During fifteen years, Syrian migration to western countries grew apace. Whereas the Lebanon district had been the chief loser before, Palestine now sent large quotas. Among these latter were many men from the Ramallah region. There was no freedom at home. The political, religious and economic pressure became heavier. Release in foreign countries proved enticing to thousands. Besides the itinerating venders of dry goods and the operatives in mills, there were a number of students and graduates in arts, sciences, theology, law, medicine and engineering. Syrian artists and poets as well as prosperous merchants were known. From the time that Joseph went to Egypt, Syrians of ability have prospered in foreign countries.

When the Turkish revolutions promised enfranchisement, numbers of Syrians returned to the home land only to find, after the first enthusiasm and manifestations of brotherhood, the old oppressions in new forms and an increased feeling of suspicion. The army service now became compulsory upon Christians as well as upon Moslems and certain of its conditions were odious to the newly drafted men. The government required that all schools should introduce Turkish into the course of study, but it was very difficult to find suitable teachers and to introduce them into the lower schools.

When the War came on and Turkey disallowed the capitulations matters grew worse. The Arab, always hostile to the Turk, had the sympathy of those Syrians who had any trace of Arab blood and others of more mixed race. A Syrian was loyal to his country but found it difficult to be loyal to the course of his government. He felt drawn to the Allies but was often drafted against them. After the Arab revolt there followed in due course, the deliverance of Palestine and much of Syria from thraldom to the Turk. The Turkish genius is not appropriate for Syria. The culture suitable there is one sincerely tolerant, yes better than tolerant, appreciative of the various faiths represented in the land. This culture, so far as it is schooled, should be based upon classical and scientific preparations. Syrian education has for a long time been under the guidance of western thought, whether at home or abroad, and the Syrian mind is of the character to fellowship with the West. Those who think otherwise, recalling the peculiar conditions of tyranny and corruption that have been forced on the country for a thousand years, should remember that the larger part of all the educational enterprise in Syria and Palestine, for nearly a century, has been the work of missionaries from the West. It is Syria’s destiny to be practically a western country, or better, to absorb the best intellectual inheritance of the modern world. It has the physique and the brains. Has it the humility and teachableness requisite for this destiny? Has it the courage to be idealistic in the midst of the solid realistic achievements to be gained? One thing within them the past has crushed. Magnanimity must be restored in them before they can become great. If they can learn to lose themselves they will find themselves forever.

Syrians are often clever with their hands in mechanical work. Such schools as the old Schneller’s orphanage for boys did a great deal of good along much needed lines. They are keen in literary and philosophical pursuits. Born linguists, excellent in such studies as law and economics, they could adorn an era of peace when once they are persuaded of a generous spirit of fair play.

Schools of all grades are needed and there is no reason, except the slender resources of the people, why they may not be gradually established. Such schools as the Men’s Training College in Jerusalem among the newer and the Ramallah Friends’ (Quakers) Schools among the long established have a great opportunity. They know the problems and have good methods. But the poverty of the people would keep the vast majority of the children of the country from such institutions. Scholarships and more substantial aid is needed to help such schools accept a larger proportion of those applying for entrance. It has long been the writer’s thought that such fine finishing schools as those at Ramallah, for example, should be supplemented by many elementary schools which would keep close to native customs, dress, food, etc., in the numerous small villages and which could send their choicer pupils to the advanced schools. A two or three branched scheme of education and training should take the children at twelve into classical, scientific, and technical or trade lines of development. The temptation to hasten expansion faster than the supply of good Syrian teachers can be provided, should be resisted. The teachers should be more than formally trained. They should be picked with a view to their personal character, loyalty, common sense and vision.

The British civil administration in Palestine may be said to have been fairly launched by the arrival and pronouncements of Sir Herbert Samuel in July, 1920. The first six months of his official presence have given a good impression among citizens, villagers and Arab tribes. His Excellency outlined his plans and hopes in an address on July 6. The policy of the British government in Palestine “safeguards the rights of all sections of the inhabitants of Palestine in relation to the Holy Places, to the ownership and cultivation of lands, and to all other matters in accordance with the dictates of justice.” An Administrative Council with advisory functions met on October 6. Various sections of the population are represented as will be seen from this list taken from The Palestine Weekly.

