From 1250 in 1885, of which 903 were in Europe and 347 in Asia, the mileage of railways had increased to some 4440 in 1909, of which 1377 are in Europe, 1810 in Asia Minor, 418 in Syria and 835 fall to the share of the Hejaz railway, including the Ed-Dera-Haifa branch.
Turkey's Arabian possessions comprise, besides El-Hasa on the Persian Gulf, the low-lying, hot and insalubrious Tehama and the south-western highlands (vilayets of Hejaz and Yemen) stretching continuously along the east side of the Red Sea, and including the two holy cities of Mecca and Medina.
Only the first six army-corps have, however, their proper establishment: the seventh ordu and the commands of Tripoli and the Hejaz have only garrison troops, and are fed by drafts from the first six ordus.
Includes receipts from commercial and industrial undertakings belonging to the stateThese are the Hejaz railway, £T152,000; the Dolma-Bagtche gas-works, £T59,130; technical school, £T8536; the Tigris and Euphrates steamships, £T62,513; and mines (Heraclea coal and other), £T120,710; forming a combined total of £T402,889.
Finally, various receipts of which the principal separately specified are government share of railway receipts (Oriental railways and Smyrna-Cassaba railway), ET201,710, and " subscriptions " for the Hejaz railway, ET264,600, form Section VIII.
The Hejaz railway figures in the budget for £T550,180, and it is explained that this will not only cover working expenses, but also the final completion of the line.
Hejaz railway Total.
Egypt, Syria and the Hejaz, the former empire of the Mamelukes, were added to the Ottoman dominions.
The sherif of the Hejaz, Abu-'l-berekat, made submission to Sultan Selim I.
These religious sectaries attacked and plundered all Mussulmans not conforming to their peculiar tenets; they overran Kerbela and the Hejaz, sacking the holy cities and closing the pilgrim routes.
A reform not unworthy of notice was effected by the law promulgated on the 18th of June 1867 whereby foreigners were for the first time allowed to hold landed property throughout the Ottoman Empire (save in the Hejaz) on condition of their being assimilated to Ottoman subjects, i.e.
In Arabia Ratib Pasha, the Turkish commander-in-chief, joined the enemies of the new regime; he was defeated and captured in the autumn of 1908, but in the following year frequent raids upon the Hejaz railway were made by Bedouin tribesmen, while a Mandist rebellion broke out and was crushed in Yemen.
By Hejaz, E.
At the very time of Nasir's visit to Cairo, the power of the Egyptian Fatimites was in its zenith; Syria, the Hejaz, Africa, and Sicily obeyed Mostansir's sway, and the utmost order, security and prosperity reigned in Egypt.
The central zone includes Hejaz (or Hijaz), Nejd and El Hasa; much of it is a dry, stony or sandy steppe, with few wells or watering-places, and only occupied by nomad tribes; but the great wadis which intersect it contain many fertile stretches of alluvial soil, where cultivation is possible and which support a considerable settled population, with several large towns and numerous villages.
North of Yemen up to the Hejaz border the only authority is that of E.
Aastly, in the northwest the Sinai peninsula has been thoroughly explored, and the list of travellers who have visited the Holy Cities and traversed the main pilgrim routes through Hejaz is a fairly long one, though, owing to the difficulties peculiar to that region, the hydrography of southern Hejaz is still incompletely known.
The first explorer to enter the sacred Hejaz with a definite scientific object was the Spaniard, Badia y aeblich, who, under the name of Ali Bey and claiming to be the last representative of the Abbasid Caliphs, arrived at Jidda in 1807, and performed the pilgrimage to Mecca.
But the true pioneer of exploration in Hejaz was J.
Burckhardt landed in Jidda in July 1814, when Mehemet Ali had already driven the Wahhabi invaders out of Hejaz, and was preparing for his farther advance against their stronghold in Nejd.
Burton's topographical descriptions are fuller, and his march to Mecca from Medina by the eastern route led him over ground not traversed by any other explorer in Hejaz: this route leads at first south-east from Medina, and then south across the lava beds of the Harra, keeping throughout its length on the high plateau which forms the borderland between Hejaz and Nejd.
Burckhardt had hoped in 1815 that the advance of the Egyptian expedition would have given him the opportunity to see something of Nejd, but he had already left Arabia before the overthrow of the Wahhabi power by Ibrahim Pasha had opened Nejd to travellers from Hejaz, and though several European officers accompanied the expedition, none of them left any record of his experience.
Under the protection of a sheikh of the Fukara Bedouin he wandered over the whole of the borderland between Hejaz and Nejd.
The harra east of Khaibar is also of considerable extent, and the same formation is found all along the Hejaz border from Medina to the Jebel el Kura, east of Mecca.
Hejaz, if we except the Taif district in the south, which is properly a part of the Yemen plateau, forms a well-marked physical division, Hejaz.
South-western Arabia, from the twenty-first parallel down to the Gulf of Aden, including the Taif district of Hejaz, Asir and Yemen, South forms one province geographically.
The western coast of Yemen, like that of Hejaz, is studded with shoals and islands, of which Perim in the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb, Kamaran, the Turkish quarantine post, 40 m.
Among fruit trees the vine, apricot, peach, apple, quince, fig and banana are cultivated in the highlands, and in the lower country the date palm flourishes, particularly throughout the central zone of Arabia, in Hejaz, Nejd and El Hasa, where it is the prime article of food.
This distinction between the characteristics of the two races is only true in a general sense, for a considerable population of true Bedouin origin has settled down to agricultural life in the oases of Hejaz and Nejd, while in southern Arabia the tribes dwelling on the fringe of the great desert have to a certain extent adopted the nomad life.
Apart from the tribesmen there is in Hejaz and south Arabia a privileged, religious class, the Sharifs or Seyyids, who claim descent from Mahomet through his daughter Fatima.
Until the Egyptian invasion in 1814 the Sharifs of Mecca were the recognized rulers of Hejaz, and though the Turks have attempted to suppress their importance, the Sharif still executes justice according to the Mahommedan law in the holy cities, though, nominally, as a Turkish official.
Makkah),' the chief town of the Hejaz in Arabia, and the great holy city of Islam.
The merchant aristocracy became satraps or pensioners of a great empire; but the seat of dominion was removed beyond the desert, and though Mecca and the Hejaz strove for a time to maintain political as well as religious predominance, the struggle was vain, and terminated on the death of Ibn Zubair, the Meccan pretendant to the caliphate, when the city was taken by Hajjaj (A.D.
But the real sovereign of Mecca and the Hejaz is the sherif, who, as head of a princely family claiming descent from the Prophet, holds a sort of feudal position.
When the great Mahommedan sultanates had become too much occupied in internecine wars to maintain order in the distant Hejaz, those branches of the Hassanids which from the beginning of Islam had retained rural property in Arabia usurped power in the holy cities and the adjacent Bedouin territories.
The influence of the princes of Mecca has varied from time to time, according to the strength of the foreign protectorate in the Hejaz or in consequence of feuds among the branches of the house; until about 1882 it was for most purposes much greater than that of the Turks.
To this influence the Hejaz owes what little of law and order it enjoys.
During the last quarter of the 19th century Turkish influence became preponderant in western Arabia, and the railway from Syria to the Hejaz tended to consolidate the sultan's supremacy.
So also were the forces in Hejaz and Yemen, and Tripoli.
Walid immediately on his accession appointed as governor of Hejaz his cousin Omar b.
On his way back to Hejaz this man visited the family of Abdallah b.
Ali, Syria; to his uncle Da`ud, Hejaz, Yemen and Yamama (Yemama); to his cousin `Isa b.