[p.352]the early part of his career, the emissaries of a tribe called the Benu Abd al-Ashhal came from that town to Meccah, in order to make a treaty with the Kuraysh, and the Apostle seized the opportunity of preaching Al-Islam to them. His words were seconded by Ayyas bin Ma’az, a youth of the tribe, and opposed by the chiefs of the embassy; who, however, returned home without pledging themselves to either party.[FN#21] Shortly afterwards a body of the Aus and the Khazraj came to the pilgrimage of Meccah: when Mohammed began preaching to them, they recognised the person so long expected by the Jews, and swore to him an oath which is called in Moslem history the “First Fealty of the Steep.[FN#22]”
After the six individuals who had thus pledged themselves returned to their native city, the event being duly bruited abroad caused such an effect that, when the next pilgrimage season came, twelve, or according to others forty persons, led by As’ad bin Zara[r]ah, accompanied the original converts, and in the same place swore the “Second Fealty of the Steep.” The Prophet dismissed them in company with one Musab bin Umayr, a Meccan, charged to teach them the Koran and their religious duties, which in those times consisted only of prayer and the Profession of Unity. They arrived at Al-Madinah on a Friday, and this was the first day on which the city witnessed the public devotions of the Moslems.
After some persecutions, Musab had the fortune to convert a cousin of As’ad bin Zararah, a chief of the Aus, Sa’ad bin Ma’az, whose opposition had been of the fiercest. He persuaded his tribe, the Benu Abd al-Ashhal, to break
[p.353]their idols and openly to profess Al-Islam. The next season, Musab having made many converts, some say seventy, others three hundred, marched from Al-Madinah to Meccah for their pilgrimage; and there induced his followers to meet the Prophet at midnight upon the Steep near Muna. Mohammed preached to them their duties towards Allah and himself, especially insisting upon the necessity of warring down infidelity. They pleaded ancient treaties with the Jews of Al-Madinah, and showed apprehension lest the Apostle, after bringing them into disgrace with their fellows, should desert them and return to the faith of his kinsmen, the Kuraysh. Mohammed, smiling, comforted them with the assurance that he was with them, body and soul, for ever. Upon this they asked him what would be their reward if slain. He replied, “Gardens ‘neath which the streams flow,”-that is to say, Paradise.
Then, in spite of the advice of Al-Abbas, Mohammed’s uncle, who was loud in his denunciations, they bade the Preacher stretch out his hand, and upon it swore the oath known as the “Great Fealty of the Steep.” After comforting them with an Ayat, or Koranic verse, which promised heaven, the Apostle divided his followers into twelve bodies; and placing a chief at the head of each,[FN#23] dismissed them to their homes. He rejected the offer made by one of the party-namely, to slay all the idolaters present at the pilgrimage-saying that Allah had favoured him with no such order. For the same reason he refused their invitation to visit Al-Madinah, which was the principal object of their mission; and he then took an affectionate leave of them.
[p.354]Two months and a half after the events above detailed, Mohammed received the inspired tidings that Al-Madinah of the Hijaz was his predestined asylum. In anticipation of the order, for as yet the time had not been revealed, he sent forward his friends, among whom were Omar, Talhah, and Hamzah, retaining with him Abu Bakr[FN#24] and Ali. The particulars of the Flight, that eventful accident to Al-Islam, are too well known to require mention here; besides which they belong rather to the category of general than of Madinite history.
Mohammed was escorted into Al-Madinah by one Buraydat al-Aslami and eighty men of the same tribe, who had been offered by the Kuraysh a hundred camels for the capture of the fugitives. But Buraydat, after listening to their terms, accidentally entered into conversation with Mohammed; and no sooner did he hear the name of his interlocutor, than he professed the faith of Al-Islam. He then prepared for the Apostle a standard by attaching his turband to a spear, and anxiously inquired what house was to be honoured by the presence of Allah’s chosen servant. “Whichever,” replied Mohammed, “this she-camel[FN#25] is ordered to show me.” At the last
[p.355]halting-place, he accidentally met some of his disciples returning from a trading voyage to Syria; they dressed him and his companion Abu Bakr in white clothing which, it is said, caused the people of Kuba to pay a mistaken reverence to the latter. The Moslems of Al-Madinah were in the habit of repairing every morning to the heights near the city, looking out for the Apostle; and, when the sun waxed hot, they returned home. One day, about noon, a Jew, who discovered the retinue from afar, suddenly warned the nearest party of Ansar, or Auxiliaries of Al-Madinah, that the fugitive was come. They snatched up their arms and hurried from their houses to meet him.
Mohammed’s she-camel advanced to the centre of the then flourishing town of Kuba. There she suddenly knelt upon a place which is now consecrated ground; at that time it was an open space, belonging, they say, to Abu Ayyub the Ansari, who had a house there near the abodes of the Benu Amr bin Auf. This event happened on the first day of the week, the twelfth of the month Rabia al-Awwal[FN#26] (June 28, A.D. 622), in the first year of the Flight: for which reason Monday, which also witnessed the birth, the mission, and the death of the Prophet, is an auspicious day to Al-Islam.
After halting two days in the house of Kulsum bin Hadmah at Kuba, and there laying the foundation of the
[p.356]first Mosque upon the lines where his she-camel trod, the Apostle was joined by Ali, who had remained at Meccah, for the purpose of returning certain trusts and deposits committed to Mohammed’s charge. He waited three days longer; on Friday morning (the 16th Rabia al-Awwal, A.H. 1,=2nd July, A.D. 622), about sunrise he mounted Al-Kaswa, and, accompanied by a throng of armed Ansar on foot and on horseback, he took the way to the city. At the hour of public prayer,[FN#27] he halted in the Wady or valley near Kuba, upon the spot where the Masjid al-Jum’ah now stands, performed his devotions, and preached an eloquent sermon. He then remounted. Numbers pressed forward to offer him hospitality; he blessed them, and bade them stand out of the way, declaring that Al-Kaswa would halt of her own accord at the predestined spot. He then advanced to where the Apostle’s pulpit now stands. There the she-camel knelt, and the rider exclaimed, as one inspired, “This is our place, if Almighty Allah please!”
Descending from Al-Kaswa, he recited, “O Lord, cause me to alight a good Alighting, and Thou art the Best of those who cause to alight!” Presently the camel rose unaided, advanced a few steps, and then, according to some, returning, sat down upon her former seat; according to others, she knelt at the door of Abu Ayyub al-Ansari, whose abode in those days was the nearest to the halting-place. The descendant of the Jewish High Priest in the time of the Tobbas, with the Apostle’s permission, took the baggage off the camel, and carried it into his house. Then ensued great rejoicings. The Abyssinians came and played with their spears. The
[p.357]maidens of the Benu Najjar tribe sang and beat their kettle-drums. And all the wives of the Ansar celebrated with shrill cries of joy the auspicious event; whilst the males, young and old, freemen and slaves, shouted with effusion, “Allah’s Messenger is come! Allah’s Messenger is here!”
Mohammed caused Abu Ayyub and his wife to remove into the upper story, contenting himself with the humbler lower rooms. This was done for the greater convenience of receiving visitors without troubling the family; but the master of the house was thereby rendered uncomfortable in mind. His various remarks about the Apostle’s diet and domestic habits, especially his avoiding leeks, onions, and garlic,[FN#28] are gravely chronicled by Moslem authors.
After spending seven months, more or less, at the house of Abu Ayyub, Mohammed, now surrounded by his wives and family, built, close to the Mosque, huts for their reception. The ground was sold to him by Sahal and Suhayl, two orphans of the Benu Najjar,[FN#29] a noble family of the Khazraj. Some time afterwards one Harisat bin al-Nu’uman presented to the Prophet all his houses in the vicinity of the temple. In those days the habitations of the Arabs were made of a framework of Jarid or palm sticks, covered over with a cloth of camel’s hair, a curtain of similar stuff forming the door. The more splendid had walls of unbaked brick, and roofs of palm fronds plastered
[p.358]over with mud or clay. Of this description were the abodes of Mohammed’s family. Most of them were built on the North and East of the Mosque, which had open ground on the Western side; and the doors looked towards the place of prayer. In course of time, all, except Abu Bakr[FN#30] and Ali, were ordered to close their doors, and even Omar was refused the favour of having a window opening into the temple.
Presently the Jews of Al-Madinah, offended by the conduct of Abdullah bin Salam, their most learned priest and a descendant from the Patriarch Joseph, who had become a convert to the Moslem dispensation, began to plot against Mohammed.[FN#31] They were headed by Hajj bin Akhtah, and his brother Yasir bin Akhtah, and were joined by many of the Aus and the Khazraj. The events that followed this combination of the Munafikun, or Hypocrites, under their chief, Abdullah, belong to the domain of Arabian history.[FN#32]
Mohammed spent the last ten years of his life at Al-Madinah. He died on Monday, some say at nine A.M., others at noon, others a little after, on the twelfth of Rabia al-Awwal in the eleventh year of the Hijrah. When his family and companions debated where he should be buried, Ali advised Al-Madinah, and Abu Bakr, Ayishah’s chamber,
[p.359]quoting a saying of the deceased that prophets and martyrs are always interred where they happen to die. The Apostle was placed, it is said, under the bed where he had given up the ghost, by Ali and the two sons of Abbas, who dug the grave. With the life of Mohammed the interest of Al-Madinah ceases, or rather is concentrated in the history of its temple. Since then the city has passed through the hands of the Caliphs, the Sharifs of Meccah, the Sultans of Constantinople, the Wahhabis, and the Egyptians. It has now reverted to the Sultan, whose government is beginning to believe that, in these days when religious prestige is of little value, the great Khan’s title, “Servant of the Holy Shrines,” is purchased at too high a price. As has before been observed, the Turks now struggle for existence in Al-Hijaz with a soldier ever in arrears, and officers unequal to the task of managing an unruly people. The pensions are but partly paid,[FN#33] and they are not likely to increase with years. It is probably a mere consideration of interest that prevents the people rising en masse,
[p.360]and re-asserting the liberties of their country. And I have heard from authentic sources that the Wahhabis look forward to the day when a fresh crusade will enable them to purge the land of its abominations in the shape of silver and gold.
The Masjid al-Nabi, or Prophet’s Mosque, is the second in Al-Islam in point of seniority, and the second, or, according to others, the first in dignity, ranking with the Ka’abah itself. It is erected around the spot where the she-camel, Al-Kaswa, knelt down by the order of Heaven. At that time the land was a palm grove and a Mirbad, or place where dates are dried. Mohammed, ordered to erect a place of worship there, sent for the youths to whom it belonged, and certain Ansar, or Auxiliaries, their guardians; the ground was offered to him in free gift, but he insisted upon purchasing it, paying more than its value. Having caused the soil to be levelled and the trees to be felled, he laid the foundation of the first Mosque.
In those times of primitive simplicity its walls were made of rough stone and unbaked bricks: trunks of date-trees supported a palm-stick roof, concerning which the Archangel Gabriel delivered an order that it should not be higher than seven cubits, the elevation of Moses’s temple. All ornament was strictly forbidden. The Ansar, or men of Al-Madinah, and the Muhajirin, or Fugitives from Meccah, carried the building materials in their arms from the cemetery Al-Bakia, near the well of Ayyub, north of the spot where Ibrahim’s Mosque now stands, and the Apostle was to be seen aiding them in their labours, and reciting for their encouragement,
“O Allah! there is no good but the good of futurity, Then have mercy upon my Ansar and Muhajirin!”
The length of this Mosque was fifty-four cubits from North to South, and sixty-three in breadth, and it was hemmed in by houses on all sides save the Western. Till the seventeenth
[p.361]month of the new aera the congregation faced towards the Northern wall. After that time a fresh revelation turned them in the direction of Meccah, Southwards: on which occasion the Archangel Gabriel descended and miraculously opened through the hills and wilds a view of the Ka’abah, that there might be no difficulty in ascertaining its true position.
After the capture of Khaybar in A.H. 7, the Prophet and his first three successors restored the Mosque, but Moslem historians do not consider this a second foundation. Mohammed laid the first brick, and Abu Hurayrah declares that he saw him carry heaps of building materials piled up to his breast. The Caliphs, each in the turn of his succession, placed a brick close to that laid by the Prophet, and aided him in raising the walls. Al-Tabrani relates that one of the Ansar had a house adjacent which Mohammed wished to make part of the place of prayer; the proprietor was promised in exchange for it a home in Paradise, which he gently rejected, pleading poverty. His excuse was admitted, and Osman, after purchasing the place for ten thousand dirhams, gave it to the Apostle on the long credit originally offered.
This Mosque was a square of a hundred cubits. Like the former building, it had three doors: one on the South side, where the Mihrab al-Nabawi, or the “Prophet’s Niche,” now is; another in the place of the present Bab al-Rahmah; and the third at the Bab Osman, now called the Gate of Gabriel. Instead of a Mihrab or prayer-niche,[FN#34] a large block of stone directed the congregation; at first it was placed against the Northern wall
[p.362]of the Mosque, and it was removed to the Southern when Meccah became the Kiblah.
In the beginning the Prophet, whilst preaching the Khutbah or Friday sermon, leaned when fatigued against a post.[FN#35] The Mambar,[FN#36] or pulpit, was the invention of a Madinah man, of the Benu Najjar. It was a wooden frame, two cubits long by one broad, with three steps, each one span high; on the topmost of these the Prophet sat when he required rest. The pulpit assumed its present form about A.H. 90, during the artistic reign of Al-Walid.
