A Woman in Arabia (24 page)

The Intrusives had won the day: self-determination was going to become reality. Now it was up to Cox and Gertrude to mold Iraq into a nation, and Faisal into its king, while Lawrence grew more self-absorbed as the years passed, doubting that Iraq would “make good as a modern state.” In August 1922, he enlisted in the RAF as Aircraftman Ross, after which he changed his name again, to T. E. Shaw, and joined the Royal Tank Corps.

In 1919, the year of the Paris Peace Conference, Lawrence's celebrity completely eclipsed that of Gertrude's, making it difficult to remember that up to then she was the more famous figure, lionized by the West, mobbed in the East. Fortunately, she could not have cared less. While she loathed publicity and warned her family not to give information about her to the press, Lawrence was both flattered and tortured by it. He reviled it but was spotted slipping into the back row of a cinema to watch a film feature about himself. His elevation to world status was largely due to the efforts of journalist Lowell Thomas, who wrote a fulsome biography of Lawrence and then toured the world giving lectures about his hero.

The bond between Lawrence and Gertrude remained strong, in spite of everything. He had, only half joking, suggested her as his replacement in 1918, in case he was killed in the Arab uprising, and he was to write to her sister Elsa, after Gertrude's death: “She stood out as the one person who, thinking clearly, saw the true ultimate goal of our work with the Arabs and, daunted by nothing, worked unsparing of herself toward it.”

During this period, Gertrude wrote a collection of essays for an instruction manual for the newly appointed political officers arriving in the country, “The Arab of Mesopotamia.” Written at the behest of the War Office, it contained a series of
pieces on subjects ranging from the serious to the eccentric. Published anonymously, the book was generally assumed to have been written by a man. In answer to a question from her family, she said: “Why yes of course I wrote all the ‘Arab of Mesopotamia.' I've loved the reviews which speak of the practical men who were the anonymous authors etc. It's fun being practical men isn't it. . . .”

Two of the essays from the manual follow:

The Arab Tribes of Mesopotamia

The cultivated delta watered by the Tigris and Euphrates is inhabited by Arab tribal confederations, more or less settled, who are immigrants from the Arabian deserts. Some have been established in Mesopotamia from a remote period, others have come in during the last two or three hundred years, but all are originally nomads of the interior wilderness. The unbroken drift of her peoples northwards is one of the most important factors in the history of Arabia. The underlying causes were probably complex, but chief among them must have been a gradual change in the climatic conditions of the peninsula, involving slow desiccation, together with the pressure of an increasing population on a soil growing steadily poorer. To the hunger-bitten nomad, the rich pastures of the Syrian frontier, the inexhaustible fertility of Mesopotamia, offered irresistible attractions, and opportunities for expansion were found in the weakness and political exhaustion of the neighbouring northern states, whether they were Turkish, Byzantine, Persian or yet earlier empires. The long records of Babylonia enable us to trace the process in its earlier historical phases, a study of existing conditions shows that until a recent period it was still going on, and if a forecast may be hazarded, it will not be arrested in the future, though the nature of the migration may be altered. Instead of devastating hordes, sweeping like locusts over cornfield and pasture, the surplus population of Arabia may find in a Mesopotamia reconstituted by good administration not only abundant means of livelihood but far-reaching possibilities of social and intellectual
advance; and they will be received with welcome in a land of which the unlimited resources can be put to profit in proportion to the labour available.

