1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Nejd

​NEJD, a central province of Arabia, bounded N. by the Nafud desert, E. by El Hasa, S. by the Dahna desert and W. by Asirand Hejāz. It lies between 20° and 28° N. and 41° and 48° E.,extends nearly 550 m. from north to south, 450 from eastto west, and covers approximately 180,000 sq. m. The nameNejd implies an upland, and this is the distinctive characterof the province as compared with the adjoining coastal districtsof Hejāz and El Hasa. Its general elevation varies from 5000 ft.on its western border to 2500 in Kasim in the north-east,and somewhat less in Yemāma in the south-east. In the norththe double range of Jebel Shammar, and in the east the rangesof J. Tuwēk and J. ʽArid rise about 1500 ft. above the generallevel, but on the whole it may be described as an open steppe,sloping very gradually from S.W. to N.E. of which the westernand southern portion is desert, or at best pasture land onlycapable of supporting a nomad population; while in the northand east, owing to greater abundance of water, numerous fertileoases are found with a large settled population. The principalphysical features are described in the article Arabia.

The main divisions of Nejd are the following: Jebel Shammar,Kasim, Sudēr, Wushm, ʽArid, Afláj, Harík, Yemāma and WadiDawāsir. J. Shammar is the most northerly: its principalsettlements are situated in the valley some 70 m. long, betweenthe two ranges of J. Aja and J. Selma, though a. few lie on theirouter flanks. Jauf, Tēma and Khaibar, though dependenciesof the Shammar principality, lie beyond the limits of Nejd.The capital, Hail, has been visited by several Europeans, byW. G. Palgrave in 1862, when Talāl was emir, and by Mr Wilfridand Lady Anne Blunt, Charles Doughty, C. Huber, T. Eutingand Baron E. Nolde during the reign of Mahommed b. Rashid,who from 1892 till his death in 1897 was emir of all Nejd. Itswell ordered and thriving appearance is commented on by allthese travellers. The town is surrounded by a wall and dominatedby the emir’s palace, a stately, if somewhat gloomy building,the walls of which are quite 75 ft. high, with six towers, the wholegiving the idea of an old French or Spanish donjon.

Hail lies at the northern end of the valley, 2 m. S.E. of J.Aja, at an altitude of about 3000 ft. The highest point of J.Aja, the western and higher of the twin ranges, is according toHuber 4600 ft. above sea-level. The valley is about 20 m. inwidth and is intersected with dry ravines and dotted with lowridges generally of volcanic origin. Wells and springs are theonly source of water supply, both for drinking and for irrigation.The principal crops are dates, wheat and barley and gardenproduce; forage and firewood are very scarce. The populationwas estimated by Nolde in 1893 at 10,000 to 12,000.

Among the other settlements of J. Shammar are Jafēfaand Mukāk at the northern foot of J. Aja, Kasr and Kafārat its southern foot, Rauda, Mustajidda and Fēd at the footof J. Selma, all large villages of 3000 to 5000 inhabitants.ʽAkda is a small valley in the heart of J. Aja, an hour’s ridefrom Hail; it was the oldest possession of the Ibn Rashid,since 1835 the ruling family of J. Shammar, and is a place ofgreat natural strength. Kasim lies E. of J. Shammar in thevalley of the W. Rumma the great wadi of northern Nejd;the chief towns Burēda and ʽAnēza are situated about 10 m.apart, on the north and south sides of the Wadi respectively.Doughty described ʽAnēza in 1879 as clean and well built withwalls of sun-dried brick, with well supplied shops. Manyinhabitants live in distant houses in gardens outside the townwalls. ʽAnēza and Burēda each contain some 10,000 inhabitants.The dry bed of the Wadi Rumma in lower Kasīm is about 2 m.across, fringed in places with palm plantations; water is foundat 6 or 8 ft. in the dry season and in winter the wells overflow.The staple of cultivation is the date-palm, the fruit ripening inAugust or September. Fruit trees and fields of wheat, maizeor millet surround the villages, but the extent of cultivationis limited by the necessity of artificial irrigation. Kahāfa,Kusēba and Kuwāra are the principal villages of upper Kasim;and ʽAnēza and Burēda, Madnab, Ayun and Ras of lowerKasim.