In this Mosque Mohammed spent the greater part of the day[FN#37] with his companions, conversing, instructing, and
[p.363]comforting the poor. Hard by were the abodes of his wives, his family, and his principal friends. Here he prayed, at the call of the Azan, or devotion-cry, from the roof. Here he received worldly envoys and embassies, and the heavenly messages conveyed by the Archangel Gabriel. And within a few yards of the hallowed spot, he died, and found a grave.
The theatre of events so important to Al-Islam could not be allowed-specially as no divine decree forbade the change-to remain in its pristine lowliness. The first Caliph contented himself with merely restoring some of the palm pillars, which had fallen to the ground: Omar, the second successor, surrounded the Hujrah, or Ayishah’s chamber, in which the Prophet was buried, with a mud wall; and in A.H. 17, he enlarged the Mosque to 140 cubits by 120, taking in ground on all sides except the Eastern, where stood the abodes of the “Mothers of the Moslems.[FN#38]” Outside the Northern wall he erected a Suffah, called Al-Batha-a raised bench of wood, earth, or stone, upon which the people might recreate themselves with conversation and quoting poetry, for the Mosque was now becoming [a] place of peculiar reverence to men.[FN#39]
The second Masjid was erected A.H. 29, by the third Caliph, Osman, who, regardless of the clamours of the people, overthrew the old walls and extended the building
[p.364]greatly towards the North, and a little towards the West; but he did not remove the Eastern limit on account of the private houses. He made the roof of Indian teak,[FN#40] and the walls of hewn and carved stone. These innovations caused some excitement, which he allayed by quoting a tradition of the Prophet, with one of which he appears perpetually to have been prepared. The saying in question was, according to some, “Were this my Mosque extended to Safa”-a hill in Meccah-“it verily would still be my Mosque”; according to others, “Were the Prophet’s Mosque extended to Zu’l Halifah[FN#41] it would still be his.” But Osman’s skill in the quotation of tradition did not prevent the new building being in part a cause of his death. It was finished on the first Muharram, A.H. 30.
At length, Al-Islam, grown splendid and powerful, determined to surpass other nations in the magnificence of its public buildings.[FN#42] In A.H. 88, Al-Walid[FN#43] the First, twelfth Caliph of the Benu Ummayah race, after building, or rather restoring, the noble “Jami’ al-Ammawi” (cathedral of the Ommiades) at Damascus, determined to
[p.365]display his liberality at Al-Madinah. The governor of the place, Umar bin Abd Al-Aziz, was directed to buy for seven thousand Dinars (ducats) all the hovels of raw brick that hedged in the Eastern side of the old Mosque. They were inhabited by descendants of the Prophet and of the early Caliphs, and in more than one case, the ejection of the holy tenantry was effected with considerable difficulty. Some of the women-ever the most obstinate on such occasions-refused to take money, and Omar was forced to the objectionable measure of turning them out of doors with exposed faces[FN#45] in full day. The Greek Emperor, applied to by the magnificent Caliph, sent immense presents, silver lamp chains, valuable curiosities,[FN#46] forty loads of small cut stones for pietra-dura, and a sum of eighty thousand Dinars, or, as others say, forty thousand Miskals of gold. He also despatched forty Coptic and forty Greek artists to carve the marble pillars and the casings of the walls, and to superintend the gilding and the mosaic work. One of these Christians was beheaded for sculpturing a hog on the Kiblah wall; and another, in an attempt to defile the roof, fell to the ground, and his brains were dashed out. The remainder Islamized, but this did not prevent the older Arabs murmuring that their Mosque had been turned into a Kanisah, a Christian idol-house.
The Hujrah, or chamber, where, by Mohammed’s permission, Azrail, the Angel of Death, separated his
[p.366]soul from his body, whilst his head was lying in the lap of Ayishah, his favourite wife, was now for the first time taken into the Mosque. The raw-brick enceinte[FN#46] which surrounded the three graves was exchanged for one of carved stone, enclosed by an outer precinct with a narrow passage between.[FN#47] These double walls were either without a door, or had only a small blocked-up wicket on the Northern side, and from that day (A.H. 90), no one, says Al-Samanhudi, has been able to approach the sepulchre.[FN#48] A minaret was erected at each corner of the Mosque.[FN#49] The building was enlarged to 200 cubits by 167, and was finished in A.H. 91. When Al-Walid, the Caliph, visited it in state, he inquired of his lieutenant why greater magnificence had not been displayed in the erection; upon which Omar, the governor, informed him,
[p.367]to his astonishment, that the walls alone had cost forty-five thousand ducats.[FN#50]
The fourth Mosque was erected in A.H. 191, by Al-Mahdi, third prince of the Benu Abbas or Baghdad Caliphs-celebrated in history only for spending enormous sums upon a pilgrimage. He enlarged the building by adding ten handsome pillars of carved marble, with gilt capitals, on the Northern side. In A.H. 202, Al-Ma’amun made further additions to this Mosque. It was from Al-Mahdi’s Masjid that Al-Hakim bi’Amri ‘llah, the third Fatimite Caliph of Egypt, and the deity of the Druze sect, determined to steal the bodies of the Prophet and his two companions. About A.H. 412, he sent emissaries to Al-Madinah: the attempt, however, failed, and the would-be violators of the tomb lost their lives. It is generally supposed that Al-Hakim’s object was to transfer the Visitation to his own capital; but in one so manifestly insane it is difficult to discover the spring of action. Two Christians, habited like Maghrabi pilgrims, in A.H. 550, dug a mine from a neighbouring house into the temple. They were discovered, beheaded, and burned to ashes. In relating these events the Moslem historians mix up many foolish preternaturalisms with credible matter. At last, to prevent a recurrence of such sacrilegious attempts, Al-Malik al-Adil Nur al-Din of the Baharite Mamluk Sultans, or, according to others, Sultan Nur al-Din Shahid Mahmud bin Zangi, who, warned by a vision of the Apostle, had started for Al-Madinah only in time to discover the two Christians, surrounded the holy place with a deep trench filled with molten lead. By this means Abu Bakr and Omar, who had run considerable risks of their own, have ever since been enabled to occupy their last homes undisturbed.
In A.H. 654, the fifth Mosque was erected in consequence of a fire, which some authors attribute to a
[p.368]volcano that broke out close to the town in terrible eruption[FN#51]; others, with more fanaticism and less probability, to the schismatic Benu Husayn, then the guardians of the tomb. On this occasion the Hujrah was saved, together with the old and venerable copies of the Koran there deposited, especially the Cufic MSS., written by Osman, the third Caliph. The piety of three sovereigns, Al-Mustasim (last Caliph of Baghdad), Al-Muzaffar Shems al-Din Yusuf, chief of Al-Yaman, and Al-Zahir Beybars, Baharite Sultan of Egypt, completed the work in A.H. 688. This building was enlarged and beautified by the princes of Egypt, and lasted upwards of two hundred years.
The sixth Mosque was built, almost as it now stands, by Kaid-Bey, nineteenth Sultan of the Circassian Mamluk kings of Egypt, in A.H. 888: it is now therefore more than four centuries old. Al-Mustasim’s Mosque had been struck by lightning during a storm; thirteen men were killed at prayers, and the destroying element spared nothing but the interior of the Hujrah.[FN#52] The railing and dome were restored; niches and a pulpit were sent from Cairo, and the gates and minarets were distributed as they are now. Not content with this, Kaid-Bey established “Wakf” (bequests) and pensions, and introduced order among the attendants on the tomb. In the tenth century, Sultan Sulayman the Magnificent paved with fine white marble the Rauzah or garden, which Kaid-Bey, not daring to alter, had left of earth, and erected the fine minaret that bears his name.
[p.369]During the dominion of the later Sultans, and of Mohammed Ali, a few trifling presents, of lamps, carpets, wax candles and chandeliers, and a few immaterial alterations, have been made. The present head of Al-Islam is, as I have before said, rebuilding one of the minarets and the Northern colonnade of the temple.
Such is the history of the Mosque’s prosperity.
During the siege of Al-Madinah by the Wahhabis,[FN#53] the principal people seized and divided amongst themselves the treasures of the tomb, which must have been considerable. When the town surrendered, Sa’ud, accompanied by his principal officers, entered the Hujrah, but, terrified by dreams, he did not penetrate behind the curtain, or attempt to see the tomb. He plundered, however, the treasures in the passage, the “Kaukab al-Durri[FN#54]” (or pearl star), and the ornaments sent as presents from every part of Al-Islam. Part of these he sold, it is said, for 150,000 Riyals (dollars), to Ghalib, Sharif of Meccah, and the rest he carried with him to Daraiyah, his capital.[FN#55] An accident prevented any further desecration of the building. The greedy Wahhabis, allured by the appearance of the golden or gilt globes and crescents surmounting the green dome, attempted to throw down the latter. Two of their number, it is said, were killed by falling
[p.370]from the slippery roof,[FN#56] and the rest, struck by superstitious fears, abandoned the work of destruction. They injured, however, the prosperity of the place by taxing the inhabitants, by interrupting the annual remittances, and by forbidding visitors to approach the tomb. They are spoken of with abhorrence by the people, who quote a peculiarly bad trait in their characters, namely, that in return for any small religious assistance of prayer or recitation, they were in the habit of giving a few grains of gunpowder, or something equally valuable, instead of “stone-dollars.[FN#57]”
When Abdullah, son of Sa’ud, had concluded in A.D. 1815 a treaty of peace with Tussun Pasha, the Egyptian General bought back from the townspeople, for 10,000 Riyals, all the golden vessels that had not been melted down, and restored the treasure to its original place. This I have heard denied; at the same time it rests upon credible evidence. Amongst Orientals the events of the last generation are, usually speaking, imperfectly remembered, and the Olema are well acquainted with the history of vicissitudes which took place 1200 years ago, when profoundly ignorant of what their grandfathers witnessed. Many incredible tales also I heard concerning the present wealth of the Al-Madinah Mosque: this must be expected when the exaggeration is considered likely to confer honour upon the exaggerator.
The establishment attached to the Al-Madinah Mosque is greatly altered since Burckhardt’s time,[FN#58] the result of the increasing influence of the Turkish half-breeds
[p.371]It is still extensive, because in the first place the principle of divided labour is a favourite throughout the East, and secondly because the Sons of the Holy Cities naturally desire to extract as much as they can from the Sons of other cities with the least amount of work. The substance of the following account was given to me by Omar Effendi, and I compared it with the information of others upon whom I could rely.
The principal of the Mosque, or Shaykh al-Harim, is no longer a neuter.[FN#59] The present is a Turkish Pasha, Osman, appointed from Constantinople with a salary of about 30,000 piastres a month. His Naib or deputy is a black eunuch, the chief of the Aghawat,[FN#60] upon a pay of 5000 piastres. The present principal of this college is one Tayfur Agha, a slave of Esma Sultanah, sister to the late Sultan Mahmud. The chief treasurer is called the Mudir al-Harim; he keeps an eye upon the Khaznadar, or treasurer, whose salary is 2000 piastres. The Mustaslim is the chief of the Katibs, or writers who settle the
[p.372]accounts of the Mosque; his pay is 1500, and under him is a Nakib or assistant upon 1000 piastres. There are three Shaykhs of the eunuchs who receive from 700 to 1000 piastres a month each. The eunuchs, about a hundred and twenty in number, are divided into three orders. The Bawwabin, or porters, open the doors of the Mosque. The Khubziyah sweep the purer parts of the temple, and the lowest order, popularly called “Battalin,” clean away all impurities, beat those found sleeping, and act as beadles, a duty here which involves considerable use of the cane. These men receive as perquisites presents from each visitor when they offer him the usual congratulation, and for other small favours, such as permitting strangers to light the lamps,[FN#61] or to sweep the floor. Their pay varies from 250 to 500 piastres a month: they are looked upon as honourable men, and are, generally speaking, married, some of them indulging in three or four wives,-which would have aroused Juvenal’s bile. The Agha’s character is curious and exceptional as his outward conformation. Disconnected with humanity, he is cruel, fierce, brave, and capable of any villany. His frame is unnaturally long and lean, especially the arms and legs, with high shoulders, protruding joints, and a face by contrast extraordinarily large; he is unusually expert in the use of weapons, and sitting well “home,” he rides to admiration, his hoarse, thick voice investing him with all the circumstances of command.
Besides the eunuchs, there are a number of free servants, called Farrashin, attached to the Mosque; almost all the middle and lower class of citizens belong to this order. They are divided into parties of thirty each, and are changed every week, those on duty receiving a Ghazi or twenty-two piastres for their services. Their business
[p.373]is to dust, and to spread the carpets, to put oil and wicks into the lamps which the eunuchs let down from the ceiling, and, generally speaking, diligently to do nothing.
Finally, the menial establishment of the Mosque consists of a Shaykh al-Sakka (chief of the water-carriers), under whom are from forty-five to fifty men who sprinkle the floors, water the garden, and, for a consideration, supply a cupful of brackish liquid to visitors.
