Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Al-Madinah & Meccah
by
Sir Richard Francis Burton
Part 7 out of 9
lean, and swarthy. The town is surrounded for several miles with many
thousands of little hills, which are very near one to the other. I have
been on the top of some of them near Mecca, where I could see some
miles about, yet was not able to see the farthest of the hills. They
are all stony-rock and blackish, and pretty near of a bigness,
appearing at a distance like cocks of hay, but all pointing towards
Mecca. Some of them are half a mile in circumference, but all near of
one height. The people here have an odd and foolish sort of tradition
concerning them, viz.: That when Abraham went about building the
Beat-Allah, God by his wonderful providence did so order it, that every
mountain in the world should contribute something to the building
thereof; and accordingly every one did send its proportion; though
there is a mountain near Algier, which is called Corradog, i.e. Black
Mountain; and the reason of its blackness, they say, is because it did
not send any part of itself towards building the temple at
Mecca.[FN#16] Between
[p.366] these hills is good and plain travelling, though they stand one
to another.
“There is upon the top of one of them a cave, which they term
Hira,[FN#17] i.e. Blessing; into which (they say) Mahomet did usually
retire for his solitary devotions, meditations, and fastings; and here
they believe he had a great part of the Alcoran brought him by the
Angel Gabriel. I have been in this cave, and observed that it is not at
all beautified; at which I admired.
“About half a mile out of Mecca is a very steep hill, and there are
stairs made to go to the top of it, where is a cupola, under which is a
cloven rock; into this, they say, Mahomet, when very young, viz. about
four years of age, was carried by the Angel Gabriel, who opened his
breast, and took out his heart, from which he picked some black
blood-specks, which was his original corruption; then put it into its
place again, and afterwards closed up the part; and that during this
operation Mahomet felt no pain.
“Into this very place I myself went, because the rest of my company did
so, and performed some Erkaets, as they did.
“The town hath plenty of water, and yet but few herbs, unless in some
particular places. Here are several sorts of good fruits to be had,
viz. grapes, melons, watermelons, cucumbers, pumkins, and the like; but
these are brought two or three days’ journey off, where there is a place
of very great plenty, called, if I mistake not, Habbash.[FN#18]
[p.367] Likewise sheep are brought hither and sold. So that as to Mecca
itself, it affords little or nothing of comfortable provisions. It
lieth in a very hot country, insomuch that people run from one side of
the streets to the other to get into the shadow, as the motion of the
sun causes it. The inhabitants, especially men, do usually sleep on the
tops of the houses for the air, or in the streets before their doors.
Some lay the small bedding they have on a thin mat on the ground;
others have a slight frame, made much like drink-stalls on which we
place barrels, standing on four legs, corded with palm cordage, on
which they put their bedding. Before they bring out their bedding, they
sweep the streets and water them. As for my own part, I usually lay
open, without any bed-covering, on the top of the house: only I took a
linen cloth, dipt in water, and after I had wrung it, covered myself
with it in the night; and when I awoke I should find it dry; then I
would wet it again: and thus I did two or three times in a night.
“Secondly, I shall next give you some account of the temple of Mecca.
“It hath about forty-two doors to enter into it, not so much, I think,
for necessity, as figure; for in some places they are close by one
another. The form of it is much resembling that of the Royal Exchange
in London, but I believe it is near ten times bigger. It is all open
and gravelled in the midst, except some paths that come from certain
doors which lead to the Beat-Allah, and are paved with broad stones.
The walks, or cloisters, all round are arched over-head, and paved
beneath with fine broad stone; and all round are little rooms or cells,
where such dwell and give themselves up to reading, studying, and a
devout life, who are much akin to their dervises, or hermits.
“The Beat-Allah, which stands in the middle of the temple, is
four-square, about twenty-four paces each
[p.368] square, and near twenty-four foot[FN#19] in height. It is built
with great stone, all smooth, and plain, without the least bit of
carved work on it. It is covered all over from top to bottom with a
thick sort of silk. Above the middle part of the covering are
embroidered all round letters of gold, the meaning of which I cannot
well call to mind, but I think they were some devout expressions. Each
letter is near two foot in length and two inches broad. Near the lower
end of this Beat are large brass rings fastened into it, through which
passeth a great cotton rope; and to this the lower end of the covering
is tacked. The threshold of the door that belongs to the Beat is as
high as a man can reach; and therefore when any person enter into it, a
sort of ladder-stairs are brought for that purpose. The door is plated
all over with silver[FN#20] and there is a covering hangs over it and
reaches to the ground, which is kept turned up all the week, except
Thursday night, and Friday, which is their Sabbath. The said covering
of the door is very thick imbroidered with gold, insomuch that it
weighs several score pounds. The top of the Beat is flat, beaten with
lime and sand; and there is a long gutter, or spout, to carry off the
water when it rains; at which time the people will run, throng, and
struggle, to get under the said gutter, that so the water that comes
off the Beat may fall upon them, accounting it as the dew of Heaven,
and looking on it as a great happiness to have it drop upon them. But
if they can recover some of this water to drink, they esteem it to be
yet a much greater happiness.
[p.369] Many poor people make it their endeavour to get some of it; and
present it to the Hagges, for which they are well rewarded. My Patroon
had a present made him of this water, with which he was not a little
pleased, and gave him that brought it a good reward.
“This Beat-Allah is opened but two days in the space of six weeks, viz.
one day for the men, and the next day for the women.[FN#21] As I was at
Mecca about four months, I had the opportunity of entering into it
twice; a reputed advantage, which many thousands of the Hagges have not
met with, for those that come by land make no longer stay at Mecca than
sixteen or seventeen days.
“When any enter into the Beat, all that they have to do is to perform two
Erkaets on each side,[FN#22] with the holding up their two hands, and
petitioning at the conclusion of each two Erkaets. And they are so very
reverent and devout in doing this, that they will not suffer their eyes
to wander and gaze about; for they account it very sinful so to do.
Nay, they say that one was smitten blind for gazing about when in the
Beat, as the reward of his vain and unlawful curiosity.[FN#23] I could
not, for my part, give any credit to this story, but looked on it as a
legendary relation, and, therefore, was resolved, if I could, to take
my view of it; I mean not to continue gazing about it, but now and then
to cast an observing eye. And I profess I found nothing worth seeing in
it, only two wooden pillars in the midst, to keep up the roof,[FN#24]
and a bar of iron fastened to them, on which hanged three or four
silver lamps, which are, I suppose, but seldom,
[p.370] if ever, lighted. In one corner of the Beat is an iron or brass
chain, I cannot tell which (for I made no use of it): the pilgrims just
clap it about their necks in token of repentance. The floor of the Beat
is marble, and so is the inside of the walls, on which there is written
something in Arabick, which I had no time to read. The walls, though of
marble on the inside, are hung over with silk, which is pulled
off[FN#25] before the Hagges enter. Those that go into the Beat tarry
there but a very little while, viz. scarce so much as half a quarter of
an hour, because others wait for the same privilege; and while some go
in, others are going out. After all is over, and all that will have
done this, the Sultan of Mecca, who is Shirreef, i.e. one of the race
of Mahomet, accounts himself not too good to cleanse the Beat; and,
therefore, with some of his favourites, doth wash and cleanse it. And
first of all, they wash it with the holy water, Zem Zem, and after that
with sweet water. The stairs which were brought to enter in at the door
of the Beat being removed, the people crowd under the door to receive
on them the sweepings of the said water. And the besoms wherewith the
Beat is cleansed are broken in pieces, and thrown out amongst the mob;
and he that gets a small stick or twig of it, keeps it as a sacred
relique.
“But to speak something further of the temple of Mecca (for I am willing
to be very particular in matters about it, though in so being, I
should, it may be, speak of things which by some people may be thought
trivial). The compass of ground round the Beat (where the people
exercise themselves in the duty of Towoaf) is paved with marble[FN#26]
about 50 foot in breadth, and round this marble pavement stand pillars
of brass about 15 foot high[FN#27] and
[p.371] 20 foot distant from each other; above the middle part of which
iron bars are fastened, reaching from one to the other, and several
lamps made of glass are hanged to each of the said bars, with
brasswires in the form of a triangle, to give light in the night
season, for they pay their devotions at the Beat-Allah as much by night
as by day, during the Hagges’ stay at Mecca. These glasses are
half-filled with water, and a third part with oil, on which a round
wire of brass buoyed up with three little corks; in the midst of this
wire is made a place to put in the wick or cotton, which burns till the
oil is spent. Every day they are washed clean, and replenished with
fresh water, oil, and cotton.
“On each of the four squares of the Beat is a little room built, and over
every one of them is a little chamber with windows all round it, in
which chambers the Emaums (together with the Mezzins) perform Sallah,
in the audience of all the people which are below. These four chambers
are built one at each square of the Beat, by reason that there are four
sorts of Mahometans. The first are called Hanifee; most of them are
Turks. The second Schafee[FN#28]; whose manners and ways the Arabians
follow. The third Hanbelee; of which there are but few. The fourth
Malakee; of which there are those that live westward of Egypt, even to
the Emperor of Morocco’s country. These all agree in fundamentals, only
there is some small difference between them in the ceremonial part.
“About twelve paces from the Beat is (as they say) the sepulchre of
Abraham,[FN#29] who by God’s immediate command, they tell you, built this
Beat-Allah; which
[p.372] sepulchre is enclosed within iron gates. It is made somewhat
like the tombstones which people of fashion have among us, but with a
very handsome imbroidered covering. Into this persons are apt to gaze.
A small distance from it, on the left-hand, is a well, which they call
Beer el Zem Zem, the water whereof they call holy water ; and as
superstitiously esteem it as the Papists do theirs. In the month of
Ramadan they will be sure to break their fast with it. They report that
it is as sweet as milk; but for my part I could perceive no other taste
in it than in common water, except that it was somewhat brackish. The
Hagges, when they come first to Mecca, drink of it unreasonably; by
which means they are not only much purged, but their flesh breaks out
all in pimples; and this they call the purging of their spiritual
corruptions. There are hundreds of pitchers belonging to the temple,
which in the month of Ramadan are filled with the said water and placed
all along before the people (with cups to drink) as they are kneeling
and waiting for Acsham-nomas, or evening service; and as soon as the
Mezzins or clerks on the tops of the minarets began their bawling to
call them to nomas, they fall a drinking thereof before they begin
their devotions. This Beer or well of Zem Zem is in the midst of one of
the little rooms before mentioned, at each square of the Beat, distant
about twelve or fourteen paces from it, out of which four men are
employed to draw water, without any pay or reward, for any that shall
desire it. Each of these men have two leather buckets tied to a rope on
a small wheel, one of which comes up full, while the other goes down
empty. They do not only drink this water, but oftentimes bathe
themselves with it, at which time they take off their clothes, only
covering their lower parts with thin wrapper, and one of the drawers
pours on each person’s head five or six buckets of water.[FN#30] The
[p.373] person bathing may lawfully wash himself therewith above the
middle, but not his lower parts, because they account they are not
worthy, only letting the water take its way downwards. In short, they
make use of this water only to drink, take Abdes, and for bathing:
neither may they take Abdes with it, unless they first cleanse their
secret parts with other common water. Yea, such an high esteem they
have for it, that many Hagges carry it home to their respective
countries in little latten or tin pots; and present it to their
friends, half a spoonful, may be, to each, who receive it in the hollow
of their hand with great care and abundance of thanks, sipping a little
of it, and bestowing the rest on their faces and naked heads; at the
same time holding up their hands, and desiring of God that they also
may be so happy and prosperous as to go on pilgrimage to Mecca. The
reason of their putting such an high value upon the water of this well,
is because (as they say) it is the place where Ishmael was laid by his
mother Hagar. I have heard them tell the story exactly as it is
recorded in the 21st chapter of Genesis; and they say, that in the very
place where the child paddled with his feet, the water flowed out.
“I shall now inform you how, when, and where, they receive the honourable
title of Hagges, for which they are at all this pains and expence.
“The Curbaen Byram, or the Feast of Sacrifice, follows two months and ten
days after the Ramadan fast. The eighth day after the said two months
they all enter into Hirrawem, i.e.} put on their mortifying habit
again, and in that manner go to a certain hill called Gibbel el Orphat
(El Arafat), i.e. the Mountain of Knowledge; for [p.374] there, they
say, Adam first found and knew his wife Eve. And they likewise say,
that she was buried at Gidda near the Red Sea; at whose sepulchre all
the Hagges who come to Mecca by way of the Red Sea, perform two
Erkaets-nomas, and, I think, no more. I could not but smile to hear
this their ridiculous tradition (for so I must pronounce it), when
observing the marks which were set, the one at the head, and the other
at the foot of the grave: I guessed them to be a bow-shot distant from
each other. On the middle of her supposed grave is a little Mosque
built, where the Hagges pay their religious respect.
“This Gibbel or hill is not so big as to contain the vast multitudes
which resort thither; for it is said by them, that there meet no less
than 70,000 souls every year, in the ninth day after the two months
after Ramadan; and if it happen that in any year there be wanting some
of that number, God, they say, will supply the deficiency by so many
angels.[FN#31]
“I do confess the number of Hagges I saw at this mountain was very great;
nevertheless, I cannot think they could amount to so many as 70,000.
There are certain bound-stones placed round the Gibbel, in the plain,
to shew how far the sacred ground (as they esteem it) extends; and many
are so zealous as to come and pitch their tents within these bounds,
some time before the hour of paying their devotion here comes, waiting
for it. But why they so solemnly approach this mountain beyond any
other place, and receive from hence the title of Hagges, I confess I do
not more fully understand than what I have already said, giving but
little heed to these delusions. I observed nothing worth seeing on this
hill, for there was only a small cupola on the top of it[FN#32];
[p.375] neither are there any inhabitants nearer to it than Mecca.