Doughty’s and Huber’s explorations did not extend east ofKasim, and for all details regarding eastern and southern NejdPalgrave is the only authority. According to him, a longdesert march leads from Madnab to Zulfa the first settlementin Sudēr, where the land rises steadily to the high calcareoustableland of J. Tuwēk. The entire plateau is intersected by amaze of valleys, generally with steep banks, as if artificially cutout of the limestone. In these countless hollows is concentratedthe fertility and population of Nejd; gardens and houses,cultivation and villages lie hidden from view among the depthswhile one journeys over the dry flats, till one comes suddenlyon a mass of emerald green beneath.

Sudēr forms the northern end of the plateau, ʽArid the southern,while Wushm appears to lie on its west, and Aflāj and el Harīkbelow it and to the south and south-west respectively. Theprincipal town is Majma the former capital of Sudēr, a walledtown situated on an eminence in a broad shallow valley surroundedby luxuriant gardens and trees. Tuwēm, Jalājil andHula are also described by Palgrave as considerable towns.

ʽArid is entered at Sedūs, on the W. Hanifa, a broad valleybottom with precipitous sides, here 2 or 3 m. wide, full of treesand brushwood. Along its course lie the villages of Ayana, andDeraiya the former Wahhābi capital, destroyed by IbrahimPasha in 1817; and a few miles farther E. the new capitalRiād, built by the emir Fēsal after his restoration and visitedby Palgrave in 1863, and by Pelly two years later. It was then,and still is, a large town of perhaps 20,000 inhabitants withthirty or more mosques, well-stocked bazārs, and like the townsof Kasim, surrounded by well-watered gardens and palm groves.To the south the valley opens out into the great plains of Yemāma,dotted with groves and villages, among which Manfuha isscarcely inferior in size to Riād itself. Still farther to the south-eastlies the district of Harīk, with its capital Hauta, the lastin that direction of the settled districts of Nejd, and on theborders of the southern desert.

Palgrave visited El Kharfa the chief place of the Aflaj districtsome 80 m. S.W. of Riād. This district seems to be scantilypeopled as compared with Sudēr or Yemāma, and a large proportionof the inhabitants are of mixed negro origin. While there,he made inquiries about the adjoining district of W. Dawāsir.Its length was stated to be ten days’ journey or 200 m.; scatteredvillages consisting of palm-leaf huts lie along the way, whichleads in a south or south-westerly direction to the highlands ofAsir and Yemen.

The Bedouin who occupy the remainder of Nejd consist inthe main of the four great tribes of the Shammar, Harb, ʽAtebaand Mutēr. The first-named represent that part of the greatShammar tribe which has remained in its ancestral home onthe southern edge of the Nafud (the northern branch long agoemigrated to Mesopotamia); many of its members have settleddown to town life, but the tribe still retains its Bedouin character,and its late chief, the emir Mahommed Ibn Rashid, the mostpowerful prince in Nejd, used to live a great part of the year in thedesert with his tribesmen. The Harb are probably the largest ofthe Bedouin tribes in the peninsula; they are divided into anumber of sections, several of which have settled in the oasesof Hejāz, while others remain nomadic. Their territory is thesteppe between Kasim and Medina, and across the pilgrim roadbetween Medina and Mecca, for the protection of which theyreceive considerable subsidies from the Turks. The ʽAtebacircuits extend from the Hejaz border near Mecca along the roadleading thence to Kasim. The Mutēr occupy the desert fromKasim northwards towards Kuwēt.

Nejd became nominally a dependency of the Turkish empirein 1871 when Midhat Pasha established a small garrison in ElHasa, and created a new civil district under the governmentof Basra, under the title of Nejd, with headquarters at Hofuf.Its real independence was not, however, affected, and the emirs, ​Mahommed Ibn Rashid at Hail, and Abdallah Ibn Saʽud atRiad, ruled in western and eastern Nejd respectively, until 1892,when the former by his victory at ʽAnēza became emir of allNejd. His successor, Abdul Aziz Ibn Rashid, was, however,unable to maintain his position, and in spite of Turkish support,sustained a severe defeat in 1905 at the hands of Ibn Saʽudwhich for the time, at any rate, restored the supremacy to Riād.

No data exist for an accurate estimate of the population;it probably exceeds 1,000,000, of which two-thirds may besettled, and one-third nomad or Bedouin. Palgrave in 1863,perhaps unduly exaggerating the importance of the townpopulation, placed it at nearly double this figure.

The revenue of the emir Mahommed Ibn Rashid of Hail, whodied in 1897, was estimated by Blunt in 1879 at £80,000, and hisexpenditure at little more than half that amount. Nolde whovisited Hail in 1893 after the emir’s conquest of the Wahhabistate, believed that his surplus income then amounted to £60,000a year, and his accumulated treasure to £1,500,000.