[Pg i]
By
Dr. C. Snouck Hurgronje
Professor of the Arabic Language in the University of
Leiden; Councillor to the Dutch Ministry
of the Colonies, etc.
With a Foreword by
Richard J. H. Gottheil
Columbia University, New York
G. P. Putnam's Sons
New York and London
The Knickerbocker Press
1917
[Pg ii]
Copyright, 1917
BY
C. SNOUCK HURGRONJE
The Knickerbocker Press, New York
All those interested in Mohammedanaffairs were much surprised to learn,through a despatch from Cairo on June22, 1916, that the Emir of Mecca had revoltedfrom Turkish overlordship. Muchspeculation was indulged in regardingthe causes for such an uprising and itsprobable or possible outcome; for thereare few parts of the habitable globe aboutwhich the ordinary student of internationalaffairs knows so little as he doesabout Arabia. Life there has remained inmuch of its mediæval primitiveness;and even scholars who are speciallyconcerned about Mohammedanism, andabout the several hundred millions of itsdevotees, are little better situated in[Pg iv]receiving accurate information of thatwhich is occurring in the "Holy Land"of Arabia.
No one living knows its history betterthan does Professor Snouck Hurgronjeof the University of Leiden. To his vastknowledge upon all subjects connectedwith Mohammedanism and gained froman extensive reading of its literature, hehas added personal observation duringthe year that he spent in Mecca andJiddah. He has been able to get an insightinto the various questions involvedin its tangled history at the present day,and to learn at first hand of the partieswhich are rivals for leadership there. Inthe Dutch newspaper Nieuwe RotterdamscheCourant, July 14, 1916, ProfessorSnouck Hurgronje gave a lucid explanationof the situation created as he sawit, by the proclamation of the Emir.The following pages contain a translation[Pg v]of these articles. I have added, as anappendix, the official proclamation of theShereef to the whole Moslem world as itappeared translated into English in TheNear East for August 25, 1916.
Since these articles were published inHolland we have heard very little as towhat is happening in and around Mecca.News has come that an attempt at administrativereconstruction has been made atJiddah; that the new Shereef has appointeda special agent at Cairo in the personof Omar Bey al-Faruki; and that thenew government has decided to publisha weekly paper called Elkiblah, which isto be edited by Fuad Effendi Khatibof Gordon College, Assuan. What is ofgreater importance is the alleged assistanceoffered to the Emir Husain by theEmir Abd al-Aziz ibn Sa'ud, the head ofthe Wahhabites in the Nejd—the districteast of Medinah—and by the Zaidite Imam[P BU KİTABI OKUMAK İÇİN ÜYE OLUN VEYA GİRİŞ YAPIN!
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