About one or two of the clock, which is the time of Eulea-nomas, having
washed and made themselves ready for it, they perform that, and at the
same time perform Ekinde-nomas, which they never do at one time, but
upon this occasion; because at the time when Ekinde-nomas should be
performed in the accustomed order, viz. about four of the clock in the
afternoon, they are imploring pardon for their sins, and receiving the
Emaum’s benediction.[FN#33]
“It was a sight indeed, able to pierce one’s heart, to behold so many
thousands in their garments of humility and mortification, with their
naked heads, and cheeks watered with tears; and to hear their grievous
sighs and sobs, begging earnestly for the remission of their sins,
promising newness of life, using a form of penitential expressions, and
thus continuing for the space of four or five hours, viz. until the
time of Acsham-nomas, which is to be performed about half an hour after
sunset. (It is matter of sorrowful reflection, to compare the
indifference of many Christians with this zeal of these poor blind
Mahometans, who will, it is to be feared, rise up in judgment against
them and condemn them.) After their solemn performance of their
devotions thus at the Gibbel, they all at once receive that honourable
title of Hagge from the Emaum, and are so stiled to their dying day.
Immediately upon their receiving this name, the trumpet is sounded, and
they all leave the hill and return for Mecca, and being gone two or
three miles on their way[,] they then rest for that night[FN#34]; but
after nomas, before
[p.376] they go to rest, each person gathers nine-and-forty small
stones about the bigness of an hazle nut; the meaning of which I shall
acquaint you with presently.
“The next morning they move to a place called Mina, or Muna; the place,
as they say, where Abraham went to offer up his son Isaac,[FN#35] and
therefore in this place they sacrifice their sheep. It is about two or
three miles from Mecca. I was here shown a stone, or little rock, which
was parted in the middle. They told me, that when Abraham was going to
sacrifice his son, instead of striking him, Providence directed his
hand to this stone, which he clave in two. It must be a good stroke
indeed!
“Here they all pitch their tents (it being in a spacious plain), and
spend the time of Curbaen Byram, viz. three days. As soon as their
tents are pitched, and all things orderly disposed, every individual
Hagge, the first day, goes and throws seven of the small stones, which
they had gathered, against a small pillar, or little square stone
building.[FN#36] Which action of theirs is intended to testify their
defiance of the devil and his deeds; for they at the same time
pronounce the following words, viz. Erzum le Shetane wazbehe[FN#37];
i.e. stone the devil, and them that please him.[FN#38] And there are
two other of the like pillars, which are situated near one another; at
each of which
[p.377] (I mean all three), the second day, they throw seven stones;
and the same they do the third day. As I was going to perform this
ceremony of throwing the stones, a facetious Hagge met me; saith he, ‘You
may save your labour at present, if you please, for I have hit out the
devil’s eyes already.’ You must observe, that after they have thrown the
seven stones on the first day (the country people having brought great
flocks of sheep to be sold), every one buys a sheep and sacrifices it;
some of which they give to their friends, some to the poor which come
out of Mecca and the country adjacent, very ragged poor, and the rest
they eat themselves; after which they shave their heads, throw off
Hirrawem, and put on other clothes, and then salute one another with a
kiss, saying, ‘Byram Mabarick Ela,’ i.e. the feast be a blessing to you.
“These three days of Byram they spend festivally, rejoicing with
abundance of illuminations all night, shooting of guns, and fireworks
flying in the air; for they reckon that all their sins are now done
away, and they shall, when they die, go directly to heaven, if they don’t
apostatize; and that for the future, if they keep their vow and do
well, God will set down for every good action ten; but if they do ill,
God will likewise reckon every evil action ten: and any person, who,
after having received the title of Hagge, shall fall back to a vicious
course of life, is esteemed to be very vile and infamous by them.[FN#39]
“Some have written, that many of the Hagges, after they have returned
home, have been so austere to themselves as to pore a long time over
red-hot bricks, or ingots of iron, and by that means willingly lose
their sight, desiring to see nothing evil or profane, after so sacred a
sight as the temple at Mecca; but I never knew any such thing done.
[p.378] “During their three days’ stay at Mina, scarce any Hagge (unless
impotent) but thinks it his duty to pay his visit, once at least, to
the temple at Mecca. They scarce cease running all the way thitherward,
shewing their vehement desire to have a fresh sight of the Beat-Allah;
which as soon as ever they come in sight of, they burst into tears for
joy; and after having performed Towoaf for a while, and a few Erkaets,
they return again to Mina. And when the three days of Byram are
expired, they all, with their tents, &c., come back again to Mecca.
“They say, that after the Hagges are gone from Mina to Mecca, God doth
usually send a good shower of rain to wash away the filth and dung of
the sacrifices there slain; and also that those vast numbers of little
stones, which I told you the Hagges throw in defiance of the devil, are
all carried away by the angels before the year comes about again. But I
am sure I saw vast numbers of them that were thrown the year before,
lie upon the ground. After they are returned to Mecca, they can tarry
there no longer than the stated time, which is about ten or twelve
days; during which time there is a great fair held, where are sold all
manner of East India goods, and abundance of fine stones for rings and
bracelets, &c., brought from Yeamane[FN#40]; also of China-ware and
musk, and variety of other curiosities. Now is the time in which the
Hagges are busily employed in buying, for they do not think it lawful
to buy any thing till they have received the title of Hagge. Every one
almost now buys a caffin, or shroud of fine linen, to be buried in (for
they never use coffins for that purpose), which might have been
procured at Algier, or their other respective homes, at a much cheaper
rate; but they choose to buy it here, because they have the advantage
of dipping it in the holy water, Zem Zem. They are very careful to
carry the said
[p.379] caffin with them wherever they travel, whether by sea or land,
that they may be sure to be buried therein.
“The evening before they leave Mecca, every one must go to take their
solemn leave of the Beat, entering at the gate called Babe el Salem,
i.e. Welcome Gate, and having continued at Towoaf as long as they
please, which many do till they are quite tired, and it being the last
time of their paying their devotions to it, they do it with floods of
tears, as being extremely unwilling to part and bid farewell; and
having drank their fill of the water Zem Zem, they go to one side of
the Beat, their backs being towards the door called by the name of Babe
el Weedoh i.e., the Farewell Door, which is opposite to the welcome
door; where, having performed two or three Erkaets, they get upon their
legs and hold up their hands towards the Beat, making earnest
petitions; and then keep going backward till they come to the above
said farewell gate, being guided by some other, for they account it a
very irreverent thing to turn their backs towards the Beat when they
take leave of it. All the way as they retreat they continue
petitioning, holding up their hands, with their eyes fixed upon the
Beat, till they are out of sight of it; and so go to their lodgings
weeping.
“Ere I leave Mecca, I shall acquaint you with a passage of a Turk to me
in the temple cloyster, in the night time, between Acsham-nomas, and
Gega-nomas, i.e., between the evening and the night services. The
Hagges do usually spend that time, or good part of it (which is about
an hour and half), at Towoaf, and then sit down on the mats and rest
themselves. This I did, and after I had sat a while, and for my more
ease at last was lying on my back, with my feet towards the Beat, but
at a distance as many others did, a Turk which sat by me, asked me what
countryman I was; ‘A Mogrebee’ (said I), i.e. one of the West. ‘Pray,’ quoth
he, ‘how far west did you come?’ I told him from Gazair, i.e. Algier. ‘Ah!’
replied he, ‘have you taken so much
[p.380] pains, and been at so much cost, and now be guilty of this
irreverent posture before the Beat Allah?’
“Here are many Moors, who get a beggarly livelihood by selling models of
the temple unto strangers, and in being serviceable to the Pilgrims.
Here are also several Effendies, or masters of learning, who daily
expound out of the Alcoran, sitting in high chairs, and some of the
learned Pilgrims, whilst they are here, do undertake the same.
“Under the room of the Hanifees (which I mentioned before), people do
usually gather together (between the hours of devotion), and sitting
round cross-legged, it may be, twenty or thirty of them, they have a
very large pair of Tessbeehs, or beads, each bead near as big as a man’s
fist, which they keep passing round, bead after bead, one to the other,
all the time, using some devout expressions. I myself was once got in
amongst them, and methought it was a pretty play enough for
children,—however, I was to appearance very devout.
“There are likewise some dervises that get money here, as well as at
other places, by burning of incense, swinging their censers as they go
along before the people that are sitting; as this they do commonly on
Friday, their Sabbath. In all other Gamiler or Mosques, when the Hattib
is preaching, and the people all sitting still at their devotion, they
are all in ranks, so that the dervise, without the least disturbance to
any, walks between every rank, with his censer in one hand, and with
the other takes his powdered incense out of a little pouch that hangs
by his side.[FN#41]
“But though this place, Mecca, is esteemed so very holy, yet it comes
short of none for lewdness and debauchery. As for uncleanness, it is
equal to Grand Cairo; and they will steal even in the temple itself.
[p.381] “CHAPTER VIII.— Of the Pilgrims’ return from Mecca: their visit made
at Medina to Mahomet’s tomb there.
“Having thus given you an account of the Turks’ pilgrimage to Mecca, and of
their worship there (the manner and circumstances of which I have
faithfully and punctually related, and may challenge the world to
convict me of a known falsehood), I now come to take leave of the
temple and town of Mecca.
“Having hired camels of the carriers, we set out, but we give as much
for the hire of one from Mecca to Egypt, which is about forty days’
journey, as the real worth of it is, (viz.) about five or six pounds
sterling. If it happen that the camel dies by the way, the carrier is
to supply us with another; and therefore, those carriers[FN#42] who
come from Egypt to Mecca with the Caravan, bring with them several
spare camels; for there is hardly a night passeth but many die upon the
road, for if a camel should chance to fall, it is seldom known that it
is able to rise again; and if it should, they despair of its being
capable of performing the journey, or ever being useful more. It is a
common thing, therefore, when a camel once falls, to take off its
burden and put it on another, and then kill it; which the poorer sort
of the company eat. I myself have eaten of camel’s flesh, and it is very
sweet and nourishing. If a camel tires, they even leave him upon the
place.
“The first day we set out from Mecca, it was without any order at all,
all hurly burly; but the next day every one laboured to get forward;
and in order to it, there was many time much quarrelling and fighting.
But after every one had taken his place in the Caravan, they orderly
and peaceably kept the same place till they came to Grand Cairo. They
travel four camels in a breast,
[p.382] which are all tied one after the other, like as in
teams.[FN#43] The whole body is called a Caravan, which is divided into
several cottors, or companies, each of which hath its name, and
consists, it may be, of several thousand camels; and they move one
cottor after another, like distinct troops. In the head of each cottor
is some great gentleman or officer, who is carried in a thing like a
horse-litter, borne by two camels, one before and the other behind,
which is covered all over with sear-cloth, and over that again with
green broad cloth, and set forth very handsomely. If the said great
person hath a wife with him, she is carried in another of the
same.[FN#44] In the head of every cottor there goes, likewise, a
sumpter camel which carries his treasures, &c. This camel hath two
bells, about the bigness of our market-bells, having one on each side,
the sound of which may be heard a great way off. Some other of the
camels have round bells about their necks, some about their legs, like
those which our carriers put about their fore-horses’ necks; which
together with the servants (who belong to the camels, and travel on
foot) singing all night, make a pleasant noise, and the journey passes
away delightfully. They say this musick make the camels brisk and
lively. Thus they travel, in good order every day, till they come to
Grand Cairo; and were it not for this order, you may guess what
confusion would be amongst such a vast multitude.
“They have lights by night (which is the chief time of travelling,
because of the exceeding heat of the sun by day), which are carried on
the tops of high poles, to direct the Hagges on their march.[FN#45]
They are somewhat like
[p.382] iron stoves, into which they put short dry wood, which some of
the camels are loaded with; it is carried in great sacks, which have an
hole near the bottom, where the servants take it out, as they see the
fires need a recruit. Every cottor hath one of these poles belonging to
it, some of which have ten, some twelve, of these lights on their tops,
or more or less; and they are likewise of different figures as well as
numbers; one, perhaps, oval way, like a gate; another triangular, or
like an N or M, &c., so that every one knows by them his respective
cottor. They are carried in the front, and set up in the place where
the Caravan is to pitch, before that comes up, at some distance from
one another. They are also carried by day, not lighted, but yet by the
figure and number of them, the Hagges are directed to what cottor they
belong, as soldiers are, by their colours, where to rendezvous; and
without such directions it would be impossible to avoid confusion in
such a vast number of people.
“Every day, viz. in the morning, they pitch their tents, and rest several
hours. When the camels are unloaded the owners drive them to water, and
give them their provender, &c. So that we had nothing to do with them,
besides helping to load them.
“As soon as our tents were pitched, my business was to make a little fire
and get a pot of coffee. When we had ate some small matter and drank
the coffee, we lay down to sleep. Between eleven and twelve we boiled
something for dinner, and having dined, lay down again, till about four
in the afternoon; when the trumpet was sounded which gave notice to
every one to take down their tents, pack up their things, and load
their camels in order to proceed on their journey. It takes up about
two hours time ere they are in all their places again. At the time of
Acsham-nomas, and also Gega-nomas, they make a halt, and perform their
Sallah (so punctual
[p.384] are they in their worship), and then they travel till next
morning. If water be scarce, what I call an imaginary Abdes[FN#46] will
do. As for ancient men, it being very troublesome for such to alight
off the camels, and get up again, it is lawful for them to defer these
two times of nomas till the next day; but they will be sure to perform
it then.