The literary establishment is even more extensive than the executive and the menial. There is a Kazi, or chief judge, sent every year from Constantinople. After twelve months at Al-Madinah, he passes on to Meccah, and returns home after a similar term of service in the second Holy City. Under him are three Muftis,[FN#62] of the Hanafi, the Shafe’i, and the Maliki schools; the fourth, or Hanbali, is not represented here or at Cairo.[FN#63] Each of these officers receives as pay about two hundred and fifty piastres a month. The Ruasa,[FN#64] as the Mu’ezzins (prayer-callers) here call themselves, are extensively represented; there are forty-eight or forty-nine of the lowest order, presided over by six Kubar or Masters, and these again are under the Shaykh al-Ruasa, who alone has the privilege of calling to prayers from the Raisiyah minaret. The Shaykh receives a hundred and fifty piastres, the chiefs about a hundred, and the common criers sixty; there are
[p.374]forty-five Khatibs, who preach and pray before the congregation on Fridays for a hundred and twenty piastres a month; they are under the Shaykh al-Khutaba. About the same sum is given to seventy-five Imams, who recite the five ordinary prayers of every day in the Mosque; the Shaykh al-Aimmat is their superior.[FN#65]
Almost all the citizens of Al-Madinah who have not some official charge about the temple qualify themselves to act as Muzawwirs. They begin as boys to learn the formula of prayer, and the conducting of visitors; and partly by begging, partly by boldness, they often pick up a tolerable livelihood at an early age. The Muzawwir will often receive strangers into his house, as was done to me, and direct their devotions during the whole time of their stay. For such service he requires a sum of money proportioned to his guests’ circumstances, but this fee does not end the connexion. If the Muzawwir visit the home of his Zair, he expects to be treated with the utmost hospitality, and to depart with a handsome present. A religious visitor will often transmit to his cicerone at Meccah and at Al-Madinah yearly sums to purchase for himself a prayer at the Ka’abah and the Prophet’s Tomb. The remittance is usually wrapped up in paper, and placed in a sealed leathern bag, somewhat like a portfolio, upon which is worked the name of the person entitled to receive it. It is then given in charge either to a trustworthy pilgrim, or to the public treasurer, who accompanies the principal caravans.
I could procure no exact information about the amount of money forwarded every year from Constantinople and Cairo to Al-Madinah; the only point upon which men seemed to agree was that they were defrauded of half their dues. When the Sadaka and Aukaf (the alms and bequests) arrive at the town, they are committed by the Surrah, or
[p.375]financier of the caravan, to the Muftis, the chief of the Khatibs, and the Kazi’s clerk. These officers form a committee, and after reckoning the total of the families entitled to pensions, divide the money amongst them, according to the number in each household, and the rank of the pensioners. They are divided into five orders:- The Olema, or learned, and the Mudarrisin, who profess, lecture, or teach adults in the Harim.
The Imams and Khatibs.
The descendants of the Prophet.
The Fukaha, poor divines, pedadogues, gerund-grinders, who teach boys to read the Koran.
The Awam, or nobile vulgus of the Holy City, including the Ahali, or burghers of the town, and the Mujawirin, or those settled in the place. Omar Effendi belonged to the second order, and he informed me that his share varied from three to fifteen Riyals per annum.
[FN#1] In Oriental geography the parasang still, as in the days of Pliny, greatly varies, from 1500 to 6000 yards. Captain Francklin, whose opinion is generally taken, makes it (in his Tour to Persia) a measure of about four miles (Preface to Ibn Haukal, by Sir Gore Ouseley).
[FN#2] M.C. de Perceval (Essai sur l’Histoire des Arabes avant l’Islamisme), makes Amlak son of Laoud (Lud), son of Shem, or, according to others, son of Ham. That learned writer identifies the Amalik with the Phoenicians, the Amalekites, the Canaanites, and the Hyksos. He alludes, also, to an ancient tradition which makes them to have colonised Barbary in Africa.
[FN#3] The Dabistan al-Mazahib relates a tradition that the Almighty, when addressing the angels in command, uses the Arabic tongue, but when speaking in mercy or beneficence, the Deri dialect of Persian. [FN#4] These were the giants who fought against Israel in Palestine. [FN#5] In this wild tradition we find a confirmation of the sound geographical opinion which makes Arabia “Une des pepinieres du genre humain” (M. Jomard). It must be remembered that the theatre of all earliest civilisation has been a fertile valley with a navigable stream, like Sind, Egypt, and Mesopotamia. The existence of such a spot in Arabia would have altered every page of her history; she would then have become a centre, not a source, of civilisation. Strabo’s Malothes river in Al-Yaman is therefore a myth. As it is, the immense population of the peninsula-still thick, even in the deserts-has, from the earliest ages, been impelled by drought, famine, or desire of conquest, to emigrate into happier regions. All history mentions two main streams which took their rise in the wilds. The first set to the North-East, through Persia, Mekran, Baluchistan, Sind, and the Afghan Mountains, as far as Samarkand, Bokhara, and Tibet; the other, flowing towards the North-West, passed through Egypt and Barbary into Etruria, Spain, the Isles of the Mediterranean, and Southern France. There are two minor emigrations chronicled in history, and written in the indelible characters of physiognomy and philology. One of these set in an exiguous but perennial stream towards India, especially Malabar, where, mixing with the people of the country, the Arab merchants became the progenitors of the Moplah race. The other was a partial emigration, also for commercial purposes, to the coast of Berberah, in Eastern Africa, where, mixing with the Galla tribes, the people of Hazramaut became the sires of the extensive Somali and Sawahil nations. Thus we have from Arabia four different lines of emigration, tending N.E. and S.E., N.W. and S.W. At some future time I hope to develop this curious but somewhat obscure portion of Arabian history. It bears upon a most interesting subject, and serves to explain, by the consanguinity of races, the marvellous celerity with which the faith of Al-Islam spread from the Pillars of Hercules to the confines of China-embracing part of Southern Europe, the whole of Northern and a portion of Central Africa, and at least three-fourths of the continent of Asia. [FN#6] Of this name M.C. de Perceval remarks, “Le mot Arcam etait une designation commune a tous ces rois.” He identifies it with Rekem (Numbers xxxi. 8), one of the kings of the Midianites; and recognises in the preservation of the royal youth the history of Agag and Samuel. [FN#7] And some most ignorantly add, “after the entrance of Moses into the Promised Land.”
[FN#8] In those days, we are told, the Jews, abandoning their original settlement in Al-Ghabbah or the low lands to the N. of the town, migrated to the highest portions of the Madinah plain on the S. and E., and the lands of the neighbourhood of the Kuba Mosque. [FN#9] When describing Ohod, I shall have occasion to allude to Aaron’s dome, which occupies the highest part. Few authorities, however, believe that Aaron was buried there; his grave, under a small stone cupola, is shown over the summit of Mount Hor, in the Sinaitic Peninsula, and is much visited by devotees. [FN#10] It must be remembered that many of the Moslem geographers derive the word “Arabia” from a tract of land in the neighbourhood of Al-Madinah.
[FN#11] Khaybar in Hebrew is supposed to signify a castle. D’Herbelot makes it to mean a pact or association of the Jews against the Moslems. This fort appears to be one of the latest as well as the earliest of the Hebrew settlements in Al-Hijaz. Benjamin of Tudela asserts that there were 50,000 Jews resident at their old colony, Bartema in A.D. 1703 found remnants of the people there, but his account of them is disfigured by fable. In Niebuhr’s time the Beni Khaybar had independent Shaykhs, and were divided into three tribes, viz., the Benu Masad, the Benu Shahan, and the Benu Anizah (this latter, however, is a Moslem name), who were isolated and hated by the other Jews, and therefore the traveller supposes them to have been Karaites. In Burckhardt’s day the race seems to have been entirely rooted out. I made many inquiries, and all assured me that there is not a single Jewish family now in Khaybar. It is indeed the popular boast in Al-Hijaz, that, with the exception of Jeddah (and perhaps Yambu’, where the Prophet never set his foot), there is not a town in the country harbouring an Infidel. This has now become a point of fanatic honour; but if history may be trusted, it has become so only lately.
[FN#12] When the Arabs see the ass turn tail to the wind and rain, they exclaim, “Lo! he turneth his back upon the mercy of Allah!” [FN#13] M.C. de Perceval quotes Judith, ii. 13, 26, and Jeremiah, xlix. 28, to prove that Holofernes, the general of Nebuchadnezzar the First, laid waste the land of Midian and other parts of Northern Arabia. [FN#14] Saba in Southern Arabia.
[FN#15] The erection of this dyke is variously attributed to Lukman the Elder (of the tribe of Ad) and to Saba bin Yashjab. It burst according to some, beneath the weight of a flood; according to others, it was miraculously undermined by rats. A learned Indian Shaykh has mistaken the Arabic word “Jurad,” a large kind of mouse or rat, for “Jarad,” a locust, and he makes the wall to have sunk under a “bar i Malakh,” or weight of locusts! No event is more celebrated in the history of pagan Arabia than this, or more trustworthy, despite the exaggeration of the details-the dyke is said to have been four miles long by four broad-and the fantastic marvels which are said to have accompanied its bursting. The ruins have lately been visited by M. Arnaud, a French traveller, who communicated his discovery to the French Asiatic Society in 1845. [FN#16] Ma al-Sama, “the water (or “the splendour”) of heaven,” is, generally speaking, a feminine name amongst the pagan Arabs; possibly it is here intended as a matronymic.
[FN#17] This expedition to Al-Madinah is mentioned by all the pre-Islamatic historians, but persons and dates are involved in the greatest confusion. Some authors mention two different expeditions by different Tobbas; others only one, attributing it differently, however, to two Tobbas,-Abu Karb in the 3rd century of the Christian era, and Tobba al-Asghar, the last of that dynasty, who reigned, according to some, in A.D. 300, according to others in A.D. 448. M.C. de Perceval places the event about A.D. 206, and asserts that the Aus and Khazraj did not emigrate to Al-Madinah before A.D. 300. The word Tobba or Tubba, I have been informed by some of the modern Arabs, is still used in the Himyaritic dialect of Arabic to signify “the Great” or “the Chief.”
[FN#18] Nothing is more remarkable in the annals of the Arabs than their efforts to prove the Ishmaelitic descent of Mohammed; at the same time no historic question is more open to doubt. [FN#19] If this be true it proves that the Jews of Al-Hijaz had in those days superstitious reverence for the Ka’abah; otherwise the Tobba, after conforming to the law of Moses, would not have shown it this mark of respect. Moreover there is a legend that the same Rabbis dissuaded the Tobba from plundering the sacred place when he was treacherously advised so to do by the Benu Hudayl Arabs. I have lately perused “The Worship of Ba’alim in Israel,” based upon the work of Dr. R. Dozy, “The Israelites in Mecca.” By Dr. H. Oort. Translated from the Dutch, and enlarged, with Notes and Appendices, by the Right Rev. John William Colenso, D.D. (Longmans.) I see no reason why Meccah or Beccah should be made to mean “A Slaughter”; why the Ka’abah should be founded by the Simeonites; why the Hajj should be the Feast of Trumpets; and other assertions in which everything seems to be taken for granted except etymology, which is tortured into confession. If Meccah had been founded by the Simeonites, why did the Persians and the Hindus respect it?
[FN#20] It is curious that Abdullah, Mohammed’s father, died and was buried at Al-Madinah, and that his mother Aminah’s tomb is at Abwa, on the Madinah road. Here, too, his great-grandfather Hashim married Salma Al-Mutadalliyah, before him espoused to Uhayhah, of the Aus tribe. Shaybah, generally called Abd al-Muttalib, the Prophet’s grandfather, was the son of Salma, and was bred at Al-Madinah. [FN#21] Ayyas bin Ma’az died, it is said, a Moslem. [FN#22] “Bayat al-Akabat al-ula.” It is so called because this oath was sworn at a place called Al-Akabah (the Mountain-road), near Muna. A Mosque was afterwards built there to commemorate the event. [FN#23] Some Moslem writers suppose that Mohammed singled out twelve men as apostles, and called them Nakil, in imitation of the example of our Saviour. Other Moslems ignore both the fact and the intention. M.C. de Perceval gives the names of these Nakils in vol. iii. p. 8. [FN#24] Orthodox Moslems do not fail to quote this circumstance in honour of the first Caliph, upon whom moreover they bestow the title of “Friend of the Cave.” The Shi’ahs, on the other hand, hating Abu Bakr, see in it a symptom of treachery, and declare that the Prophet feared to let the “Old Hyena,” as they opprobriously term the venerable successor, out of his sight for fear lest he should act as spy to the Kuraysh. The voice of history and of common sense is against the Shi’ahs. M.C. de Perceval justly remarks, that Abu Bakr and Omar were men truly worthy of their great predecessor. [FN#25] This animal’s name, according to some, was Al-Kaswa (“the tips of whose ears are cropped”); according to others Al-Jada’a (“one mutilated in the ear, hand, nose, or lip”). The Prophet bought her for 800 dirhams, on the day before his flight, from Abu Bakr, who had fattened two fine animals of his own breeding. The camel was offered as a gift, but Mohammed insisted upon paying its price, because, say the Moslem casuists, he being engaged in the work of God would receive no aid from man. According to M.C. de Perceval, the Prophet preached from the back of Al-Kaswa the celebrated pilgrimage sermon at Arafat on the 8th March, A.D. 632.
[FN#26] The Prophet is generally supposed to have started from Meccah on the first of the same month, on a Friday or a Monday. This discrepancy is supposed to arise from the fact that Mohammed fled his house in Meccah on a Friday, passed three days in the cave on Jabal Saur, and finally left it for Al-Madinah on Monday, which therefore, according to Moslem divines, was the first day of the “Hijrah.” But the aera now commences on the 1st of the previous Muharram, an arrangement made seventeen years after the date of the flight by Omar the Caliph, with the concurrence of Ali.
[FN#27] The distance from Kuba to Al-Madinah is little more than three miles, for which six hours-Friday prayers being about noon-may be considered an inordinately long time. But our author might urge as a reason that the multitude of people upon a narrow road rendered the Prophet’s advance a slow one, and some historians relate that he spent several hours in conversation with the Benu Salim. [FN#28] Mohammed never would eat these strong smelling vegetables on account of his converse with the angels, even as modern “Spiritualists” refuse to smoke tobacco; at the same time he allowed his followers to do so, except when appearing in his presence, entering a Mosque, or joining in public prayers. The pious Moslem still eats his onions with these limitations. Some sects, however, as the Wahhabis, considering them abominable, avoid them on all occasions. [FN#29] The name of the tribe literally means “sons of a carpenter”; hence the error of the learned and violent Humphrey Prideaux, corrected by Sale.
