of the sixteenth century, that the Kaaba was falling apart. Patchwork would not do; it needed total reconstruction. The qadis of the four schools of thought in Mecca, as well as the Sheikh al-Islam in Istanbul, were of the opinion that the work was necessary. The citizens of Mecca supported their senior jurists and agreed that the Kaaba needed to be rebuilt without delay. But there was a serious problem: the Shia imam of Mecca had declared that it was unlawful to demolish the Kaaba. Only if it fell down of its own accord could it be rebuilt. The controversy lasted years, almost decades. Finally, the matter was settled in 1629 by an act of God. The sky opened up and torrential rains flooded the Kaaba, demolishing the eastern and western wall and the ceiling. Around 500 citizens of Mecca lost their lives. Even this was not enough to convince the Shia imam. When a second flood caused further damage the whole structure was on the verge of collapse. At last, the imam conceded; it was unanimously decided to pull down what remained of the Kaaba. Excavation work, carried out under the watchful eyes of the city’s inhabitants, continued till the foundations of Abraham were reached. It was decided to build the new Kaaba on these foundations, using most of the masonry that had survived from the time of ibn Zubair.

Sultan Murad IV (r. 1623–40) sent his personal chamberlain to supervise the rebuilding work. A pious man from the Caucasus, the chamberlain was fearful of the Meccans. Convinced that they would find faults with his efforts, he prayed extensively before giving any order. He was guided by architects from Istanbul, Ankara and other Turkish cities. The Black Stone was placed under the special care of an Indian architect. Just as in previous reconstructions of the Kaaba – during the time of the Prophet Muhammad and ibn Zubair – the entire city took part in the rebuilding. The leaders of the four schools of thought, the Shia imam and the members of his clergy, the jurists and judges, the bureaucrats and administrative officials, citizens and visitors, men, women and children – all took turns in finding and carrying stones. As the reconstruction went on the Qur’an was recited constantly.

Inside the Kaaba, the old columns were strengthened, coated with a preservative solution of saffron and gum Arabic, and then covered with gold. The silver door, a present to the Kaaba from Sultan Suleiman, was reinstalled. Another gift from Sultan Suleiman, a pulpit in elaborate woodwork, was set in place. A new golden gargoyle, inlaid with inscriptions set in blue enamel, sent from Istanbul, was placed on the roof of the Kaaba. Two portable silver staircases, a gift from India, were added to provide access to the door. The whole of the Kaaba was then covered with two kiswa curtains, one red and one black. Finally, the sands in the courtyard were washed. The ‘House of God’, the prime symbol of the faith of Abraham and Muhammad, was now complete: rebuilt to last thousands of years.26

Mecca was now under the rule of Zaid ibn Muhsin (r. 1631–66), who, although only twenty-five, had already proved his skill in numerous battles. A man of considerable cunning and few scruples, he grew up amongst the Bedouin tribes in south Hijaz, where he acquired courage and confidence in equal measure. Zaid was also the first amongst the sharifs of Mecca to use firearms, which had now appeared in the Hijaz. The new weapon in the hands of his army proved decisive and he was able to subdue most of the warring tribes and clans in and around the city and restore a modicum of peace to the region. But the political and religious disputes Mecca had faced during the past decades were nothing compared to what now befell the city.

After dispensing with Sharif Ahmad, Qunsowa Pasha had moved on to Yemen. But his expedition there failed miserably and the pasha decided to sail back to Egypt, leaving his rather unruly army to return by land. Sharif Zaid received a message from two of the generals of this army, Mahmoud and Ali Bey, asking to stay in Mecca en route to Egypt. We need to rest and refresh ourselves both physically and spiritually before we recommence our arduous journey, they declared. Sharif Zaid was in two minds. He called the Meccans together and asked for their opinions. The overall consensus was that the generals could not be trusted. They might turn out to be polite, seem amicable and behave impeccably, and then quietly throttle the sharif – like one of his predecessors – or, indeed, take over the city. It was a defeated army with many grievances. The sharif agreed. He refused the generals permission to enter Mecca. He also ordered all the wells from Mecca to Qunfidha, where the armies were camped, to be filled.