Mr. J. B. Barron, Mr. Ben Zwi, M. Norman Bentwich, Michel Effendy Berouti, Mr. W. H. Deedes, Mr. R. A. Harari, Ismail Bey El Husseini, Colonel G. W. Heron, Colonel R. Holmes, Abdel Haj Effendy El Khatib, Mr. K. M. Kalvaresky, Mr. R. J. Legge, Sheikh Ferieh Abu Middein, Suleiman Bey Nassif, Colonel F. J. Postlethwaite, Dr. Habib Yateen Salim, Mr. E. R. Sawer, Suleiman Abdul Razzak Effendy Toukan, Mr. R. Storrs, Mr. David Yellin. All but three of this list were present and their substitutes were provided. The list was made in an effort to represent the various interests of the land, regional, religious, and economic by the best persons available for the service.

The railways are under the administration of the government. Duties connected with education, banking, land transfer, health, post-office, customs, courts, town planning, afforestation and antiquities have already been attempted by the new rÉgime. The government schools are, so far, attended by Moslem children chiefly, since the Christians seek to safeguard religious instruction and the Jews wish to cultivate their ancient language and the national ideals. But even as things stand the government schools reach but ten or twelve thousand Moslem children out of an estimated total of over a hundred thousand. Probably the proportion of Christians and Jews in school is much better, but it will be seen how serious a problem the educational need presents.

A plan for loaning money will probably be adopted which will provide for loans on real property by the government banks. A new ordinance for land transfers has been made which is explained as follows:

“The general principle of the Ordinance is that all transactions, other than leases for a term of not more than three years, must be carried out through the Land Registry, and must receive the consent of the administration; otherwise they will be null and void, and persons disposing of, or acquiring land illegally, will be liable to fine and forfeiture of the property. The restrictions on transfers have been introduced purely in the interests of the people. The principle reason for requiring the consent of the Administration is to prevent speculation in land which will cause an excessive rise of prices and prevent development. Transactions will only be allowed if the person requiring the land will cultivate it, supposing it is agricultural land, or develop it immediately supposing it is urban land.

“Another object of the control of the Administration is to protect the small farmer in his holding. If he is the owner of land he will be unable to sell such part as is necessary for the maintenance of himself and his family; and if he is the tenant the landlord will be unable to sell without leaving sufficient land for him. The amount to be left for the small landowner will differ in various parts in the country, and will be determined according to the quality of the land by the District Governor.

“Every disposition of land will be commenced by a petition to the Governor which will be presented through the Land Registry of the District, setting out the proposed transactions. A disposition includes a sale, a mortgage, a gift, a constitution of wakf, and any lease for more than three years. The petition will be accompanied by a certificate from the Mukhtars as to the title of the transferer and by his documents of title.

“The Registrars in the district registries will give all persons desiring to dispose of their land full details as to what is required, and will furnish them with the necessary forms. If the application for the transaction is made by an agent or by nominee, the proposed purchaser must be disclosed and registration must take place in his name. Registration in the name of other persons will be invalid and will make the parties liable to penalties. The Registrar will see if the conditions of the Ordinance are satisfied and will examine the title of the transferer. If the transaction is found to be in order, it will be referred to the District Governor for his consent.

“The District Governor will give his consent only if the person acquiring the land fulfils the following conditions: (1) He must be a resident of Palestine; (2) he must not acquire land exceeding either L.E. 3000 in value or a certain area; (3) he must prove that he intends to cultivate or develop the land immediately.