[FN#30] Some say that Abu Bakr had no abode near the Mosque. But it is generally agreed upon, that he had many houses, one in Al-Bakia, another in the higher parts of Al-Madinah, and among them a hut on the spot between the present gates called Salam and Rahmah. [FN#31] It is clear from the fact above stated, that in those days the Jews of Arabia were in a state of excitement, hourly expecting the advent of their Messiah, and that Mohammed believed himself to be the person appointed to complete the law of Moses. [FN#32] In many minor details the above differs from the received accounts of Pre-Islamitic and early Mohammedan history. Let the blame be borne by the learned Shaykh Abd al-Hakk al-Muhaddis of Delhi, and his compilation, the “Jazb al-Kulub ila Diyar al-Mahhub (the “Drawing of Hearts towards the Holy Parts”). From the multitude of versions at last comes correctness.
[FN#33] A Firman from the Porte, dated 13th February, 1841, provides for the paying of these pensions regularly. “It being customary to send every year from Egypt provisions in kind to the two Holy Cities, the provisions and other articles, whatever they may be, which have up to this time been sent to this place, shall continue to be sent thither.” Formerly the Holy Land had immense property in Egypt, and indeed in all parts of Al-Islam. About thirty years ago, Mohammed Ali Pasha bought up all the Wakf (church property), agreeing to pay for its produce, which he rated at five piastres the ardeb, when it was worth three times as much. Even that was not regularly paid. The Sultan has taken advantage of the present crisis to put down Wakf in Turkey. The Holy Land, therefore, will gradually lose all its land and house property, and will soon be compelled to depend entirely upon the presents of the pilgrims, and the Sadakah, or alms, which are still sent to it by the pious Moslems of distant regions. As might be supposed, both the Meccans and the Madani loudly bewail their hard fates, and by no means approve of the Ikram, the modern succedaneum for an extensive and regularly paid revenue. At a future time, I shall recur to this subject. [FN#34] The prayer-niche and the minaret both date their existence from the days of Al-Walid, the builder of the third Mosque. At this age of their empire, the Moslems had travelled far and had seen art in various lands; it is therefore not without a shadow of reason that the Hindus charge them with having borrowed their two favourite symbols, and transformed them into an arch and a tower. [FN#35] The Ustawanat al-Hannanah, or “Weeping-Post.” See page 335, chapter XVI., ante.
[FN#36] As usual, there are doubts about the invention of this article. It was covered with cloth by the Caliph Osman, or, as others say, by Al-Mu’awiyah, who, deterred by a solar eclipse from carrying out his project of removing it to Damascus, placed it upon a new framework, elevated six steps above the ground. Al-Mahdi wished to raise the Mambar six steps higher, but was forbidden so to do by the Imam Malik. The Abbasides changed the pulpit, and converted the Prophet’s original seat into combs, which were preserved as relics. Some historians declare that the original Mambar was burnt with the Mosque in A.H. 654. In Ibn Jubayr’s time (A.H. 580), it was customary for visitors to place their right hands upon a bit of old wood, inserted into one of the pillars of the pulpit; this was supposed to be a remnant of the “weeping-post.” Every Sultan added some ornament to the Mambar, and at one time it was made of white marble, covered over with a dome of the “eight metals.” It is now a handsome structure, apparently of wood, painted and gilt of the usual elegant form, which has been compared by some travellers with the suggesta of Roman Catholic churches. I have been explicit about this pulpit, hoping that, next time the knotty question of Apostolic seats comes upon the tapis, our popular authors will not confound a Curule chair with a Moslem Mambar. Of the latter article, Lane (Mod. Egyptians, chap. iii.) gave a sketch in the “Interior of a Mosque.”
[FN#37] The Prophet is said to have had a dwelling-house in the Ambariyah, or the Western quarter of the Manakhah suburb, and here, according to some, he lodged Mariyah, the Coptic girl. As pilgrims do not usually visit the place, and nothing of the original building can be now remaining, I did not trouble myself about it. [FN#38] Meaning the Prophet’s fifteen to twenty-five wives. Their number is not settled. He left nine wives and two concubines. It was this title after the Koranic order (chap, xxxiii. v. 53) which rendered their widowhood eternal; no Arab would willingly marry a woman whom he has called mother or sister.
[FN#39] Authors mention a place outside the Northern wall called Al-Suffah, which was assigned by Mohammed as a habitation to houseless believers; from which circumstance these paupers derived the title of Ashab al-Suffah, “Companions of the Sofa.” [FN#40] So I translate the Arabicised word “Saj.” [FN#41] A place about five miles from Al-Madinah, on the Meccan way. See Chap. XIV.
[FN#42] And curious to say Al-Islam still has the largest cathedral in the world-St. Sophia’s at Constantinople. Next to this ranks St. Peter’s at Rome; thirdly, I believe, the “Jumma Masjid,” or cathedral of the old Moslem city Bijapur in India; the fourth is St. Paul’s, London,
[FN#43] It is to this monarch that the Saracenic Mosque-architecture mainly owes its present form. As will be seen, he had every advantage of borrowing from Christian, Persian, and even Indian art. From the first he took the dome, from the second the cloister-it might have been naturalised in Arabia before his time-and possibly from the third the minaret and the prayer-niche. The latter appears to be a peculiarly Hindu feature in sacred buildings, intended to contain the idol, and to support the lamps, flowers, and other offerings placed before it. [FN#44] The reader will remember that in the sixth year of the Hijrah, after Mohammed’s marriage with Zaynab, his wives were secluded behind the Hijab, Pardah, or curtain. A verse of the Koran directed the Moslems to converse with them behind this veil. Hence the general practice of Al-Islam: now it is considered highly disgraceful in any Moslem to make a Moslemah expose her face, and she will frequently found a threat upon the prejudice. A battle has been prevented by this means, and occasionally an insurrection has been caused by it. [FN#45] Amongst which some authors enumerate the goblet and the mirror of Kisra.
[FN#46] The outer wall, built by Al-Walid, remained till A.H. 550, when Jamal al-Din of Isafahan, Wazir to Nur al-Din Shahid Mahmud bin Zangi, supplied its place by a grating of open sandal woodwork, or, as others say, of iron. About the same time, Sayyid Abu ‘l Hayja sent from Egypt a sheet of white brocade, embroidered in red silk with the chapter Y.S., in order to cover the inner wall. This was mounted on the accession of Al-Mustazi bi’llah, the Caliph, after which it became the custom for every Sultan to renew the offering. And in A.H. 688, Kalaun of Egypt built the outer network of brass as it now is, and surmounted it with the Green Dome.
[FN#47] The inner wall, erected by Al-Walid, seems to have resisted the fire which in A.H. 654 burnt the Mosque to the ground. Also, in A.H. 886, when the building was consumed by lightning, the Hujrah was spared by the devouring element.
[FN#48] After the Prophet’s death and burial, Ayishah continued to occupy the same room, without even a curtain between her and the tomb. At last, vexed by the crowds of visitors, she partitioned off the hallowed spot with a wall. She visited the grave unveiled as long as her father Abu Bakr only was placed behind the Prophet; but when Omar’s corpse was added, she always covered her face. [FN#49] One of these, the minaret at the Bab-al-Salam, was soon afterwards overthrown by Al-Walid’s brother Sulayman, because it shaded the house of Marwan, where he lodged during his visit to Al-Madinah in the cold season.
[FN#50] The dinar (denarius) was a gold piece, a ducat, a sequin. [FN#51] I purpose to touch upon this event in a future chapter, when describing my route from Al-Madinah to Meccah. [FN#52] “On this occasion,” says Al-Samanhudi, quoted by Burckhardt, “the interior of the Hujrah was cleared, and three deep graves were found in the inside, full of rubbish, but the author of this history, who himself entered it, saw no traces of tombs.” Yet in another place he, an eye-witness, had declared that the coffin containing the dust of Mohammed was cased with silver. I repeat these details. [FN#53] Burckhardt has given a full account of this event in his history of the Wahhabis.
[FN#54] See Chapter XVI., ante.
[FN#55] My predecessor estimates the whole treasury in those days to have been worth 300,000 Riyals,-a small sum, if we consider the length of time during which it was accumulating. The chiefs of the town appropriated 1 cwt. of golden vessels, worth at most 50,000 dollars, and Sa’ud sold part of the plunder to Ghalib for 100,000 (I was told one-third more), reserving for himself about the same amount of pearls and corals. Burckhardt supposes that the governors of Al-Madinah, who were often independent chiefs, and sometimes guardians of the tombs, made occasional draughts upon the generosity of the Faithful. [FN#56] I inquired in vain about the substance that covered the dome. Some told me it was tinfoil; others supposed it to be rivetted with green tiles.
[FN#57] The Badawi calls a sound dollar “Kirsh Hajar,” or “Riyal Hajar,” a “stone dollar.”
[FN#58] At the same time his account is still carefully copied by our popular and general authors, who, it is presumed, could easily become better informed.
[FN#59] The Persians in remote times, as we learn from Herodotus (lib. 6), were waited upon by eunuchs, and some attribute to them the invention. Ammianus Marcellinus (lib. 14) ascribes the origin to Semiramis. In Al-Islam, the employment of such persons about the Mosque is a “Bida’ah” or custom unknown in the time of the Prophet. It is said to have arisen from the following three considerations: 1. These people are concentrated in their professions; 2. They must see and touch strange women at the shrines; and 3. The shrines are “Harim,” or sacred, having adyta which are kept secret from the prying eyes of men, and, therefore, should be served by eunuchs. It is strange that the Roman Catholic church, as well as the Moslem Mosque, should have admitted such an abomination.
[FN#60] One of these gentry, if called “Tawashi,”-his generic name,-would certainly insult a stranger. The polite form of address to one of them is “Agha”-Master,-in the plural “Aghawat.” In partibus, they exact the greatest respect from men, and the title of the Eunuch of the Tomb is worth a considerable sum to them. The eunuchs of Al-Madinah are more numerous and better paid than those of Meccah: they are generally the slaves of rich men at Constantinople, and prefer this city on account of its climate.
[FN#61] The “Sons of the City,” however, are always allowed to do such service gratis; if, indeed, they are not paid for it. [FN#62] Others told me that there were only two muftis at Al-Madinah, namely, those of the Hanafi and Shafe’i schools. If this be true, it proves the insignificance of the followers of Malik, which personage, like others, is less known in his own town than elsewhere. [FN#63] The Hanbali school is nowhere common except in Nijd, and the lands Eastward as far as Al-Hasa. At present it labours under a sort of imputation, being supposed to have thrown out a bad offshoot, the Wahhabis.
[FN#64] “Ruasa” is the plural of Rais, a chief or president. It is the term generally applied in Arabia to the captain of a vessel, and in Al-Yaman it often means a barber, in virtue, I presume, of its root-Ras, the head.
[FN#65] Some say that the Egyptian distinction between the Imam Khatib and the Imam Ratib does not obtain at Al-Madinah.
[p.376]CHAPTER XVIII.
AL-MADINAH.
IT is equally difficult to define, politically and geographically, the limits of Al-Hijaz. Whilst some authors, as Abulfeda,[FN#1] fix its Northern frontier at Aylah (Fort Al-‘Akabah) and the Desert, making Al-Yaman its Southern limit, others include in it only the tract of land lying between Meccah and Al-Madinah. The country has no natural boundaries, and its political limits change with every generation; perhaps, therefore, the best distribution of its frontier would be that which includes all the property called Holy Land, making Yambu’ the Northern, and Jeddah the Southern extremes, while a line drawn through Al-Madinah, Suwayrkiyah, and Jabal Kora-the mountain of Taif-might represent its Eastern boundary. Thus Al-Hijaz would be an irregular parallelogram, about two hundred and fifty miles in length, with a maximum breadth of one hundred and fifty miles.
Two meanings are assigned to the name of this venerated region. Most authorities make it mean the “Separator,” the “Barrier,” between Nijd and Tahamah,[FN#2] or between Al-Yaman and Syria. According to others, it signifies the “colligated,” i.e. by mountains. It is to be observed that the people of the country, especially the Badawin, distinguish the lowlands from the high region
[p.377]by different names; the former are called Tahamat al-Hijaz-the sea coast of Al-Hijaz, as we should say in India, “below the Ghauts;” the latter is known peculiarly as Al-Hijaz.[FN#3]
Madinat al-Nabi,[FN#4] the Prophet’s City, or, as it is
[p.378]usually called for brevity, Al-Madinah, the City, is situated on the borders of Nijd, upon the vast plateau of high land
[p.379] which forms central Arabia. The limits of the sanctuary called the Hudud al-Harim, as defined by the Apostle, may still serve to mark out the city’s plain. Northwards, at a distance of about three miles, is Jabal Ohod, or, according to others, Jabal Saur, a hill somewhat beyond Ohod; these are the last ribs of the vast tertiary and primitive chine[FN#5] which, extending from Taurus to near Aden, and from Aden again to Maskat, fringes the Arabian trapezium. To the South-west the plain is bounded by ridges of scoriaceous basalt, and by a buttress of rock called Jabal Ayr, like Ohod, about three miles distant from the town. Westward, according to some authors, is the Mosque Zu’l-Halifah. On the East there are no natural landmarks, nor even artificial, like the “Alamayn” at Meccah; an imaginary line, therefore, is drawn, forming an irregular circle of which the town is the centre, with a diameter from ten to twelve miles. Such is the sanctuary.[FN#6] Geographically considered, the
[p.380]plain is bounded, on the East, with a thin line of low dark hills, traversed by the Darb al-Sharki, or the “Eastern road,” through Al-Nijd to Meccah: Southwards, the plateau is open, and almost perfectly level as far as the eye can see.