The generals were taken aback by his inhospitality, which they took as a declaration of war. They decided to enter Mecca by force. The sharif gathered his own troops and asked for help from the Turkish governor of Jeddah, who rushed to support him. As the sun rose on the morning of 18 March 1631, Sharif Zaid’s troops met the armies of Generals Mahmoud and Ali Bey just outside Mecca at a place called Wadi al-Abar. What followed was one of the bloodiest battles Mecca had seen in its recent history. Over 500 Meccan soldiers were killed, including many members of the sharif’s family and clan. The Turkish governor of Jeddah also died of exhaustion. Few were left standing; and even a number of spectators watching the battle from a safe distance were killed. Zaid alone managed to escape to Medina. Mecca was now at the mercy of Generals Mahmoud and Ali Bey, who made a victorious entry into the city.

Carnage followed. The soldiers killed anyone who could oppose them, seized food supplies and looted the entire city. Women and young boys were raped. Rich and wealthy citizens were tortured to reveal their hoards of wealth. Plunder and rape continued for a week. When they had finished with Mecca, the rebel soldiers turned to Jeddah, which suffered the same fate. Seeing Mecca descend into lawlessness and anarchy, the tribes in the surrounding areas took the opportunity to engage in their age-old sport of attacking and looting caravans to the Holy City. Mecca was in the depth of despair.

In Medina, Sharif Zaid tried to regroup and made plans to rescue his city. He sent desperate messages for help to Egypt and to Sultan Murad IV in Istanbul. The sultan acted quickly and dispatched seven generals, each with an impressive army, along with a robe of honour for Sharif Zaid. Within a few weeks the sultan’s army was in Medina, where Zaid was invested with the ceremonial robe in the Prophet’s Mosque, signifying his legitimate rule of Mecca. The sharif joined the march against the rebel soldiers in Mecca.

When Mahmoud and Ali Bey heard of the massive army marching against them, they fled along with their rebel soldiers. They were pursued to the borders of Najd, where their armies were decisively defeated. The two generals, however, managed to find refuge in a castle. They sent a message: we will surrender if our lives are spared. Zaid, who had entered Mecca unopposed and without bloodshed, called a council of war. The citizens of Mecca, along with the Turkish soldiers, the scholars and jurists of the city, gathered in the Sacred Mosque to discuss the fate of the plunderers and abusers of the Holy City. Zaid favoured a pardon for both, particularly for Ali Bey. It transpired that during the looting of Mecca, Ali Bey had been respectful towards the women of the sharif’s clan. He had gone out of his way to protect female members of Zaid’s family from marauding soldiers, and visited them daily to ask if they needed anything. The gathering, however, demanded vengeance and punishment for both. After a heated discussion, it was decided that Ali Bey would be pardoned if he arrested Mahmoud and brought him to Mecca. Ali Bey duly delivered Mahmoud to Mecca, and was allowed to return freely to Egypt.

Mahmoud ‘was beaten and tortured, then paraded naked, strapped on a camel, face upward, head to the tail for greater indignity, through the streets of Mecca’.27 After this ritual humiliation, he was crucified just outside one of the gates of Mecca. While still on the crucifix, cuts were made in his arms and shoulders, pieces of cloth soaked in oil were inserted in the cuts, and set on fire. He was taken down a day or two later, still alive, and moved to the cemetery, where he was nailed by his right hand and left foot to a post next to his grave. He screamed constantly in his agony, cursing Mecca and its citizens, abusing the sharif and the scholars. He finally expired two days later.

Meanwhile, a court of scholars and jurists heard cases against a group of Meccans who had collaborated with the rebel soldiers, and members of the sharif clan who had tried to usurp power. At the end of each case, the scholars were asked for their verdict – which was always the same: ‘the judgement of God’. Once the sentence had been pronounced, the accused were immediately executed by the sword and their severed heads displayed in public.

Finally the lust for vengeance was satisfied and political stability was re-established. Mecca experienced a few years of peace and prosperity before Sultan Murad IV asked Sharif Zaid for a special favour. The Shia, he said, had been particularly troublesome: they ‘claimed one third of all subsidies sent to Mecca’,28 had delayed the important work of rebuilding the Kaaba for decades, and the Persian Shias were not too favourably inclined towards the Sublime Porte. Therefore, would the sharif expel the Shia heretics from the Holy City and prohibit them from performing the Hajj in future?

