'Turkish Arabia: Being an Account of an Official Tour in Babylonia, Assyria, and Mesopotamia, 1886-87' [‎32v] (62/72)

46
Syud Muhammad. This man's head and face, if he had been born a subject of the Holy
Roman Empire, would have made a cardinal of him. Descended from sacerdotal ances
tors he inherits the degree of " Bahru'l Ulum" or " Sea of Sciences." But little versed
in modern or practical knowledge his whole life is spent in acquiring and imparting to
others the several topics of abstract theology * Like his reverend brother the Karbal^
" Hujjatu'l Islclm," Syud Muhammad, free from fanaticism towards us at least,often called
with several of his relatives and disciples. Intoned as he and his associates are with the
real ideas and feelings of Asiatic people, their lives are at least useful as a protest against
utilitarianism being made lord of all.
Within a short ride of Najaf are the poor remains of what was once the great city of
Cuf^L made by Ali the seat of the Caliphate. The colossal
Cufcl . .
Jama, or mosque, here still standing attests at once the
vastness, the simplicity, and the stability of early Muslim architecture. Its interior is a
mere paved and collonaded quadrangle open to the sky; large enough to hold an army.
Studded over this space are numerous praying places and pulpits. From one of these Ali
himself was wont to raise with his eloquence the falling zeal of his mercurial countrymen,
and, as seen above, it was within these sacred precincts that the three sour fanatics,
Abdu'r Rahman, Darwan, and Shabtb, assassinated him. To this day his descendants by
F&tima, bearing in different countries various titles, hold a high and distinguished rank
among Muslims as descendants of the Prophet.
Note.
The original programme had been to march from Najaf, or as it is always called
" Najaf Ashraf," i. e., " Najaf the highly honoured," to Bussorah (about nine days), seeing
the Khaz&il, Muntifik, Dhfir, and other seldom-visited Arab tribes by the way. But during
these four months' touringjf changes at Baghdad had happened. His Excellency the Com
mander-in-Chief of the Vlth Corps d'armee had been transferred to another command, and
his successor had joined. Then the administrative separation of Bussorah from Baghdad,
and its erection into a distinct government, or Wilaiat, had taken final shape. Lastly,
Baghdad was receiving a new Governor; His Excellency Takiu d din Pashah having been
permitted to retire, laden with years and riches, to his native Aleppo, while His Excel
lency MustafcL Asim Pashah, a Mushir or General in the Ottoman army, had been nomina
ted in his room. For these and other reasons the purpose of moving further southward, and
at least " feeling " peninsular Arabia, having the well nigh sealed volume of Najd as its centre,
had, for the time being, most reluctantly to be dropped. Its head once turned homeward
the kdfila reached Baghdad from Najaf, via Karbala and Musaiyib on the Euphrates, in five
rapid marches over the featureless surface of Babylonia.
Section XV.—Baghdad to Bussorah and back by Steamer.
A description of Baghdad, with its extremely mixed population of somewhat less than
Baghdad a ^ uu< ^ rec ^ thousand, hardly falls within the lines of these
notes.{ The old historic city is now rather on the wane,
both politically and commercially. A decided blow to it was the measure just alluded to
whereby Bussorah was put under a separate Wali. At the present moment it is not much
more to Mk than Murshidab&d is to Bengal; the Calcutta of the province, as will presently
appear, being Bussorah. Still there is a prestige about Baghdad which by no means counts
* The curriculum of the Shia Mujtahid and Sunni Mulla or AMim branches out, in Baghdad at least, in this
wise (a) Kur^nic exegesis or hermeneutics, (6) knowledge of the Prophet's sayings, (c) science of words or language,
(d) Grammar (i.e., Arabic), (e) controversial theology, (/) solution of difficulties, (g) knowledge of God's attri
butes and commandments : (k) rhetoric or eloquence.
Other sciences there are which, though outside body of Divinity are more or less taken up by divines. Chief
nmong these are (a) Hikmah Ildhtah, or simply, et par excellence, Hikmah, corresponding, so far as it has been carried
which is not very far, with our Physics, Natural Science, and Natural Philosophy: but not comprising medicine, or
Hikmah Abdan " (science of bodies) which by Iraki Theologians is rather looked down on (6) Mantik, or logic,
(c) poetry discountenanced however by the Prophet, (d) mathematics, including geometry. In the matter of geo
graphy and secular history a Cimmerian darkness still overhangs the east, such as even in modern India seems to
hold its own against our perhaps not very fully adequate efforts to dispel it.
f Exact number of days under canvas one hundred and twenty-five. Of these, fifty-nine were spent in onward
movement, the rest partly in halting, partly in making rapid digressions, like that to the Mesopotamian K6char
Mustav. Not counting such excursions, number of miles gone over between leaving and returning to Baghdad would
appear when measured on the map with compasses to have been about twelve hundred, or at rate of twenty-one
miles per marching day, calculations probably falling a good deal short of the reality.
t See article " Baghdad " (by Sir Henry Rawlinson), Encyclopaedia Britannica, IXth edition; also paper in
Blackwood's Magazine for November 1882.