Al-Madinah dates its origin doubtless from ancient times, and the cause of its prosperity is evident in the abundant supply of water, a necessary generally scarce in Arabia. The formation of the plateau is in some places salt sand, but usually a white chalk, and a loamy clay, which even by the roughest manipulation makes tolerable bricks. Lime also abounds. The town is situated upon a gently-shelving part of the plain, the, lowest portion of which, to judge from the versant, is at the southern base of Mount Ohod, hence called Al-Safilah, and the highest at the Awali, or plains about Kuba, and the East.
The Southern and South-Eastern walls of the suburb are sometimes carried away by violent “Sayl,” or torrents, which, after rain, sweep down from the Western as
[p.381]well as from the Eastern highlands. The water-flow is towards Al-Ghabbah, lowlands in the Northern and Western hills, a little beyond Mount Ohod. This basin receives the drainage of the mountains and the plain; according to some absorbing it, according to others collecting it till of sufficient volume to flow off to the sea. Water, though abundant, is rarely of good quality. In the days of the Prophet, the Madani consumed the produce of wells, seven of which are still celebrated by the people.[FN#7] Historians relate that Omar, the second Caliph, provided the town with drinking-water from the Northern parts of the plains by means of an aqueduct. The modern city is supplied by a source called the Ayn al-Zarka or Azure Spring,[FN#8] which arises some say at the foot of Mount Ayr, others, with greater probability, in the date-groves of Kuba. Its waters were first brought to Al-Madinah by Marwan, governor in Al-Mu’awiyah’s day. It now flows down a subterraneous canal, about thirty feet below the surface; in places the water is exposed to the air, and
[p.382]steps lead to it for the convenience of the inhabitants: this was the work of Sultan Sulayman the Magnificent. After passing through the town it turns to the North-west, its course being marked by a line of circular walls breast high, like the Kariz of Afghanistan, placed at unequal distances, and resembling wells: it then loses itself in the Nakhil or palm-groves. During my stay at Al-Madinah, I always drank this water, which appeared to me, as the citizens declared it to be, sweet and wholesome.[FN#9] There are many wells in the town, as water is found at about twenty feet below the surface of the soil: few produce anything fit for drinking, some being salt and others bitter. As usual in the hilly countries of the East, the wide beds and Fiumaras, even in the dry season, will supply travellers for a day or two with an abundance of water, filtrated through, and, in some cases, flowing beneath the sand.
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The climate of the plain is celebrated for a long, and, comparatively speaking, a rigorous winter; a popular saying records the opinion of the Apostle “that he who patiently endures the cold of Al-Madinah and the heat of Meccah, merits a reward in Paradise.” Ice is not seen in the town, but may frequently be met with, it is said, on Jabal Ohod; fires are lighted in the houses during winter, and palsies attack those who at this season imprudently bathe in unwarmed water. The fair complexions of the people prove that this account of the brumal rigours is not exaggerated. Chilly and violent winds from the Eastern Desert are much dreaded, and though Ohod screens the town on the North and North-East, a gap in the mountains to the North-West fills the
[p.383]air at times with raw and comfortless blasts. The rains begin in October, and last with considerable intervals through six months; the clouds, gathered by the hill-tops and the trees near the town, discharge themselves with violence, and about the equinoxes, thunder-storms are common. At such times the Barr al-Manakhah, or the open space between the town and the suburbs, is a sheet of water, and the land near the Southern and the South-Eastern wall of the faubourg becomes a pool. Rain, however, is not considered unhealthy here; and the people, unlike the Meccans and the Cairenes, expect it with pleasure, because it improves their date-trees and fruit plantations.[FN#10] In winter it usually rains at night, in spring during the morning, and in summer about evening time. This is the case throughout Al-Hijaz, as explained by the poet Labid in these lines, which describe the desolate site of an old encampment:-
“It (the place) hath been fertilised by the first spring showers of the constellations, and hath been swept by
The incessant torrents of the thunder-clouds, falling in heavy and in gentle rains,
>From each night-cloud, and heavily dropping morning-cloud, And the even-cloud, whose crashings are re-echoed from around.” “It (the place) hath been fertilised by the first spring showers of the constellations, and hath been swept by
The incessant torrents of the thunder-clouds, falling in heavy and in gentle rains,
>From each night-cloud, and heavily dropping morning-cloud, And the even-cloud, whose crashings are re-echoed from around.”
And the European reader will observe that the Arabs generally reckon three seasons, including our autumn, in their summer. The hot weather at Al-Madinah appeared to me as extreme as the hibernal cold is described to be, but the air was dry, and the open plain prevented the faint and stagnant sultriness which distinguishes Meccah. Moreover, though the afternoons were close, the nights and the mornings were cool and dewy. At this season the citizens sleep on the house-tops, or on the ground
[p.384]outside their doors. Strangers must follow this example with considerable circumspection; the open air is safe in the Desert, but in cities it causes, to the unaccustomed, violent catarrhs and febrile affections.
I collect the following notes upon the diseases and medical treatment of the Northern Hijaz. Al-Madinah has been visited four times by the Rih al-Asfar[FN#11] (yellow wind), or Asiatic Cholera, which is said to have committed great ravages, sometimes carrying off whole households. In the Rahmat al-Kabirah, the “Great Mercy,” as the worst attack is piously called, whenever a man vomited, he was abandoned to his fate; before that, he was treated with mint, lime-juice, and copious draughts of coffee. It is still the boast of Al-Madinah, that the Taun, or plague, has never passed her frontier.[FN#12] The Judari, or smallpox, appears to be indigenous to the countries bordering upon the Red Sea; we read of it there in the earliest works of the Arabs,[FN#13] and even to the present time it sometimes sweeps through Arabia and the Somali
[p.385] country with desolating violence. In the town of Al-Madinah it is fatal to children, many of whom, however, are in these days inoculated[FN#14]: amongst the Badawin, old men die of it, but adults are rarely victims, either in the City or in the Desert. The nurse closes up the room whilst the sun is up, and carefully excludes the night air, believing that, as the disease is “hot,[FN#15]” a breath of wind will kill the patient. During the hours of darkness, a lighted candle or lamp is always placed by the side of the bed, or the sufferer would die of madness, brought on by evil spirits or fright. Sheep’s wool is burnt in the sick-room, as death would follow the inhaling of any perfume. The only remedy I have heard of is pounded Kohl (antimony) drunk in water, and the same is drawn along the breadth of the eyelid, to prevent blindness. The diet is Adas (lentils),[FN#16] and a peculiar kind of date, called Tamr al-Birni. On the twenty-first day the patient is washed with salt and tepid water.
Ophthalmia is rare.[FN#17] In the summer, quotidian and
[p.386]tertian fevers (Hummah Salis) are not uncommon, and if accompanied by emetism, they are frequently fatal.
[p.387]The attack generally begins with the Naffazah, or cold fit, and is followed by Al-Hummah, the hot stage. The principal remedies are cooling drinks, such as Sikanjabin (oxymel) and syrups. After the fever the face and body frequently swell, and indurated lumps appear on the legs and stomach. There are also low fevers, called simply Hummah; they are usually treated by burning charms in the patient’s room. Jaundice and bilious complaints are common, and the former is popularly cured in a peculiar way. The sick man looks into a pot full of water, whilst the exorciser, reciting a certain spell, draws the heads of two needles from the patient’s ears along his eyes, down his face, lastly dipping them into water, which at once becomes yellow. Others have “Mirayat,” magic mirrors,[FN#18] on which the patient looks, and looses the complaint.
[p.388] Dysenteries frequently occur in the fruit season, when the greedy Arabs devour all manner of unripe
[p.389]peaches, grapes, and pomegranates. The popular treatment is by the actual cautery; the scientific affect the use of drastics and astringent simples, and the Bizr al-Kutn (cotton-seed), toasted, pounded, and drunk in warm water. Almost every one here, as in Egypt, suffers more or less from haemorrhoids; they are treated by dietetics-eggs and leeks-and by a variety of drugs, Myrobalans, Lisan-al-Hamal (Arnoglossum), etc. But the patient looks with horror at the scissors and the knife, so that they seldom succeed in obtaining a radical cure. The Filaria Medinensis, locally called “Farantit,” is no longer common at the place which gave it its European name. At Yambu’, however, the people suffer much from the Vena appearing in the legs. The complaint is treated here as in India and in Abyssinia: when the tumour bursts, and the worm shows, it is extracted by being gradually wound round a splinter of wood. Hydrophobia is rare, and the people have many superstitions about it. They suppose that a bit of meat falls from the sky, and that a dog eating it becomes mad. I was assured by respectable persons, that when a man is bitten, they shut him up with food, in a solitary chamber, for four days, and that if at the end of that time he still howls like a dog, they expel the Ghul (demon) from him, by pouring over him boiling water mixed with ashes-a certain cure I can easily believe. The only description of leprosy known in Al-Hijaz is that called “Al-Baras”: it appears in white patches on the skin, seldom attacks any but the poorer classes, and is considered incurable. Wounds are treated by Marham, or ointments, especially by the “Balesan,” or Balm of Meccah; a cloth is tied round the limb, and
[p.390]not removed till the wound heals, which amongst this people of simple life, generally takes place by first intention. Ulcers are common in Al-Hijaz, as indeed all over Arabia. We read of them in ancient times. In A.D. 504, the poet and warrior, Amr al-Kays, died of this dreadful disease, and it is related that when Mohammed Abu Si Mohammed, in A.H. 132, conquered Al-Yaman with an army from Al-Hijaz, he found the people suffering from sloughing and mortifying sores, so terrible to look upon that he ordered the sufferers to be burnt alive. Fortunately for the patients, the conqueror died suddenly before his inhuman mandate was executed. These sores here, as in Al-Yaman,[FN#19] are worst when upon the shin bones; they eat deep into the leg, and the patient dies of fever and gangrene. They are treated on first appearance by the actual cautery, and, when practicable, by cutting off the joint; the drugs popularly applied are Tutiya (tutty) and verdigris. There is no cure but rest, a generous diet, and change of air.
By the above short account it will be seen that the Arabs are no longer the most skilful physicians in the world. They have, however, one great advantage in their practice, and they are sensible enough to make free use of it. As the children of almost all the respectable citizens are brought up in the Desert, the camp becomes to them a native village. In cases of severe wounds or chronic diseases, the patient is ordered off to the Black Tents, where he lives as a Badawi, drinking camels’ milk (a diet for the first three or four days highly cathartic), and doing nothing. This has been the practice from time immemorial in Arabia, whereas Europe is only beginning to systematise the adhibition of air, exercise, and simple living. And even now we are obliged to veil it under the garb of charlatanry-to call it a “milk-cure” in Switzerland,
[p.391]a “water-cure” in Silesia, a “grape-cure” in France, a “hunger-cure” in Germany, and other sensible names which act as dust in the public eyes.