Sharif Zaid was not impressed by this order. Neither he nor the upper class in Mecca wanted to expel the Shias, who were largely skilful professionals much needed in the city. The Shia pilgrims brought money and goods to Mecca, two resources of which it could never have enough. And expelling the Shias from the city would also provide the unruly tribes in the region with a pretext to plunder well-to-do Persians. The sharif, however, was in no position to openly oppose the sultan. Not only would open violation incur his wrath, the sharif and people of Mecca might themselves be labelled heretics. Zaid felt compelled to accept the sultan’s order, but availed himself of the classic ‘I obey but do not comply’ strategy. As soon as the Turkish governor of Mecca ordered the Shias to leave the city, the sharif quietly gave them permission to stay and take part in the pilgrimage.

To make matters worse, the sultan appointed a Turkish official as the Inspector of the Holy Places. Sharif Zaid was incensed. He saw this as a clear attempt to increase Turkish control of the Holy City. He was now more determined than ever to maintain his authority not just in Mecca but the region as a whole. He embarked on a clandestine campaign against the Turkish officials in the Hijaz. On his orders the Turkish Inspector of Jeddah was murdered by a Bedouin. He was, one suspects, also behind the murder of the Turkish qadi in Medina. While travelling from Taif to Jeddah, Mustafa Beg, the Turkish Inspector of Jeddah, had to ride alone in a narrow valley and lost his escort. A Bedouin came down from the mountain, ran towards him and stabbed him with a poisoned dagger. Mustafa Beg died within three hours. The Turkish qadi of Medina was ambushed on his way to night prayers. As he rode with his companions and passed the office of the Accountant General, a Bedouin emerged from the darkness, sliced him with his sword, and escaped. The horse, with the dying qadi clinging to his neck, went on into the Prophet’s Mosque right up to the prayer niche of Othman, the fourth caliph, where the assembled congregation gasped and took his body down.

For the Turkish Inspector of Mecca, Sharif Zaid must have had a similar plan. But another death, not in the Hijaz but in Istanbul, proved rather beneficial. The sultan had appointed an Abyssinian called Bashir Agha as Inspector and sent him to Mecca with astonishing powers. Sharif Zaid knew that if the Inspector was allowed to operate in Mecca, his own authority and autonomy would be reduced to a cipher. The very idea of showing deference to an Abyssinian, albeit a Turkish official, was also anathema to him. So when Bashir Agha landed at the port of Yanbu, the sharif did not go to welcome him. Instead, a deputy was sent, entrusted with the extra responsibility of providing intelligence on the size and weapons of the agha’s army. The deputy gathered the necessary intelligence but also came up with a vital piece of news: the agha had just received a letter from Istanbul informing him of the death of Sultan Murad IV, a fact he was eager to conceal. On receiving the news an emboldened Zaid abandoned the idea of holding a reception for the agha, or arranging and furnishing special quarters for him and his mission. When the agha approached Mecca, the sharif went out to greet him. They rode together towards the Holy City, but Sharif Zaid kept spurring his horse so that he was always a little ahead of the agha. When they reached the gate of the city, Sharif Zaid turned his head back towards the agha and shouted: ‘May the sultan rest in peace.’ Bashir Agha realized at once that Sharif Zaid knew the sultan had died, and his mission was now buried with the sultan.

Sharif Zaid went on to rule Mecca for another quarter of a century. He is remembered mostly for his efforts to thwart Turkish attempts to interfere in the affairs of Mecca and the Hijaz, in which he was backed by his influence over the Bedouin tribes amongst whom he grew up and who came to trust him implicitly. He was the founder of the Dhawi Zaid, a new branch of the sharif clan that would spend the next three centuries fighting against the Dhawi Barakat, established by Barakat ibn Hassan during the mid-fifteenth century.

Sharif Zaid died in 1666. There was the customary feud amongst his sons for succession. The two main claimants, Saad and Hamud, started firing at each other’s houses. There was hand-to-hand fighting amongst their supporters and a number of skirmishes in the market and around the Sacred Mosque. After three days, Saad prevailed, largely because he had the support and approval of the caliph. Sharif Saad, a man of medium height, brown complexion and a thin moustache, was regarded as generous, though in point of fact he was an exceptionally ruthless man. He forced his brother Hamud out of the Holy City. However, Hamud was not defeated and was unwilling to give up the struggle for the throne of Mecca. He started raiding caravans and took every opportunity to frighten and terrorize the Meccans. His men would slip into the city during the night to rob and kidnap citizens. For three years, terrorism was the norm in Mecca.

