Page 24 - A Hand book of Arabia Vol 1 (iii) Ch 4,5

WEIGHTS AND MEASURES 107

D. Weights and Measures

In Mecca, Medina, and their ports, Turkish weights and measures
are largely employed, but not to the exclusion of native standards.
\t Medina and in all the oases of Hejaz the measure most commonly
employed is the sah (.sd(), which varies considerably in content in
different places. According to Doughty the sah is the equivalent
of nearly two pints at Teima, nearly three pints at El-‘Ala, and five
pints at Kheibar; at He’ll he reports it is two pints and a half.
The other measures in use, as given by Doughty, are the following :

A medega (a small palm-basket), the equivalent of twelve sahs ;
and a mejellad, the equivalent of five medegas.

At Medina and elsewhere in Hejaz a skin of dates is called hashlyah.
Large bargains in dates are reckoned in camel-loads.
The measure of length in' Hejaz, as in other parts of Arabia,
■
appears to be the actual cubit, the distance from a man’s elbow to
the point of his middle finger (dhra‘). According to Doughty
a ‘ palm-rod ’ (length not stated) is employed at Kheibar as a larger
lineal measure, the repair of an orchard-wall being reckoned and
paid for by' the palm-rod.

POLITICAL

1. Government
.
i
Under the Ottoman arrangement Hejaz became a vilayet, whose
vali was resident at Mecca in winter and Ta if in summer (excep
when the Pilgrimage fell in the summer months). His governorship
included all the area from the border of the vilayet of Sham (Damas­
cus), S. of Ma‘an (but latterly from El-‘Ala only), down to the
northern limit of the vilayet of Yemen, S. of Lith. Under hi
were four kazas, Yambo\ Rabugh, Jiddah, and Lith. In these
the apparatus of government was organized on the usual Ottom
system, the officials of the Porte collecting all taxes (so far as taxes
could be collected at all in such a province as Hejaz).
The towns of Mecca and Medina, however, were not only tax-
free
~ so far as the Ottoman Government was concerned, but in
receipt of subsidies from the Treasury {surra) ; and so also were
i
many nomad chiefs, notably certain Harb sheikhs, capable of lnter-
tc,rmg with the passage of pilgrims or with the railway track. The
" hole province was exempt from military service, and an attempt !
to
prevail upon the Hejazis to accept conscription m 1J14 was
resisted successfully by the Emir of Mecca.