Al-Madinah consists of three parts,-a town, a fort, and a suburb little smaller than the body of the place. The town itself is about one-third larger than Suez, or nearly half the size of Meccah. It is a walled enclosure forming an irregular oval with four gates. The Bab al-Shami, or ” Syrian Gate,” in the North-West side of the enceinte, leads towards Jabal Ohod, Hamzah’s burial-place, and the mountains. In the Eastern wall, the Bab al-Jum’ah, or Friday Gate, opens upon the Nijd road and the cemetery, Al-Bakia. Between the Shami and the Jum’ah gates, towards the North, is the Bab al-Ziyafah (of Hospitality); and Westwards the Bab al-Misri (Egyptian) opens upon the plain called the Barr al-Manakhah. The Eastern and the Egyptian gates are fine massive buildings, with double towers close together, painted with broad bands of red, yellow, and other colors, not unlike that old entrance of the Cairo citadel which opens upon the Ramayliyah plain. They may be compared with the gateway towers of the old Norman castles-Arques, for instance. In their shady and well-watered interiors, soldiers keep guard, camel-men dispute, and numerous idlers congregate, to enjoy the luxuries of coolness and of companionship. Beyond this gate, in the street leading to the Mosque, is the great bazar. Outside it lie the Suk al-Khuzayriyah, or greengrocers’ market, and the Suk al-Habbabah, or the grain bazar, with a fair sprinkling of coffee-houses. These markets are long masses of palm-leaf huts, blackened in the sun and wind, of a mean and squalid appearance, detracting greatly from the appearance of the gates. Amongst them there is a little domed and whitewashed building, which I was told is a Sabil or public fountain. In the days of the Prophet the town
[p.392] was not walled. Even in Al-Idrisi’s time (twelfth century), and as late as Bartema’s (eighteenth century), the fortifications were mounds of earth, made by order of Kasim al-Daulat al-Ghori, who re-populated the town and provided for its inhabitants. Now, the enceinte is in excellent condition. The walls are well built of granite and lava blocks, in regular layers, cemented with lime; they are provided with “Mazghal” (or “Matras”) long loopholes, and “Shararif” or trefoil-shaped crenelles: in order to secure a flanking fire, semicircular towers, also loopholed and crenellated, are disposed in the curtain at short and irregular intervals. Inside, the streets are what they always should be in these torrid lands, deep, dark, and narrow, in few places paved-a thing to be deprecated-and generally covered with black earth well watered and trodden to hardness. The most considerable lines radiate towards the Mosque. There are few public buildings. The principal Wakalahs are four in number; one is the Wakalat Bab Salam near the Harim, another the Wakalat Jabarti, and two are inside the Misri gate; they all belong to Arab citizens. These Caravanserais are used principally as stores, rarely for dwelling-places like those of Cairo; travellers, therefore, must hire houses at a considerable expense, or pitch tents to the detriment of health and to their extreme discomfort. The other public buildings are a few mean coffee-houses and an excellent bath in the Harat Zarawan, inside the town: far superior to the unclean establishments of Cairo, it borrows something from the luxury of Stambul. The houses are, for the East, well built, flat-roofed and double-storied; the materials generally used are a basaltic scoria, burnt brick, and palm wood. The best enclose spacious courtyards and small gardens with wells, where water basins and date trees gladden the owners’ eyes. The latticed balconies, first seen by the overland European traveller at Malta, are here common, and the windows are
[p.393]mere apertures in the wall, garnished, as usual in Arab cities, with a shutter of planking. Al-Madinah fell rapidly under the Wahhabis, but after their retreat, it soon rose again, and now it is probably as comfortable and flourishing a little city as any to be found in the East. It contains between fifty and sixty streets, including the alleys and culs-de-sac. There is about the same number of Harat or quarters; but I have nothing to relate of them save their names. Within the town few houses are in a dilapidated condition. The best authorities estimate the number of habitations at about 1500 within the enceinte, and those in the suburb at 1000. I consider both accounts exaggerated; the former might contain 800, and the Manakhah perhaps 500; at the same time I must confess not to have counted them, and Captain Sadlier (in A.D. 1819) declares that the Turks, who had just made a kind of census, reckoned 6000 houses and a population of 18,000 souls. Assuming the population to be 16,000 (Burckhardt raises it as high as 20,000), of which 9000 occupy the city, and 7000 the suburbs and the fort, this would give a little more than twelve inhabitants to each house, a fair estimate for an Arab town, where the abodes are large and slaves abound.[FN#20]
The castle joins on to the North-West angle of the city enceinte, and the wall of its Eastern outwork is pierced for
[p.394]a communication through a court strewed with guns and warlike apparatus, between the Manakhah Suburb and the Bab al-Shami, or the Syrian Gate. Having been refused entrance into the fort, I can describe only its exterior. The outer wall resembles that of the city, only its towers are more solid, and the curtain appears better calculated for work. Inside, a donjon, built upon a rock, bears proudly enough the banner of the Crescent and the Star; its whitewashed walls make it a conspicuous object, and guns pointed in all directions, especially upon the town, project from their embrasures. The castle is said to contain wells, bomb-proofs, provisions, and munitions of war; if so, it must be a kind of Gibraltar to the Badawin and the Wahhabis. The garrison consisted of a Nisf Urtah,[FN#21] or half battalion (four hundred men) of Nizam infantry, commanded by a Pasha; his authority also extends to a Sanjak, or about five hundred Kurdish and Albanian Bash-Buzuks, whose duty it is to escort caravans, to convey treasures, and to be shot at in the Passes. The Madani, who, as usual with Orientals, take a personal pride in their castle, speak of it with much exaggeration. Commanded by a high line of rocks on the North-West, and built as it is in most places without moat, glacis, earthwork, or outworks, a few shells and a single battery of siege guns would soon render it untenable. In ancient times it has more than once been held by a party at feud with the town, for whose mimic battles the Barr al-Manakhah was a fitting field. Northward from the fort, on the road to Ohod, but still within fire, is a long many-windowed building, formerly Da’ud Pasha’s palace. In my time it had been bought by Abbas Pasha of Egypt.
[p.395]The suburbs lie to the South and West of the town. Southwards they are separated from the enceinte by a wide road, called the Darb al-Janazah, the Road of Biers, so called because the corpses of certain schismatics, who may not pass through the city, are carried this way to their own cemetery near the Bab al-Jumah, or Eastern Gate. Westwards, between Al-Madinah and its faubourg, lies the plain of Al-Manakhah, about three-quarters of a mile long, by three hundred yards broad. The straggling suburbs occupy more ground than the city: fronting the enceinte they are without walls; towards the West, where open country lies, they are enclosed by mud or raw brick ramparts, with little round towers, all falling to decay. A number of small gates lead from the suburb into the country. The only large one, a poor copy of the Bab al-Nasr at Cairo, is the Ambari or Western entrance, through which we passed into Al-Madinah. The suburb contains no buildings of any consequence, except the Khaskiyah, or official residence of the Muhafiz (governor), a plain building near the Barr al-Manakhah, and the Khamsah Masajid, or the Five Mosques, which every Zair is expected to visit. They are
The Prophet’s Mosque in the Manakhah. Abu Bakr’s near the Ayn al-Zarka.
Ali’s Mosque in the Zukak al-Tayyar of the Manakhah. Some authors call this the “Musalla al-Id,” because the Prophet here prayed the Festival Prayer.
Omar’s Mosque, near the Bab Kuba of the Manakhah, and close to the little torrent called Al-Sayh.
Belal’s Mosque, celebrated in books; I did not see it, and some Madani assured me that it no longer exists.
A description of one of these buildings will suffice, for they are all similar. Mohammed’s Mosque in the Manakhah stands upon a spot formerly occupied, some say, by the Jami Ghamamah. Others believe it to be founded upon the Musalla al-Nabi, a place where the
[p.396]Apostle recited the first Festival prayers after his arrival at Al-Madinah, and used frequently to pray, and to address those of his followers who lived far from the Harim,[FN#22] or Sanctuary. It is a trim modern building of cut stone and lime in regular layers, of parallelogramic shape, surmounted by one large and four small cupolas. These are all whitewashed; and the principal is capped with a large crescent, or rather a trident, rising from a series of gilt globes: the other domes crown the several corners. The minaret is of the usual Turkish shape, with a conical roof, and a single gallery for the Mu’ezzin. An Acacia-tree or two on the Eastern side, and behind it a wall-like line of mud houses, finish the coup-d’oeil; the interior of this building is as simple as is the exterior. And here I may remark that the Arabs have little idea of splendour, either in their public or in their private architecture. Whatever strikes the traveller’s eye in Al-Hijaz is always either an importation or the work of foreign artists. This arises from the simple tastes of the people, combined, doubtless, with their notable thriftiness. If strangers will build for them, they argue, why should they build for themselves? Moreover, they have scant inducement to lavish money upon grand edifices. Whenever a disturbance takes place, domestic or from without, the principal buildings are sure to suffer. And the climate is inimical to their enduring. Both ground and air at Al-Madinah, as well as at Meccah, are damp and nitrous in winter, in summer dry and torrid: the lime is poor; palm-timber soon decays: even foreign wood-work suffers, and a few years of neglect suffice to level the proudest pile with the dust.
The suburbs to the South of Al- Madinah are a collection
[p.397]of walled villages, with plantations and gardens between. They are laid out in the form, called here, as in Egypt, Hosh-court-yards, with single-storied tenements opening into them. These enclosures contain the cattle of the inhabitants; they have strong wooden doors, shut at night to prevent “lifting,” and they are capable of being stoutly defended. The inhabitants of the suburb are for the most part Badawi settlers, and a race of schismatics who will be noticed in another chapter. Beyond these suburbs, to the South, as well as to the North and Northeast, lie gardens and extensive plantations of palm-trees.
[FN#1] To the East he limits Al-Hijaz by Yamamah (which some include in it), Nijd, and the Syrian desert, and to the West by the Red Sea. The Greeks, not without reason, included it in their Arabia Petraea. Niebuhr places the Southern boundary at Hali, a little town south of Kunfudah (Gonfoda). Captain Head (Journey from India to Europe) makes the village Al-Kasr, opposite the Island of Kotambul, the limit of Al-Hijaz to the South.
[FN#2] Or, according to others, between Al-Yaman and Syria. [FN#3] If you ask a Badawi near Meccah, whence his fruit comes, he will reply “min Al-Hijaz,” “from the Hijaz,” meaning from the mountainous part of the country about Taif. This would be an argument in favour of those who make the word to signify a “place tied together,” (by mountains). It is notorious that the Badawin are the people who best preserve the use of old and disputed words; for which reason they were constantly referred to by the learned in the palmy days of Moslem philology. “Al-Hijaz,” also, in this signification, well describes the country, a succession of ridges and mountain chains; whereas such a name as “the barrier” would appear to be rather the work of some geographer in his study. Thus Al-Nijd was so called from its high and open lands, and, briefly, in this part of the world, names are most frequently derived from some physical and material peculiarity of soil or climate.
[FN#4] Amongst a people, who, like the Arabs or the Spaniards, hold a plurality of names to be a sign of dignity, so illustrious a spot as Al-Madinah could not fail to be rich in nomenclature. A Hadis declares, “to Al-Madinah belong ten names”: books, however, enumerate nearly a hundred, of which a few will suffice as a specimen. Tabah, Tibah, Taibah, Tayyibah, and Mutayyibah, (from the root “Tib,” “good,” “sweet,” or “lawful,”) allude to the physical excellencies of Al-Madinah as regards climate-the perfume of the Prophet’s tomb, and of the red rose, which was a thorn before it blossomed by the sweat of his brow-and to its being free from all moral impurity, such as the presence of Infidels, or worshippers of idols. Mohammed declared that he was ordered by Allah to change the name of the place to Tabah, from Yasrib or Asrib. The latter, according to some, was a proper name of a son of Noah; others apply it originally to a place west of Mount Ohod, not to Al-Madinah itself; and quote the plural form of the word, “Asarib,” (“spots abounding in palms and fountains,”) as a proof that it does not belong exclusively to a person. However this may be, the inauspicious signification of Yasrib, whose root is “Sarab,” (destruction,) and the notorious use of the name by the Pagan Arabs, have combined to make it, like the other heathen designation, Al-Ghalabah, obsolete, and the pious Moslem who pronounces the word is careful to purify his mouth by repeating ten times the name “Al-Madinah.” Barah and Barrah allude to its obedience and purity; Hasunah to its beauty; Khayrah and Khayyarah to its goodness; Mahabbah, Habibah and Mahbubah, to the favour it found in the eyes of the Prophet; whilst Jabirah, Jabbarah, and Jabarah, (from the root Jabr, joining or breaking), at once denote its good influence upon the fortunes of the Faithful and its evil effects upon the Infidel. “Al-Iman,” (the Faith,) is the name under which it is hinted at in the Koran. It is called Shafiyah (the Healer), on account of the curative effects of earth found in its neighbourhood; Nasirah, the Saving, and Asimah, the Preserving, because Mohammed and his companions were there secure from the fury of their foes; Fazihah, the Detector, from its exposing the Infidel and the hypocrite; Muslimah and Muminah, the Faithful City; Mubarakah, the Blessed; Mahburah, the Happy; and Mahturah, the Gifted. Mahrusah, the Guarded; and Mahfuzah, the Preserved, allude to the belief that an angel sits in each of its ten main streets, to watch over the town, and to prevent “Antichrist” entering therein. “Al-Dajjal,” as this personage is called, will arise in the East and will peregrinate the earth; but he will be unable to penetrate into Meccah; and on approaching Jabal Ohod, in sight of Al-Madinah, he will turn off towards his death-place, Al-Sham (Damascus). In the Taurat or Pentateuch, the town is called Mukaddasah, the Holy, or Marhumah the Pitied, in allusion to the mission of Mohammed; Marzukah, the Fed, is a favourable augury of plenty to it, and Miskinah, the Poor, hints that it is independent of treasure of gold or store of silver to keep up its dignity. Al-Makarr, means the Residence or the Place of Quiet; Makinat, the Firmly-fixed, (in the right faith); Al-Harim, the Sacred or Inviolable; and, finally, Al-Balad, the Town, and Al-Madinah, the City by excellence. So an inhabitant calls himself Al-Madani, whilst the natives of other and less-favoured “Madinahs” affix Madini to their names. Its titles are Arz-Allah, Allah’s Land; Arz al-Hijrah, the Land of Exile; Akkalat al-Buldan, the Eater of Towns; and Akkalat al-Kura, the Eater of Villages, on account of its superiority, even as Meccah is entitled Umm al-Kura, the Mother of Villages; Bayt Rasul Allah, House of Allah’s Prophet; Jazirat alArab, Isle of the Arab; and Harim Rasul Allah, the Sanctuary of Allah’s Prophet. In books and letters it has sometimes the title of Madinah Musharrafah, the Exalted; more often that of Madinah Munawwarah, the Enlightened-scil. by the lamp of faith and the column of light supposed to be based upon the Prophet’s tomb. The Moslems are not the only people who lay claim to Al-Madinah. According to some authors-and the legend is more credible than at first sight it would appear-the old Guebres had in Arabia and Persia seven large fire temples, each dedicated to a planet. At “Mahdinah,” as they pervert the word, was an image of the Moon, wherefore the place was originally called the “Religion of the Moon.” These Guebres, amongst other sacred spots, claim Meccah, where they say Saturn and the Moon were conjointly venerated; Jerusalem, the Tomb of Ali at Najaf, that of Hosayn at Kerbela, and others. These pretensions of course the Moslems deny with insistance, which does not prevent certain symptoms of old and decayed faith peeping out in localities where their presence, if duly understood, would be considered an abomination. This curious fact is abundantly evident in Sind, and I have already alluded to it (History of Sind).