“These restrictions are introduced to prevent the land being bought by speculators from outside the country and also to prevent the increase of large areas of land in a few hands. In order to prevent speculation, a further restriction is introduced, that if the land has been disposed of within a year the Governor shall not give his consent to a further disposition unless the transferer gives a satisfactory reason for wishing to dispose of it again. It would be a satisfactory reason if the original purchaser had died during the year and his heirs had to sell the property. But the restriction will prevent people from buying land simply in order to sell to others at a profit.

“The High Commissioner can consent to land transactions without any restriction, provided that he is satisfied that they will be for the public benefit. And all transactions which cannot be passed by the District Governor either because of the value and area of the land to be disposed of, or because the person acquiring is not a resident will be referred to him.” Taken from The Palestine Weekly for October 1, 1920.

Within a few months of its inauguration the civil administration was able to report fifteen government hospitals with 293 beds, twenty-one dispensaries, eight clinics, five epidemic-posts and plans projected for combating malaria scientifically.

The new plans drawn for the suitable preservation and adornment of Jerusalem, provide that the walled city shall be safeguarded, that a parked space outside the walls shall be assured and that the most sacred spots beyond that space shall be protected in a region largely open. This last region will include Scopus, Olivet and Bethany. Expansion of suburbs beyond those preserves will be allowed in an attractive system of streets and dwellings to the north, west and south.

A new broad gaugegauge railroad has been constructed between Jaffa and Lydda. A few tractors have been introduced for use on the better agricultural land. Strikes have not been unknown. In one reported from Jaffa the government told its officers to preserve a neutral attitude in time of labor disputes, to preserve order and not to interfere with peaceful picketing.

The difficulties of the telephone service in a polyglot town may be suggested by this caricature from the “Weekly.”

“Our office boy has just repeated to us the kind of conversation he hears when our telephone bell happens to ring. ‘Hello; that The Palestine Weekly?—Bukra subeh? Tayeb!—Ken, gevereth, ani rotzeh—Hello! Exchange! Exchange! I say, miss—aywa, aywa—buzz—aywa—Have you got them yet?—Have I the—Je vous prie, mademoiselle, tachez—shalom, mayesh == Righto, kiddie, but I don’t leave till five—La, la, moush awez. Enta—alors, monsieur, demain matin, mais vous savez bien que—Oh, ring off, Please! I’m not asking for—m’a salaami—Finished yet?—I say miss, do give them another—Sapristi, mais cet instrument—Y’allah—What the—click!’

“At present we find it quicker and more private to send a postcard.”

Palestine is like a sealed museum of historical lore. In the hills are stored many antiquities. It is hoped that systematic excavation will bring many of them to the surface. The Palestine Exploration Fund of London, England, is the veteran society for digging and publishing the many treasures still lying beneath the soil of the Holy Land. British and American supporters have in spite of their small number made a brave and continuous effort to gather the archÆological materials which will illuminate the Bible.

The Quarterly periodical of the Fund and its annual volume keep subscribers informed of the discoveries and discussions. Since 1900, The American School of Oriental Research in Jerusalem has endeavored to make the most of opportunities to explore, study and teach the interesting data for biblical and Semitic research. It has experts in residence at Jerusalem and offers a fellowship to graduate students. It needs a budget of from twenty to twenty-five thousand dollars to make the best use of its rare opportunity to advance religious and scientific research. The new government has taken the matter of antiquities in hand in a way which will probably insure a better treatment of those who conduct research and a better disposition of the treasures as they are unearthed.

The test offered the new order by neighboring Arabia and the Arabs will be a critical one. Let us take a quick survey of this field of interest and consider some of those conditions past and present which make the Arab.

Arabia, the great south-central part of which is unknown to civilized man, is an immense peninsula hanging between the mass of the Asian continent and Africa, two spheres which have been greatly influenced by the forces issuing from the land of the Arab. The huge rectangular mass of sand and rock and tropical coasts, larger than India, slants easterly and south from the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean and is bounded on the sides by the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf. The country has never been easily accessible to any but Arabs and it is even now a question how much of the inland territory is easily traversible by them. The desert region of North Arabia receives some rain, after which a succulent growth appears which lasts but a short time, say from a few weeks to a few months. This is probably true of some other less well known parts of Arabia. We know that oases exist, where palm-trees, wells and a settled population contrast with life on the freer steppe-land.