“As for provisions, we bring enough out of Egypt to suffice us till we
return thither again. At Mecca we compute how much will serve us for
one day, and consequently, for the forty days’ journey to Egypt, and if
we find we have more than we may well guess will suffice us for a long
time, we sell the overplus at Mecca. There is a charity maintained by
the Grand Seignior, for water to refresh the poor who travel on foot
all the way; for there are many such undertake this journey (or
pilgrimage) without any money, relying on the charity of the Hagges for
subsistence, knowing that they largely extend it at such a time.
“Every Hagge carries his provisions, water, bedding, &c., with him, and
usually three or four diet together, and sometimes discharge a poor man’s
expenses the whole journey for his attendance on them. There was an
Irish renegade, who was taken very young, insomuch that he had not only
lost his Christian religion, but his native language also. This man had
endured thirty years slavery in Spain, and in the French gallies, but
was afterwards redeemed and came home to Algier. He was looked upon as
a very pious man, and a great Zealot, by the Turks, for his not turning
from the Mahommedan faith, notwithstanding the great temptations he had
so to do. Some of my neighbours who intended for Mecca, the same year I
went with my patroon thither, offered
[p.385] this renegado that if he would serve them on this journey they
would defray his charges throughout. He gladly embraced the offer, and
I remember when we arrived at Mecca he passionately told me, that God
had delivered him out of hell upon earth (meaning his former slavery in
France and Spain), and had brought him into a heaven upon earth, viz.
Mecca. I admired much his zeal, but pitied his condition.
“Their water they carry in goats’ skins, which they fasten to one side of
their camels. It sometimes happens that no water is to be met with for
two, three, or more days; but yet it is well known that a camel is a
creature that can live long without drinking (God in his wise
providence so ordering it: for otherwise it would be very difficult, if
not impossible to travel through the parched deserts of Arabia).
“In this journey many times the skulking, thievish, Arabs do much
mischief to some of the Hagges; for in the night time they will steal
upon them (especially such as are on the outside of the Caravan), and
being taken to be some of the servants that belong to the carriers, or
owners of the camels, they are not suspected. When they see an Hagge
fast asleep (for it is usual for them to sleep on the road), they loose
a camel before and behind, and one of the thieves leads it away with
the Hagge upon its back asleep. Another of them in the meanwhile, pulls
on the next camel to tie it to the camel from whence the halter of the
other was cut; for if that camel be not fastened again to the leading
camel, it will stop, and all that are behind will then stop of course,
which might be the means of discovering the robbers. When they have
gotten the stolen camel, with his rider, at a convenient distance from
the Caravan, and think themselves out of danger, they awake the Hagge,
and sometimes destroy him immediately; but at other times, being a
little more
[p.386] inclined to mercy, they strip him naked, and let him return to
the Caravan.[FN#47]
“About the tenth easy day’s journey, after we come out of Mecca, we enter
into Medina, the place where Mahomet lies entombed. Although it be (as
I take it) two or three days’ journey out of the direct way from Mecca to
Egypt, yet the Hagges pay their visit there for the space of two days,
and come away the third.
“Those Mahometans which live to the southward of Mecca, at the East
Indies, and thereaway, are not bound to make a visit to Medina, but to
Mecca only, because it would be so much out of their way. But such as
come from Turkey, Tartary, Egypt, and Africa, think themselves obliged
to do so.
“Medina is but a little town, and poor, yet it is walled round,[FN#48]
and hath in it a great Mosque, but nothing near so big as the temple at
Mecca. In one corner of the Mosque is a place, built about fourteen or
fifteen paces square. About this place are great windows,[FN#49] fenced
with brass grates. In the inside it is decked with some lamps, and
ornaments. It is arched all over head. (I find some relate, that there
are no less than 3000 lamps about Mahomet’s tomb; but it is a mistake,
for there are not, as I verily believe, an hundred; and I speak what I
know, and have been an eye-witness of). In the middle of this place is
the tomb of Mahomet, where the corpse of that bloody impostor is laid,
which hath silk curtains all around it like a bed; which curtains are
not costly nor beautiful. There is nothing of his tomb to be seen by
any, by reason
[p.387] of the curtains round it, nor are any of the Hagges permitted
to enter there.[FN#50] None go in but the Eunuchs, who keep watch over
it, and they only light the lamps, which burn there by night, and to
sweep and cleanse the place. All the privilege the Hagges have, is only
to thrust in their hands at the windows,[FN#51] between the brass
grates, and to petition the dead juggler, which they do with a
wonderful deal of reverence, affection, and zeal. My patroon had his
silk handkerchief stole out of his bosom, while he stood at his
devotion here.
“It is storied by some, that the coffin of Mahomet hangs up by the
attractive virtue of a loadstone to the roof of the Mosque; but believe
me it is a false story. When I looked through the brass gate, I saw as
much as any of the Hagges; and the top of the curtains, which covered
the tomb, were not half so high as the roof or arch, so that it is
impossible his coffin should be hanging there. I never heard the
Mahometans say anything like it. On the outside of this place, where
Mahomet’s tomb is, are some sepulchres of their reputed saints; among
which is one prepared for Jesus Christ, when he shall come again
personally into the world; for they hold that Christ will come again in
the flesh, forty years before the end of the world, to confirm the
Mahometan faith, and say likewise, that our Saviour was not crucified
in person, but in effigy, or one like him.
“Medina is much supplied by the opposite Abyssine country, which is on
the other side of the Red Sea: from thence they have corn and
necessaries brought in ships: an odd sort of vessels as ever I saw,
their sails being made of matting, such as they use in the houses and
Mosques to tread upon.
[p.388] “When we had taken our leave of Medina, the third day, and
travelled about ten days more, we were met by a great many Arabians,
who brought abundance of fruit to us, particularly raisins; but from
whence I cannot tell.[FN#52] When we came within fifteen days’ journey of
Grand Cairo, we were met by many people who came from thence, with
their camels laden with presents for the Hagges, sent from their
friends and relations, as sweetmeats, &c. But some of them came rather
for profit, to sell fresh provisions to the Hagges, and trade with them.
“About ten days before we got to Cairo, we came to a very long steep
hill, called Ackaba, which the Hagges are usually much afraid how they
shall be able to get up. Those who can will walk it. The poor camels,
having no hoofs, find it very hard work, and many drop here. They were
all untied, and we dealt gently with them, moving very slowly, and
often halting. Before we came to this hill, I observed no descent, and
when we were at the top there was none, but all plain as before.
“We past by Mount Sinai by night, and, perhaps, when I was asleep; so
that I had no prospect of it.
“When we came within seven days’ journey of Cairo, we were met by abundance
of people more, some hundreds, who came to welcome their friends and
relations; but it being night, it was difficult to find those they
wanted, and, therefore, as the Caravans past along they kept calling
them aloud by their names, and by this means found them out. And when
we were in three days’ journey of it, we had many camel-loads of the
water of the Nile brought us to drink. But the day and night before we
came to Cairo, thousands came out to meet us with extraordinary
rejoicing. It is thirty-seven days’ journey from Mecca to Cairo, and
three days we tarry by [p.389] the way, which together make us (as I
said) forty days’ journey; and in all this way there is scarce any green
thing to be met with, nor beast nor fowl to be seen or heard; nothing
but sand and stones, excepting one place which we passed through by
night; I suppose it was a village, where were some trees, and, we
thought, gardens.”
[FN#1] It is curious, as Crichton (Arabia, vol. ii. p. 208) observes,
that Gibbon seems not to have seen or known anything of the little work
published by Pitts on his return home. It is entitled “A faithful Account
of the Religion and the Manners of the Mahometans, in which is a
particular Relation of their Pilgrimage to Mecca, the Place of Mahomet’s
Birth, and Description of Medina, and of his Tomb there,” &c., &c. My
copy is the 4th edition, printed for T. Longman and R. Hett, London,
A.D. 1708. The only remarkable feature in the “getting up” of the little
octavo is, that the engraving headed “the most sacred and antient Temple
of the Mahometans at Mecca,” is the reverse of the impression[.]
[FN#2] Some years afterwards, Mr. Consul Baker, when waited upon by
Pitts, in London, gave him a copy of the letter, with the following
memorandum upon the back of it—“Copy of my letter to Consul Raye at Smyrna,
to favour the escape of Joseph Pitts, an English renegade, from a
squadron of Algier men-of-war. Had my kindness to him been discovered
by the government of Algiers, my legs and arms had first been broken,
and my carcass burnt—a danger hitherto not courted by any.”
[FN#3] The italics in the text are the author’s. This is admirably
characteristic of the man. Asiatic Christendom would not satisfy him.
He seems to hate the “damnable doctrines” of the “Papists,” almost as much as
those of the Moslems.
[FN#4] He must have been accustomed to long days’ journeys. Al-Idrisi
makes Jeddah forty miles from Meccah; I calculated about forty-four.
[FN#5] Dalil, a guide, generally called at Meccah “Muttawwif.”
[FN#6] Pitts’ Note,—that before they’ll provide for themselves, they serve
God in their way.
[FN#7] Abdast is the Turkish word, borrowed from the Persian, for “Wuzu,”
the minor ablution.
[FN#8] Ruka’at, a bending. This two-bow prayer is in honour of the Mosque.
[FN#9] This is the ceremony technically called Al-Sai, or running
between Safa and Marwah. Burckhardt describes it accurately, vol. i.
pp. 174, 175.
[FN#10] Ihram, the pilgrim-garb.
[FN#11] Now gold or gilt.
[FN#12] This is an error. The stone is called Hajar Aswad, the Black
Stone, or Hajar As’ad, the Blessed Stone. Moreover, it did not change its
colour on account of the sins of the people who kissed it.
[FN#13] The Meccans, in effect, still make this a boast.
[FN#14] Nothing more blindly prejudiced than this statement. Moslems
turn towards Meccah, as Christians towards Jerusalem.
[FN#15] As will afterwards be explained, all the four orthodox schools
do not think it necessary to kiss the stone after each circumambulation.
[FN#16] These are mere local traditions. The original Ka’abah was
composed of materials gathered from the six mountains of Paradise
(chap. xx.) The present building is of grey granite quarried in a hill
near Meccah.
[FN#17] Now Jabal Nur.
[FN#18] They come from the well-known Taif, which the country people
call Hijaz, but never Habbash. The word Taif literally means the
“circumambulator.” It is said that when Adam settled at Meccah, finding the
country barren, he prayed to Allah to supply him with a bit of fertile
land. Immediately appeared a mountain, which having performed Tawaf
round the Ka’abah, settled itself down eastward of Meccah. Hence, to the
present day, Taif is called Kita min al-Sham, a piece of Syria, its
fatherland.
[FN#19] This is an error of printing for “paces.”
[FN#20] (Pitts’ Note.) Not of massy gold, as a late French author (who, I
am sure, was never there) says. The door is of wood, only plated over
with silver; much less is the inside of the Beat ceiled with massy
gold, as the same Frenchman asserts. I can assure the world it is no
such thing.
The door is of wood, thickly plated over with silver, in many parts
gilt. And whatever hereabouts is gilt, the Meccans always call gold.
(R.F.B.)
[FN#21] This is no longer the case. Few women ever enter the Ka’abah, on
account of the personal danger they run there.
[FN#22] More correctly, at three of the corners, and the fourth
opposite the southern third of the western wall.
[FN#23] It is deemed disrespectful to look at the ceiling, but pilgrims
may turn their eyes in any other direction they please.
[FN#24] There are now three.
[FN#25] It is tucked up about six feet high.
[FN#26] It is a close kind of grey granite, which takes a high polish
from the pilgrims’ feet.
[FN#27] Now iron posts.
[FN#28] The Shafe’i school have not, and never had, a peculiar oratory
like the other three schools. They pray near the well Zemzem.
[FN#29] This place contains the stone which served Abraham for a
scaffold when he was erecting the Ka’abah. Some of our popular writers
confound this stone with the Hajar al-Aswad.
[FN#30] (Pitts’ Note.) The worthy Mons. Thevenot saith, that the waters
of Meccah are bitter; but I never found them so, but as sweet and as
good as any others, for aught as I could perceive.
Pitts has just remarked that he found the waters of Zemzem brackish. To
my taste it was a salt-bitter, which was exceedingly disagreeable.
(R.F.B.)
[FN#31] They are not so modest. 600,000 is the mystical number; others
declare it to be incalculable. Oftentimes 70,000 have met at Arafat.
[FN#32] The cupola has now disappeared; there is a tall pillar of
masonry-work, whitewashed, rising from a plastered floor, for praying.
[FN#33] On the 9th Zu’l Hijjah, or the Day of Arafat, the pilgrims,
having taken their stations within the sacred limits, perform ablution
about noon, and pray as directed at that hour. At three P.M., after
again performing the usual devotions, or more frequently after
neglecting them, they repair to the hill, and hear the sermon.
[FN#34] At Muzdalifah.
[FN#35] This, I need scarcely say, is speaking as a Christian. All
Moslems believe that Ishmael, and not Isaac, was ordered to be
sacrificed. The place to which Pitts alludes is still shown to pilgrims.
[FN#36] (Pitts’ Note.) Monsieur de Thevenot saith, that they throw these
stones at the Gibbel or Mount; but, indeed, it is otherwise; though I
must needs say, he is very exact in almost every thing of Turkish
matters; and I pay much deference to that great author.
[FN#37] The Rami or Jaculator now usually says, as he casts each stone,
“In the name of Allah, and Allah is omnipotent (Raghman li’sh’ Shaytani wa
Khizyatih), in token of abhorrence to Satan, and for his ignominy (I do
this).”
