The Ottoman Empire and the World Around It - Course Information

72 ~ THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE AND THE WORLD AROUND IT ~
The desert borders in 1774/1187–8
Up to this point, the region in which Ottoman territories bordered on the Syrian
and Arabian deserts, where major states did not exist before the second half of
the eighteenth century, has interested us mainly because it had to be be traversed
by the hajj caravans. Certainly these dry steppe and desert regions did not produce
any revenue for the Ottoman treasury – quite to the contrary, in order to
ensure the safe passage of the pilgrimage caravans to Mecca, the government
every year provided the Bedouins with substantial subsidies in the shape of
money and supplies. But given the fact that protection of the Holy Cities and the
pilgrimage caravans was viewed as an important means of legitimizing the sultans,
keeping this region under some kind of control did form a major concern
for the Ottoman administration.
Yet by the 1770s/1183–93 certain developments came to jeopardize Ottoman
ascendancy in the region. From the mid-eighteenth century onwards, the contribution
of the ‘political households’ governing Egypt to the fund that financed the
Ottoman presence in the Hijaz became increasingly aleatory. With much less
money to spend on appeasing the Bedouins, the risk of attacks on the pilgrimage
caravans increased. There was, however, another factor, this time internal to
desert society, which augmented the dangers incurred by the pilgrims. For in the
central Arabian peninsula, the important tribal confederacy of the ‘Anaza was on
the move, and in changing its accustomed pasture grounds, displaced a number
of smaller, often semi-sedentary tribes. 176 These, though, were more dependent
on sultanic largesse than was true of the larger and wealthier ones, and a decline
in payments thus increased the likelihood of attacks upon the pilgrimage caravan.
A major disaster of this kind, in which a sister of the reigning sultan perished,
had occurrred as early as 1757/1170–1. 177
Moreover, by the mid-eighteenth century, state formation was under way in
the centre of the Arabian peninsula. Close to what is today Riyā , the founder of
the Bedouin dynasty of Ibn Su’ūd had established a capital outside the area effectively
controlled by the Ottoman sultans. As a political and spiritual advisor, he
had received into his entourage the scholar Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb (1703–92/
1114–1207), who in the anbalī tradition preached a return to the purity of Islam
as it had been at the time of the Prophet Muhammad. ‘Abd al-‘Azīz Ibn Su’ūd
(r. 1765–1803/1178–1218) consolidated the rule of his family in northern Arabia,
attacking both the Shi’ism of Iraq and the, in his opinion, ‘lax’ Sunnism represented
by the Ottoman authorities. In the 1770s/1183–93, these changes, though
visible, were probably not as yet viewed as major problems by the administration
in Istanbul. However, this was to change a few decades later, when, in the early
nineteenth century, Mecca and Medina were occupied and plundered by ‘Abd al-
‘Azīz’s Bedouins, and the pilgrimage caravans were prevented from reaching
their destinations. 178
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