[FN#5] Such is its formation in Al-Hijaz. [FN#6] Within the sanctuary all Muharramat, or sins, are forbidden; but the several schools advocate different degrees of strictness. The Imam Malik, for instance, allows no latrinae} nearer to Al-Madinah than Jabal Ayr, a distance of about three miles. He also forbids slaying wild animals, but at the same time he specifies no punishment for the offence. Some do not allow the felling of trees, alleging that the Prophet enjoined their preservation as an ornament to the city, and a pleasure to visitors. Al-Khattabi, on the contrary, permits people to cut wood, and this is certainly the general practice. All authors strenuously forbid within the boundaries slaying man (except invaders, infidels, and the sacrilegious), drinking spirits, and leading an immoral life. As regards the dignity of the sanctuary, there is but one opinion; a number of Hadis testify to its honour, praise its people, and threaten dreadful things to those who injure it or them. It is certain that on the last day, the Prophet will intercede for, and aid, all those who die, and are buried, at Al-Madinah. Therefore, the Imam Malik made but one pilgrimage to Meccah, fearing to leave his bones in any other cemetery but Al-Bakia. There is, however, much debate concerning the comparative sanctity of Al-Madinah and Meccah. Some say Mohammed preferred the former, blessing it as Abraham did Meccah. Moreover, as a tradition declares that every man’s body is drawn from the dust of the ground in which he is buried, Al-Madinah, it is evident, had the honour of supplying materials for the Prophet’s person. Others, like Omar, were uncertain in favour of which city to decide. Others openly assert the pre-eminence of Meccah; the general consensus of Al-Islam preferring Al-Madinah to Meccah, save only the Bayt Allah in the latter city. This last is a juste-milieu view, by no means in favour with the inhabitants of either place. In the meanwhile the Meccans claim unlimited superiority over the Madani; the Madani over the Meccans.
[FN#7] These seven wells will be noticed in Chapter XIX., post. [FN#8] I translate Al-Zarka “azure,” although Sir G. Wilkinson remarks, apropos of the Bahr al-Azrak, generally translated by us the “Blue Nile,” that, “when the Arabs wish to say dark or jet black, they use the word Azrak.'” It is true that Azrak is often applied to indeterminate dark hues, but “Aswad,” not Azrak, is the opposite to Abyaz, “white.” Moreover, Al-Zarka in the feminine is applied to women with light blue eyes; this would be no distinctive appellation if it signified black eyes, the almost universal colour. Zarka of Yamamah is the name of a celebrated heroine in Arab story, and the curious reader, who wishes to see how much the West is indebted to the East, even for the materials of legend, will do well to peruse her short history in Major Price’s “Essay,” or M.C. de Perceval’s “Essai,” &c., vol. i., p. 101. Both of these writers, however, assert that Zarka’s eyes, when cut out, were found to contain fibres blackened by the use of Kohl, and they attribute to her the invention of this pigment. I have often heard the legend from the Arabs, who declare that she painted her eyes with “Ismid,” a yellow metal, of what kind I have never been able to determine, although its name is everywhere known. [FN#9] Burckhardt confounds the Ayn al-Zarka with the Bir al-Khatim, or Kuba well, of whose produce the surplus only mixes with it, and he complains loudly of the “detestable water of Madinah.” But he was ill at the time, otherwise he would not have condemned it so strongly after eulogising the salt-bitter produce of the Meccan Zemzem. [FN#10] The people of Nijd, as Wallin informs us, believe that the more the palms are watered, the more syrup will the fruit produce; they therefore inundate the ground, as often as possible. At Al-Jauf, where the date is peculiarly good, the trees are watered regularly every third or fourth day.
[FN#11] Properly meaning the Yellow Wind or Air. The antiquity of the word and its origin are still disputed.
[FN#12] Burckhardt (Travels in Arabia, vol. ii.) informs us, that in A.D. 1815, when Meccah, Yambu’, and Jeddah suffered severely from the plague, Al-Madinah and the open country between the two seaports escaped.
[FN#13] Conjecture, however, goes a little too far when it discovers small-pox in the Tayr Ababil, the “swallow birds,” which, according to the Koran, destroyed the host of Abrahat al-Ashram. Major Price (Essay) may be right in making Ababil the plural of Abilah, a vesicle; but it appears to me that the former is an Arabic and the latter a Persian word, which have no connection whatever. M.C. de Perceval, quoting the Sirat al-Rasul, which says that at that time small-pox first appeared in Arabia, ascribes the destruction of the host of Al-Yaman to an epidemic and a violent tempest. The strangest part of the story is, that although it occurred at Meccah, about two months before Mohammed’s birth, and, therefore, within the memory of many living at the time, the Prophet alludes to it in the Koran as a miracle. [FN#14] In Al-Yaman, we are told by Niebuhr, a rude form of inoculation-the mother pricking the child’s arm with a thorn-has been known from time immemorial. My Madinah friend assured me that only during the last generation, this practice has been introduced amongst the Badawin of Al-Hijaz.
[FN#15] Orientals divide their diseases, as they do remedies and articles of diet, into hot, cold, and temperate.
[FN#16] This grain is cheaper than rice on the banks of the Nile-a fact which enlightened England, now paying a hundred times its value for “Revalenta Arabica,” apparently ignores. [FN#17] Herodotus (Euterpe) has two allusions to eye disease, which seems to have afflicted the Egyptians from the most ancient times. Sesostris the Great died stone-blind; his successor lost his sight for ten years, and the Hermaic books had reason to devote a whole volume to ophthalmic disease. But in the old days of idolatry, the hygienic and prophylactic practices alluded to by Herodotus, the greater cleanliness of the people, and the attention paid to the canals and drainage, probably prevented this malarious disease becoming the scourge which it is now. The similarity of the soil and the climate of Egypt to those of Upper Sind, and the prevalence of the complaint in both countries, assist us in investigating the predisposing causes. These are, the nitrous and pungent nature of the soil-what the old Greek calls “acrid matter exuding from the earth,”-and the sudden transition from extreme dryness to excessive damp checking the invisible perspiration of the circumorbital parts, and flying to an organ which is already weakened by the fierce glare of the sun, and the fine dust raised by the Khamsin or the Chaliho. Glare and dust alone, seldom cause eye disease. Everyone knows that ophthalmia is unknown in the Desert, and the people of Al-Hijaz, who live in an atmosphere of blaze and sand, seldom lose their sight. The Egyptian usually catches ophthalmia in his childhood. It begins with simple conjunctivitis, caused by constitutional predisposition, exposure, diet, and allowing the eye to be covered with swarms of flies. He neglects the early symptoms, and cares the less for being a Cyclops, as the infirmity will most probably exempt him from military service. Presently the sane organ becomes affected sympathetically. As before, simple disease of the conjunctiva passes into purulent ophthalmia. The man, after waiting a while, will go to the doctor and show a large cicatrix in each eye, the result of an ulcerated cornea. Physic can do nothing for him; he remains blind for life. He is now provided for, either by living with his friends, who seldom refuse him a loaf of bread, or if industriously inclined, by begging, by acting Mu’ezzin, or by engaging himself as “Yamaniyah,” or chaunter, at funerals. His children are thus predisposed to the paternal complaint, and gradually the race becomes tender-eyed. Most travellers have observed that imported African slaves seldom become blind either in Egypt or in Sind. Few Englishmen settled in Egypt lose their sight, except they be medical men, who cannot afford time to nurse the early symptoms. The use of coffee and of water as beverages has much to do with this. In the days of hard drinking our Egyptian army suffered severely, and the Austrian army in Tuscany showed how often blindness is caused by importing Northern habits into Southern countries. Many Europeans in Egypt wash their eyes with cold water, especially after walking, and some use once a day a mildly astringent or cooling wash, as Goulard’s lotion or vinegar and water. They avoid letting flies settle upon their eyes, and are of opinion that the evening dews are prejudicial, and that sleeping with open windows lays the foundation of disease. Generally when leaving a hot room, especially a Nile-boat cabin, for the cold damp night air, the more prudent are careful to bathe and to wipe the eyes and forehead as a preparation for change of atmosphere. During my short practice in Egypt I found the greatest advantage from the employment of counter-irritants,-blisters and Pommade Emetise,-applied to the temples and behind the ears. Native practitioners greatly err by confining their patients in dark rooms, thereby injuring the general health and laying the foundation of chronic disease. They are ignorant that, unless the optic nerve be affected, the stimulus of light is beneficial to the eye. And the people by their dress favour the effects of glare and dust. The Tarbush, no longer surrounded as of old by a huge turband, is the least efficient of protectors, and the comparative rarity of ophthalmic disease among the women, who wear veils, proves that the exposure is one of its co-efficient causes. [FN#18] This invention dates from the most ancient times, and both in the East and in the West has been used by the weird brotherhood to produce the appearances of the absent and the dead, to discover treasure, to detect thieves, to cure disease, and to learn the secrets of the unknown world. The Hindus called it Anjan, and formed it by applying lamp-black, made of a certain root, and mixed with oil to the palm of a footling child, male or female. The Greeks used oil poured into a boy’s hand. Cornelius Agrippa had a crystal mirror, which material also served the Counts de Saint Germain and Cagliostro. Dr. Dee’s “show-stone” was a bit of cannel coal. The modern Sindians know the art by the name of Gahno or Vinyano; there, as in Southern Persia, ink is rubbed upon the seer’s thumb-nail. The people of Northern Africa are considered skilful in this science, and I have a Maghrabi magic formula for inking the hand of a “boy, a black slave girl, a virgin, or a pregnant woman,” which differs materially from those generally known. The modern Egyptians call it Zarb al-Mandal, and there is scarcely a man in Cairo who does not know something about it. In selecting subjects to hold the ink, they observe the right hand, and reject all who have not what is called in palmistry the “linea media naturalis” straight and deeply cut. Even the barbarous Finns look into a glass of brandy, and the natives of Australia gaze at a kind of shining stone. Lady Blessington’s crystal ball is fresh in the memory of the present generation, and most men have heard of Electro-Biology and the Cairo magician. Upon this latter subject, a vexed one, I must venture a few remarks. In the first account of the magician by Mr. Lane, we have a fair and dispassionate recital of certain magical, mystical, or mesmeric phenomena, which “excited considerable curiosity and interest th[r]oughout the civilised world.” As usual in such matters, the civilised world was wholly ignorant of what was going on at home; otherwise, in London, Paris, and New York, they might have found dozens studying the science. But a few years before, Dr. Herklots had described the same practice in India, filling three goodly pages; but he called his work “Qanoon-i-Islam,” and, consequently, despite its excellencies, it fell still-born from the press. Lady H. Stanhope frequently declared “the spell by which the face of an absent person is thrown upon a mirror to be within the reach of the humblest and most contemptible of magicians;” but the civilised world did not care to believe a prophetess. All, however, were aroused by Mr. Lane’s discovery, and determined to decide the question by the ordeal of reason. Accordingly, in A.D. 1844, Mr. Lane, aided by Lord Nugent and others, discovered that a “coarse and stupid fraud” had been perpetrated upon him by Osman Effendi, the Scotchman. In 1845, Sir G. Wilkinson remarked of this rationalism, “The explanation lately offered, that Osman Effendi was in collusion with the magician, is neither fair on him nor satisfactory, as he was not present when those cases occurred which were made so much of in Europe,” and he proposed “leading questions and accidents” as the word of the riddle. Eothen attributed the whole affair to “shots,” as schoolboys call them, and ranked success under the head of Paley’s “tentative miracles.” A writer in the Quarterly explained them by suggesting the probability of divers (impossible) optical combinations, and, lest the part of belief should have been left unrepresented, Miss Martineau was enabled to see clear signs of mesmeric action, and by the decisive experiment of self, discovered the magic to be an “affair of mesmerism.” Melancholy to relate, after all this philosophy, the herd of travellers at Cairo is still divided in opinion about the magician, some holding his performance to be “all humbug,” others darkly hinting that “there may be something in it.”
[FN#19] They distinguish, however, between the Hijaz “Nasur” and the “Jurh al-Yamani,” or the “Yaman Ulcer.”
[FN#20] I afterwards received the following information from Mr. Charles Cole, H.B.M. Vice-Consul at Jeddah, a gentleman well acquainted with Western Arabia, and having access to official information: “The population of Al-Madinah is from 16,000 to 18,000, and the Nizam troops in garrison 400. Meccah contains about 45,000 inhabitants, Yambu’ from 6000 to 7000, Jeddah about 2500 (this I think is too low), and Taif 8000. Most of the troops are stationed at Meccah and at Jeddah. In Al-Hijaz there is a total force of five battalions, each of which ought to contain 800 men; they may amount to 3500, with 500 artillery, and 4500 irregulars, though the muster rolls bear 6000. The Government pays in paper for all supplies, (even for water for the troops,) and the paper sells at the rate of forty piastres per cent.” [FN#21] The Urtah or battalion here varies from 800 to 1000 men. Of these, four form one Alai or regiment, and thirty-six Alai an Urdu or camp. This word Urdu, pronounced “Ordoo,” is the origin of our “horde.” [FN#22] One of the traditions, “Between my house and my place of prayers is a Garden of the Gardens of Paradise,” has led divines to measure the distance: it is said to be 1000 cubits from the Bab Salam of the Harim to this Musalla.
[p.398]CHAPTER XIX.
A RIDE TO THE MOSQUE OF KUBA.
THE principal places of pious visitation in the vicinity of Al-Madinah are the Mosques of Kuba, the Cemetery Al-Bakia, and the martyr Hamzah’s tomb, at the foot of Mount Ohod. These the Zair is directed by all the Olema to visit, and on the holy ground to pray Allah for a blessing upon himself, and upon his brethren of the faith.