[FN#38] The Arabic would mean stone the devil and slay him, unless
“wazbehe” be an error for “wa ashabih,”—“and his companions.”
[FN#39] Even in the present day, men who have led “wild” lives in their
youth, often date their reformation from the first pilgrimage.
[FN#40] Al-Yaman, Southern Arabia, whose “Akik,” or cornelians were
celebrated.
[FN#41] This is still practised in Moslem countries, being considered a
decent way of begging during public prayers, without interrupting them.
[FN#42] These people will contract to board the pilgrim, and to provide
him with a tent, as well as to convey his luggage.
[FN#43] The usual way now is in “Kitar,” or in Indian file, each camel’s
halter being tied to the tail of the beast that precedes him. Pitts’ “cottor”
must be a kitar, but he uses the word in another of its numerous senses.
[FN#44] This vehicle is the “Takht-rawan” of Arabia.
[FN#45] He describes the Mashals still in use. Lane has sketched them,
Mod. Egypt. chap. vi.
[FN#46] Pitts means by “imaginary Abdes,” the sand ablution,—lawful when
water is wanted for sustaining life.
[FN#47] As I shall explain at a future time, there are still some
Hijazi Badawin whose young men, before entering life, risk everything
in order to plunder a Haji. They care little for the value of the
article stolen, the exploit consists in stealing it.
[FN#48] The walls, therefore, were built between A.D. 1503 and A.D.
1680.
[FN#49] These are not windows, but simply the inter-columnar spaces
filled with grating.
[FN#50] This account is perfectly correct. The Eunuchs, however, do not
go into the tomb; they only light the lamps in, and sweep the passage
round, the Sepulchre.
[FN#51] These are the small apertures in the Southern grating. See
Chap. xvi.
[FN#52] The Caravan must have been near the harbour of Muwaylah, where
supplies are abundant.
[p.390]APPENDIX VI.
GIOVANNI FINATI.
THE third pilgrim on our list is Giovanni Finati, who, under the Moslem
name of “Haji Mohammed,” made the campaign against the Wahhabis for the
recovery of Meccah and Al-Madinah. A native of Ferrara, the eldest of
the four scions of a small landed proprietor, “tenderly attached to his
mother,” and brought up most unwillingly for a holy vocation,—to use his
own words, “instructed in all that course of frivolous and empty
ceremonials and mysteries, which form a principal feature in the
training of a priest for the Romish Church,” in A.D. 1805, Giovanni
Finati’s name appeared in the list of Italian conscripts. After a few
vain struggles with fate, he was marched to Milan, drilled and trained;
the next year his division was ordered to the Tyrol, where the young
man, “brought up for the church,” instantly deserted. Discovered in his
native town, he was sent under circumstances of suitable indignity to
join his regiment at Venice, where a general act of grace, promulgated
on occasion of Napoleon’s short visit, preserved him from a platoon of
infantry. His next move was to Spalato, in Dalmatia, where he marched
under General Marmont to Cattaro, the last retreat of the hardy and
warlike Montenegrins. At Budoa, a sea-port S.E. of Ragusa, having
consulted an Albanian “captain-merchant,” Giovanni Finati, and fifteen
other Italians—
[p.391] “including the sergeant’s wife,” swore fidelity to one another, and
deserted with all their arms and accoutrements. They passed into the
Albanese territory, and were hospitably treated as “soldiers, who had
deserted from the infidel army in Dalmatia,” by the Pasha, posted at
Antivari to keep check upon the French operations. At first they were
lodged in the Mosque, and the sergeant’s wife had been set apart from the
rest; but as they refused to apostatize they were made common slaves,
and worked at the quarries till their “backs were sore.” Under these
circumstances, the sergeant discovering and promulgating his discovery
that “the Mahometans believe as we do in a god; and upon examination that
we might find the differences from our mother church to be less than we
had imagined,”—all at once came the determination of professing to be
Mohammedans. Our Italian Candide took the name of Mahomet, and became
pipe-bearer to a Turkish general officer in the garrison. This young
man trusted the deserter to such an extent that the doors of the Harim
were open to him[FN#1], and Giovanni Finati repaid his kindness by
seducing Fatimah, a Georgian girl, his master’s favourite wife. The
garrison then removed to Scutari. Being of course hated by his fellow
servants, the renegade at last fell into disgrace, and exchanging the
pipe-stick for the hatchet, he became a hewer of wood. This degradation
did not diminish poor Fatimah’s affection: she continued to visit him,
and to leave little presents and tokens for him in his room. But
presently the girl proved likely to become a mother,—their intercourse
was more than suspected,—Giovanni Finati had a dread of
circumcision,[FN#2]
[p.392] so he came to the felon resolution of flying alone from
Scutari. He happened to meet his “original friend the captain-merchant,”
and in March, 1809, obtained from him a passage to Egypt, the Al-Dorado
to which all poverty-struck Albanian adventurers were then flocking. At
Alexandr[i]a the new Mahomet, after twice deserting from a Christian
service, at the risk of life and honour, voluntarily enlisted as an
Albanian private soldier in a Moslem land; the naïvete with which he
admires and comments upon his conduct is a curious moral phenomenon.
Thence he proceeded to Cairo, and became a “Balik bash” (corporal), in
charge of six Albanian privates, of Mohammed Ali’s body-guard. Ensued a
campaign against the Mamluks in Upper Egypt, and his being present at
the massacre of those miscreants in the citadel of Cairo,—he confined his
part in the affair to plundering from the Beys a “saddle richly mounted
in silver gilt,” and a slave girl with trinkets and money. He married the
captive, and was stationed for six months at Matariyah (Heliopolis),
with the force preparing to march upon Meccah, under Tussun Pasha. Here
he suffered from thieves, and shot by mistake his Bim Bashi or
sergeant, who was engaged in the unwonted and dangerous exercise of
prayer in the dark. The affair was compromised by the amiable young
commander-in-chief, who paid the blood money amounting to some thousand
piastres. On the 6th October, 1811, the army started for Suez, where
eighteen vessels waited to convey them to Yambu’. Mahomet assisted at the
capture of that port, and was fortunate enough to escape alive from the
desperate action of Jadaydah.[FN#3] Rheumatism obliged him
[p.393] to return to Cairo, where he began by divorcing his wife for
great levity of conduct. In the early part of 1814, Mahomet, inspired
by the news of Mohammed Ali Pasha’s success in Al-Hijaz, joined a
reinforcement of Albanians, travelled to Suez, touched at Yambu’ and at
Jeddah, assisted at the siege and capture of Kunfudah, and was present
at its recapture by the Wahhabis. Wounded, sick, harassed by the
Badawin, and disgusted by his commanding officer, he determined to
desert again, adding, as an excuse, “not that the step, on my part at
least, had the character of a complete desertion, since I intended to
join the main body of the army;” and to his mania for desertion we owe
the following particulars concerning the city of Meccah.
“Exulting in my escape, my mind was in a state to receive very strong
impressions, and I was much struck with all I saw upon entering the
city; for though it is neither large nor beautiful in itself, there is
something in it that is calculated to impress a sort of awe, and it was
the hour of noon when everything is very silent, except the Muezzins
calling from the minarets.
“The principal feature of the city is that celebrated sacred enclosure
which is placed about the centre of it; it is a vast paved court with
doorways opening into it from every side, and with a covered colonnade
carried all round like a cloister, while in the midst of the open space
stands the edifice called the Caaba, whose walls are entirely covered
over on the outside with hangings of rich velvet,[FN#4] on which there
are Arabic inscriptions embroidered in gold.
“Facing one of its angles (for this little edifice is of
[p.394] a square form),[FN#5] there is a well which is called the well
Zemzem, of which the water is considered so peculiarly holy that some
of it is even sent annually to the Sultan at Constantinople; and no
person who comes to Meccah, whether on pilgrimage or for mere worldly
considerations, ever fails both to drink of it and to use it in his
ablutions, since it is supposed to wipe out the stain of all past
transgressions.
“There is a stone also near the bottom of the building itself which all
the visitants kiss as they pass round it, and the multitude of them has
been so prodigious as to have worn the surface quite away.
“Quite detached, but fronting to the Caaba, stand four pavilions
(corresponding to the four sects of the Mahometan religion), adapted
for the pilgrims; and though the concourse had of late years been from
time to time much interrupted, there arrived just when I came to Meccah
two Caravans of them, one Asiatic and one from the African side,
amounting to not less than about 40,000 persons, who all seemed to be
full of reverence towards the holy place.[FN#6]”
After commenting on the crowded state of the city, the lodging of
pilgrims in tents and huts, or on the bare ground outside the
walls,[FN#7] and the extravagant prices of provisions, Haji Mahomet
proceeds with his description.
“Over and above the general ceremonies of the purification at the well,
and of the kissing of the corner-stone,[FN#8]
[p.395]and of the walking round the Caaba a certain number of times in
a devout manner, every one has also his own separate prayers to put up,
and so to fulfil the conditions of his vow and the objects of his
particular pilgrimage.”
We have then an account of the Mosque-pigeons, for whom it is said, “some
pilgrims bring with them even from the most remote countries a small
quantity of grain, with which they may take the opportunity of feeding
these birds.” This may have occurred in times of scarcity; the grain is
now sold in the Mosque.
“The superstitions and ceremonies of the place,” we are told, “are by no
means completed within the city, for the pilgrims, after having
performed their devotions for a certain time at the Caaba, at last in a
sort of procession go to a place called Arafat, an eminence which
stands detached in the centre of a valley; and in the way thither there
is a part of the road for about the space of a mile where it is
customary to run.[FN#9] The road also passes near a spot where was
formerly a well which is superstitiously supposed to be something
unholy and cursed by the Prophet himself. And for this reason, every
pilgrim as he goes by it throws a stone; and the custom is so universal
and has prevailed so long that none can be picked up in the
neighbourhood, and it is necessary therefore to provide them from a
distance, and some persons even bring them out of their own remote
countries, thinking thereby to gain the greater favour in the sight of
Heaven.[FN#10]
[p.396]“Beyond this point stands a column,[FN#11] which is set up as the
extreme limit of the pilgrimage, and this every pilgrim must have
passed before sunrise; while all such as have not gone beyond it by
that time must wait till the next year, if they wish to be entitled to
the consideration and privileges of complete Hajis, since, without this
circumstance, all the rest remains imperfect.
“The hill of Arafat lying at a distance of seven hours from Meccah, it is
necessary to set out very early in order to be there in time; many of
the pilgrims, and especially the more devout amongst them, performing
all the way on foot.
“When they have reached the place[FN#12] all who have any money according
to their means sacrifice a sheep, and the rich often furnish those who
are poor and destitute with the means of buying one.
“Such a quantity of sacrifices quite fills the whole open space with
victims, and the poor flock from all the country round to have meat
distributed to them.
“After which, at the conclusion of the whole ceremony, all the names are
registered by a scribe appointed for the purpose[FN#13]: and when this
is finished the African
[p.397] and Asiatic Caravans part company and return to their own
several countries, many detachments of the pilgrims visiting Medinah in
the way.”
Being desirous of enrolment in some new division of Mohammed Ali’s army,
Finati overcame the difficulty of personal access to him by getting a
memorial written in Turkish and standing at the window of a house
joined on to the enclosure of the great temple. After the sixth day the
Pasha observed him, and in the “greatest rage imaginable” desired a
detailed account of the defeat at Kunfudah. Finati then received five
hundred piastres and an order to join a corps at Taif, together with a
strict charge of secre[c]y, “since it was of importance that no reverse
or check should be generally talked of.” Before starting our author adds
some “singular particulars” which escaped him in his account of Meccah.
“Many of the pilgrims go through the ceremony of walking the entire
circuit of the city upon the outside; and the order in which this is
performed is as follows. The devoted first goes without the gates, and,
after presenting himself there to the religious officer who presides,
throws off all his clothes, and takes a sort of large wrapping garment
in lieu of them to cover himself; upon which he sets off walking at a
very quick pace, or rather running, to reach the nearest of the four
corners of the city, a sort of guide going with him at the same rate
all the way, who prompts certain ejaculations or prayers, which he
ought to mention at particular spots as he passes; at every angle he
finds a barber, who with wonderful quickness wets and shaves one
quarter of his head, and so on; till he has reached the barber at the
fourth angle, who completes the work. After which the
[p.398] pilgrim takes his clothes again, and has finished that act of
devotion.[FN#14]
“There is also near the holy city an eminence called the hill of
light,[FN#15] as I imagine from its remarkable whiteness. Upon this the
pilgrims have a custom of leaping while they repeat at the same time
prayers and verses of the Koran. Many also resort to a lesser hill,
about a mile distant from the city, on which there is a small Mosque,
which is reputed as a place of great sanctity.
“An annual ceremony takes place in the great temple itself which is worth
mentioning before I quit the subject altogether.
“I have already spoken of the little square building whose walls are
covered with hangings of black and gold, and which is called the Caaba.
Once in the year,[FN#16] and once only, this holy of holies is opened,
and as there is nothing to prevent admission it appears surprising at
first to see so few who are willing to go into the interior, and
especially since this act is supposed to have great efficacy in the
remission of all past sins. But the reason must be sought for in the
conditions which are annexed, since he who enters is, in the first
place, bound to exercise no gainful pursuit, or trade, or to work for
his livelihood
[p.399] in any way whatever; and, next, he must submit patiently to all
offences and injuries, and must never again touch anything that is
impure or unholy.[FN#17]”
“One more remark with reference to the great scene of sacrifice at
Arafat. Though the Pasha’s power in Arabia had been now for some time
established, yet it was not complete or universal by any means—the
Wahhabees still retaining upon many sides a very considerable footing,
so that open and unprotected places, even within half a day’s journey of
Meccah, might be liable to surprise and violence.”
