Reform

Efforts to introduce reform had only limited success in the Hijaz. There were few demands for change from the inhabitants, who were rarely receptive to reforms conceived in İstanbul. Sharif Husayn resisted innovations that might limit his local authority. Even before he arrived in the Hijaz, when the CUP enjoyed much popularity, an attempt by the Committee to impose a tax to be used for sanitary improvement had led to an uprising and a confrontation between the troops and the townspeople, who opposed paying taxes in any form.^[61] Newly instituted municipalities were severely handicapped in their ability to improve public works or general hygiene for financial reasons.^[62] There were nonetheless some advances, particularly in sanitation. In Mecca postpilgrimage cleaning efforts improved.^[63] In Jidda Mutasarrıf Sadık undertook urban reforms, including the regulation of the water supply.^[64] Finally, consistent with the high priority that the government placed on education, new government schools were opened in the towns of the Hijaz in which “much time [was] given to the literary and official Turkish language and the literary Arabic.” Monahan did not find the available education satisfactory. “But very few parents or pupils wish to seek a better elsewhere,” he added, “and, indeed, I am not sure that there is any much better to be had in Muslim boys’ schools anywhere else in the Turkish Empire.”^[65]

Legal reform proved to be more difficult to implement in the Hijaz. In February 1910 the Ministry of Justice proposed a reorganization of the courts in the Hijazi cities and appealed to the Ministry of Finance for the allocation of the necessary funds.^[66] In contrast, Talat, as the new minister of the interior, recommended that in order to bring the nomadic tribes into the government fold it would be appropriate to apply only the şeriat law in the region and to select the judges from local ulema.^[67] The Hijazi deputies ‘Abdullah, ‘Abd al-Qadir, and Hasan al-Shaybi stressed to the grand vizier that the presence of any courts other than the şeriat courts would be unacceptable in the holy cities inhabited solely by Muslims.^[68] Thus, it was decided to place the courts of Mecca and Medina under the auspices of the office of the şeyhülislam by removing them from the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Justice. The actual reorganization took place only in 1912.

Perhaps no other issue illustrates the difficulty of executing reforms in the Hijaz and the necessity for compromise better than slavery. There the question of slaves posed an embarrassing problem to the government. Slavery, of course, was anathema to the principles of equality and freedom that the new regime espoused. Although it had been legally abolished during the Tanzimat, the trade in and use of slaves had not stopped in the Hijaz.^[69] Yet the government feared that forced manumission would provoke the tribal chiefs to rebellion. Slaves often fled to take refuge in foreign consulates in Jidda, which insisted on their being freed. The grand vizierate advised that official manumission papers should be granted to any slave who managed to seek asylum in the consulates. It also recommended, however, that the authorities should act according to the particular circumstances of each case, while urging slaveholders to treat their African slaves humanely so as not to force them to seek the intercession of foreign consuls.^[70]

The manumission of slaves taking asylum in consulates meant that their owners, for the most part Beduin chiefs, would have to be compensated by the grand sharif to keep them at peace. The sharif complained that given the frequency of such cases these payments went beyond his means. He conveniently argued that, since in five or ten years there would no longer be any slaves due to the prohibitions against importing them, ownership of the current slaves be tolerated until that time.^[71] The Ministry of Finance, consulted by the grand vizierate in an attempt to find an alternate source of funding for manumission payments, held that effective control of the long Red Sea coast was impossible, and payment of manumission fees would in fact encourage trading in slaves and constitute a major strain on the budget.^[72] The final recommendation of İstanbul to the grand sharif was the meaningless suggestion that those slave owners with a grievance should take their case to court.

As the issue of slavery also demonstrates, the grand sharif, due to his traditional status in the eyes of the tribes and his recognized prerogatives in Beduin and pilgrimage affairs, was an indispensable intermediary in the conduct of policy in this remote province of great religio-political importance. İstanbul’s aim was to channel the sharif’s local standing and energy to its own ends while assuring him that his ambitions could best be served by being responsive to the requirements of the central government. Such a relationship with the sharif did not entail a compromise of İstanbul’s centralizing policies.