The conversion of the wandering camel breeder and camel lifter into a cultivator of the soil, in so far as it has taken place in Mesopotamia, was an inevitable process. In their progress northward the tribes found themselves ultimately upon the limits of the desert; the wide spaces essential to nomadic existence no longer stretched before them, while the pressure of those behind forbade any return. They were obliged to look to agriculture as a means of livelihood. Thereby they lost caste with the true Badawin, yet, though these last would scorn to intermarry with tillers of the earth, shepherds and herdsmen of buffaloes, they are nevertheless of the same blood and tradition, and not infrequently fragments of very ancient and famous Arabian tribes are present among the cultivators upon the outer limits of Arabian migration. Thus in Mesopotamia the Bani Tamim, who are divided among various big tribal groups, were masters of the whole of Central Arabia before the time of the Prophet and still form a large part of the Oasis population—their first appearance in Mesopotamia dates from about the beginning of the Mohammedan era; and the Khazraj, now found chiefly on the Persian frontier, supplied by their martial exploits in the southern deserts much of the romantic stock in trade of the pre-Mohammedan poets.

It follows from the conditions under which settlement has been effected that the old tribes are often widely scattered along the edges of the cultivated land, large units which once ranged over extensive stretches of desert having been split up and thrust apart by the intrusion of others. For example, the Jubur, a tribe now only half nomadic, are found along the Tigris as far North as Mosul, as well as on the eastern frontiers, of Syria, and the Zubaid are divided between Mesopotamia and the volcanic districts east of Damascus.

The transition from a nomadic to a settled life is always a slow process and the very doubtful security offered by Turkish administration did not tend to hasten it. Except in the immediate neighbourhood of big towns, such as Baghdad and Basrah,
tribal organization has not been relinquished, tribal law and customs hold good and tribal blood feuds continue to be a terrible scourge. A periodical reversion to tents is common and even the reed villagers are semi-nomadic, shifting frequently from place to place. The puzzled mapmaker may find his last addition to geographical knowledge removed, almost before his eyes, from the spot assigned to it in his survey and re-erected on another site. But the rising value of land tends to pin down these restless husbandmen and no sooner do they settle than their numbers increase out of all comparison with those of their hungry if prouder brethren who neither plough nor harvest the wilderness. The Muntafik confederation occupy an area which in round figures extends 65 miles from East to West and 50 miles from North to South, and number, at a rough estimate, not less than 200,000 souls, whereas the whole of the great Badawin group of the Anazah which peoples the Syrian desert from Aleppo to the sands of Central Arabia, can scarcely be reckoned at a higher figure.

The proximity of Persia and the existence in Mesopotamia of Karbala and Najaf, two of the most holy shrines of the Shiah sect, to which the Persians belong, with the resulting influx of Persian pilgrims, have brought the country much under Persian influences. Nomad Arabia belongs wholly to the Sunni half of Islam, yet the tribes settled in Mesopotamia have embraced, almost without exception, the Shiah faith. Those, however, who maintain purely nomadic habits, “people of the Camel” as they proudly call themselves, have kept as a rule to the desert doctrine and are almost invariably Sunni.

From the head of the Persian Gulf up to Qurnah tribal organisation has almost died out, except that many of the peasants working in the date gardens belong to the tribes of our staunch ally on the Persian side of the river, the powerful Shaikh of Mohammarah, who has in the past maintained the right to mobilise them for his own tribal operations. Above Qurnah the country, from Euphrates to Tigris for some distance along the banks of both rivers, is occupied by the Muntafik, a large and loose confederation of tribes of different origin, all of whom acknowledge, to a less degree or a greater, the over-lordship of
the Sa'dun clan. These Sa'dun are sprung from a Mecca family closely related to the Sharif, a branch of which migrated to Mesopotamia towards the close of the Abbasid period, about the beginning of the 15th century. Themselves Sunnis and of the purest Sunni stock, they established their authority over the Shiah tribes and played a very considerable part in the stormy history of the land. In the case of one scion of the family who had rendered valuable service in Central Arabia, the Porte even tried the experiment of appointing him Wali of Basrah, but it quickly proved a failure and was abandoned.

Of late years their power as a ruling family has been gradually disintegrating owing to internal rivalries and dissensions and at present, though several of the leading members of the Sa'dun possess large estates in the Basrah Wilayet, they are able to exact but a small portion of their dues from their tribal tenantry and as tribal leaders in the field they are now of little account. Their family prestige is still, however, considerable.