For these reasons, our author informs us, a sufficient force was
disposed round Arafat, and the prodigious multitude went and returned
without molestation or insult.[FN#18]
[p.400] After the pilgrimage Haji Mahomet repaired to Taif. On the
road he remarked a phenomenon observable in Al-Hijaz—the lightness of the
nights there. Finati attributes it to the southern position of the
place. But, observing a perceptible twilight there, I was forced to
seek further cause. May not the absence of vegetation, and the
heat-absorbing nature of the soil,—granite, quartz, and basalt,—account for
the phenomenon[FN#19]? The natives as usual, observing it, have
invested its origin with the garb of fable.
It is not my intention to accompany Mahomet to the shameful defeat of
Taraba, where Tussun Pasha lost three quarters of his army, or to the
glorious victory of Bissel, where Mohammed Ali on the 10th January,
1815, broke 24,000 Wahhabis commanded by Faysal bin Sa’ud. His account of
this interesting campaign is not full or accurate like Mengin’s; still,
being the tale of an eye-witness, it attracts attention. Nothing can be
more graphic than his picture of the old conqueror sitting with
exulting countenance upon the carpet where he had vowed to await death
or victory, and surrounded by heaps of enemies’ heads.[FN#20]
Still less would it be to the purpose to describe the latter details of
Haji Mahomet’s career, his return to Cairo, his accompanying Mr. Bankes
to upper Egypt and Syria, and his various trips to Aleppo, Kurdistan,
the
[p.401] Sa’id, the great Oasis, Nabathaea, Senna’ar, and Dongola. We
concede to him the praise claimed by his translator, that he was a
traveller to no ordinary extent; but beyond this we cannot go. He was
so ignorant that he had forgotten to write[FN#21]; his curiosity and
his powers of observation keep pace with his knowledge[FN#22]; his
moral character as it appears in print is of that description which
knows no sense of shame: it is not candour but sheer insensibility
which makes him relate circumstantially his repeated desertions, his
betrayal of Fatimah, and his various plunderings.
[FN#1] He describes the Harim as containing “the females of different
countries, all of them young, and all more or less attractive, and the
merriest creatures I ever saw.” His narration proves that affection and
fidelity were not wanting there.
[FN#2] Mr. Bankes, Finati’s employer and translator, here comments upon
Ali Bey’s assertion, “Even to travellers in Mahometan countries, I look
upon the safety of their journey as almost impossible, unless they have
previously submitted to the rite.” Ali Bey is correct; the danger is
doubled by non-compliance with the custom. Mr. Bankes apprehends that
“very few renegadoes do submit to it.” In bigoted Moslem countries, it is
considered a sine qua non.
[FN#3] See Chap. xiii. of this work.
[FN#4] “Black cloth, according to Ali Bey; and I believe he is correct.” So
Mr. Bankes. If Ali Bey meant broad-cloth, both are in error, as the
specimen in my possession—a mixture of silk and cotton—proves.
[FN#5] Ali Bey showed by his measurements that no two sides correspond
exactly. To all appearance the sides are equal, though it is certain
they are not; the height exceeds the length and the breadth.
[FN#6] Ali Bey (A.D. 1807) computes 80,000 men, 2,000 women, and 1,000
children at Arafat. Burckhardt (A.D. 1814) calculated it at 70,000. I
do not think that in all there were more than 50,000 souls assembled
together in 1853.
[FN#7] Rich pilgrims always secure lodgings; the poorer class cannot
afford them; therefore, the great Caravans from Egypt, Damascus,
Baghdad, and other places, pitch on certain spots outside the city.
[FN#8] An incorrect expression; the stone is fixed in a massive gold or
silver gilt circle to the S.E. angle, but it is not part of the
building.
[FN#9] Ali Bey is correct in stating that the running is on the return
from Arafat, directly after sunset.
[FN#10] This sentence abounds in blunders. Sale, Ali Bey, and
Burckhardt, all give correct accounts of the little pillar of masonry—it
has nothing to do with the well—which denotes the place where Satan
appeared to Abraham. The pilgrims do not throw one stone, but many. The
pebbles are partly brought from Muzdalifah, partly from the valley of
Muna, in which stands the pillar.
[FN#11] Mr. Bankes confounds this column with the Devil’s Pillar at Muna.
Finati alludes to the landmarks of the Arafat plain, now called
Al-Alamayn (the two marks). The pilgrims must stand within these
boundaries on a certain day (the 9th of Zu’l Hijjah), otherwise he has
failed to observe a rital ordinance.
[FN#12] He appears to confound the proper place with Arafat. The
sacrifice is performed in the valley of Muna, after leaving the
mountain. But Finati, we are told by his translator, wrote from memory—a
pernicious practice for a traveller.
[FN#13] This custom is now obsolete, as regards the grand body of
pilgrims. Anciently, a certificate from the Sharif was given to all who
could afford money for a proof of having performed the pilgrimage, but
no such practice at present exists. My friends have frequently asked
me, what proof there is of a Moslem’s having become a Haji. None
whatever; consequently impostors abound. Sa’adi, in the Gulistan, notices
a case. But the ceremonies of the Hajj are so complicated and
unintelligible by mere description, that a little cross-questioning
applied to the false Haji would easily detect him.
[FN#14] No wonder Mr. Bankes is somewhat puzzled by this passage.
Certainly none but a pilgrim could guess that the author refers to the
rites called Al-Umrah and Al-Sai, or the running between Mounts Safa
and Marwah. The curious reader may compare the above with Burckhardt’s
correct description of the ceremonies. As regards the shaving, Finati
possibly was right in his day; in Ali Bey’s, as in my time, the head was
only shaved once, and a few strokes of the razor sufficed for the
purpose of religious tonsure.
[FN#15] Jabal Nur, anciently Hira, is a dull grey as of granite; it
derives its modern name from the spiritual light of religion.
Circumstances prevented my ascending it, so I cannot comment upon
Finati’s “custom of leaping.”
[FN#16] Open three days in the year, according to Ali Bey, the same in
Burckhardt’s, and in my time. Besides these public occasions, private
largesses can always turn the key.
[FN#17] I heard from good authority, that the Ka’abah is never opened
without several pilgrims being crushed to death. Ali Bey (remarks Mr.
Bankes) says nothing of the supposed conditions annexed. In my next
volume [Part iii. (“Meccah”) of this work] I shall give them, as I received
them from the lips of learned and respectable Moslems. They differ
considerably from Finati’s, and no wonder; his account is completely
opposed to the strong good sense which pervades the customs of
Al-Islam. As regards his sneer at the monastic orders in Italy—that the
conditions of entering are stricter and more binding than those of the
Ka’abah, yet that numbers are ready to profess in them—it must not be
imagined that Arab human nature differs very materially from Italian.
Many unworthy feet pass the threshold of the Ka’abah; but there are many
Moslems, my friend, Omar Effendi, for instance, who have performed the
pilgrimage a dozen times, and would never, from conscientious motives,
enter the holy edifice.
[FN#18] In 1807, according to Ali Bey, the Wahhabis took the same
precaution, says Mr. Bankes. The fact is, some such precautions must
always be taken. The pilgrims are forbidden to quarrel, to fight, or to
destroy life, except under circumstances duly provided for. Moreover,
as I shall explain in another part of this work, it was of old, and
still is, the custom of the fiercer kind of Badawin to flock to
Arafat—where the victim is sure to be found—for the purpose of revenging
their blood-losses. As our authorities at Aden well know, there cannot
be a congregation of different Arab tribes without a little murder.
After fighting with the common foe, or if unable to fight with him, the
wild men invariably turn their swords against their private enemies.
[FN#19] So, on the wild and tree-clad heights of the Neilgherry hills,
despite the brilliance of the stars, every traveller remarks the
darkness of the atmosphere at night.
[FN#20] Mohammed Ali gave six dollars for every Arab head, which fact
accounts for the heaps that surrounded him. One would suppose that when
acting against an ene[m]y, so quick and agile as the Arabs, such an
order would be an unwise one. Experience, however, proves the contrary.
[FN#21] “Finati’s long disuse of European writing,” says Mr. Bankes, “made him
very slow with his pen.” Fortunately, he found in London some person who
took down the story in easy, unaffected, and not inelegant Italian. In
1828, Mr. Bankes translated it into English, securing accuracy by
consulting the author, when necessary.
[FN#22] His translator and editor is obliged to explain that he means
Cufic, by “characters that are not now in use,” and the statue of Memnon by
“one of two enormous sitting figures in the plain, from which, according
to an old story or superstition, a sound proceeds when the sun rises.”
When the crew of his Nile-boat “form in circle upon the bank, and perform
a sort of religious mummery, shaking their heads and shoulders
violently, and uttering a hoarse sobbing or barking noise, till some of
them would drop or fall into convulsions,”—a sight likely to excite the
curiosity of most men—he “takes his gun in pursuit of wild geese.” He allowed
Mr. Bankes’ mare to eat Oleander leaves, and thus to die of the commonest
poison. Briefly, he seems to have been a man who, under favourable
circumstances, learned as little as possible.
[p.402]APPENDIX VII.
NOTES ON MY JOURNEY.
BY A. SPRENGER.
IN the map to a former edition of the Pilgrimage, Captain Burton’s route
from Madina to Meccah is wrongly laid down, owing to a typographical
error of the text, “From Wady Laymun to Meccah S.E. 45°;” (see vol. ii. p.
155, ante), whereas the road runs S.W. 45°, or, as Hamdany expresses
himself in the commentary on the Qacyda Rod., “Between west and south;
and therefore the setting sun shines at the evening prayer (your face
being turned towards Meccah) on your right temple.” The account of the
eastern route from Madina to Meccah by so experienced a traveller as
Captain Burton is an important contribution to our geographical
knowledge of Arabia. It leads over the lower terrace of Nejd, the
country which Muslim writers consider as the home of the genuine Arabs
and the scene of Arabic chivalry. As by this mistake the results of my
friend’s pilgrimage, which, though pious as he unquestionably is, he did
not undertake from purely religious motives, have been in a great
measure marred, I called in 1871 his attention to it. At the same time
I submitted to him a sketch of a map in which his own and Burckhardt’s
routes are protracted, and a few notes culled from Arabic geographers,
with the intention of showing how much light his investigations throw
on early
[p.403] geography if illustrated by a corrected map; and how they fail
to fulfil this object if the mistake is not cleared up. The
enterprising traveller approved of both the notes and the map, and
expressed it as his opinion that it might be useful to append them to
the new edition. I therefore thought proper to recast them, and to
present them herewith to the reader.
At Sufayna, Burton found the Baghdad Caravan. The regular
Baghdad-Meccah Road, of which we have two itineraries, the one
reproduced by Hamdany and the other by Ibn Khordadbeh, Qodama, and
others, keeps to the left of Sufayna, and runs parallel with the
Eastern Madina-Meccah Road to within one stage of Meccah. We find only
one passage in Arabic geographers from which we learn that the
Baghdadlies, as long as a thousand years ago, used under certain
circumstances to take the way of Sufayna. Yacut, vol. iii. p. 403, says
“Sufayna ([Arabic] Cufayna), a place in the caliya (Highland) within the
territory of the Solaymites, lies on the road of Zobayda. The pilgrims
make a roundabout, and take this road, if they suffer from want of
water. The pass of Sufayna, by which they have to descend, is very
difficult.” The ridges over which the road leads are called al-Sitar, and
are described by Yacut, vol. iii. p. 38, as a range of red hills,
flanking Sufayna, with defiles which serve as passes. Burton, vol. ii.
p. 128, describes them as low hills of red sandstone and bright
porphyry. Zobayda, whose name the partly improved, partly newly opened
Hajj-Road from Baghdad to Meccah bore, was the wife of Caliph Harun,
and it appears from Burton, pp. 134 and 136, that the improvements made
by this spirited woman—as the wells near Ghadir, and the Birkat (Tank)—are
now ascribed to her weak, fantastical, and contemptible husband.
Burton’s description of the plain covered with huge boulders and
detached rocks (p. 131) puts us in mind of
[p.404] the Felsenmeer in the Odenwald. Yacut, vol. iii. p. 370,
describes the two most gigantic of these rock-pillars, which are too
far to the left of Burton’s road than that he could have seen them: “Below
Sufayna in a desert plain there rise two pillars so high that nobody,
unless he be a bird, can mount them; the one is called cAmud (column)
of al-Ban, after the place al-Ban, and the other cAmud of al-Safh. They
are both on the right-hand side of the (regular) road from Baghdad to
Meccah, one mile from Ofayciya (a station on the regular road which
answers to Sufayna).” Such desolate, fantastic scenery is not rare in
Arabia nor close to the western coast of the Red Sea. The Fiumara, from
which Burton (p. 138) emerged at six A.M., Sept. 9, was crossed by
Burckhardt at Kholayc, and is a more important feature of the country
than the two travellers were aware of. There are only five or six
Wadies which break through the chain of mountains that runs parallel
with the Red Sea, and of these, proceeding from south to north, Wady
Nakhla (Wady Laymun) is the first, and this Fiumara the second. Early
geographers call it Wady Amaj, or after a place of some importance
situated in its lower course, Wady Saya. Hamdany, p. 294, says: “Amaj and
Ghoran are two Wadies which commence in the Harra (volcanic region) of
the Beni Solaym, and reach the sea.” The descriptions of this Wady
compiled by Yacut, vol. iii. pp. 26 and 839, are more ample. According
to one, it contains seventy springs: according to another, it is a Wady
which you overlook if you stand on the Sharat (the mountain now called
Jebel Cobh). In its upper course it runs between the two Hamiya, which
is the name of two black volcanic regions. It contains several villages
of note, and there lead roads to it from various parts of the country.