Nor did the problems stop there. A timeless place is not immune to history. Global changes were undermining the prosperity and eventually the autonomy of the Muslim world. In 1600 two new powers entered the Indian Ocean: the Dutch and British East India Companies. They came to challenge the Portuguese monopoly of the direct sea route to Europe. These merchant companies were very different in organization and effect to their predecessor. Over the course of the seventeenth century they had a growing impact on the structure of global trade. Seaborne trade gradually began to undermine the economic viability of land caravans, diverting the revenues the caravans generated away from their traditional beneficiaries and subtly shifting the distribution patterns of goods. Even pilgrims to Mecca travelling the sea routes of the Indian Ocean were more and more likely to travel on English or Dutch or French or Danish vessels. And from the newly found lands across the Atlantic that Piri Reis had charted came a silvery stream whose riches were deceptive. In 1545 the Spanish happened to discover a mountain made of silver at Potosí in what is now Bolivia. The annual shipments of silver and gold from the New World gradually glutted the world economy. The value of the Ottoman dinar depreciated accordingly. The constant wars on several fronts swallowed up the vibrancy and wealth of empire. In 1529 the Ottomans were at the apex of their power and expansion as they laid siege to Vienna. In 1683 they were repulsed at the Battle of Vienna. A long slow stagnation was under way, with creeping repercussions across the whole Muslim world.

Life in Mecca moved with the tide of history. Trade caravans became scarce. In 1667 the city was in the grip of a severe famine. The markets were empty; people started to sell their possessions for food. Bread was being made out of chickpeas and broad beans. The poor attacked the houses of the rich in desperate attempts to find food. Others turned to cats, dogs, bats, rats – anything that could be eaten. Soon there was nothing left to eat. People started dying in the streets. Sharif Saad made desperate pleas to the sultan. Finally, just before the pilgrimage season, ten shiploads of grain arrived from Egypt and the citizens of Mecca breathed a sigh of relief.

It is not just the economic and political fate of the city that seems to lurch dramatically, tossed by history. The fate of knowledge and cultured civilization itself followed the same pattern of high and low points. Now it was claimed that the plight of Mecca was reflected in the heavens. One morning in June 1668, two hours after sunrise, a very strong beam of light, coming from the sun, appeared in the sky. Blue, yellow and red in colour the ‘beam extended to the west, and whoever looked at it was temporarily blinded’.29 For most of the citizens of Mecca it was a bad omen: a clear sign, a warning from God about the fitna – rebellion and strife – that engulfed the Holy City. More knowledgeable people in the city recognized the stellar visitor as a comet. The most notable among them was a Moorish astronomer by the name of Muhammad ibn Sulaiman Maghribi. He had been part of the last expulsion of Muslims from Spain, ordered by King Philip III in 1614. Most of those expelled from Andalusia sought refuge in Morocco, or the lands of the Ottoman Empire in Algeria and Tunisia. Maghribi chose Mecca, and spent some time in the city erecting a sundial in the courtyard of the Sacred Mosque. The comet appeared on the same day the astronomer was inaugurating his sundial. The two events were naturally connected by the uneducated and ignorant citizens of Mecca. A campaign to demolish the sundial emerged overnight and a group of citizens asked the sharif to remove the sundial and expel the astronomer. The sharif consulted the qadi and the two agreed that the sundial should be removed. Muhammad ibn Sulaiman appealed to Sheikh al-Islam, the head of Muslim scholars in Istanbul. The Sheikh declared that astronomy was an essential science and the sundial was an important and necessary instrument. It was restored but it did not last long.30

Another notable person in the city was the Ottoman traveller Evliya Celebi, a highly educated and refined man. Celebi, motivated by the Quranic verses ‘there are signs in the heavens and the earth for those who believe’31 and ‘travel throughout the earth and see how He brings life into being’,32 had travelled all over Anatolia, Syria, the Caucasus, Azerbaijan and Armenia, visited Iraq, Iran and Russia, explored Greece, Hungry, Austria and the Crimea, and concluded his global explorations with a pilgrimage and sojourn in Mecca. He was pained, he says, at the denial and neglect of knowledge, the ignorance and passivity he witnessed in the Holy City. His journeys are described in ten volumes of Seyahatname or The Book of Travels.33