The position of the Sa'dun clan, as affected by the outbreak of war between Turkey and Great Britain, has been a difficult one, for many of them own properties both in the territories in British occupation and in those at present controlled by the Turks; but except in the case of two or three irreconcilables their behaviour has on the whole been reasonable and intelligible, and there is little doubt that they will all come into the fold when they are satisfied that Turkish rule has vanished for ever from the Basrah Wilayet.

Some part of the Muntafik is still nomadic; the rest inhabit reed huts, villages, and even towns, cultivate the land and breed sheep, cattle, buffaloes and camels. Many of them who belong to the settled sections roam the desert in spring with their flocks and herds for the sake of pasturage.

The tribes of southern Mesopotamia are better armed than those above Kut and the Muntafik are well provided with modern rifles.

Above them, along the course of the Tigris almost up to Kut, lie two large and powerful tribes ranging from the river to the Persian Hills. Of these Al Bu Muhammed, a socially inferior and possibly non-Arab people, are rice-growers in the marshes
on either side of the Tigris and breed immense herds of buffaloes which are exported in great numbers to Syria. Like all Marsh Arabs, they have maintained a semi-independence, and, down to the youngest member of the tribe, they are well armed with rifles. The second big group, that of the Bani Lam, have occupied the country above Amarah for the last four or five hundred years. Their Shaikhs claim descent from a famous pre-Mohammedan tribe of Eastern Arabia, but, in spite of their pretentions, none of the Badawin of the inner desert would regard them as equals or intermarry with them. Their most prominent Shaikh, Ghadhban, a great rebel against the Ottoman Government before the war, joined the Turks against us, but has now reconsidered his position, and most of his house came to terms with us as soon as we advanced up the Tigris. The Bani Lam are cultivators, but none of them have entirely abandoned nomad life. They inhabit tents and are generally on the move with their herds from February to June. Their horses and camels are reckoned the best in Mesopotamia. They are good shots, especially from the saddle.

Round Kut, both on the Tigris and on the upper part of the great Hai canal, which flows out of the river southwards, the Bani Rabi'ah bear sway, a tribe of ancient fame in Arabia. They are a turbulent people, well-known robbers and disturbers of traffic along the river, but not so efficiently armed as their neighbours to the South. Still less well provided with rifles and more submissive to control are the two smaller tribes which cultivate the Tigris banks up to Baghdad, the Toqah and the Zubaid, while the inhabitants of the Euphrates marshes above Nasiriyah, though their reputation leaves much to be desired, have not shown themselves ill disposed towards us.

Far down in the scale of civilization as these amphibious dwellers in swamp and reed bed would seem to be, the amazing quickness of the Arab in adopting himself to new conditions and profiting by unexpected opportunities must never be forgotten. A child born yesterday in a reed hut or a black goat's hair tent may well be found practising medicine or the law in Baghdad before the next quarter of a century is over, and, though his father may prefer to abide by something more nearly resembling
the old customs, a solid balance at the bank will testify that he leads the simple life by choice and not of necessity.

The Star Worshippers of Mesopotamia

A curious phenomenon in Mesopotamia is the existence of a mass of people who have borrowed from all the races about them and have adopted customs belonging to all, and yet are totally isolated from them socially.

These are the Sabeans, known to some as the “Star Worshippers of Mesopotamia.” Some writers have referred to them as “Saint John Christians,” but this is a misnomer, because the “John” to whom they profess to adhere is certainly not a Saint, nor are they Christians in any sense of the word; they are the Sabeans mentioned in the Book of Job, though not the Sabeans mentioned in the Quran. During the time of the Mohammedan supremacy, however, they have accepted the interpretation that they are the Sabeans mentioned in the Quran, in order thus to protect themselves against persecution, since the Sabeans are mentioned in the Quran along with Christians and Jews as “People of the Book” and, therefore, to be reverenced.