In its uppermost part lies the village of Faric with date-groves,
cultivated fields and gardens, producing plantains, pomegranates, and
grapes, and in its lower
[p.405] course, close to Saya, the rich and populous village Mahaya.
The whole Wady is one of the Acradh (oasis-like districts) of Madina,
and is administered by a Lieutenant of the Governor of that city. Yacut
makes the remark to this description: “I do not know whether this valley
is still in the same condition, or whether it has altered.” Though we
know much less of it than Yacut, we may safely assert that the
cultivation has vanished and the condition has altered.
At Zariba ([Arabic], Dhariba) Burton and his party put on the Ihram
(pilgrim-garb). If the Baghdadlies follow the regular road they perform
this ceremony at Dzat-Irq, which lies somewhat lower down than Dhariba,
to the South-east of it, and therefore the rain-water which falls in
Dhariba flows in the shape of a torrent to Dzat-Irq, and is thence
carried off by the Northern Nakhla. Above the station of Dzat-Irq there
rise ridges called Irq; up these ridges the regular Baghdad Road
ascends to the high-plateau, and they are therefore considered by early
geographers as the western limit of Nejd. Omara apud Yacut, vol. iv. p.
746, says: “All the country in which the water flows in an Easterly
(North-easterly) direction, beginning from Dzat-Irq as far as
Babylonia, is called Nejd; and the country which slopes Westwards, from
Dzat-Irq to Tihama (the coast), is called Hijaz.” The remarks of Arabic
geographers on the Western watershed, and those of Burton, vol. ii. pp.
142 and 154, illustrate and complete each other most satisfactorily. It
appears from Yacut that the Fiumara in which Burton’s party was attacked
by robbers takes its rise at Ghomayr close to Dzat-Irq, that there were
numerous date-groves in it, and that it falls at Bostan Ibn camir into
the Nakhla, wherefore it is called the Northern Nakhla. The Southern
Nakhla, also called simply Nakhla, a term which is sometimes reserved
for the trunk formed by the junction of the Southern and Northern
[p.406] Nakhla from Bostan Ibn camir downwards, is on account of its
history one of the most interesting spots in all Arabia; I therefore
make no apology for entering on its geography. In our days it is called
Wady Laymun, and Burckhardt, vol. i. p. 158, says of it: “Zeyme is a
half-ruined castle, at the eastern extremity of Wady Lymoun, with
copious springs of running water. Wady Lymoun is a fertile valley,
which extends for several hours (towards West) in the direction of Wady
Fatme (anciently called Batn Marr, or Marr-Tzahran, which is, in fact,
a continuation of Wady Nakhla). It has many date-plantations, and
formerly the ground was cultivated; but this, I believe, has ceased
since the Wahabi invasion: its fruit-gardens, too, have been ruined.
This (he means the village Laymun, compare Burton, vol. ii. p. 147) is
the last stage of the Eastern-Syrian Hadj route. To the South-east or
East-south-east of Wady Lymoun is another fertile valley, called Wady
Medyk, where some sherifs are settled, and where Sherif Ghaleb
possessed landed property.[FN#1]” In the commentary on the Qacyda Rod.,
[p.407] Wady Nakhla, as far as the road to Meccah runs through it, is
described as follows: From the ridges with whose declivity the Western
watershed begins, you descend into Wady Baubat; it is flanked on the
left side by the Sarat mountains, on which Tayif stands, and contains
Qarn-almanazil (once the capital of the Minaeans, the great trading
nation of antiquity). Three or four miles below Qarn is Masjid Ibrahym,
and here the valley assumes the name of Wady Nakhla. At no great
distance from the Masjid there rise on the left-hand side of the Wady
two high peaks called Jebel Yasum and Jebel Kafw. Both were the refuge
of numerous monkeys, who used to invade the neighbouring vineyards. As
you go down Wady Nakhla the first place of importance you meet is
al-Zayma. Close to it was a garden which, during the reign of Moqtadir,
belonged to the Hashimite Prince Abd Allah, and was in a most
flourishing condition. It produced an abundance of henna, plantains,
and vegetables of every description, and yielded a revenue of five
thousand Dinar-mithqals (about £2,860) annually. A canal from Wady (the
river) Nakhla feeds a fountain which jets forth in the midst of the
garden, and lower down a tank. In the garden stood a fort (which in a
dilapidated condition is extant to this day, and spoken of by
Burckhardt). It was built of huge stones, guarded for the defence of
the property by the Banu Sa’d, and tenanted by the servants and followers
of the proprietor. Below al-Zayma is Sabuha, a post-station where a
relay of horses was kept for the transport of Government Despatches. To
give an idea of the distances, I may mention that the post-stages were
twelve Arabic miles asunder, which on this road are rather larger than
an English geographical mile. The first station from Meccah was
Moshash, the second Sabuha, and the third was at the foot of the hill
Yasum. The author of the commentary from which I derive this
information leaves Wady Nakhla soon after Sabuha, and
[p.408] turns his steps towards the holy city. He mentions “the steep
rocky Pass” up which Burton toiled with difficulty, and calls it Orayk.
Though he enters into many details, he takes no notice of the hill-girt
plain called Sola. This name occurs however in an Arabic verse, apud
Yacut, vol. ii. p. 968: “In summer our pasture-grounds are in the country
of Nakhla, within the districts of al-Zayma and Sola.”
In W[a]dy Fatima, Burckhardt found a perennial rivulet, coming from the
Eastward, about three feet broad and two feet deep. It is certain that
Wady Fat?ima, formerly called Wady Marr, is a continuation of Wady
Nakhla, and Yacut considers in one passage Nakhla as a subdivision of
Marr, and in another Marr as part of Wady Nakhla; but we do not know
whether the rivulet, which at al-Zayma seems to be of considerable
size, disappears under the sand in order to come forth again in W[a]dy
Marr, or whether it forms an uninterrupted stream. In ancient times the
regular Baghdad-Meccah Road did not run down from Dzat-Irq by the
Northern Nakhla which Burton followed, but it crossed this Wady near
its Northern end and struck over to the Southern Nakhla as far as Qarn
almarazil, which for a long time was the second station from Meccah,
instead of Dzat-cIrq.
[FN#1] Medyq is Burton’s El-Mazik, the spelling in Arabic being [Arabic]
Madhyq. Burckhardt’s account leads us to think that the village now
called Madhyq, or Wady Laymun, lies on the left bank of the Fiumara,
and is identical with Bostan Ibn ’Amir, which is described by Yacut as
situated in the fork between the Northern and Southern Nakhlas, and
which in ancient times had, like the village Wady Laymun, the name of
the valley of which it was the chief place, viz., Batn Nakhla. Burton
gives no information of the position of the village, but he says: “On the
right bank of the Fiumara stood the Meccan Sharif’s state pavilion.” Unless
the pavilion is separated from the village by the Fiumara there is a
discrepancy between the two accounts, which leads me to suspect that
“right” is an oversight for “left.” Anciently [Arabic] was pronounced Nakhlat,
and, if we suppress the guttural, as the Greeks and Romans sometimes
did, Nalat. Strabo, p. 782, in his narrative of the retreat of Aelius
Gallus, mentions a place which he calls Mal?tha, and of which he says
it stood on the bank of a river—a position which few towns in Arabia
have. The context leaves no doubt that he means Batn Nakhla, and that
Maltha is a mistake for Naltha.
[p.409]APPENDIX VIII.
THE MECCAH PILGRIMAGE.
HAVING resolved to perform the Meccah pilgrimage, I spent a few months
at Cairo, and on the 22nd of May embarked in a small steamer at Suez
with the “mahmil” or litter, and its military escort, conveying the “kiswah” or
covering for the “kabah.” On the 25th the man at the wheel informed us that
we were about to pass the village of Rabikh, on the Arabian coast, and
that the time had consequently arrived for changing our usual
habiliments for the “ihram,” or pilgrim-costume of two towels, and for
taking the various interdictory vows involved in its assumption: such
as not to tie knots in any portion of our dress, not to oil the body,
and not to cut our nails or hair, nor to improve the tints of the
latter with the coppery red of henna. Transgression of these and other
ceremonial enactments is expiated either by animal sacrifice, or gifts
of fruit or cereals to the poor.
After a complete ablution and assuming the ihram, we performed two
prayer-flections, and recited the meritorious sentences beginning with
the words “Labbaik Allah huma labbaik!” “Here I am, O God, here I am! Here I
am, O Unassociated One, here I am, for unto Thee belong praise, grace,
and empire, O Unassociated One!”
This prayer was repeated so often, people not unfrequently rushing up
to their friends and shrieking the sacred sentence into their ears,
that at last it became a signal for merriment rather than an indication
of piety.
[p.410]On the 26th we reached Jeddah, where the utter sterility of
Arabia, with its dunes and rocky hills, becomes apparent. The town,
however, viewed from the sea, is not unpicturesque. Many European
vessels were at anchor off the coast: and as we entered the port,
innumerable small fishing-boats darting in all directions, their sails
no longer white, but emerald green from the intense lustre of the
water, crowded around us on all sides, and reminded one by their
dazzling colours and rapidity of motion of the shoals of porpoises so
often seen on a voyage round the Cape.
On disembarking we were accosted by several “mut?awwafs,” or circuit-men,
so termed in Arabic, because, besides serving as religious guides in
general, their special duty is to lead the pilgrim in his seven
obligatory circuits around the Kabah. We encamped outside the town,
and, having visited the tomb of “our Mother Eve,” mounted our camels for
Meccah.
After a journey of twenty hours across the Desert, we passed the
barriers which mark the outermost limits of the sacred city, and,
ascending some giant steps, pitched our tents on a plain, or rather
plateau, surrounded by barren rock, some of which, distant but a few
yards, mask from view the birthplace of the Prophet. It was midnight; a
few drops of rain were falling, and lightning played around us. Day
after day we had watched its brightness from the sea, and many a
faithful haji had pointed out to his companions those fires which were
Heaven’s witness to the sanctity of the spot. “Al hamdu Lillah!” Thanks be to
God! we were now at length to gaze upon the “Kiblah,” to which every
Mussulman has turned in prayer since the days of Muhammad, and which
for long ages before the birth of Christianity was reverenced by the
Patriarchs of the East. Soon after dawn arose from our midst the shout
of “Labbaik! Labbaik!” and passing
[p.411] between the rocks, we found ourselves in the main street of
Meccah, and approached the “Gateway of Salvation,” one of the thirty-nine
portals of the Temple of Al-Haram.
On crossing the threshold we entered a vast unroofed quadrangle, a
mighty amplification of the Palais Royal, having on each of its four
sides a broad colonnade, divided into three aisles by a multitude of
slender columns, and rising to the height of about thirty feet.
Surmounting each arch of the colonnade is a small dome: in all there
are a hundred and twenty, and at different points arise seven minarets,
dating from various epochs, and of somewhat varying altitudes and
architecture. The numerous pigeons which have their home within the
temple have been believed never to alight upon any portion of its roof,
thus miraculously testifying to the holiness of the building. This
marvel having, however, of late years been suspended, many discern
another omen of the approach of the long-predicted period when
unbelievers shall desecrate the hallowed soil.
In the centre of the square area rises the far-famed Kabah, the
funereal shade of which contrasts vividly with the sunlit walls and
precipices of the town. It is a cubical structure of massive stone, the
upper two-thirds of which are mantled by a black cloth embroidered with
silver, and the lower portion hung with white linen. At a distance of
several yards it is surrounded by a balustrade provided with lamps,
which are lighted in the evening, and the space thus enclosed is the
circuit-ground along which, day and night, crowds of pilgrims,
performing the circular ceremony of Tawaf, realize the idea of
perpetual motion. We at once advanced to the black stone imbedded in an
angle of the Kabah, kissed it, and exclaimed, “Bismillah wa Allahu Akbar,”—“In
God’s name, and God is greatest.” Then we commenced the usual seven rounds,
three at a walking pace, and four at a brisk trot. Next
p.412] followed two prayer-flections at the tomb of Abraham, after
which we drank of the water of Zamzam, said to be the same which
quenched the thirst of Hagar’s exhausted son.
Besides the Kabah, eight minor structures adorn the quadrangle, the
well of Zamzam, the library, the clock-room, the triangular staircase,
and four ornamental resting-places for the orthodox sects of Hanafi,
Shafi, Maliki, and Hanbali.
We terminated our morning duties by walking and running seven times
along the streets of Safa and Marwa, so named from the flight of seven
steps at each of its extremities.
After a few days spent in visiting various places of interest, such as
the slave-market and forts, and the houses of the Prophet and the
Caliphs ’Ali and Abubakr, we started on our six hours’ journey to the
mountain of ’Arifat, an hour’s sojourn at which, even in a state of
insensibility, confers the rank of haji. It is a mountain spur of about
a hundred and fifty feet in height, presenting an artificial appearance
from the wall encircling it and the terrace on its slope, from which
the iman delivers a sermon before the departure of his congregation for
Meccah. His auditors were, indeed, numerous, their tents being
scattered over two or three miles of the country. A great number of
their inmates were fellow-subjects of ours from India. I surprised some
of my Meccah friends by informing them that Queen Victoria numbers
nearly twenty millions of Mohammedans among her subjects.