Celebi found that most Meccan men tended to be unsociable, ignorant and haughty. ‘They are rough spoken in their trade dealings and in conventional discourse,’ he says. ‘They are not much versed in the crafts, and do not have the ability to work with heavy loads; rather, most of them are merchants, while another class get by on the charity of the Sultan.’34 They spend most of their day idling around, dressed in their fine clothes, with henna in their beards and feet, ‘they go from coffee house to coffee house, then go home with a coffee mug in one hand and biscuit in the other, and fall asleep on their pillow sipping coffee and munching on biscuits’. The women, on the other hand, ‘are known for their beauty and grace; with fairy faces and angel looks, like the moon at mid-month or like garden peacocks; and with gaits like skipping partridges’. But they are also ‘slow and heavy’, not to say lazy, and ‘never do any work, never wash laundry or spin yarn or sweep the house’. Like ibn Battuta, Celebi notes that Meccan women drown themselves in perfume: ‘If a woman passes by a man of God, his brain is suffused with the perfumes of musk and ambergris and civet.’ The city also hosts a plethora of ‘Ethiopian slavegirls, actually singing-girls, who set hearts aflutter. Some dance in public in the coffee houses. They all wear light-blue stockings and blue slippers.’35 On the whole, Celebi concludes, the people of Mecca are ‘very extravagant’, ‘not much engaged in learning’ – the city has no physicians – and their favourite pastime, apart from loitering about, is fighting each other.

Not surprisingly, the sultan in Istanbul, now Muhammad IV (r. 1648–87), was exasperated with the feuds and fiascos in Mecca, and the ways of its citizens. In 1669 he sent one of his trusted generals, Hassan Pasha, to bring a modicum of political stability to the city. Hassan Pasha came as the head of the Hajj caravan, but even before he reached Mecca, a rumour spread in the city that he was coming to dispose of the sharif and bring the Hijaz under the control of the sultan. The rumour was started deliberately – in Medina, where such news was most welcome. Sharif Saad and his family decided to entrench themselves in Mecca, and refused to leave even to perform the necessary Hajj rituals in Arafat and Muna. Hassan Pasha was treated with total contempt; the shopkeepers refused to serve his men, and Mecca closed its gates when he reached the city. In contrast, Hassan Pasha was exceptionally polite and asked for a council to be called where he would openly declare that he had not come to dispose of the sharif, so that the rumour could be put to rest.

For a few days the Meccans forgot Hassan Pasha as they rejoiced at the arrival of the Shah of Persia’s caravan, bringing vast treasure which was distributed amongst the family of the sharif, his army and bodyguards and a few selected citizens. The mood of the sharif changed and he came out of the city to witness the ritual of stone-throwing in Muna. The three-day ritual proceeded smoothly, but then there was a disturbance. Hassan Pasha went to investigate, became embroiled in a scuffle, and bullets began to fly. The pasha was wounded and was taken to a place of safety by his men. Sharif Saad returned at once to Mecca and gave orders to prepare for war. The Hajj continued. When the necessary rituals were complete, Hassan Pasha and all the pilgrims came to the city to perform the last circumambulation of the Kaaba, which signals the completion of the Hajj. The pilgrims were allowed into the Sacred Mosque, but then the gates were closed. What happened next was witnessed by Celebi.

 

The attendants of the Sharif had by this time climbed Mount Qubays, while Sharif Saad had occupied the seven minarets of the Holy Mosque with his marksmen, who started to fire on the beleaguered pilgrims and troops from them and from the adjoining seminaries, wounding seven hundred and killing two hundred persons in the precincts of the Shrine. Nothing like this bloody massacre at the Shrine itself had occurred before, even in the days of ibn Zubair . . . The fighting lasted one day and one night . . . The courtyard of the Shrine was heaped with corpses, Hassan Pasha himself was hit by bullets, and the property of the pilgrims and troops looted.36

 

When the pilgrims and troops finally left the city, on their return journey they were set upon by Hamud and his men. Many were speared to death, others cut down with swords. Hassan Pasha himself died of his wounds near Gaza.

When the news of the massacre in Mecca reached Istanbul, the sultan was incensed. He lost no time in dispatching a battalion of 2,000 hand-picked soldiers, along with battalions of 3,000 troops each from Egypt and Syria. The army, led by Hussain Pasha, arrived with the pilgrim caravan and camped at Wadi Fah, two stages from Mecca. All the nobles of the city came to pay their homage to Hussain Pasha – the scholars, the leading businessmen and the notable members of the sharif clan. Each received generous gifts from the pasha. There was one conspicuous absence: Sharif Saad. Everyone knew that this time the pasha really did come with orders to dispense with the sharif.