Early one Saturday morning, I started for Kuba with a motley crowd of devotees. Shaykh Hamid, my Muzawwir, was by my side, mounted upon an ass more miserable than I had yet seen. The boy Mohammed had procured for me a Meccan dromedary, with splendid trappings, a saddle with burnished metal peaks before and behind, covered with a huge sheepskin died crimson, and girthed over fine saddle-bags, whose enormous tassels hung almost to the ground. The youth himself, being too grand to ride a donkey, and unable to borrow a horse, preferred walking. He was proud as a peacock, being habited in a style somewhat resembling the plume of that gorgeous bird, in the coat of many colours-yellow, red, and golden flowers, apparently sewed on a field of bright green silk-which cost me so dear in the Harim. He was armed, as indeed all of us were, in readiness for the Badawin, and he anxiously awaited opportunities of discharging his pistol. Our course lay from Shaykh Hamid’s house in the Manakhah, along and up the
[p.399]Fiumara, “Al-Sayh,” and through the Bab Kuba, a little gate in the suburb wall, where, by-the-bye, my mounted companion was nearly trampled down by a rush of half-wild camels. Outside the town, in this direction, Southward, is a plain of clay, mixed with chalk, and here and there with sand, whence protrude blocks and little ridges of basalt. As far as Kuba, and the Harrah ridge to the West, the earth is sweet and makes excellent gugglets.[FN#1] Immediately outside the gate I saw a kiln, where they were burning tolerable bricks. Shortly after leaving the suburb, an Indian, who joined our party upon the road, pointed out on the left of the way what he declared was the place of the celebrated Khandak, or Moat, the Torres Vedras of Arabian History.[FN#2] Presently the Nakhil, or palm plantations, began. Nothing lovelier to the eye, weary with hot red glare, than the rich green waving crops and the cool shade, the “food of vision,” as the Arabs call it, and “pure water to the parched throat.” For hours I could have sat and looked at it. The air was soft and balmy; a perfumed breeze, strange luxury in Al-Hijaz, wandered amongst the date fronds; there were fresh flowers and bright foliage; in fact, at Midsummer, every beautiful feature of Spring. Nothing more delightful to the ear than the warbling of the small birds, that sweet familiar sound; the splashing of tiny cascades from the wells into the wooden troughs,
[p.400]and the musical song of the water-wheels. Travellers-young travellers-in the East talk of the “dismal grating,” the “mournful monotony,” and the “melancholy creaking of these dismal machines.” To the veteran wanderer their sound is delightful from association, reminding him of fields and water-courses, and hospitable villages, and plentiful crops. The expatriated Nubian, for instance, listens to the water-wheel with as deep emotion as the Ranz des Vaches ever excited in the hearts of Switzer mercenary at Naples, or “Lochaber no more,” among a regiment of Highlanders in the West Indies. The date-trees of Al-Madinah merit their celebrity. Their stately columnar stems, here, seems higher than in other lands, and their lower fronds are allowed to tremble in the breeze without mutilation.[FN#3] These enormous palms were loaded with ripening fruits; and the clusters, carefully tied up, must often have weighed upwards of eighty pounds. They hung down between the lower branches by a bright yellow stem, as thick as a man’s ankle. Books enumerate a hundred and thirty-nine varieties of trees; of these between sixty and seventy are well known, and each is distinguished, as usual among Arabs, by its peculiar name. The best kind is Al-Shelebi; it is packed in skins, or in flat round boxes covered with paper, somewhat in the manner of French prunes, and sent as presents to the remotest parts of the Moslem world.[FN#4] The fruit is about two inches long, with a small stone,
[p.401]and has a peculiar aromatic flavour and smell; it is seldom eaten by the citizens on account of the price, which varies from two to ten piastres the pound. The tree, moreover, is rare, and is said to be not so productive as the other species. The Ajwah[FN#5] date is eaten, but not sold, because a tradition of the Prophet declares, that whoso breaketh his fast every day with six or seven of these fruits, need fear neither poison nor magic. The third kind, Al-Hilwah, also a large date, derives a name from its exceeding sweetness: of this palm the Moslems relate that the Prophet planted a stone, which in a few minutes grew up and bore fruit. Next comes Al-Birni, of which was said, “It causeth sickness to depart, and there is no sickness in it.” The Wahshi on one occasion bent its head, and “salamed” to Mohammed as he ate its fruit, for which reason even now its lofty tuft turns earthwards. The Sayhani (Crier) is so called, because when the founder of Al-Islam, holding Ali’s hand, happened to pass beneath, it cried, “This is Mohammed the Prince of Prophets, and this is Ali the Prince of the Pious, and the Progenitor of the Immaculate Imams.[FN#6]” Of course the descendants of so intelligent a vegetable hold high rank in the kingdom of palms, and the vulgar were in the habit of eating the Sayhani and of throwing the stones about the Harim. The Khuzayriyah is thus named because it preserves its green colour, even when ripe; it is dried and preserved as a curiosity. The Jabali is the common fruit: the poorest kinds are the Laun and
[p.402]the Hilayah, costing from four to seven piastres per mudd.[FN#7]
I cannot say that the dates of Al-Madinah are finer than those of Meccah, although it is highly heretical to hold such tenet. The produce of the former city was the favourite food of the Prophet, who invariably broke his fast with it: a circumstance which invests it with a certain degree of relic-sanctity. The citizens delight in speaking of dates as an Irishman does of potatoes, with a manner of familiar fondness: they eat them for medicine as well as for food; “Rutab,” or wet dates, being held to be the most saving, as it is doubtless the most savoury, of remedies. The fruit is prepared in a great variety of ways: the favourite dish is a broil with clarified butter, extremely distasteful to the European palate. The date is also left upon the tree to dry, and then called “Balah”: this is eaten at dessert as the “Nukliyat”-the quatre mendiants of Persia. Amongst peculiar preparations must be mentioned the “Kulladat al-Sham[FN#8]” (necklace of Sham). The unripe fruit is dipped in boiling water to preserve its gamboge colour, strung upon a thick thread and hung out in the air to dry. These strings are worn all over Al-Hijaz as necklaces by children, who seldom fail to munch the ornament when not in fear of slappings; and they are sent as presents to distant countries.
[p.403]January and February are the time for the masculation[FN#9] of the palm. The “Nakhwali,” as he is called, opens the female flower, and having inserted the inverted male blossom, binds them together: this operation is performed, as in Egypt, upon each cluster.[FN#10] The fruit is ripe about the middle of May, and the gathering of it, forms the Arabs’ “vendemmia.” The people make merry the more readily because their favourite diet is liable to a variety of accidents: droughts injure the tree, locusts destroy the produce, and the date crop, like most productions which men are imprudent enough to adopt singly as the staff of life, is often subject to complete failure.
One of the reasons for the excellence of Madinah dates is the quantity of water they obtain: each garden or field has its well; and even in the hottest weather the Persian wheel floods the soil every third day. It has been observed that the date-tree can live in dry and barren spots; but it loves the beds of streams and places where moisture is procurable. The palms scattered over the other parts of the plain, and depending solely upon rain water, produce less fruit, and that too of an inferior quality.
Verdure is not usually wholesome in Arabia, yet invalids leave the close atmosphere of Al-Madinah to seek health under the cool shades of Kuba. The gardens are divided by what might almost be called lanes, long narrow lines with tall reed fences on both sides. The graceful branches of the Tamarisk, pearled with manna, and cottoned over with dew, and the broad leaves of the castor plant, glistening in the sun, protected us from the morning
[p.404]rays. The ground on both sides of the way was sunken, the earth being disposed in heaps at the foot of the fences, an arrangement which facilitates irrigation, by giving a fall to the water, and in some cases affords a richer soil than the surface. This part of the Madinah plain, however, being higher than the rest, is less subject to the disease of salt and nitre. On the way here and there the earth crumbles and looks dark under the dew of morning; but nowhere has it broken out into that glittering efflorescence which denotes the last stage of the attack. The fields and gardens are divided into small oblongs, separated from one another by little ridges of mould which form diminutive water-courses. Of the cereals there are luxuriant maize, wheat, and barley, but the latter two are in small quantities. Here and there patches of “Barsim,” or Egyptian clover, glitter brightly in the sunbeams. The principal vegetables are Badanjan (Egg-plant), the Bamiyah (a kind of esculent hibiscus, called Bhendi in India), and Mulukhiyah (Corchoris olitorius), a mucilaginous spinage common throughout this part of the East. These three are eaten by citizens of every rank; they are, in fact, the potatoes and the greens of Arabia. I remarked also onions and leeks in fair quantities, a few beds of carrots and beans; some Fijl (radishes), Lift (turnips), gourds, cucumbers, and similar plants. Fruit trees abound. There are five descriptions of vines, the best of which is Al-Sharifi, a long white grape of a flavour somewhat resembling the produce of Tuscany.[FN#11] Next to it, and very similar, is Al-Birni. The Hijazi is a round fruit, sweet, but insipid, which is also the reproach of the Sawadi, or black grape. And lastly, the Raziki is a small white fruit, with a diminutive stone. The Nebek, Lote,
[p.405]or Jujube, is here a fine large tree with a dark green leaf, roundish and polished like the olive; it is armed with a short, curved, and sharp thorn,[FN#12] and bears a pale straw-coloured berry, about the size of the gooseberry, with red streaks on the side next the sun. Little can be said in favour of the fruit, which has been compared successively by disappointed “Lotus eaters[FN#13]” to a bad plum, an unripe cherry, and an insipid apple. It is, however, a favourite with the people of Al-Madinah, who have reckoned many varieties of the fruit: Hindi (Indian), Baladi (“native”), Tamri (date-like), and others. There are a few peaches, hard like the Egyptian, and almost tasteless, fit only for stewing, but greedily eaten in a half-ripe state; large coarse bananas, lime trees, a few water-melons, figs, and apples, but neither apricots nor pears.[FN#14] There are three kinds of pomegranates: the best is the Shami (Syrian): it is red outside, very sweet, and costs one piastre: the Turki is large, and of a white colour: and the Misri has a greenish rind, and a somewhat sub-acid and harsh flavour; the latter are sold at one-fourth the price of the best. I never saw in the East, except at Meccah, finer fruits than the Shami: almost stoneless like those of Maskat, they are delicately perfumed, and as large as an infant’s head. Al-Madinah is celebrated, like Taif, for its “Rubb Rumman,” a thick pomegranate syrup, drunk
[p.406]with water during the hot weather, and esteemed cooling and wholesome.
After threading our way through the gardens, an operation requiring less time than to describe them, we saw, peeping through the groves, Kuba’s simple minaret. Then we came in sight of a confused heap of huts and dwelling-houses, chapels and towers with trees between, and foul lanes, heaps of rubbish, and barking dogs,-the usual material of a Hijazi village. Having dismounted, we gave our animals in charge of a dozen infant Badawin, the produce of the peasant gardeners, who shouted “Bakhshish” the moment they saw us. To this they were urged by their mothers, and I willingly parted with a few paras for the purpose of establishing an intercourse with fellow-creatures so fearfully and wonderfully resembling the tailless baboon. Their bodies, unlike those of Egyptian children, were slim[FN#15] and straight, but their ribs stood out with curious distinctness; the colour of the skin was that oily lamp-black seen upon the face of a European sweep; and the elf-locks, thatching the cocoa-nut heads, had been stained by the sun, wind, and rain to that reddish-brown hue which Hindu romances have appropriated to their Rakshasas or demons. Each anatomy carried in his arms a stark-naked miniature of himself, fierce-looking babies with faces all eyes, and the strong little wretches were still able to extend the right hand and exert their lungs with direful clamour. Their mothers were fit progenitors for such progeny: long, gaunt, with emaciated limbs, wall-sided, high-shouldered, and straight-backed, with pendulous bosoms, spider-like arms, and splay feet. Their long elf-locks, wrinkled faces, and high cheek-bones, their lips darker than the epidermis, hollow staring eyes, sparkling as if to light up the extreme
[p.407]ugliness around, and voices screaming as though in a perennial rage, invested them with all the “charms of Sycorax.” These “Houris of Jahannam” were habited in long night-gowns dyed blue to conceal want of washing, and the squalid children had about a yard of the same material wrapped round their waists for all toilette. This is not an overdrawn portrait of the farmer race of Arabs, the most despised by their fellow-countrymen, and the most hard-favoured, morally as well as physically, of all the breed.
Before entering the Mosque of Al-Kuba[FN#16] it will be necessary to call to mind some passages of its past history. When the Apostle’s she-camel, Al-Kaswa, as he was approaching Al-Madinah after the flight from Meccah, knelt down here, he desired his companions to mount the animal. Abu Bakr and Omar[FN#17] did so; still she sat upon the ground; but when Ali obeyed the order, she arose. The Apostle bade him loose her halter, for she was directed by Allah, and the Mosque walls were built upon the line over which she trod. It was the first place of public prayer in Al-Islam. Mohammed laid the first brick, and with an “Anzah,” or iron-shod javelin, marked out the direction of prayer[FN#18]: each of his successors followed his example. According to most historians, the
[p.408]land belonged to Abu Ayyub the Ansari, the Apostle’s host; for which reason the “Bayt Ayyub,” his descendants, still perform the service of the Mosque, keep the key, and share with the Bawwabs, or porters, the alms and fees here offered by the Faithful. Others declared that the ground was the property of one Linah, a woman who was in the habit of tethering her ass there.[FN#19] The Apostle used to visit it every Saturday[FN#20] on foot, and always made a point of praying the dawn-prayer there on the 17th Ramazan.[FN#21] A number of traditions testify to its dignity: of these, two are especially significant. The first assures all Moslems that a prayer at Kuba is equal to a Lesser Pilgrimage at Meccah in religious efficacy; and the second declares that such devotion is more acceptable to the Deity than