On the 5th of June, at sunset, commencing our return, we slept at the
village of Muzdalifah, and there gathered and washed seven pebbles of
the size of peas, to be flung at three piles of whitewashed masonry
known as the Shaitans (Satans) of Mun?. We acquitted ourselves
satisfactorily of this duty on the festival of the 6th of [p.413] June,
the 10th day of the Arabian month Zu’lhijah. Each of us then sacrificed a
sheep, had his hair and nails cut, exchanged the ihram for his best
apparel, and, embracing his friends, paid them the compliments of the
season. The two following days the Great, the Middle, and the Little
Satan were again pelted, and, bequeathing to the unfortunate
inhabitants of Muna the unburied and odorous remains of nearly a
hundred thousand animals, we returned, eighty thousand strong, to
Meccah. A week later, having helped to insult the tumulus of stones
which marks, according to popular belief, the burial-place of
Abulah?ab, the unbeliever, who, we learn from the Koran, has descended
into hell with his wife, gatherer of sticks, I was not sorry to
relinquish a shade temperature of 120°, and wend my way to Jeddah en
route for England, after delegating to my brethren the recital of a
prayer in my behalf at the Tomb of the Prophet at Medina.
In penning these lines I am anxious to encourage other Englishmen,
especially those from India, to perform the pilgrimage, without being
deterred by exaggerated reports concerning the perils of the
enterprise. It must, however, be understood that it is absolutely
indispensable to be a Mussulman (at least externally) and to have an
Arabic name. Neither the Koran nor the Sultan enjoins the killing of
intrusive Jews or Christians; nevertheless, two years ago, an incognito
Jew, who refused to repeat the creed, was crucified by the Meccah
populace, and in the event of a pilgrim again declaring himself to be
an unbeliever the authorities would be almost powerless to protect his
life.
An Englishman who is sufficiently conversant with the prayers,
formulas, and customs of the Mussulmans, and possess a sufficient
guarantee of orthodoxy, need, however, apprehend no danger if he
applies through the British Consulate at Cairo for an introduction to
the Amirul Haj, the Prince of the Caravan.
[p.414]Finally, I am most anxious to recommend as Mutawwaf at Meccah
Shaikh Muhammed ’Umr Fanair-jizadah. He is extremely courteous and
obliging, and has promised me to show to other Englishmen the same
politeness which I experienced from him myself.
1862 A.D. 1278 A.H. [Arabic] (EL HAJ ABD EL WAHID.)
END OF VOLUME II.
[p.415]INDEX.
AAKAL, or fillet, of the Arabs, i. 235
Aaron, burial place of, on Mount Ohod, i. 346, 423; ii. 275. His grave
also shown over the summit of Mount Hor, i. 346, n.
Aba, the, or camel’s hair cloak of Arab shaykhs, i. 236
Abar (Saba), or seven wells, of Kuba, i. 414
Abbas Effendi, deputy governor of Alexandria, an interview with, i. 21
Abbas, prayers for, i. 328
Abbas, Al-, uncle of Mohammed the Prophet, ii. 353
Abbas, the fiery Shaykh of the Hawazim, ii. 29
Abbas, Ibn, his statement of the settlement of the family of Noah, i.
343
Abbas ibn Abd al-Muttalib, his tomb, ii. 40
Abbas Pasha (Viceroy of Egypt), his enlightened policy, i. 18, 78 His
intention to erect a magnificent Mosque, i. 99 His present to the
Prophets Mosque, i. 312 His respect for the Alim Mohammed Ibn Abdillah
al-Sannusi, ii. 25, n.
Abbasiyah, Kubbat al- (Dome of Abbas), visit to the, ii. 39
Abbasiyah Palace at Cairo, i. 78
Abd al-Ashal (tribe of), Al-Islam preached by the Prophet to, i. 352
Converted to Mohammedanism, 353
Abd al-Hakk al-Muhaddis of Delhi, Shaykh, i. 358, n.
Abd al-Hamid, the Sultan, his repair of the Mosque of Al-Kuba, i. 409
Abd al-Malik bin Marwar, the Caliph, his additions to the House of
Allah, ii. 324
Abd al-Majid, Sultan, his mahmil turned back by robbers in Arabia, i.
257 Imbecility of his government in Arabia, i. 257 His Tanzimat, i. 258
Sends gifts to the robbers of Arabia, i. 260 His war with the Czar, i.
291 His additions to the Prophet’s Mosque at Al-Madinah, i. 308 Abolishes
Wakf in Turkey, i. 359, n.
Abd al-Muttalib (Shaybah), grandfather of the Prophet, i. 351, n.
Abd al-Muttalib bin Ghalib, Sharif of Meccah, i. 259 Description of
him, ii[.] 150 His cavalcade, 150 His children, 150 His quarrel with
Ahmad Pasha of Al-Hijaz, 151, n. His Palace, 152 His procession to the
ceremonies of the day of Arafat, 194
Abd al-Rahim al-Burai, the saint of Jahaydah, i. 262
Abd al-Rahim al-Burai, the poet, quoted, ii. 212
Abd al-Rahman, meaning of the name, i. 14
Abd al-Rahman, tomb of, ii. 249
[p.416]
Abd al-Rahman al-Ausat, tomb of, ii. 44
Abd al-Rahman bin Auf, his tomb, ii. 43, n.
Abd al-Wahhab, Shaykh, the chief of the Afghan college at Cairo, i. 130
His kindness to the pilgrim, 131 Visits the Pilgrim, 142
Abdullah, father of the Prophet, his burial-place, i. 351, n.
Abdullah bin Ja’afar al-Tayyar, his tomb, i. 44
Abdullah bin Jaysh, his tomb, i. 429
Abdullah bin Mas’ud, his tomb, ii. 44, n.
Abdullah bin Salam, the Jew, of Al-Madinah, converted to Al-Islam, i.
358
Abdullah bin Sa’ud concludes a peace with the Egyptians, i. 370 His
unsuccessful attack on Jeddah, ii. 265, n.
Abdullah bin Zubayr, nephew of Ayishah, builds the ninth House of
Allah, ii. 323 Slain, 324
Abdullah, Pasha of Damascus, i. 263
Abdullah, Shaykh, the assumed name of the author, i. 14 Meaning of the
name, 14, n.
Abdullah Sahib, Shaykh, the Indian physician of Al-Madinah, ii. 5
Abdullah, Shaykh (the pilgrim’s namesake), introduced, ii. 129 His
acquirements, 130 His success with the Syrians in the Desert, 133 Acts
as director of the pilgrims’ consciences, 133 His accident on camel back,
146
Abdullah, son of the Sharif of Meccah, ii. 150
Abdullah the Saudawi, or melancholist, ii. 230 Performs a wakil for the
pilgrim’s parents, 243 His farewell of the pilgrim, 260
Abel, his burial-place at Damascus, ii. 160, n.
Abrahah of Sana’a, erects the Kilis to outshine the Ka’abah, i. 321
Abraham, i. 212 Mosque at Meccah connected with, i. 305 Stone on which
he stood, preserved at Meccah, ii. 112 History of it, 112, it, n Legend
respecting his having learnt the rites of pilgrimage, 321 The Moslem
idea of the existence of two Abrahams, ii. 239
Abrahat al-Ashram, destruction of the host of, i. 384, n.
Abrar, or call to prayer, i. 88
Abs, the tribe of Arabs, so called, ii. 119
Absinthe, of the Desert, i. 155
Abu Abbas al-Andalusi, the Wali of Alexandria, tomb of, i. 12
Abu Ali, the fiery Shaykh of the Hawazim, ii. 29
Abu Ayyub, the Ansari, receives Mohammed after the Flight, i. 351,
355-357
Abu Bakr, the Caliph, his window at Al-Madinah, i. 316, 320 The
benediction bestowed on, 320 His tomb, 324 Elected Caliph, 339 How
regarded by Orthodox Moslems and Shi’ahs, 354 n. His dwelling near the
Mosque, 358 His Mosque at Al-Madinah, i. 395; ii. 48 The first who bore
the title of Emir al-Hajj, 420, n.
Abu Daraj (Father of Steps), wells of, i. 158, n. The mountain of, 158
Abu Hurayrah, his account of the building of the Prophet’s Mosque, i. 361
Abu Jubaylah, his destruction of the power of the Jews in Al-Madinah,
i. 349
Abu Kubays, the hill, the burial-place of Adam, ii. 160, 173
Abu Lahab, his ambuscade laid for the Prophet, site of, ii. 242
Abulfeda, his limits of Al-Hijaz, i. 376
[p.417]
Abu Sa’id al-Khazari, tomb of, at Al-Bakia, ii. 36
Abuse of Christians in the East, ii. 335
Abu Shuja’a of Isfahan, his theological work, i. 106
Abu Sufiyan routed by Mohammed the Prophet, i. 275
Abu Sufiyan bin al-Haris, his tomb, ii. 44, n.
Abu Zulaymah, Shaykh, the Red Sea saint, i. 199, 200
Abwa, tomb of Aminah at, i. 351, n.
Abyaz, or white, i. 381, n.
Abyssinian slaves in Egypt, i. 59 Style of courtship of, 59. Derivation
of the name, i. 177, n. Abyssinian slave girls, their value, ii. 13
Acacia, quantities of, ii. 68, 69, 72
Acacia-barren, terrors of an, ii. 69
Academia, the, of Al-Madinah, i. 338
Adam, stature of, according to Moslem legends, i. 204 His burial place
at the hill Abu Kubays, ii. 160 Legend of Adam and Eve at Mount Arafat,
189 Adam’s place of prayer at Arafat, 193
Adnan, the tribe of Arabs so called, ii. 119
Adas (lentils). See Lentils
Aden, ancient wells at, i. 204, n.; dry storms of, i. 247
Adultery, how punished at Al-Madinah, ii. 19
Advenae, of Arabia, ii. 77, n.
Aelius Gallus, i. 189
Aerolite worship, ii. 300, n.
Afghans, a chivalrous race, i. 40
Africans, their susceptibility to religious phrenzy, ii. 175
Agapemones, suppression of, in Egypt, i. 81, n.
Aghas, or eunuchs of the tomb of the Prophet, i. 316, n., 321 et seq;
Agha, pl Aghawat, a term of address to the eunuchs of the tomb, i. 371,
n.
Agni, the Indian fire-god, ii. 160, n.
Ague, prevalence of, in the East, i. 13
Ahali, or burghers, of Al-Madinah, i. 375
Ahl al-Risa, or the “people of the garment,” i. 327, n.
Ahmad Pasha, of Al-Hijaz, ii. 256 His quarrel with the Sharif of
Meccah, ii. 151, n.
Ahmad, son of the Sharif of Meccah, ii. 150
Ahzab, the Masjid al-, ii. 47
Ahzab, Al-, the battle of, ii. 47
Aimmat, the Shaykh al-, of the Prophet’s Mosque, i. 374
Ajami, meaning of the term, i. 11
Ajwah, the date so called, ii. 401
Ajwah (conserve of dates), ii. 401, n.
Akabah, ill-omened, i. 203, 213
Akabah, a steep descent, ii. 251, n.
Akd al-Nikah, or Ziwaj (Arab marriage), at Al-Madinah, ii. 23
Akhdam, or Serviles, of Al-Yaman, ii. 78, n.
Akhshabayn, Al-, the “two rugged hills,” near Arafat, ii. 182 The confusion
of the return of the pilgrims at, 200
Akhawah, Al-, the black mail among the Badawin, ii. 141
Akif, Haji, accosts the pilgrim, ii. 261
[p.418]
Akik, Wady al-, i. 278, n.
Aksa, the Masjid al-, at Jerusalem, ii. 305
Akhawat, the relationship among the Badawin so called, ii. 113
Alai, or regiment, of soldiers, i. 394
Alamayn (the “Twin Signs”), near Arafat, i. 379, ii. 182 Visit to the, 242
Albanians, or Arnauts, their desperate manners and customs, i. 133
Their man-shooting amusements, 133 A drinking bout with one, 135 One
killed by a sunstroke, i. 265 Parade of irregular horse, 266 Their
singular appearance, 267 Their delight in the noise of musketry, 267,
n. Their method of rifling their bullets, 267, n. Fight between them
and the hill Arabs, 269 A quarrelsome one in the Caravan, ii. 137
Alchemy, favourite Egyptian pursuit of, i. 108, n.
Alexander of Alexandria, i. 143, n.
Alexandria, i. 10 A city of misnomers, 10 Its peculiar interest to
Moslems, 12 Shopping in, 11 Venerable localities in, ib. Whiteness of
the walls of, 20, n. The Foreign Office of, 22 The Transit Office, 27
Algebra, study of, in Egypt, i. 107, n.
Alhambra, i. 95
Alhamdolillah, meaning of the ejaculation, i. 8
Ali, the fourth Caliph, reference to, ii. 280 His pillar at Al-Madinah,
326, n. His spouse, Lady Fatimah, 327 et seq. Column of, in the Prophet’s
Mosque, 336 Remains with the Prophet, 354 Joins Mohammed at Kuba, 355
His dwelling near the Mosque, 358 His Mosque at Al-Madinah, 395 Called
the “Musalla al-id,” ib. The birthplace of, at Meccah, ii. 254
Ali (the Masjid) at Al-Kuba, i. 412 At Al-Madinah, ii. 48
Ali Agha, an Albanian captain of Irregulars, or Yuzbashi, i. 132 His
personal appearance, 132 Origin of the pilgrim’s acquaintance with him,
132 Manners and customs of his countrymen, 133 His call and invitation,
135 A drinking bout with him, 136
Ali Bey al-Abbasi, i. 215, n.; 225, n. Employed as spy by the French
government, ii. 319. n. Value of his works, 319. n. History of him,
319, n.
