The Haj - Leon Uris [2]
Our Village of Tabah sat near the road to Jerusalem. My family was of the Soukori clan, which had once belonged to the Wahhabi Bedouin tribe. The Wahhabi were great warriors who came from the Arabian Peninsula about two hundred and fifty years ago and purified the region for Islam through sword and fire.
Eventually the power of the Wahhabi was broken by invading Turkish and Egyptian armies. Many of the clans split off from the main tribe and some migrated to Palestine. Our branch of the tribe roamed an area between Gaza and Beersheba, crossing back and forth from the Negev to the Sinai deserts.
Several clans, numbering over a hundred and fifty families, moved north and settled on the land. However, we still retained very close ties with the Wahhabi through marriage, reinforced at festival and wedding and funeral times, and we used them as cameleers during the harvest and manure-gathering seasons.
My father, Ibrahim, was a great man who was feared and respected in the entire region. My father was not only the muktar, the head of the village, he was the agent of the landowners. Our family were sayyids, direct descendants of the Prophet Mohammed, and this gave us status above the others. In addition to Tabah, there were smaller villages of former Wahhabi Bedouin in the area and he controlled them as well. My father’s power came from the fact that he ran the legal, clerical, and police apparatus and was endowed to verify the documents that spelled out the property and inheritances of the villagers. He was the only one in the area who had made the Haj, the pilgrimage to Mecca. A painting and the date over the front door of our house commemorated the glorious event.
At first he was known as Ibrahim al Soukori al Wahhabi, to denote his clan and tribe, but Arab names change with the birth of male children. Unfortunately, my parents’ first two were girls and this was a small disaster. Everyone, particularly the women at the village well, whispered behind his back that he was Abu Banat, A Father of Daughters, a most terrible insult.
My father threatened to get rid of my mother, who had brought this humiliation to him. She begged for a final chance, and by Allah’s will their third child was a son, my oldest brother, Kamal. After Kamal’s birth my father could then assume the honorable title of Ibrahim Abu Kamal, which means ‘Abraham, father of Kamal.’
Three more sons followed Kamal and my father basked in glory. But alas, there were three more daughters before my own birth. One of my brothers and two of my sisters died before I ever knew them. My brother died from cholera. One of my sisters died of the stomach and the other from a chest ailment. They all died before their first year. It was usual for a family of ten to lose three or more children, but my father felt particularly blessed to have four sons who survived.
My two oldest sisters were eventually contracted into marriage. They married in the Wahhabi tribe but to men from distant villages. As was the custom, they went off to live in the home of their husband’s parents.
My father was only a young man, in his early twenties, when he declared himself muktar, ‘the elected one.’ His father had been muktar and when he died there was to be a new election. The sheiks of the other four clans had agreed that the eldest among them would take over the position. However, my father disagreed and the story of his courage and greatness has been told many, many times.
Ibrahim had been born five years before the turn of the century. When he became muktar he had achieved the most exalted position in the village, for he no longer had to work. In a short time, he had three sons, one remaining daughter, and a wife, all of working age. He had the best and most of the land, collected the rents, and governed six villages. He did not even wear field shoes but shoes that others wore only on the Sabbath.
My Uncle Farouk was a slave to my father. He and my father owned the village