On entering the city, Hussain Pasha performed his religious rites and went straight to meet Sharif Saad. The two exchanged pleasantries and gifts, and Hussain Pasha invited the sharif to honour him with a visit the next morning as his majesty the sultan had sent him a robe of honour and a royal firman (decree). When Sharif Saad arrived at the appointed place, he was again honoured with praise and gifts. He was confirmed in his office, and everyone went to Muna and Arafat with much pomp and ceremony. All of Mecca’s inhabitants came out to join the ceremony, which continued for four days.

As soon as the pilgrimage was over, Hussain Pasha acted. He occupied the water supply in Arafat and placed troops on all roads leading to Mecca. Sharif Saad knew what awaited him and chose to flee, leaving all his belongings. The pasha entered the city, along with all the pilgrims, and called for a public meeting. The whole of Mecca came to the meeting where the inhabitants were asked to choose their next sharif. Much discussion ensued, but Hussain Pasha himself was inclined to listen to the most learned man in the city: the Moorish astronomer Muhammad ibn Sulaiman. The two knew each other. Ibn Sulaiman, known as ‘Muhammad the Moor’, had left Mecca, disgusted with its citizens, and became teacher to the grand vizier in Istanbul. He taught astronomy to Ottoman officials in the capital and gave lessons to Hussain Pasha himself. He had returned to Mecca with the pasha as his adviser and mentor.

Ibn Sulaiman suggested that Barakat ibn Muhammad, the great-grandson of Barakat II, who was known for his integrity and learning, should be appointed as the new ruler of Mecca. The pasha obliged. But the astronomer from Andalusia was not happy simply to replace a corrupt and ruthless ruler with an honest, knowledgeable one. He recommended that certain reforms should also be introduced in the city. Mathematics and astronomy should be reintroduced in the madrassa curriculum. There should be a proper accounting system, particularly in the religious bequest offices. Drum-beating and dancing in the seminaries of the Dervish orders, the practice of astrology, and sexual excesses in shrines and certain quarters of the city should be banned. Inappropriately dressed women drenched in perfume wandering alone in the city in the middle of the night should be discouraged.

Barakat ibn Muhammad turned out to be a wise and capable ruler, not least because ibn Sulaiman was always by his side and ever ready to dispense knowledge and wisdom. During his eleven-year reign peace returned to Mecca. But turmoil followed, by inveterate logic, in the wake of his death in 1682. He was succeeded by his son Said, who managed to squash several rebellions masterminded by family members. The Meccans themselves had had enough of mathematics and astronomy and longed to return to astrology, drum-beating and sexual escapades in the dark recesses of shrines. They began sending poisonous messages about ibn Sulaiman to the sultan. By now, the astronomer had lost most of his friends in Istanbul. The sultan ordered Sharif Said to exile the astronomer to Jerusalem. The sharif tried to conceal and delay the order, but the citizens, eagerly awaiting the development, discovered the royal firman and insisted that it should be implemented without delay. The sharif was forced to comply. A year later, sickened by the behaviour of his followers and the inhabitants of his beloved city, overwhelmed by the anarchy and disorder within its walls, Sharif Said himself gave up and migrated to Damascus.

Chaos followed. There was open warfare between Dhawi Barakat and Dhawi Zaid, leading to untold bloodshed. During the next hundred years, numerous sharifs came and went. Few managed to cling to power for more than four or five years. By now the sultans in Istanbul had come to the conclusion that it was almost impossible to govern the warring tribes and unruly Bedouins of Mecca. The best they could do was to keep the natives occupied in obscurantist rituals. At the dawn of the eighteenth century, formal celebrations to mark the birthday of the Prophet Muhammad were introduced by an edict of the sultan. On the appointed day, a procession would form in the courtyard of the Sacred Mosque. It would leave the Kaaba after evening prayers with the devotees carrying candles and banners, and make its way to the Mosque of Nativity, built in 1547 on the site where the Prophet was said to have been born. Poems and hymns would be sung in praise of the Prophet at the Mosque of Nativity. The ceremony would end late in the night with a solo performance of a poem. The gathering would start to swing as the singer began with the words:

 

On that night of the twelfth Rabi al-Awwal,

The Lady Aminah, the mother of Muhammad . . .