Ali bin Ya Sin, the Zemzemi, ii. 125 A type of the Arab old man, 125
His accident on camel-back, 146 His appearance at the ceremonies of the
day of Arafat, 194 Insists on bestowing his company on the pilgrim, 199
His irritation, 202 His invitation to the pilgrim to dinner, 255
Description of the meal, 256
Ali al-Urays, a descendant of the Prophet, his tomb, ii. 59
Ali Murad, owner of the pilgrim-ship, i. 189, 192
Aliki tribe of Arabs, i. 145
Alms (sadaka), given the Prophet’s Mosque, i. 312 The, contributed to the
Prophet’s Mosque, 374
Aloe, superstitions of the Arabs and Africans respecting the, ii. 248
Amalekites, identified with the Amalik of the Moslems, i. 343, n.
Amalik, the tribe. See Aulad Sam bin Nuh
Amalikah, their foundation of the fifth house of Allah, ii. 321
Amalikah tribes, their mixture with the Himyaritic, ii. 79
[p.419]
Ambassadors, shameful degradation of, by Moslems, i. 112
Ambari gate of Al-Madinah, i. 285, 287, 395
Ambariyah, of Al-Madinah, house of the Coptic girl Mariyah at, i. 362,
n.
American Indians, North, compared with the Badawin, ii. 118 Inferiority
of the former, 119
Amin, Al- (the Honest), origin of the surname of the Prophet, ii. 323
Aminah, Sitt (mother of the Prophet), her tomb, i. 351, n.; ii. 249
Amlak bin Arfakhshad bin Sam bin Nuh, i. 343
Amlak (property in land) of the Benu Hosayn, ii. 4
Amm Jamal, the native of Al-Madinah, i. 230
Amr, the tribe of, saved from the deluge of Iram, i. 349 Their abodes
at Al-Madinah, 355 Their language, ii. 99, n.
Amr bin Amin Mal-al-Sama, his stratagem, i. 348 Saved from the Yamanian
deluge, 349 The forefather of Mohammed, 349
Amr al-Kays, poet and warrior, his death from ulcer, i. 390
Amur, the Benu, ii. 120, n. Its sub-divisions, 121, n.
Amusements of the Cairenes, i. 116
Anakim, Moslem, belief in, i. 204
Anatolia, i. 191
Angels, place of the (Malaikah), at Al-Madinah, i. 326 Prayer at the,
326
Anizah, the Benu (a Jewish tribe), in Arabia, i. 347, n. Their
temperament, ii. 78, 121
Ansar, Arab tribe of, i. 347
Ansar, or Auxiliaries, of Al-Madinah, i. 355 Assist Mohammed in
building the first Mosque, 357 One of the, sells his house to the
Prophet, 361
Antar, songs of, Warburton’s opinion of, ii. 95
Antichrist (Al-Dajjal), the Moslem belief respecting, i. 378, n.
Antimony (Kohl), used as a remedy in small-pox, i. 385
Anzah (iron-shod javelin), i. 407
Apes, of Al-Hijaz, ii. 220 Traditions respecting them, 220, n. Stories
told of them, 221
Apple of Sodom, ii. 137, n.
“Arabesque,” origin of, i. 94
Arabesques, the vulgar, of the Riwaks at Al-Madinah and of the tombs at
Cairo, i. 335
Arabia, horses of, i. 3 The Ruba al-Khali, 3 Possesses no river worthy
of the name, 4 Testimony of Ibn Haukal to this fact, 4 Contains three
distinct races, 4 Enumeration of them, 4 Remnants of heathenry in, 4
Destruction of the idols of the Arab pantheon, 91. Origin of Arab art,
94, n. Closed against trade with Christianity as early as the 7th
century, 113, n. The “Mountains of Paradise” with which it abounds, 222 The
little villages in, continually changing their names, 245 The “dry storm”
of, 247 A Caravan in, 249 The water-courses (misyal) of, 250 Excellent
water found in the Deserts of, 254 Depopulation of villages and
districts in, 254 Bands of robbers in, 256 Imbecility of the Turkish
Government in, 257 The “poison wind” of, 265, n. The celebrated horses and
camels from Nijd, 266, n. Wells of the Indians in Arabia, 274 Moslem
account [p.420] of the first settlement in, 343 One of the nurseries of
mankind, 344, n. Causes of the continual emigrations from, 345, n.
Governed by the Benu Israel, after the destruction of the Amalik, 346
Derivation of the name Arabia, 346, n. The flood of Iram, 348 Former
possessions of, in Egypt, 359, n. Fire-temples of the ancient Guebres
in, 379, n. Diseases of, 384, et seq. Description of a desert in, ii.
131 A night journey in, 132
Arabia Petræa, of the Greeks, i. 376, n.
Arab al-Aribah, ii. 77
Arab al-Musta’ajamah, ii. 79
Arab al-Musta’arabah, or half-caste Arab, ii. 79
Arabs. (See also Badawin.) Similarity in language and customs between
the Arabs and the tribes occupying the hills that separate India from
Persia, 246, n. Generalisation unknown to the Arabs, 250, n. Their
ignorance of anything but details, 250 Journey through a country
fantastic in its desolation, 252 Ruinous effects of the wars between
the Wahhabis and the Egyptians, 254 Good feelings of Arabs easily
worked upon, 256 Douceurs given by the Turkish government to the Arab
Shaykhs of Al-Hijaz, 266 Fight between the troops and Arabs in
Al-Hijaz, 273 The world divided by Arabs into two great bodies, viz.,
themselves and the “Ajami,” 290, n. Their affectionate greetings, 287, 280,
n. Their fondness for coffee, 290, n. Their children and their bad
behaviour and language, 292 An Arab breakfast, 298 Melancholia frequent
among the Arabs, 299, n. Probable cause of this, 299, n. Tenets of the
Wahhabis, 306 Capitulation of the Benu Kurayzah to the Prophet, 336
Moslem early history of some of the tribes, 349, et seq. Dwellings of
the Arabs in the time of Mohammed, 359 The seasons divided by them into
three, 383 Diseases of the Arabs of Al-Hijaz, 384, et seq. The Arabs
not the skilful physicians that they were, 390 Portrait of the farmer
race of Arabs, 407 The Arzah, or war dance, 419 Arab superstitions, 427
Difference between the town and country Arab, ii. 13 Their marriages,
23, et seq. Their funerals, 24 Their difficulty of bearing thirst, 69
The races of Al-Hijaz, 76 et seq. Arab jealousy of being overlooked,
318, n.
Arabic. Generalisation not the forte of the Arabic language, 250 Its
facilities for rhyming, i. 319, n. Traditions respecting its origin,
344 Said to be spoken by the Almighty, 344, n. Changes in the classical
Arabic, ii. 15 Purity of the Badawi dialect, 98, n. Examination of the
objections to Arabic as a guttural tongue, 99, n. Difference in the
articulation of several Badawi clans, 99, n. Suited to poetry, but, it
is asserted, not to mercantile transactions, 100 The vicious
pronounciation of Indians and slaves, 184, n. The charming song of
Maysunah, 190 The beautiful Tumar character, 215 Differences of opinion
among travellers and linguists respecting Arabic and its dialects, 235,
n.
Arafat, the Masjid, at Al-Kuba, i. 412 Tall Arafat, 412
Arafat, mount (anciently Jabal Ilal, now Jabal al-Rahmah), ceremony of
the pilgrimage to, ii. 289 Description of, 189 Former high cultivation
of the Arafat plain, 187 Derivation of the name of [p.421] the mount,
188, n. The camp arrangements at, 189 Superstitious rite on behalf of
women at, 189 The ceremonies of the day of Arafat, 192, et seq. The
sermon, 197 The hurry from Arafat, 199 The approach to the Arafat
plain, 182
Araki, the Cognac of Egypt and Turkey, i. 134 Called at Cairo “sciroppo
di gomma,” 144, n. A favourite drink among all classes and sexes, 144, n.
Arbun (earnest money), ii. 52
Arches, pointed, known at Cairo 200 years before they were introduced
into England, i. 96
Architecture, the present Saracenic Mosque-architecture, origin of the,
i. 364, n. Simple tastes of the Arabs in, 396 The climate inimical to
the endurance of the buildings, 396
Arian heretics, i. 143, n.
Arimi, tribe of Arabs so called, i. 145
Aris, Al-, (a bridegroom), ii. 23
Arithmetic, Moslem study of, i. 108, n.
Arkam bin al-Arkam, last king of the Amalik, i. 345
Armenian marriage, i. 123
Arms prohibited from being carried in Egypt, i. 17 Arms of Arabs, 237,
248; ii. 105, 106 Those worn by Oriental travellers, i. 238 Should
always be kept bright, 238 Arms of Arnaut Irregular horse, 266 The use
of the bayonet invaluable, 269, n. Stilettos of the Calabrese, 269, n.
Sabres preferred to rifles by Indians, 269, n.
Army, amount of the Turkish of Al-Hijaz, i. 393, n. The battalion
regiment and camp, 394, n.
Arnaud, M., his visit to the ruins of the dyke of Mareb, i. 348, n.
Arnauts. See Albanians
Arwam or Greeks in Al-Madinah, i. 292
Arsh, or throne, of God, ii. 319
Art, Arab origin of, i. 95, n.
Arusah, Al- (a bride), ii. 23, n.
Arzah, or Arab war-dance, i. 419
As’ad bin Zararah, his conversion by the Prophet, i. 352
Asal Asmar, or brown honey, ii. 130, n.
Asclepias gigantea (ashr), its luxuriance in the deserts of Arabia, ii.
137 Bears the long-sought apple of Sodom, 138, n. The fruit used as a
medicine by the Arabs, 138, n. Called the “silk-tree,” 138, n. Its probable
future commercial importance, 138, n.
Ashab, or Companions of the Prophet, i. 320 The Ustuwanat al-Ashab, or
Column of the Companions, 326, n. Graves of the, at Al-Bakia, ii. 43
Ashab al-Suffah, or “Companions of the Sofa,” i. 363, n.
Ashab, the relationship among the Badawin so called, ii. 113
Ashgar, Ali Pasha, the Emir al-Hajj, ii. 71
Ashr (Asclepias gigantea, which see)
Ashwat, or seven courses, round the Ka’abah, ii. 167, n.
Askar, the Masjid al-, ii. 49
Asr, al-, or afternoon prayers, i. 311, n.
Assayd, the Jewish priest of Al-Madinah, i. 350
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“Asses turning their back upon Allah’s mercy,” i. 347
Asses, of Al-Madinah, ii. 17 Usefulness of the ass in the East, ii.
241, n. The best and the highest-priced animals, 241, n.
Assassination, how to put an end to at Naples and Leghorn, i. 258, n.
Assassins (from Hashshashshiyun), i. 187, n.
Astronomy among the modern Egyptians, i. 108, n. Among the Badawin, ii.
107
Aswad (dark or black), the word, i. 381, n.
Atakah, Jabal (Mountain of Deliverance), i. 195
Atfah, i. 30
Auf, the Benu, their language, ii. 99, n. Their subdivisions, 120, n.
Aukaf, or bequests left to the Prophet’s Mosque, i. 374 Those given to
the Benu Hosayn, ii. 4 The Nazir al-Aukaf at Constantinople, 7
Aulad Sam bin Nuh (or Amalikah, Amalik) inspired with a knowledge of
the Arabic tongue, i. 343 Settles at Al-Madinah, 344 Identified with
the Phœnicians, Amalekites, Canaanites, and Hyksos, 343, n. Supplanted by
the Jews, 347
Aus, Arab tribe of, i. 147, 149 Their wars with the Kharaaj, 149
Converted by Mohammed, 352 Their plot against Mohammed, 358 Their
mixture with the Amalikah, ii. 79
Austrians, despised in Egypt, i. 111
Awali, the, or plains about Kuba, i. 380
Awam, the, or nobile vulgus of Al-Madinah, i. 375
Ayat, or Koranic verse, i. 353
Ayishah accedes to the wishes of Osman and Hasan to be buried near the
Prophet, i. 325 Her pillar in the Mosque of the Prophet, 335 Her
chamber, or the Hujrah, surrounded with a mud wall, 363 Anecdote of
her, ii. 34, n. Her tomb, 38 Her jealousy of the Coptic girl Mariyah,
47, n.
Ayn al-Birkat, i. 227 The Ayn Ali, 227
Ayn al-Zarka (azure spring), of Al-Madinah, i. 381
Ayr, Jabal, its distance from Al-Madinah, i. 379 Cursed by the Prophet,
422
Ayyas bin Ma’az, converted by the Prophet, i. 352
Ayyaz, Kazi, his works, i. 106, n.
Ayyub, Abu, the Ansari, ii. 408 The Bayt Ayyub, his descendants, 408
Ayyub, well of, at Al-Madinah, i. 360
Azan, or summons to prayer, i. 76; i. 363
Azbakiyah, of Cairo, i. 81 Drained and planted by Mohammed Ali, 81, n.
Azhar, Al-, Mosque, at Cairo, i. 97, l00, et seq. Foundation of, 102
Immense numbers of students at, 102 The course of study pursued in, 103
The principal of the Afghan College, Shaykh Abd al-Wahab ibn Yunus
al-Sulaymani, 130-131
Azrail, the angel of death, i. 302, 365
Azrak, Bahr al-, remarks on the usual translation of the expression, i.
381, n.
BAB, gates of the Mosque of Meccah, ii. 314
Bab al-Atakhah, “gate of deliverance,” at Al-Madinah, i. 332, n.
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Bab al-Jabr, or Gate of Repairing, i. 333, n.
Bab al-Nasr, the gate of Cairo so called, i. 143 Tombs outside the,
335, n.
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