# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Nejd

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​NEJD, a central province of Arabia, bounded N. by the Nafud desert, E. by El Hasa, S. by the Dahna desert and W. by Asir and Hejāz. It lies between 20° and 28° N. and 41° and 48° E., extends nearly 550 m. from north to south, 450 from east to west, and covers approximately 180,000 sq. m. The name Nejd implies an upland, and this is the distinctive character of the province as compared with the adjoining coastal districts of 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 north the double range of Jebel Shammar, and in the east the ranges of J. Tuwēk and J. ʽArid rise about 1500 ft. above the general level, but on the whole it may be described as an open steppe, sloping very gradually from S.W. to N.E. of which the western and southern portion is desert, or at best pasture land only capable of supporting a nomad population; while in the north and east, owing to greater abundance of water, numerous fertile oases are found with a large settled population. The principal physical 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 Wadi Dawāsir. J. Shammar is the most northerly: its principal settlements are situated in the valley some 70 m. long, between the two ranges of J. Aja and J. Selma, though a. few lie on their outer flanks. Jauf, Tēma and Khaibar, though dependencies of the Shammar principality, lie beyond the limits of Nejd. The capital, Hail, has been visited by several Europeans, by W. G. Palgrave in 1862, when Talāl was emir, and by Mr Wilfrid and Lady Anne Blunt, Charles Doughty, C. Huber, T. Euting and Baron E. Nolde during the reign of Mahommed b. Rashid, who from 1892 till his death in 1897 was emir of all Nejd. Its well ordered and thriving appearance is commented on by all these travellers. The town is surrounded by a wall and dominated by the emir’s palace, a stately, if somewhat gloomy building, the walls of which are quite 75 ft. high, with six towers, the whole giving 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 to Huber 4600 ft. above sea-level. The valley is about 20 m. in width and is intersected with dry ravines and dotted with low ridges generally of volcanic origin. Wells and springs are the only source of water supply, both for drinking and for irrigation. The principal crops are dates, wheat and barley and garden produce; forage and firewood are very scarce. The population was estimated by Nolde in 1893 at 10,000 to 12,000.
Among the other settlements of J. Shammar are Jafēfa and Mukāk at the northern foot of J. Aja, Kasr and Kafār at its southern foot, Rauda, Mustajidda and Fēd at the foot of J. Selma, all large villages of 3000 to 5000 inhabitants. ʽAkda is a small valley in the heart of J. Aja, an hour’s ride from Hail; it was the oldest possession of the Ibn Rashid, since 1835 the ruling family of J. Shammar, and is a place of great natural strength. Kasim lies E. of J. Shammar in the valley 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 with walls of sun-dried brick, with well supplied shops. Many inhabitants live in distant houses in gardens outside the town walls. 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 found at 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 in August or September. Fruit trees and fields of wheat, maize or millet surround the villages, but the extent of cultivation is 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 lower Kasim.
Doughty’s and Huber’s explorations did not extend east of Kasim, and for all details regarding eastern and southern Nejd Palgrave is the only authority. According to him, a long desert march leads from Madnab to Zulfa the first settlement in Sudēr, where the land rises steadily to the high calcareous tableland of J. Tuwēk. The entire plateau is intersected by a maze of valleys, generally with steep banks, as if artificially cut out of the limestone. In these countless hollows is concentrated the fertility and population of Nejd; gardens and houses, cultivation and villages lie hidden from view among the depths while one journeys over the dry flats, till one comes suddenly on 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 Harīk below it and to the south and south-west respectively. The principal town is Majma the former capital of Sudēr, a walled town situated on an eminence in a broad shallow valley surrounded by luxuriant gardens and trees. Tuwēm, Jalājil and Hula are also described by Palgrave as considerable towns.
ʽArid is entered at Sedūs, on the W. Hanifa, a broad valley bottom with precipitous sides, here 2 or 3 m. wide, full of trees and brushwood. Along its course lie the villages of Ayana, and Deraiya the former Wahhābi capital, destroyed by Ibrahim Pasha in 1817; and a few miles farther E. the new capital Riād, built by the emir Fēsal after his restoration and visited by Palgrave in 1863, and by Pelly two years later. It was then, and still is, a large town of perhaps 20,000 inhabitants with thirty or more mosques, well-stocked bazārs, and like the towns of 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 is scarcely inferior in size to Riād itself. Still farther to the south-east lies the district of Harīk, with its capital Hauta, the last in that direction of the settled districts of Nejd, and on the borders of the southern desert.
Palgrave visited El Kharfa the chief place of the Aflaj district some 80 m. S.W. of Riād. This district seems to be scantily peopled as compared with Sudēr or Yemāma, and a large proportion of 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.; scattered villages consisting of palm-leaf huts lie along the way, which leads in a south or south-westerly direction to the highlands of Asir and Yemen.
The Bedouin who occupy the remainder of Nejd consist in the main of the four great tribes of the Shammar, Harb, ʽAteba and Mutēr. The first-named represent that part of the great Shammar tribe which has remained in its ancestral home on the southern edge of the Nafud (the northern branch long ago emigrated to Mesopotamia); many of its members have settled down to town life, but the tribe still retains its Bedouin character, and its late chief, the emir Mahommed Ibn Rashid, the most powerful prince in Nejd, used to live a great part of the year in the desert with his tribesmen. The Harb are probably the largest of the Bedouin tribes in the peninsula; they are divided into a number of sections, several of which have settled in the oases of Hejāz, while others remain nomadic. Their territory is the steppe between Kasim and Medina, and across the pilgrim road between Medina and Mecca, for the protection of which they receive considerable subsidies from the Turks. The ʽAteba circuits extend from the Hejaz border near Mecca along the road leading thence to Kasim. The Mutēr occupy the desert from Kasim northwards towards Kuwēt.
Nejd became nominally a dependency of the Turkish empire in 1871 when Midhat Pasha established a small garrison in El Hasa, and created a new civil district under the government of 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 at Riad, ruled in western and eastern Nejd respectively, until 1892, when the former by his victory at ʽAnēza became emir of all Nejd. 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 Saʽud which 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 be settled, and one-third nomad or Bedouin. Palgrave in 1863, perhaps unduly exaggerating the importance of the town population, placed it at nearly double this figure.
The revenue of the emir Mahommed Ibn Rashid of Hail, who died in 1897, was estimated by Blunt in 1879 at £80,000, and his expenditure at little more than half that amount. Nolde who visited Hail in 1893 after the emir’s conquest of the Wahhabi state, believed that his surplus income then amounted to £60,000 a year, and his accumulated treasure to £1,500,000.
Authorities.—W. G. Palgrave, Central and Eastern Arabia (London, 1865); Lady Anne Blunt, Pilgrimage to Nejd (London, 1881); C. M. Doughty, Arabia Deserta (Cambridge, 1885); C. Huber, Journal d’un voyage en Arabie (Paris, 1891); J. Euting, Reise in inner Arabien (Leyden, 1896); E. Nolde, Reise nach inner Arabien (Brunswick, 1895). (R. A. W.)