Broadly speaking, the people fall into two great groups, the Northern and Southern Arabs whose struggles through the centuries are based upon the two incompatibles, rapid increase and scanty sustenance. The pastures and springs do not suffice for them all. Certain tribes pay chief attention to camel breeding, others to sheep and goats, others who live near the agricultural lands even go so far as to strike bargains with the peasants to protect the crops which the latter have prepared. Certain tribes are in the transport business, using camels as carriers. Still others, not so highly regarded, are skilled in the cruder work in metal and leather, as smiths and tanners. Of all these, the camel-breeding Arab is considered the type of the true sons of the desert.

Petty war (raiding) is the ideal occupation of the best young manhood of the desert. This follows upon the mode of nomadic life. The property of a bedawy tribe is all movable and with subsistence too scanty for growing populations the nomads crowd upon each other insistently for the use of the springs and pastures. In the springtime of a good year there may be enough for all, but for most of the year the supplies of food would not go around if the population grew unchecked. No such multiplication of resources is possible as in agricultural and manufacturing countries. The produce of the herds and flocks, milk, butter, cheese, hair, and wool and a few simple fabrics made from them are used by the tribes or exchanged for the products of the oases and the towns, dates, grain, implements, ammunition, cloth and garments.

The basis of family prosperity is found in those qualities of a vigorous stock which insure success in war and the accumulation of wealth. To have many sons is, therefore, an ideal and to have them leagued together in the interest of family strength is in some degree a necessity. The simple government required is exercised by the patriarch of the family. Such a strong, growing family will be joined by other families in self-defence and will rapidly develop into a strong tribe if no untoward accident befalls it. These different families are only theoretically of one blood, though by marriage the original differences may be minimized. They are known by some common tribal name and brand their camels with a common tribal mark, or “wasm.” Their greatest need, practically their religion, is the existence for which they strive. A kind of morale ensues which is the tribal convention. According to it the women have their work, often very hard, the men their duties of brotherhood, raid and revenge. Even the children have their sphere into which they fit according to sex and into which the stranger may not come at all except by the fiction of relationship. It will be readily seen that, in a land of wastes where groups only can exist and no mere individual, to be excluded by the judgment of the tribe from its membership would mean death. Such outlawing is the ultimate treatment of the serious offender. Patriotism is that higher form of self-interest which makes an Arab the devotee of his tribe’s welfare. The successes, failures, quarrels and fate of the tribe are his own. The results of the raid, whether gain or loss, are shared.

The shaykh of the tribe is its leading man, not a legislator. He exerts authority by personal influence and moral suasion and cannot constrain otherwise, in theory at least, any member of his tribe. The preËminence is likely to remain in his family if it continues noble and well-to-do, a useful object of pride to the tribe. If a higher organization of the tribal life should follow upon extension of power, the leading man may become a prince or emir or even a conqueror and ruler, as on several occasions in history.

The passions of the Arab are intense. His hungry life for so large a part of the year, his picturesque imagination, and simple demands join with a chivalry born of the tribal manners to make him cultivate at once ideals of generosity and vengeful hate. To be a noble host of the wayfarer and the implacable foe of the one who has harmed him are equally demanded by his code. 'Abd al-Malik the son of 'Abd ar-Rahim, a poet of the Sons of Dayyan, sang:

In a poem by Al-Fadl (Lyall XIII) occurs the following:

Kurait, son of Unaif, poured scorn upon the people who weakly fail to avenge wrongdoing and holds up to contempt their softness in the words:

