That the Ottoman Government is perfectly aware of this is certain.  Even in the days of its greatest power it always showed its jealousy and distrust of Mecca, and was careful when any of the Grand Sherifs acquired what was considered dangerous influence, to supplant him by setting up a rival.  Its physical power enabled it to do this, and though it could not abolish the office of the Grand Sherifate, it could interfere in the order of succession.  Family feuds have, therefore, been at all times fostered by the Turks in Hejaz, and will be, as long as their presence there is tolerated.  An excellent example of their system has recently been given in the episode of the late Grand Sherif’s death, and the story of it will serve also to show the fear entertained by the present Sultan of this his great spiritual rival.  To tell it properly I must go back to the epoch of the Wahhabite invasion of Hejaz in 1808.

At that time, and for the latter half of the previous century, the supreme dignity of the Sherifal House was held by a branch of it known as the Dewy Zeyd (the word Dewy is used in Hejaz, as are elsewhere Beni or Ahl, meaning people, family, house), which had replaced in 1750 the Barakat branch, mentioned by Niebuhr as in his day supreme.  The actual holder of the title was Ghaleb ibn Mesaad, and he, finding himself unable to contend against the Wahhabis, became himself a Wahhabi.  Consequently, when Mehemet Ali appeared at Mecca in 1812, his first act was to depose this Ghaleb, in spite of his protest that he had returned to orthodoxy, and to appoint another member of the Sherifal House in his place.

The Sherif chosen was Yahia ibn Serur, of a rival branch, the Dewy Aoun, and a bitter animosity was, by this means, engendered between the two families of Aoun and Zeyd, which is continued to the present day.  Nor, as may be supposed, was this lessened by the subsequent changes rung by the Turkish and Egyptian Governments in their appointments to the office, for, in 1827, we find Abd el Mutalleb, the son of the deposed Wahhabite Ghaleb, reappointed, and in the following year again, Mohammed, the son of Yahia ibn Aoun, an intrigue which brought on a civil war.  Then in 1848 a new intrigue reinstated Abd el Mutalleb and the Zeyds; and then, in 1853, these were again deposed for rebellion, and an Aoun was placed in power.  From 1853 till 1880 the Aouns retained the Grand Sherifate and were supreme in Hejaz.  Coming into power at a time when Liberal ideas were in the ascendant they have consistently been Liberal, and still represent the more humane and progressive party among the Meccans.  In the desert, where all are latitudinarian, they are the popular party; and, though themselves beyond a suspicion of unorthodoxy, they have always shown a tolerant spirit towards the Shiahs and other heretics, with whom the Sherifal authority necessarily comes in contact every year at the Haj.  They have even maintained friendly terms with the European element at Jeddah, and as long as they remained in power the relations between India and Mecca were of an amicable nature.