 

becoming more animated when the singer moved on to describe the hour of the Prophet’s birth, and would finally join the chorus in a state of ecstasy:

 

Hail to Thee, O Moon of Splendour, hail to Thee!

Hail to Thee, O Helper of the Forsaken!

God bless our Lord Muhammad, the Prophet of the Portionless.37

 

But such ceremonies brought only temporary relief for the citizens. Economically the city was in decline. Political mayhem often saw the city being looted and ransacked, and the citizens harassed, attacked or murdered. Racism and xenophobia, never far beneath the surface in Mecca, came to the fore and the citizens turned on those who were seen as outsiders. The city nobles persuaded the sharif (it was the time of Abdilla bin Said, who ruled from 1723 to 1733) to expel all resident foreigners. They are taking our jobs and posts, the Meccans claimed. The foreigners were in fact employed as clerks, government officials, scribes, administrators, teachers, doctors – jobs that Meccans themselves were not qualified to hold or were unwilling to take. An order was issued for all foreigners to leave the city. Most of the Moroccans and Egyptians left. The Indians, Persians and Uzbeks were more reluctant, but were forced out in the end. Only a few Turks were left in the city as the sultan’s staff in charge of running the caravans. The sharif issued further orders: there should be no smoking in public, and on the insistence of religious scholars, all tobacco shops and coffee houses were closed. Mecca ground to a halt. Soon it became a ghost town.

The sharifs had little control now. Order could be restored only when the Turkish army was in the city to support the sharif. On 12 July 1770, Abdullah ibn Hussain, of the Dhawi Barakat, was proclaimed sharif of Mecca, and the Dhawi Zaid candidate was defeated. But Sharif Hussain stayed in power only as long as the Turkish army backed him. As soon as the Ottoman forces left, Ahmad ibn Said, the Dhawi Zaid candidate, attacked the city with the support of local Bedouin tribes. Entering the city after a fierce battle, he ordered all the Dhawi Barakat houses to be burnt. The city was looted so badly that the citizens had virtually nothing to eat and a famine ensued. A few members of the Dhawi Barakat branch managed to escape to Jeddah, where they were given protection by Ahmad ibn Said’s representative, Yusif Al Qabil. Incensed, Sharif Ahmad sent his soldiers to Jeddah and ordered that Al Qabil be brought to him in chains.

Once again Mecca produced a dashing young man who came to the rescue of the city in a time of grave peril. He was Sarur ibn Masaad, the nephew of Ahmad ibn Said. Sarur may have been only seventeen, but already he was a skilled warrior with a strong sense of justice. He was infuriated with the appalling behaviour of his uncle. When he heard the news that orders had been issued for the arrest of Al Qabil, he slipped out of Mecca in the deep of night and rode as fast as he could to Jeddah. When Sharif Ahmad’s soldiers arrived to arrest Al Qabil they found Sarur standing in front of him, sword in hand. Al Qabil, he declared, was now under his protection. But Sarur and Al Qabil were seriously outnumbered, so a compromise was reached. Sarur agreed to let the soldiers take Al Qabil to Mecca, but only if he accompanied them, and on the added condition that no punishment was to be given until they had reached the Holy City. However, en route to Mecca, Sarur and Al Qabil managed to slip away from the soldiers and took refuge in a place called Wadi al Marr. From there, Sarur wrote to his uncle informing him of his intention to fight him. Ahmad bin Said replied pointing out that he was one of the Dhawi Zaid, to whom he owed his loyalty, and in any case a mere teenager was in no position to take on the sharif of Mecca.

Sarur spent a few months gathering his young friends and making his plans. On 5 February 1773, leading an army of 300 horsemen, he met his uncle’s army at Wadi al Minhana. The battle lasted a mere two hours. A little later, Sarur entered Mecca as the new sharif.

At about the same time, a ‘long-tailed star-like’ object, ‘a lance in length’, was seen in the sky. The comet stayed from sunrise to sunset. It upset and frightened the inhabitants. Special prayers were said in the Sacred Mosque. And, as they had done before, the Meccans saw the comet as a bad omen. Had the astrologers not predicted imminent doom following the emergence of a celestial sign? It warned, they declared, of the arrival in Mecca of a new, dangerous infidel in the guise of a Muslim.

This time they were correct.