Poets form the most renowned class of men among the Arabs. Great enterprises were led by the word of the poet. To him they looked for stimulus and guidance in their raids, encampments, aspirations, disputes, loves and hates. The Arab is exceedingly sensitive to the spoken word of praise or blame. There is in him also a primitive response to the oracular, the mysterious and the magical. Speech is probably the most pretentious and commanding gift of man in early stages of culture. Even among highly civilized people it is the vehicle of the profoundest intellectual possessions and abilities. Human nature is impatient for the goods of the world. The slow process of causes has been brushed aside and resort has been had to magical means. Besides this there is the human hunger for the fairy-tale. We slip the leash of the real that we may run riot in the delights of a care-free world of the imagination. In that world the old time non-democratic spirit prevails and princes and powers and gorgeous effects are barbarously indulged. The poet is one of those who minister to us of this world of imagination.

A strong reason for the veneration which was felt for the spoken word in Arabia, as elsewhere in Semitic lands, is the innate conviction that the burden or message of the word is an entity for good or ill, independent of the human personality which serves as a medium. For it is thought that in the utterance of blessings or cursings supernatural powers seize upon the mind or the organs of speech of possessed personalities and speak effectively through them. Thus if a curse can be held back, or a blessing restrained, there is a non-existence of that fact instead of its existence to be reckoned with. The sting of satire set free by a poet’s eloquence is a veritable wound more serious than a physical stab. The humiliation and despair of an early Arab who fell under the shafts of a real poet were without remedy unless there was a superior poet to wreak adequate revenge. Certain of the old poets were warriors as well and represented the complete ideal. They were hardy rangers of the desert wastes, patient, chivalrous, vindictive, devotees of the claims of blood-kinship. The flourishing period of classical Arabian poetry was during the century and a half preceding the death of Muhammad.

Muhammad was born in Mecca and spent the last ten years of his life at Medina. Both cities are in the rough highland, between the district of Nejd and the coast. This highland ridge goes by the name of the Hijaz or Barrier and is near the route of the traders’ caravans from South Arabia to Syria and the Mediterranean. Mecca and Yathrib (original name of Medina) on account of this caravan route rose to be cities of prominence. Mecca was specially important because it was also a place of resort for pilgrims long before the rise of Islam. At first this may have been because of the presence there of a remarkable meteoric stone, which still remains, sheltered by the Ka’ba and venerated by the whole Moslem world. Moslem tradition began early to elaborate the traditions of Mecca and has put them beyond the disentanglement of criticism. To the Moslem, Mecca was the city of Abraham who, with all the good saints of old, was a Moslem. The Moslems claim that the Jews and Christians have so perverted the original sacred scriptures of the Old Testament and the original faith, which was the Moslem faith, that not until Muhammad’s time were things seen in their true light. However, there were in Arabia in the period a little earlier than Muhammad forerunners, who were essentially monotheists, the so-called haneefs. Muhammad was, therefore, the renewer, not the inventor of Islam, the prophet to destroy the idolatries of Arabia which had accumulated in the jahiliyya, or uncivilized period. Certain members of Muhammad’s own household and tribe were among his earliest converts. His wife may have been the first. He seemed, to many of his own kinsfolk and townspeople, to be a dangerous innovator. They must have feared the effect of his iconoclastic teaching on the preËminent position of their city and on the incomes derived from the pilgrimages to its shrines.

