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Updated: May 22, 2025
At present, Tayf may be described as in a state of ruin, for but few houses are in complete repair. Many of the buildings were destroyed by the Wahabys, when they took the town, in 1802; and as it has been almost abandoned since that period, every thing is hastening to decay. I saw two small mosques; the best, that of the Henoud, or Indians.
The Arabs purchase their cotton dresses in the market-places of Tehama, or on the coast: the passing pilgrims sell to them a few drugs, spices, and needles, and proceed on their way in perfect security, at least since the Wahabys have subjugated the whole country, by overpowering, after many sanguinary battles, the hostile Sheikhs, who were forced to pay an annual tribute.
In the last days of the Mamelouks, when they held possession of Upper Egypt, while the lower was conquered by Mohammed Aly, many Turkish hadjys who repaired to the Hedjaz in small parties, though it was then in the hands of the Wahabys, suffered much illtreatment from the Mamelouks, on their return to Egypt; many of them were stripped and slain in their passage down the Nile.
They twice repulsed the Wahaby chief Saoud, who had subdued all the other Arab tribes except the Beni Sobh, of the Harb race, in the northern parts of the Hedjaz. The Beni Yam made a kind of treaty with the Wahabys, and were allowed to perform the pilgrimage annually.
The Tehama Bedouins south of Mekka had mostly retired up into the mountains, when Mohammed Aly invaded the Hedjaz, not from dread of the Turks, but because, in such an unsettled state of affairs, weak tribes were not secure, in the open country, from being surprised by straggling Bedouins from the more powerful hostile tribes, who during the power of the Wahabys did not venture to show their enmity, and now impatiently broke loose.
It was in this spot that Mohammed Aly's first expedition against the Wahabys, under the command of his son Tousoun Beg, was defeated in autumn 1811. They had possession of both mountains, and the discharges of musketry from each side Most of the Sheikhs of the tribe of Harb, and the two great southern Wahaby chiefs, Othman el Medheyfe and Tamy, were present, with two of the sons of Saoud.
During the late siege the Wahabys cut off the supply of water from the aqueduct; and it was not till some time after, that the injury which this structure then received, was partially repaired. The history of this aqueduct, a work of vast labour and magnitude, is given by the Arabian historians at great length.
As it often happens in the East, these libraries are all wakf, that is, have been presented to some mosque by its founder, or entailed upon some private family, so that the books cannot be alienated. The Wahabys are said to have carried off many loads of books.
I have related, in my history of the Wahabys, that during the siege of Medina considerable portions of the treasures, more particularly all the golden vessels, were seized by the chiefs of the town, ostensibly for the purpose of being distributed among the poor, but that they were, finally, divided among themselves.
They complain, that the long cessation of the yearly stipends has accustomed so many original correspondents The Wahabys are forbidden by their law to visit the tomb of the Prophet, or to stand before the Hedjra and pray for his intercession in heaven. As Mohammed is considered by them a mere mortal, his tomb is thought unworthy of any particular notice.
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