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[-western-]{+Dr. Wallin’* Route in Northern Arabia.
43
western+} parts sandstone exclusively predominates; blocks of
limestone are occasionally seen in tlie nufood (nufudh) and adjacent
lands; but granite, as far as I could ascertain, is never met with,
except in the Tay (Ta’i) mountains. On account of its rocky
soil, Nejd lias scarcely any water, and may be characterised as
one of (he most sterile and desolate parts of Arabia. In the year
1845 I crossed this country from near al-Tafile (Tafileh) to
Wadi Sirlfan (Wadi Sirhan), on a fast camel, in 52 hours (260
miles?j, and on that line I estimated the distance from the Syrian
pilgrim road above Dar al-HannA by Teima, to the nearest
nufood tract in Ncgd, at about 24 hours journey only.
The population of Teima may be estimated at one hundred
families, all of the tribe ofShammar. They are of two clans, the
one called ’Aly (’Alf), the other Ilamde (Hamdeh). The Beni
Shammar differ considerably in the characteristics of race from
the ’Eneze (’Anezeh) tribes* of the surrounding desert. In the
features of the ’Eneze (’Anezeh), a Syrian, and occasionally a
perfectly Jewish cast is plainly perceptible ; in those of the Shammar
an expression predominates which reminds us of their being
kindred to the Arabs of Yaman. This community of race, I fancied,
I could always trace in the tribes descended from the Kahtaniye,
although, certainly, more or less distinctly, according to the time
which may have elapsed since the respective tribes migrated from
their original abodes; and under indications of greater or less
purity of descent according to their subsequent intermixture with
the inhabitants whom they found in the lands in which they settled.
The Beni Shammar being, according to their own tradition, one
of tlie tribes who emigrated latest from Southern Arabia, retain
the Yamany features of their ancestors in a greater degree,
perhaps, than any other tribe from that country; and so remarkable
is tlie peculiar cast of their countenance, that it can hardly fail to
strike any one who sees them, at least after having recently been
among the ’Eneze Bedouins.
The Beni Shammar are under the authority of Ibn al-Rashid,
the chief Sheikh of all the Shammar in Negd. In their
government, like other Wahhabiye, they follow the Islam jurisprudence,f
more than the traditional law of the desert. In causes of
importance, the parties are summoned to Hail (Hail), to appear before
Ibn al-Rasclnd (Ihnu-l-Rashfd), who, after consulting his Kadi,
gives his decision according to tlie doctrines of the orthodox sect
of Ahmad al-Hanbaly, to which the Wahhabiye have adhered from
the beginning of their reformatory career. Some modern authors
have alleged that the Wahhabiye adopt the Hanafy creed; others,
* The ’Eneze are tlie descendants of Asad, tlie son of Raid’, the son of Nazar, the
son of Ma d, the son of’Adu&u of the posterity of Isma’Sl.—Poc. Spec., pp. 46, 47.
f Sec Appendix, p. 54.
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