The Ka'ba itself, within which were ranged many idols, was in the special care of the prophet’s tribe, the Kuraysh, which was the leading tribe of Mecca. Before the birth of the prophet a city to the south of Mecca, called Sana, had been a competing shrine but had lost prestige in favor of Mecca. All Arabs had felt a thrill of triumph in the defeat inflicted on the forces of Persia at the battle of Dhu Qar in 610 A.D. Just as the ancient Greeks had felt an increased sense of solidarity when they discovered the decline of the supposedly powerful Persia of their day through the campaign of the younger Cyrus, so now the Arabs felt relief and gathered encouragement from the revelation of Persia’s weakness. Thus in the early lifetime of the prophet a number of forces, linguistic, religious and political, had joined with his sense of revelation and mission to make him an invincible leader. He was a thoroughly representative Arab, superior in mental power and religious fervor, sincere, of the order of Semitic prophets, the man for the hour in Arabia. He shrank at first from his call but was encouraged by his wife and by the devotion of a few friends and converts to go forward. He summoned the Meccans to renounce idols and to worship the one god. He was persecuted severely and would doubtless have lost his life except for his powerful family connections, which made it unsafe for his enemies to risk a blood feud. At last he took the step that made him the non-partisan apostle to Arabia and in 622 A.D., accepting the invitation of the citizens of Yathrib, he fled from his own house, where he was enduring a state of siege, and made his way to the town that was henceforth to be known as Medinet en-Neby, the Prophet’s City, or in its shorter form, Medina, The City. There he waxed prosperous and used the sword of vengeance as well as of conquest. Converts came individually and in groups. He campaigned against his own home city, Mecca, conquered it and purged it of many of its grosser abuses, including the idols. He sent letters to the sovereigns of Persia and Constantinople demanding submission. In 632 A.D. he died and was buried in Medina, where his tomb is the principle treasure of the great mosk. Within seventy years of Muhammad’s death his Arabs had conquered the whole of Egypt, North Africa to the Atlantic, the Spanish peninsula, and parts of India. Surely this was no ordinary man or influence that could thus turn the desert ranger into a citizen of Europe, Africa, and Asia, and turn so many provinces and kingdoms to the speech and doctrine of the Arab. Native populations in the conquered countries secured exemptions and brotherhood if they accepted the faith of Islam. Otherwise they paid tribute or were harried by the sword.

Four caliphs (successors) followed Muhammad at Medina. They kept close to the primitive ideal of the warring prophet of Islam. They were Abu Bakr, 'Umar, 'Uthman and 'Ali. They fall within the thirty years after the death of the prophet. They were followed by a dynasty of rulers of less Muhammadan characteristics which established the government at Damascus. (661–750 A.D.) They were succeeded by still a different type of rulers, the princes of the House of Abbas at Bagdad. The Damascus House, known as the Umayyads, had wrested the power from 'Ali and the Prophet’s family, but their success was always resented by the more southerly Arabs and fought especially by Iraq (Mesopotamia) and the Arabs near Persia. Thus the political unity of Islam was early broken up and is less and less likely to be restored. The real strength of Islam was abroad where Arabian soldiers were quartered in camp cities or were engaged in victorious armies and where their fateful fighting qualities and intense loyalty to the missionary idea of Islam made a distinctly contrasted class as against the populations they overcame by the sword or by conversion.

In all historic times desert Arabia has been a political hollow between the great powers. It was empty of the things for which civilization fought, but it was the home of a virile stock of nomads who possessed comparative freedom at least. In the deserts the type of life has not changed for thousands of years. Such a life is free because the outsider does not covet it. The native will relinquish it only gradually. The roaming Arab is bound by the inexorable natural conditions of his world and the social conventions which those conditions impose. His treasures are his family, his horse, and his instruments of petty warfare. Before Muhammad’s time, there were on the Eastern borders of Arabia princes who were practically subsidized by the Persian emperors. On the Western side were other princes under the protection of the Byzantine rulers, while in the far South were still other kingdoms and loyalties to political patrons, influenced at times by the kingdom of Abyssinia. Muhammad and his four successors gave this divided Arabia the completest unity it has ever known. At present it is reaching vaguely for something approaching that same unity. During the World War the Shereef of Mecca, with his sons, threw off the control of Turkey and made the Hijaz, which includes the sacred cities of Mecca and Medina, a free kingdom. Into this sacred land no Christian or other non-Moslem is supposed to step. Lawrence the intrepid went there to counsel with Emir Faysal, third son of the shereef, by special and dangerous arrangement. He found the Arabs resting after their initial campaign and stirred them to aggressive action, northward, to destroy the Turkish communications and to stir the more northerly Arabs to combine and to furnish support on the East and right of the operations under Allenby who was working up from Egypt through Palestine.